We rely on a different lawful basis for collecting and using personal data in different situations.

Contracts

Where you make enquiries about storing with us before you become a customer, we need to collect personal information about you so that we can take steps to enter into a contract with you. Once you have become a customer, we need to collect and use personal information to provide services to you and to claim our right to be paid in return for our services under our standard terms of business/contract with you. This includes collecting and using your personal information to:

  • enable us to follow up on enquiries made by you in relation to storing with us in accordance with industry guidelines and to give you our quote;
  • do a credit check—see ‘Credit checking’ section below;
  • prepare a storage agreement with you and arrange insurance cover if required;
  • manage any accounts you hold with us;
  • contact you for reasons related to the service you have signed up for or to provide information you have requested;
  • deal with payment for our services;
  • notify you of any changes to our website or to our services that may affect you; and
  • resolve disputes or collect overdue payments.

If you apply for a job with us, we will collect and use personal information to process your application and check references. If you take a job with us, we will collect and use your personal information to enter into an employment contract with you and to administer the employment relationship, including making payments to you, accounting for tax, ensuring safe working practices, monitoring and managing staff access to systems and facilities, monitoring absences and performance and conducting assessments.

Legal obligations

We collect and use personal information from our customers and staff to comply with our legal obligations. For example, we will take copies of documents that identify you so that we can comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing requirements.

Legitimate business interests

Our priority is to make sure we give a high quality and secure service to customers and to follow up effectively on enquiries even though we accept that not all enquiries will lead to a business relationship or contract. We collect personal information to:

  • follow up on enquiries in accordance with industry guidelines and provide quotes for storage/details of offers;
  • conduct research and analyse website visitor behaviour patterns;
  • customise our website and its content to your particular preferences;
  • improve our services;
  • detect and prevent fraud;
  • prevent offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content being sent to or posted on our websites or to stop any other form of disruptive behaviour.

It is a key feature of our storage service that we operate CCTV within the storage facility. We collect and process CCTV images:

  • so we can fulfil our contractual obligation to deliver a secure self storage environment;
  • to establish whether you are doing something that breaches your contract with us; and
  • to assist in the establishment or defence of any crime or other investigation.

We will also communicate with you information about other services we can offer you and update you about our activities and promotions which may be of interest to you. If you would like to stop receiving these email newsletters, you can also click on the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of the email newsletter. It may take a few days for this to take place. See ‘What rights do you have?’ below for further information. If you ask us to stop contacting you in this way, you can also ask us to start again at any time.

If we propose to use your information for any other uses we will ensure that we notify you first. If we need your consent to use your information for these other purposes, we will give you the opportunity to opt in or to refuse. If you opt in, you will be able to opt out at any time.

Credit Checking

We may do a credit check on you so that we can make credit decisions about you and people or businesses associated with you. These checks may also be used to help prevent and detect fraud and money laundering.

Our search will be recorded on the files of the credit reference agency.

We may also disclose information about how you conduct your account to credit reference agencies and your information may be linked to records relating to other people living at the same address or who are financially linked to you.

Other credit businesses may use your information to make credit decisions about you and the people with whom you are financially associated, trace debtors, and prevent and detect fraud and money laundering.

If you provide false or inaccurate information to us and we suspect fraud, we will record this.

If you want to see your credit file, please contact the credit reference agency which we use: Experian Business Assist.

When will we contact any other person about you?

If you provide us with details of any other person we can contact to discuss your account, we may contact that person and discuss and share the details of your account with that person and deal with that person in relation to your account as if that person was you. We may particularly want to do this if we are unable to get in touch with you for any reason. If you change your mind, you can email or write to us and have this person taken off your account as an alternate contact person (see ‘How can you contact us?’ below).

If you provide us the details of a person who we can contact for a job reference, we may contact that person in connection with your job application.