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How we use your data
Like you, we care about your privacy. This privacy notice explains how, when, where, and why we use your information. It also provides you with advice on your rights regarding how your information is used.
In this privacy notice “we”, “us”, or “our” means:
ASK4 Limited
Devonshire Green House
14 Fitzwilliam Street
Sheffield S1 4JL
United Kingdom.
We can be contacted at: data-protection@ask4.com.
We are responsible as ‘the controller’ for the personal information about you that we collect or use. We also determine the purposes for which and how your personal information is processed.
If you are accessing our services and live or work outside of the UK, we may share this responsibility with one of our local branches or group companies. The details of these entities are set out at the end of this policy. In addition, we share this responsibility with ASK4 Solution Limited if you are taking IT support or a similar IT solution and with ASK4 Data Centres Limited if you take data centre products from us.
Who does this policy apply to?
This policy does not apply to information we collect as part of our recruitment processes or about our employees or shareholders.
Neither does it apply to how we handle the personal information we process for our IT solution customers when we provide IT support, cloud services, or similar IT solutions where we act only as a data processor. Our customer's internal privacy policies shall apply to this processing.
Our Collection and Use of Your Personal Data
The information we collect about you will depend on how you interact with us and the type of products and services you take. We have explained the different ways we use your personal information below.
If you’re browsing our websites
We may use your personal information as detailed below:
How we use your personal information | Information we collect | Legal Basis for This Collection | How Long We Keep This Data |
To enable you to visit the website | Date and time of the visit to our site Content of the requirement Access Status / HTTP status code | It’s in our legitimate interests to ensure our website is functional and operational | Personal information is stored for the duration of your visit Cookies are usually deleted after leaving the website. More information is available in our cookies policy. |
To improve our website and ensure its security | Browser and operating system used Language and version of your browser How you interact with our site | It’s in our legitimate interests to offer an appealing, user-friendly, and secure website | Google Analytics cookies are stored for 24 months. More information is available in our cookies policy. |
If you’re using our internet service as a resident
We may use your personal information as detailed below:
How we use your personal information | Information we collect | Legal Basis for This Collection | How Long We Keep This Data |
To set up your account | Full name Your address Your phone number Your email address Your credentials (which means your password, security question, and answer we have on your account) | To perform our contract It’s in our legitimate interests to keep business records | Account data is retained for 21 months after your service and contract with us ends. |
To provide you with your internet access | Your access credentials (which means your MAC address, your password for the 802.1x network, and that you have a valid account) Your device name – “Jo Blogg’s iPhone” if you have configured it to include personal information. | To perform our contract | Account data is retained for 21 months after your service and contract with us ends |
To send you service messages | Your email address Your address | To perform our contract | We keep direct messages with us for 18 months from the date of the issue’s closure and general issue or service notification emails are deleted within 18 months of the email being sent. |
To respond and generally manage issues when you contact us | Recorded telephone calls to our help desk | To perform our contract It’s in our legitimate interest to use this data to continually improve our services and support process. | We keep messages with us for 18 months from the date of the issue’s closure. |
To provide you with Quatro, our AI Chat Bot | The content of your messages The sentiment of your messages | It’s in our legitimate interests to manage your contact and support issues in the most efficient way possible Quatro is provided by Zendesk. Zendesk is committed to ensuring that no service data will be reproduced by the model. There is no risk that your data will be exposed to another customer through the model’s output. Your data will never be used by OpenAI (or any other third party) to train their model(s). | We keep messages with us for 18 months from the date of the issue’s closure. Aggregation and sanitation processes as necessary are applied, and no fields designed to intake personal data or ticket attachments are used or retained by the model for training. |
To manage faults and issues with our services and try to prevent them happening again | Data from our diagnostic app and other tests we may ask you to carry this includes: Speed tests over WiFi Ping tests to ASK4 Gateway and popular hosts Wireless Survey (Via Airport Utility on iOS devices) Channel overlap/interference Signal strength (RSSI) Visible APs/SSIDs/Bands Data from our security monitoring tooling such as logs and similar alerts. | To perform our contract It’s in our legitimate interest to deliver and fix our service and use this data to continually improve our services and support process. | Logs of information may be retained within messages for 18 months from the date of the issue’s closure. Certain pseudonymised information may be stored on internal fault management issues and in the diagnostic for longer but will be anonymised and/or deleted when your account information and account data are deleted as detailed above. |
