Terms of Use

This section of the page outlines our Terms of Use for this website and by accessing and using our website you agree to be bound by them.

Who is TQC?

TQC is a privately owned company based in Nottingham. We provide a range of services from turnkey solutions to special engineering applications and work with a broad range of companies.

In 2010 TQC gained ISO9001:2008 certification, subsequently recertified as ISO9001:2015 in 2018, this relates to “the design, development and manufacture of bespoke machinery and testing of Customer Products”. In 2013 our certification was changed to also include “research and technical development relating to innovative machine systems”.

The website is hosted by DigitalOcean Inc

The website is maintained and edited by staff in-house at TQC Ltd, as well as staff at Gravity Digital

Our commitment to you

TQC Ltd aims to provide comprehensive, up to date and accurate information via its family of websites. We make every effort to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in all pages on the website and in documents stored, served and accessed by this website.However, TQC Ltd accepts no responsibility for the consequences of error or for any loss or damage suffered by users of any of the information and material contained on this website.

We make frequent changes to the website and these are made to any area at any time and without notification. We reserve the right to change data, references and any product specifications at any time.

Please let us know if you spot any inaccuracies, or omissions in the information we provide.

Your commitment to us

To use our website, we need you to agree to these Terms of Use. When using the TQC website you agree:

• to not obtain or attempt to obtain unauthorised access to the website or any of TQC Ltd’s systems
• not to do anything which may or might damage, interfere with, disrupt access to, interrupt or impair the functionality of the material available on the sites
• to not post, distribute or otherwise upload any defamatory, offensive, infringing, obscene, indecent or otherwise unlawful or objectionable material or information or send any chain letters, junk mail, ‘spamming’ material or any other form of bulk communication
• to not do, cause or permit anything to be done that may infringe, damage or interfere with any intellectual property rights of TQC or any of our associated companies or third parties. Also, to not do anything that is otherwise unlawful or which may cause any liability for us.

Why you need to accept these Terms of Use

If we consider that you have breached any of these Terms of Use or have otherwise demonstrated inappropriate conduct when using the TQC website we reserve the right to:

• warn you via e-mail that you have breached these terms, and ask you to stop such conduct;
• delete any material or content which you may have posted without notice to you;
• pass on any information we may hold about you onto third parties such as the police if you have broken the law.

If your conduct on or use of the TQC website causes us losses, damage or other costs, you shall be responsible for reimbursing these costs and we will seek to recover them from you.

Disclaimer

TQC Ltd makes every effort to ensure that the information on this website is accurate and up-to-date. The contents of the website are for general information only and are not intended to provide advice. TQC Ltd cannot accept responsibility for any loss or inconvenience caused by reliance on inaccurate material contained in this site.

Intellectual property rights and copyright

TQC Ltd, unless otherwise stated, owns or is licensed to use all copyright material on this website. This includes, without limitation, logos, icons, text, photographs and all other artwork. No use of this material can be made without the express, prior, written permission of TQC Ltd. All rights reserved.

Users of the website may print pages for personal use. However reproduction of any material contained in our website in any form is forbidden without the written permission of TQC Ltd.

TQC are happy for any other website to link to the TQC website, and permission for this is not required, however websites must not embed TQC website content within frames in their own website. All links must be displayed in the whole browser window.

The law of England and Wales applies to the content of this website.

Legal rights

English law shall govern the use of the website and in the event of a dispute you irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts. If any of these terms are determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable, then to the extent in which that term is illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable it shall be severed and deleted from these terms and the remaining terms shall survive, remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable.

Links to other sites

We may provide links to other websites and you may find these links useful. If you decide to access other websites, then you will be leaving the TQC website – TQC Ltd isn’t responsible for or liable for the content, advertising or products or services available from such sites or, for any dealings that you may have, or the consequences of such dealings, with the operators of those sites. We are not responsible for the contents or reliability of the linked websites, and do not endorse the views expressed within them. We do not guarantee these links will always work and have no control over these links.

We expressly reserve the right to withdraw our consent, at any time, to a link that we think is inappropriate.

Viruses

We check all files available for downloading on this website for viruses and make every effort to maintain a healthy virus-checked website.

However, we cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage as a result of use of downloaded materials. We strongly recommend that users check all downloaded materials with their own virus checking software.

Changes to these Terms of Use

These terms and conditions may be amended, updated and/or modified by us from time to time. Check back at this page to stay up to date. If you keep visiting us here at www.tqc.co.uk, then we’ll take that as confirmation that you have agreed to the new Terms of Use.

