Metis Partners Limited (“Metis”, “we”, or “us”) is committed to protecting and respecting your (“your”, “User”, or “Users”) privacy. This policy (together with the terms of use and any other documents referred to in it) sets out the basis on which personal data Metis collects from you, or that is provided by you, will be used/processed by us. For the purpose of data legislation, including the Data Protection Acts 1998 & 2018 (“the Acts”), the data controller is Metis Partners Limited, 21 Woodside Place, Glasgow G3 7QL. By using our services including visiting www.metispartners.com (or the “Website”), and by providing us with any personal information, you are consenting to the practices described in this policy.

This policy is detailed by the following sections:

1. PERSONAL DATA AND PROCESSING 2. INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM YOU 3. HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION 4. EMAIL MARKETING LIST AND MARKETING MESSAGES 5. DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION 6. HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA 7. WHERE AND FOR HOW LONG WE STORE YOUR PERSONAL DATA 8. YOUR RIGHTS – DIRECT MARKETING 9. YOUR RIGHTS – ACCESS TO YOUR INFORMATION 10. COMPLAINTS 11. FURTHER INFORMATION 12. OTHER SITES 13. CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY 14. CONTACT

1. PERSONAL DATA AND PROCESSING

  • Personal data is information that can be used to identify an individual, such as name, address, phone number or email address. It also includes other ‘sensitive personal data’ as defined by data protection legislation.

  • The processing of data includes obtaining, recording, using and holding personal data. The erasure and destruction of data is also covered.

2. INFORMATION WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU

We will collect and process the following data about you:

Information you give us

  • This is information about you that you give us by filling in forms on the Website or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. It includes information you provide when you contract, or intend to contract with us, to provide a product or service, subscribe to our services, search for a service, participate in other social media functions on the Website or enter a competition, promotion or survey and when you report a problem with the Website. You might also give us personal data when you participate in meetings, seminars or other events we arrange. The information you give us may include, for example, your name, address, e-mail address, phone number and financial information.

  • If you apply to work for us, we may need to collect other personal data from you, including for example, data about your education, qualifications and training, work experience and employment, salary and financial information.

  • We may need to process sensitive personal data as part of our recruitment process and in order to meet our responsibilities under employment legislation.

Information we collect about you via IT processes

  • Metis uses Google Analytics, which in itself uses Cookies, to automatically gather certain statistical information including the domain names and IP addresses of visitors, along with usage statistics (e.g. types of web browsers and operating systems used) and browsing history. This data is used to promote our services. We may combine this information with the personally identifiable data and other information we collect. This information is used as aggregated statistical information about users, providing usage by IP address.

  • Individual users cannot be identified from this type of data. This information is used to promote our services and help us measure how individuals use the Website and our services, so that we can improve them on a continuous basis.

Information we receive or obtain from other sources

  • This is information we receive about you if you use any other services we provide. We will have informed you when we collected that data if we intend to share that data internally. It will often be combined with data collected on the Website. We will also have told you for what purpose we will share and combine your data. We work closely with third parties (including, business partners, professional service organizations, Insolvency Practitioners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers and credit reference agencies).

  • We may also consult publicly available sources of information, such as the Companies House Register and Google searches, which hold personal data about you.

  • Our recruitment process may involve receiving or obtaining your personal data from employment agencies, social media or via recruitment-related websites.

3. HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION

At Metis we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and will only use your personal information to:

  • carry out our obligations arising from any contracts/agreements entered between us;
  • improve our services to you;
  • compile anonymous statistics, for example, website usage statistics;
  • market our services and to conduct market research;
  • manage our relationship with you and our clients;
  • fulfill our legal obligations;
  • provide you with personalized content;
  • process and respond to inquiries;
  • assess your suitability for employment with Metis;
  • score the quality of companies’ intellectual property assets in relation to our IP100 product;
  • alert you to new features, special events, and service offerings from Metis; and for our legitimate business interests including but not limited to:
    •  providing you with information about other services we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about;
    • to provide you, or permit selected third parties to provide you, with information about services we feel may interest you; and
    • to notify you of any changes in our services.

4. EMAIL MARKETING LIST AND MARKETING MESSAGES

We operate an email mailing list program, which is used to inform you about products, services, events, business opportunities that we feel will be of interest to you, and, news we supply/publish. You can change your preferences for receiving group marketing emails and other information from us at any time by unsubscribing by the method referred to in the footer of sent marketing messages or by sending an email to iain@metispartners.com.

Email marketing messages may contain tracking beacons/tracked clickable links or similar server technologies to track subscriber activity. Where used, such marketing messages may record a range of subscriber data relating to engagement, geographic location, demographics and already stored subscriber data.