To take any payment you have to make and to comply with associated audit and regulatory obligations | Payment and financial information | To perform our contract It’s in our legitimate interests to keep business records | We do not store card information as this is passed directly to the card processor. Records of receipt of payment are kept for 7 years. |
To market our products and services (with appropriate permissions) | Full name Your email address Package information | To perform our contract | Your marketing preferences are retained for 21 months after your service and contract with us end. |
To make and defend claims, manage compliance and comply with our ADR obligations | Contact details Name and title Passwords and credentials (only where necessary to confirm your identity and your communication with us) Your communications with us such as calls, emails, and webchats Payment and financial information Details of the products and services you’ve bought or taken from us | It’s in our legitimate interest to be able to defend legal claims and complaints made against us | This information is retained for the duration of the contractual limitation period, normally being six years. |
To help detect and stop crime, prosecute offenders, and protect national security | Contact details and address Name and title Date of birth Your IP address and MAC address and connection records We also may be legally required to provide other information if requested. | Legal obligations (such as investigatory power legislation) or to comply with court orders | This information is retained for the duration of the contractual limitation period, normally being six years. |
When you interact with our channels and accounts on social media sites
We may use your personal information as detailed below:
How we use your personal information | Information we collect | Legal Basis for This Collection | How Long We Keep This Data |
To support customers who contact us and to manage our brand and reputation when people talk about us publicly | Contact details and address Where you “like” one of our posts | It’s in our legitimate interest to be able to support customers who contact us and to manage our brand and reputation when people talk about us publicly | This information is retained on the social media platforms; we do not retain this information separately on our system. |
If you’re taking a service as a business
We may use your personal information as detailed below:
How we use your personal information | Information we collect | Legal Basis for This Collection | How Long We Keep This Data |
To administer and provide services | Contact details (email address, phone number) Job role information Messages or other feedback you or your colleagues have raised about the service your business takes | To perform our contract | This information is retained for the duration of the contractual limitation period, normally being six years. |
To carry out service reviews | To perform our contract and it’s in our legitimate interests to improve our services | ||
To discuss and market our services | It’s in our legitimate interests to market our services, we allow you to opt out | This information is retained for six years with marketing suppression information retained indefinitely. | |
To comply with legal and regulatory obligations and to make and defend claims | It’s in our legitimate interest to be able to defend legal claims and complaints made against us | This information is retained for the duration of the contractual limitation period, normally being six years. Records of receipt of payment are kept for 7 years. | |
To conduct market research | To perform our contract and it’s in our legitimate interests to improve our services and understand which services potential customers would want | This information is retained for six years. | |
To dispatch and ensure payment of invoices | Contact details (email address, phone number) Job role information | Performance of a contract | This information is retained for the duration of the contractual limitation period, normally being six years. Records of receipt of payment are kept for 7 years. |
If you interact with us in other ways
We may use your personal information as detailed below:
How we use your personal information | Information we collect | Legal Basis for This Collection | How Long We Keep This Data |
To generate leads for our business-to-business services | Job Title Company Email Phone Preferred language Sector Services events and information you have expressed an interest in | It’s in our legitimate interest to be able to market our services to other businesses provided we collect the information where you would have expected it could be used for this purpose and you haven’t objected – further details on this are set out below | Leads are deleted after 6 years if we are no longer working with you. |
To prevent, detect, and investigate unauthorised access | Identification documents such as photos or CCTV footage when visiting our premises | It’s in our legitimate interest to be able to market our services to other businesses | CCTV footage is retained for up to one month for HQ and 90 days for the Data Centre. Access logs to the Data Centre are retained for 21 months after your service and contract with us end. |
To invite you to events or let you know about our services | Publicly available contact information |
Who we share your information with
We share information with the following recipients:
Suppliers
We use companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. These third-party service providers may access personal information needed to perform their functions but may not use it for other purposes. Details of the suppliers we use routinely to process personal information are set out below:
If you’re a residential Internet customer
Supplier | Processing Purpose |
Zendesk Inc | To provide our omnichannel platform to allow you to contact us and to manage and aggregate your contacts into one place. |
RouteThis | To provide our diagnostic application. |
Amazon Web Services | For temporary storage to deliver our sign-up portal at scale for busy periods. |
