Privacy Policy
GDPR, Privacy and Cookie Policy
This privacy policy sets out how QAS International uses and protects any information that you give when you use this website.
QAS International is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.
QAS International may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.
Effective from March 2021
What We Collect
We may collect the following information:
- Name and job title
- Contact information including email address
- Demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests
- Other information relevant to customer surveys and/or offers
What we do with the information we gather
We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:
- Internal record keeping.
- We may use the information to improve our products and services.
- We may periodically send promotional emails about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided.
- From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by email, phone, fax or mail. We may use the information to customise the website according to your interests.
Cookies
Accept, Reject, Track – what happens?
If you were given a choice when you entered our site whether to accept or decline cookies and you failed to select one of the options, by continuing to use the site you agree to our use of cookies.
If you declined cookies, we switched off all cookies except for the functional cookies that are essential for the site to run (including a cookie which tells us that you have made this choice).
YouTube – Pressing play on any YouTube video above will set a third-party cookie.
You can block all cookies (including functional cookies) by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you do this, you may not be able to access some parts of our site. You can find more information about enabling and disabling cookies at www.allaboutcookies.org.
The Following Cookies are used on our site
OptanonConsent – Persistent – Strictly Necessary
This cookie is set by the cookie compliance solution from OneTrust. It stores information about the categories of cookies the site uses and whether visitors have given or withdrawn consent for the use of each category. This enables site owners to prevent cookies in each category from being set in the user’s browser, when consent is not given. The cookie has a normal lifespan of one year, so that returning visitors to the site will have their preferences remembered. It contains no information that can identify the site visitor.
OptanonAlertBoxClosed – Persistent – Strictly Necessary
This cookie is set by websites using certain versions of the cookie law compliance solution from OneTrust. It is set after visitors have seen a cookie information notice and, in some cases, only when they actively close the notice down. It enables the website not to show the message more than once to a user. The cookie has a one-year lifespan and contains no personal information.
Google Analytics (_utmb) – Persistent – Performance Cookies
This is one of the four main cookies set by the Google Analytics service which enables website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. This cookie determines new sessions and visits and expires after 30 minutes. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. Any activity by a user within the 30 minute life span will count as a single visit, even if the user leaves and then returns to the site. A return after 30 minutes will count as a new visit, but a returning visitor.
Google Analytics ( _utmc) – Session – performance cookies
This is one of the four main cookies set by the Google Analytics service which enables website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. It is not used in most sites but is set to enable interoperability with the older version of Google Analytics code known as Urchin. In this older version this was used in combination with the __utmb cookie to identify new sessions/visits for returning visitors.
When used by Google Analytics this is always a Session cookie which is destroyed when the user closes their browser. Where it is seen as a Persistent cookie it is therefore likely to be a different technology setting the cookie.
Google Analytics (_utmt) – Persistent – Performance Cookies
This cookie is set by Google Analytics. According to their documentation it is used to throttle the request rate for the service – limiting the collection of data on high traffic sites. It expires after 10 minutes.
Google Analytics (_utma) – Persistent – Performance Cookies
This is one of the four main cookies set by the Google Analytics service which enables website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. This cookie lasts for 2 years by default and distinguishes between users and sessions. It is used to calculate new and returning visitor statistics. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. The lifespan of the cookie can be customised by website owners.
Google Analytics (_utmz) – Persistent – Performance Cookies
This is one of the four main cookies set by the Google Analytics service which enables website owners to track visitor behaviour measure of site performance. This cookie identifies the source of traffic to the site – so Google Analytics can tell site owners where visitors came from when arriving on the site. The cookie has a life span of 6 months and is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics.
PHPSESSID & PHP – Session – Strictly Necessary Cookies
This cookie is native to PHP and enables websites to store serialized state data. On the Action website, it is used to establish a user session and to pass state data via a temporary cookie, which is commonly referred to as a session cookie.