Privacy Policy

TQC respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you order goods and services from us and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

Please also use the Glossary to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this privacy notice.

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy notice

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how TQC collects and processes your personal data, including any data you may provide to us when you place an order with us.

It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

This privacy notice is issued on behalf of TQC Limited so when we mention “TQC”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice, we are referring TQC Limited. TQC is the controller and responsible for this website.

We have taken the decision that a mandatory DPO is not required under published ICO guidance.  However, for the purposes of this policy notice, any references to the “DPO” or data privacy manager means the person responsible for overseeing this policy and, who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the DPO or data privacy manager using the details set out below.

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

This policy may be varied from time to time, where possible we will notify you of any changes to this policy. Historic versions are archived and can be obtained by contacting us.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

2. The data we collect about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together follows:

• Identity Data: includes first name, last name, title and gender.
• Contact Data: includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Financial Data: includes bank account and payment card details.
• Transaction Data: includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
• Technical Data: includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
• Profile Data: includes your purchases or orders made by you.
• Usage Data: includes information about how you use our website, products and services.
• Marketing and Communications Data: includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3. How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

• Direct interactions.You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
  • Order our products or services;
  • request marketing information to be sent to you; or
  • give us some feedback.

Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies.

4. How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
• Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

See below to find out more about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data.

Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Purpose/Activity	Type of data	Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest
To register you as a new customer	(a) Identity(b) Contact	Performance of a contract with you
To process and deliver your order including:(a) Manage payments, fees and charges(b) Collect and recover money owed to us	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Financial(d) Transaction(e) Marketing and Communications	(a) Performance of a contract with you(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)
To manage our relationship with you which will include:(a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy(b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Profile(d) Marketing and Communications	(a) Performance of a contract with you(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services)
To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Technical	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences	(a) Technical(b) Usage	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising.

Promotional offers from us

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased goods or services from us and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Third-party marketing

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside of TQC for marketing purposes.

Opting out

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a product/service purchase or other transactions.

Cookies

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web site can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about webpage traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any personal information about you.

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly.

We may gather information about your general internet use by using the cookie. Where used, these cookies are downloaded to your computer and stored on the computer’s hard drive. Such information will not identify you personally; it is statistical data which does not identify any personal details whatsoever.

You can adjust the settings on your computer to decline any cookies if you wish. This can be done within the “settings” section of your computer. For more information please read the advice at AboutCookies.org.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

5. Disclosures of your personal data

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above.

• External Third Parties as set out in the Glossary.
• Specific third parties listed in the table in paragraph 4 above
• Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. International transfers

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA) unless you are making a purchase outside of the EEA such as from the US.

7. Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

8. Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Request erasure below for further information.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

9. Your legal rights

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out below, please contact us.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

10. Glossary

LAWFUL BASIS

Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

THIRD PARTIES

External Third Parties

• Service providers acting as processors based in the UK who provide IT, email, hosting and system administration services.
• Delivery providers acting as processors based the UK who provide delivery services including Royal Mail or other couriers and mail providers to deliver our goods and services to you.
• Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, business consultants and insurers based the UK who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance, HR and accounting services.
• HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the UK who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.

YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

You have the right to:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
• Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

FAO Data Compliance Manager
TQC Ltd,
Hooton Street,
Carlton Road,
Nottingham,
NG3 2NJ
United Kingdom

Changes to the privacy policy

This policy may change, and if it does, any changes will be identified here on the TQC website. Please check back at this page to be fully aware of what information is collected, how it’s used and under which circumstances it may be made available.

Get in touch

If you have any queries, comments or complaints regarding this privacy policy or the terms of use of this website, just get in touch with us.

For enquiries directly relating to the website, you can write to us at the following address:

TQC Ltd,
Hooton Street,
Carlton Road,
Nottingham,
NG3 2NJ
United Kingdom

Or you can email or phone us and leave a message, or ask to speak to the Webmaster

email: sales@tqc.co.uk
telephone: 0115 950 3561

Standard Terms and Conditions

For TQC standard terms and conditions please see the following document:

Standard Terms and Conditions

Ethical Standards Policy

For TQC ethical standards policy please see the following document:

Ethical Standards Policy

Carbon Reduction Plan (CRP)

For TQC Carbon Reduction Plan February 2023 please see the following document:

Carbon Reduction Plan