Privacy Policy

PROTECTING YOUR PRIVACY

BPB PRIVACY POLICY

Introduction
This Privacy Notice explains in detail the types of personal data we may collect about you when you interact with us. It also explains how we’ll store and handle that data, and keep it safe.
We know that there’s a lot of information here, but we want you to be fully informed about your rights, and how BPB uses your data; for example how we combine data to build a picture of you.
We hope the following sections will answer any questions you have but if not, please do get in touch with us.
It’s likely that we’ll need to update this Privacy Notice from time to time. We’ll notify you of any significant changes, but you’re welcome to come back and check it whenever you wish.
When you are using the BPB website, BPB Publications is the data controller.

Explaining the legal bases we rely on

The law on data protection sets out a number of different reasons for which a company may collect and process your personal data, including:

Consent
In specific situations, we can collect and process your data with your consent.
For example, when you tick a box to receive email campaigns
When collecting your personal data, we’ll always make clear to you which data is necessary in connection with a particular service.
Contractual obligations
In certain circumstances, we need your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations.
For example, if you order an item from us for home delivery, we’ll collect your address details to deliver your purchase, and pass them to our courier.
Legal compliance
If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data.
For example, we can pass on details of people involved in fraud or other criminal activity affecting BPB to law enforcement.
Legitimate interest
In specific situations, we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and which does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests.
For example, we will use your purchase history to send you or make available personalised offers.
We also combine the shopping history of many customers to identify trends and ensure we can keep up with demand, or develop new products/services.

When do we collect your personal data?

When you visit our website, and use your account to buy products, or redeem vouchers from.
When you make an online purchase and check out as a guest (in which case we just collect transaction-based data, such as email, name, and address).
When you create an account with us.
When you engage with us on social media.
When you download or install our app.
When you join a BPB loyalty programme (such as BPB Members Club).
When you sign up to ‘My Account’ you will be given access to an area on BPBonline.com which will collect and store all of your receipts for you when you make a purchase from BPB.
When you contact us by any means with queries, complaints etc.
When you enter prize draws or competitions.
When you choose to complete any surveys we send you.
When you comment on or review our products and services.
When you’ve given a third party permission to share with us the information they hold about you.

What sort of personal data do we collect?

If you have a web account with us: your name, date of birth, job title, billing/delivery address, orders and receipts, email and telephone number. For your security, we’ll also keep an encrypted record of your login password.
Details of your interactions with us through online or by using one of our apps. For example, we collect notes from our conversations with you, details of any complaints or comments you make, details of purchases you made, items viewed or added to your basket, voucher redemptions, products you show interest in, web pages you visit and how and when you contact us.
Details of your shopping preferences.
For example, which of our products and web pages you prefer to visit and where you redeem your vouchers or discount codes.
Details of your visits to our websites or apps, and which site you came from to ours.
Information gathered by the use of cookies in your web browser. Learn more about how we use cookies and similar technologies.
Personal details which help us to recommend items of interest.
For example, you might share information on your topic preference which allows us to recommend appropriate technology area eBooks.
We’ll only ask for and use your personal data collected for recommending items of interest and to tailor your shopping experience with us. Of course, it’s always your choice whether you share such details with us.
Payment card information, which is stored with a Payment Card Provider in a PSI-DSS Compliant Manner.
Your comments and product reviews.
To deliver the best possible web experience, we collect technical information about your internet connection and browser as well as the country and telephone code where your computer is located, the web pages viewed during your visit, the advertisements you clicked on, and any search terms you entered.
Your social media username, if you interact with us through those channels, to help us respond to your comments, questions or feedback.