Stripe Inc | To provide card processing service if we take a card payment as part of the sign-up process. We do not store or see the card details. |
Cambium | To provide a cloud-hosted platform for managing the wireless network we provide. |
Edgecore Networks | To provide a cloud-hosted platform for managing the wireless network we provide. |
Gwasg Pia Cyfyngedig (Pia) | To provide accessible invoices and other accessible contact. |
Livedrive Internet Limited | To help provide our 4Backup product. |
Sign Solutions / Interpreterslive | The provision of sign language support. |
Backblaze | To provide encrypted back-ups. |
If you’re a corporate customer
Supplier | Processing Purpose |
Thursday Studio Limited | To provide www.ask4.com . |
Zendesk Inc | To provide our omnichannel platform to allow you to contact us and to manage and aggregate your contacts into one place. |
DocuSign | To allow you to sign contracts with us. |
Calendly | To allow you to book meetings with our business development team. |
CANVA | To create and send you proposals. |
MailChimp | To send you service updates. |
SurveyMonkey | To send you surveys and carry out market research. |
Eventify | To provide you with information on events you are attending. |
Formagrid Inc Trading as Airtable | To provide us with contact and project management tooling. |
Service Providers
If you are having issues accessing or using a third-party service via a service we provide or resell, we may share your information with that provider. We do this so we can jointly resolve the issue you are having. We aim to share as little personal information as possible. If you don’t wish us to do this, just let us know.
Accommodation Providers
If you are a resident in managed accommodation, we may share your name, location, and information about your support issues with your accommodation provider. We do this so your accommodation provider can check that we are providing you with a quality service and that we are meeting our contractual obligations to you and them.
We may also share details with your accommodation provider where we feel that your service experience is impacted by something and we’re unable to reach you. We do this so your accommodation provider can also reach out to you to help us resolve or make you aware of the potential service issues.
In very limited situations, we may share information with an accommodation provider that is not solely service-related. We will assess the potential benefits and risks of sharing or not sharing. Following this assessment, we will only share your personal information where it is fair, necessary, and proportionate.
We require all accommodation providers to handle the information we share securely and to only use it for the above purposes.
Law Enforcement Agencies
We will share your data with law enforcement, other authorities, or authorised third parties if required by applicable law or court order or where we feel a criminal act is being committed.
Other group companies
We will share information across different parts of our group as part of the administration of our business.
A new business owner
If there is a change (or expected change) in who owns us or any of our assets, we might share personal information with the new (or prospective) owner. If we do, they will have to keep it confidential and handle it in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
If we transfer your data to another country
We guarantee that we will take the necessary measures to protect your personal information in compliance with applicable data protection laws in case of the transfer of your personal information to another country. Where data is collected from an individual within the European Union, this may include executing the standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission to ensure your information is still protected and handled according to EU data protection laws.
You can ask us to demonstrate that these data transfers are carried out in a compliant manner unless doing so would undermine the security of the personal information transferred.
How we keep your information secure
We have taken technical and organisational measures to ensure data security. Among other things, these measures serve to prevent unauthorised access to the technical equipment used by us and ensure the protection of your personal information against unauthorised access by third parties.
The technical and organisational measures we use are constantly being developed and adapted to the current industry best practice.
Your rights
You have several important rights under applicable data protection laws.
In summary, your rights allow you to access your personal information, ask us to correct your information, ask us to stop processing your information, or to request the deletion of your information. We have provided more detail on each right below.
We may ask you for proof of identity when you exercise any of these rights. We do this so we know we’re dealing with the right individual.
We’ll not ask for a fee unless we think your request is unfounded, repetitive, or excessive. Where a fee is necessary, we’ll inform you before proceeding with your request.
We aim to respond to all valid requests within one month. However, it may take us longer if the request is particularly complicated or you have made several requests.
We may not always be able to do what you have asked. For example, we might not be able to provide you with information where doing so would impact another person’s right to privacy or delete information where we have a legal obligation to retain it.
Accessing personal information
You can ask us to:
- Confirm whether or not we have and are using your personal information.
- Provide a copy of your personal information.
You can also ask us to provide this information in a machine-readable form to you or another company but only where we use your personal information to perform a contract with you or where we asked for your consent to use your personal information. This right does not apply to any personal information that we hold or process based on our legitimate interest or is not held in digital form.