Please note that we may use your marketing and content preferences, and other information you provide to us (including details of your attendance at, or interest in, events) to build a profile for you. We may supplement this profile with information about how you use the Website, review our content and interact with us. Based on this profile we will endeavor to ensure that you only receive information that you are likely to find of interest.

5. DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION

We acknowledge that the information you provide may be confidential. We do not sell, rent, distribute or otherwise make personal, information commercially available to any third party, except that we may share information with our service providers for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice. We will maintain the confidentiality of your information and protect it in accordance with our Privacy Notice and all applicable laws.

You agree that we have the right to share your personal information with selected third parties including:

  • business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them or you;
  • professional services organizations (notably Insolvency Practitioners);
  • advertisers and advertising networks that require the data to select and serve relevant adverts to you and others. We will not disclose information about identifiable individuals to our advertisers, but we may provide them with
  • aggregate information about our users. If you tell us you wish to attend an event, your name and Company name may appear on a list which we provide to other attendees at the event and the event host;
  • analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimization of the Website; and
  • credit reference agencies for assessing your credit score, where this is a condition of us entering into a contract with you.
We will disclose your personal information to third parties:

  • in the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we will disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets;

  • if we, or substantially all of our assets, are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by us about customers will be one of the transferred assets;

  • if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data to comply with any legal obligation, or to protect the rights, property, of Metis, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection, prevention of money laundering and credit risk reduction; and

  • information concerning a job application made by you will be shared with relevant recruiting managers, directors, and employees of Metis who have input into the screening, interviewing, and wider recruitment process.

6. HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Metis attempts to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of your personal information. Metis has implemented reasonable administrative, technical and physical measures to protect your personal information.

7. WHERE AND FOR HOW LONG WE STORE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Information provided to Metis is stored as follows:

  • Cloud-based storage and file-sharing platforms including Box, Dropbox and Google Drive
  • Computer hard drives
  • Metis server
  • External software packages including Mailchimp; Eventbrite; Go to Webinars; Zoho; and Survey Monkey

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (EEA). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers. This includes staff engaged in, among other things, the fulfillment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We aim to take all reasonable steps necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

Metis is committed to implementing the highest standards of information security to protect the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information. We limit access to your personal information to authorized Metis employees. We also maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect the information against loss, misuse, damage or modification and unauthorized access or disclosure.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we will endeavor to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorized access.

Our timescales for retaining personal data are driven primarily by the relevant legislation which applies to the sectors we operate in, the services we provide and the recruitment and employment activities we undertake

For recruitment purposes, we retain personal data of shortlisted candidates. This helps us address our future skills need. You may be contacted regarding alternative opportunities but can opt out of this arrangement at any time.

8. YOUR RIGHTS – DIRECT MARKETING

When we send you direct marketing by email, post, or conduct marketing over the phone with you, we consider this to be in our legitimate business interest to do so. You can object to this processing of your personal data at any time.

If we ask you to consent to direct marketing, you can withdraw that consent at any time.

You can exercise your right to withdraw consent by the method referred to in the footer of sent marketing messages. You can also exercise the right to object, or withdraw consent, at any time by contacting us at the following address: Company Secretary, Metis Partners, 21 Woodside Place, Glasgow G3 7QL; by emailing iain@metispartners.com; or by phoning us on 0141 353 3011.

9. YOUR RIGHTS – ACCESS TO YOUR INFORMATION

The Acts give Users the right to access information held about them. Users’ right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Acts. If Users would like a copy of some or all of their personal information they should email iain@metispartners.com or write to Metis at the address provided above. Any access request may be subject to a fee to meet our costs in providing Users with details of the information we hold about them. A fee will only be charged if the information request is manifestly unfounded or excessive and/or there are repetitive requests for copies of the same information. Our fee will be based on the administrative cost of providing the information to you.

If you believe that any information we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete, you should write without delay to iain@metispartners.com. Any information which is found to be incorrect or incomplete will be corrected promptly.

10. COMPLAINTS

All complaints or concerns and appropriate resolution relating to the practices of handling personal information will be logged. Any complaints should be made to the Data Protection Compliance Manager at the email address iain@metispartners.com.

11. FURTHER INFORMATION

You can find more information about your rights under the Acts on the ICO website: https://ico.org.uk/.

12. OTHER SITES

The Website may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

13. CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

14. CONTACT

This Privacy Notice is a summary of how we collect any personal data from you, or that you provide to us, and how it will be processed by us.

Questions, comments and requests regarding this Privacy Notice are welcomed and should be addressed to: Company Secretary, Metis Partners, 21 Woodside Place, Glasgow G3 7QL or by emailing iain@metispartners.com.