How and why do we use your personal data?
We want to give you the best possible customer experience. One way to achieve that is to get the richest picture we can of who you are by combining the data we have about you.
We then use this to offer you promotions and products that are most likely to interest you.
The data privacy law allows this as part of our legitimate interest in understanding our customers and providing the highest levels of service.
Of course, if you wish to change how we use your data, you’ll find details in the ‘What are my rights?’ in section 11 below.
Remember, if you choose not to share your personal data with us, or refuse certain contact permissions, we might not be able to provide some services you’ve asked for.
Here’s how we’ll use your personal data and why:

To process any orders that you make by using our website, apps or via telephone. If we don’t collect your personal data during checkout, we won’t be able to process your order and comply with our legal obligations.
For example, your details may need to be passed to a third party to supply or deliver the product or service that you ordered, and we may keep your details for a reasonable period afterwards in order to fulfil any contractual obligations such as refunds, guarantees and so on.
To respond to your queries, refund requests and complaints. Handling the information you sent enables us to respond. We may also keep a record of these to inform any future communication with us and to demonstrate how we communicated with you throughout. We do this on the basis of our contractual obligations to you, our legal obligations and our legitimate interests in providing you with the best service and understanding how we can improve our service based on your experience.
To protect our business and your account from fraud and other illegal activities. This includes using your personal data to maintain, update and safeguard your account. We’ll also monitor your browsing activity with us to quickly identify and resolve any problems and protect the integrity of our websites. We’ll do all of this as part of our legitimate interest.
For example, by checking your password when you login and using manual and automated monitoring of IP addresses to identify possible fraudulent log-ins from unexpected locations and to protect our systems.
To process payments and to prevent fraudulent transactions. We do this on the basis of our legitimate business interests. This also helps to protect our customers from fraud.
With your consent, we will use your personal data, preferences and details of your transactions to keep you informed by email, web, text, telephone about relevant products and services including tailored special offers, discounts, promotions, events, competitions and so on.
Of course, you are free to opt out of hearing from us by any of these channels at any time.
To send you communications required by law or which are necessary to inform you about our changes to the services we provide you. For example, updates to this Privacy Notice, product recall notices, and legally required information relating to your orders. These service messages will not include any promotional content and do not require prior consent when sent by email or text message. If we do not use your personal data for these purposes, we would be unable to comply with our legal obligations.
To display the most interesting content to you on our websites or apps, we’ll use data we hold about your favourite products, title topics and so on. We do so on the basis of your consent to receive app notifications and/or for our website to place cookies or similar technology on your device.
For example, we might display a list of items you’ve recently looked at, or offer you recommendations based on your purchase history and any other data you’ve shared with us.
To administer any of our competitions which you enter, based on your consent given at the time of entering.
To develop, test and improve the systems, services and products we provide to you. We’ll do this on the basis of our legitimate business interests.
For example, we’ll record your browser’s Session ID to help us understand more when you leave us online feedback about any problems you’re having.
To comply with our contractual or legal obligations to share data with law enforcement.
For example, when a court order is submitted to share data with law enforcement agencies or a court of law
To send you survey and feedback requests to help improve our services. These messages will not include any promotional content and do not require prior consent when sent by email or text message. We have a legitimate interest to do so as this helps make our products or services more relevant to you.
Of course, you are free to opt out of receiving these requests from us at any time by updating your preferences in your online account.
To build a rich picture of who you are and what you like, and to inform our business decisions, we’ll combine data captured from across the third parties and data from publicly-available lists as we have described in the section 'What Sort of Personal Data do we collect?' We’ll do this on the basis of our legitimate business interest.
For example, by combining this data, this will help us personalise your experience and decide which inspiration or content to share with you. We also use anonymised data from customer purchase histories to identify trends in different areas. This may then guide which products we display.
For ‘My Account’ users who have registered for a BPB account to decide which information to show you, with the help of computer algorithms. We do so on the basis of your consent when you register for a BPB account. If you don’t want to continue receiving ‘My Account’ offers, you’ll be unable to continue your ‘My Account’ with BPB.
For example, if you consent through our apps, we may use your shopping preferences to offer you tailored rewards.