Withdrawing consent
Where you have consented to us using your personal information (which generally you don’t have to do), you’ll always have the right to withdraw such consent.
Correcting/erasing personal information
You can ask us to:
- Correct inaccurate personal information about you, but we will need to verify the accuracy of it first.
- Erase your personal information if you think we no longer need to use it for the purpose for which we originally collected it.
- Erase your personal information. However, you cannot do this where we need the information to perform our contract with you.
We may not always be able to comply with your request, for example, if we need to keep using your personal information to comply with our legal obligations or where we may need to use it as part of legal claims.
Restricting our use of personal information
You can ask us to restrict our use of your personal information whilst we investigate if the information you think is inaccurate actually is or where the information is no longer required for the purposes it was collected.
We can continue to use your personal information following a request for restriction if we have your consent to use it, or you need to use it to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims or use it to protect the rights of another individual or a company.
Objecting to the use of personal information
You can object to the processing of your data where you believe your fundamental rights and freedoms to data protection outweigh our legitimate interest in using the information.
If you object, we may continue to use the personal information where we can demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate interests to use the information.
Objecting to direct marketing
You can also object to the use of your personal information for direct marketing purposes at any time.
To do this, please write to data-protection@ask4.com or Devonshire Green House, 14 Fitzwilliam Street, Sheffield S1 4JL if you live in the UK or Pinar 5, Madrid, Comunidad de Madrid 28006 if you live in the EU.
Alternatively, use the unsubscribe function on any communications that are sent to you.
Rights around automated decision making
We don’t currently make any decisions about you solely by automated means (i.e., with no human intervention) that would produce a legal effect concerning you or would significantly affect you.
If we were to make any such decision, you might have the right to contest that decision, express your point of view, and ask for a human review.
Right to dispose of your data
Where permitted under applicable data protection laws, in the event of death, the rights listed above relating to your personal information may be exercised by those who have an interest in your personal information or are acting on your behalf as an agent or for family reasons worthy of protection. You may expressly prohibit the exercise of some of the rights listed above by sending us a written declaration at the email address indicated below. The declaration may subsequently be revoked or modified in the same manner.
Links to third- party sites
Some sections of our website contain links to the web pages of third parties.
These websites are subject to their data protection policies. We are not responsible for their operation, including the data handling practices of their operators; you should review the privacy statements or policies of those sites before you submit any personal information.
Contact information
You can contact us by phone, email, live chat, and post via the details at: https://support.ask4.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18742724299805-Contact-us or at hello@ask4.com.
You can also contact our Data Protection Officer at: data-protection@ask4.com.
We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information.
If you do not believe we have managed to resolve your query or concern, you also have the right to complain to the data protection regulator. For the UK that’s the Information Commissioner.
If you live or work in the European Economic Area, you can file a complaint with the local data protection regulator in either the member state where you live or where the suspected infringement took place.
Our legal entities
The ASK4 branch or entity within your local country (as listed below) is responsible as a ‘data controller’ jointly with ASK4 Limited for processing your personal information and for complying with applicable data protection laws.
However, if you live in a country within the European Economic Area where we do not have a local establishment, ASK4 Internet Services Europe Limited, a company established in the Republic of Ireland, shall act as our EU representative.
UK
ASK4 Limited – For residential internet services
ASK4 Solution Limited – For IT support and other business-to-business services
ASK4 Data Centres Limited – For data centre and co-location services
Austria
ASK4 Internet Services Europe Limited
Denmark
ASK4 Nordics Limited via its Branch Office
France
ASK4 France Limited via its Branch Office
Germany
ASK4 Germany Limited via its Branch Office
Ireland
ASK4 Internet Services Europe Limited
Italy
ASK4 Italy Limited via its Branch Office
Netherlands
ASK4 Netherlands Limited via its Branch Office
Poland
ASK4 Poland Limited via its Branch Office
Portugal
ASK4 Portugal Limited via its Branch Office
Spain
ASK4 Internet Services Europe Limited via its Branch Office
Policy updated: 05/08/2024.
Changes made are: How we process and use data has been moved into tabular format to make it easier to use. This section has been updated to include the Quatro chatbot and the data processors section has been updated to include reference to Zendesk.