Here’s more at how we use cookies and similar technologies.
Combining your data for personalised direct marketing
We want to bring you offers and promotions that are most relevant to your interests at particular times. To help us form a better, overall understanding of you as a customer, we combine your personal data gathered as described above, for example your shopping history.
How we protect your personal data
We know how much data security matters to all our customers. With this in mind we will treat your data with the utmost care and take all appropriate steps to protect it.
We secure access to all transactional areas of our websites and apps using ‘https’ technology.
Access to your personal data is password-protected, and sensitive data such as payment card information) is secured and tokenised to ensure it is protected.
We regularly monitor our system for possible vulnerabilities and attacks, and we carry out penetration testing to identify ways to further strengthen security.
How long will we keep your personal data?
Whenever we collect or process your personal data, we’ll only keep it for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.
At the end of that retention period, your data will either be deleted completely or anonymised, for example by aggregation with other data so that it can be used in a non-identifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.
Example of customer data retention period:
Orders
When you place an order, we’ll keep the personal data you give us for five years so we can comply with our legal and contractual obligations.
Who do we share your personal data with?
We sometimes share your personal data with trusted third parties.
For example, delivery couriers, email distributors, payment providers, print on demand partners, for fraud management, to help us personalise our offers to you and so on.
Here’s the policy we apply to those organisations to keep your data safe and protect your privacy:

We provide only the information they need to perform their specific services.
They may only use your data for the exact purposes we specify in our contract with them.
We work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected at all times.
If we stop using their services, any of your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous.

Examples of the kind of third parties we work with are:

IT companies who support our website and other business systems.
Operational companies such as print on demand partners & delivery couriers.
Direct marketing companies who help us manage our electronic communications with you.
Google/Facebook to show you products that might interest you while you’re browsing the internet. This is based on either your marketing consent or your acceptance of cookies on our websites. See our cookies notice for details.

Sharing your data with third parties for their own purposes:
We will only do this in very specific circumstances, for example:

For fraud management, we may share information about fraudulent or potentially fraudulent activity in our premises or systems. This may include sharing data about individuals with law enforcement bodies.
We may also be required to disclose your personal data to the police or other enforcement, regulatory or Government body, in your country of origin or elsewhere, upon a valid request to do so. These requests are assessed on a case-by-case basis and take the privacy of our customers into consideration.

To help personalise your journey through our website we currently use the following companies, who will process your personal data as part of their contracts with us:
Adform
Oracle Marketing Cloud
Criteo
Google
Facebook
Twitter
GetSiteControl
Barilliance
HubSpot
Zuora
HEAP Analytics
Where your personal data may be processed
Sometimes we will need to share your personal data with third parties and suppliers outside the European Economic Area (EEA), such as Australia or the USA.
What are your rights over your personal data?
An overview of your different rights
You have the right to request:

Access to the personal data we hold about you, free of charge in most cases.
The correction of your personal data when incorrect, out of date or incomplete.
For example, when you withdraw consent, or object and we have no legitimate overriding interest.
That we stop using your personal data for direct marketing (either through specific channels, or all channels).
That we stop any consent-based processing of your personal data after you withdraw that consent.
You have the right to request a copy of any information about you that we hold at any time, and also to have that information corrected if it is inaccurate. To ask for your information, please contact Data Requests on business@bpbonline.com. To ask for your information to be amended, please update your online account, or contact our Customer Services team at business@bpbonline.com.
If we choose not to action your request we will explain to you the reasons for our refusal.

Your right to withdraw consent
Whenever you have given us your consent to use your personal data, you have the right to change your mind at any time and withdraw that consent.
Where we rely on our legitimate interest
In cases where we are processing your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you can ask us to stop for reasons connected to your individual situation. We must then do so unless we believe we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue processing your personal data.
Direct marketing
You have the right to stop the use of your personal data for direct marketing activity through all channels, or selected channels. We must always comply with your request.
Checking your identity
To protect the confidentiality of your information, we will ask you to verify your identity before proceeding with any request you make under this Privacy Notice. If you have authorised a third party to submit a request on your behalf, we will ask them to prove they have your permission to act.
How can you stop the use of your personal data for direct marketing?
There are several ways you can stop direct marketing communications from us:

Click the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email communication that we send you. We will then stop any further emails from that particular division.
If you have an account, log in into your account, visit the ‘My Account’ area and change your preferences.
In our apps, you can manage your preferences and opt out from one or all of the different push notifications by selecting or deselecting the relevant options in the ‘Settings’ section.
Please note that you may continue to receive communications for a short period after changing your preferences while our systems are fully updated.