WAF Cookies (adOtr & UTGv2 & spcsrf) – Persistent – Strictly Necessary Cookies
A WAF applies sets of rules and performs behavioural analysis to block malicious traffic from your origin server.
SPSI – Session – Strictly Necessary Cookies
Sets a unique ID for the session. This allows the website to obtain data on visitor behaviour for statistical purposes.
SPSE – Session – Strictly Necessary Cookies
This is an HTTP cookie
sp_lit – Persistent – Strictly Necessary Cookies
_utmv – Persistent -Strictly Necessary Cookies
This cookie is used to track the customer variable that you set in your code.
For more information on the cookies hosted on the QAS website, scroll down for additional information. If you have any queries that are not answered below, please reach out to info@qas-international.com
GDPR Policy
We take data protection very seriously here, and as such we like to ensure we protect your data as if it was our own data.
We have reviewed our data collection and retention policy in line with the General Data Protection Act (GDPR) and have created this section to give you an overview of our policy.
If you are a customer or supplier, we will have your data stored in a number of other places for the purposes of invoicing, paying bills and delivering projects. This page relates specifically to the marketing data collected via this website or our marketing events. Please contact info@qas-international.com if you need further information.
Information Collected
We collect personal data from visitors to the website, through the use of online forms, the contact us page and models. We collect your details when you email us with an enquiry. We may have also collected your details when we met you at an event or you attended to one of our training sessions.
When you submit your data to us, either through the website, by email or in person, this is collected by HubSpot, our Customer Relationships Management system (CRM) and is used by us in a variety of ways, specifically;
- Providing information about products and services
- Providing and personalising our services
- Dealing with your enquiries and requests
- Administering membership of our newsletter
We aim to ensure that it is perfectly clear what you are opting into and you will have given us full consent for us to use your data.
More generally, we do not pass on our data to any third party. If you have attended a workshop, downloaded a content offer or asked to subscribe to our newsletter, then we collect your name and email address and use this to send out news and information from QAS International. You can unsubscribe from our mailing list by emailing info@qas-international.com
Where your data is stored
Hubspot is our CRM and collects and stores your data. In this instance, Hubspot is the data processor and IMSM is the data controller.
Hubspot is a cloud-based provider with a significant European customer base and impressive commitment to GDPR.
Disclosure, opt out and deletion of your data
Disclosures
We will not share your data with third parties unless we are obliged to disclose data by law, or the disclosure is necessary for purposes of national security, taxation, and criminal investigation, or we have your consent.
Want more information?
You have the right to see the data we have collected about you. If you have any requests concerning your personal information or any queries with regards to these practices, please contact info@qas-international.com
Opt out
If you would like to opt out of receiving marketing emails or newsletter communication from us, or would like to change the media that we use to contact you, for example changing from email to post mail, please contact info@qas-international.com
Data retention & deletion
Our policy is to retain data for two years, if we have not had any contact with you for over a two-year period then we will delete our records of your information from our database. If you would like your data removed sooner, please contact info@qas-international.com
Data capture information
We will send you information according to the preferences you submitted via our online forms. If you would like to change these preferences at any point, please email info@qas-international.com
Other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites that are outside of our control and are not covered by this policy. If you access other sites using the links provided, the operators of these sites may collect information from you that will be used by them in accordance with their privacy policy, which may differ from ours.
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics (GA) to capture our user’s journey, including information such as the average time spent on our website and what content our users find interesting. We do not obtain any personal information through the use of GA.
If you have any questions or require any clarification on how we use GA, please contact us via email at info@qas-international.com
Contact us
If you have any questions or concerns regarding our GDPR policy, you can contact:
QAS International – info@qas-international.com
In addition to the above, we collect anonymous data information automatically about your visit to our website through cookies. Please see our Cookies Policy for more information. This does not fall within the remit of GDPR, but it is very important.
Amendments
Please note that this privacy policy is subject to change from time to time, so we recommend checking in from time to time to check on our policies.
Security
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.
Cookies and how they Benefit You
Our website uses cookies, as almost all websites do, to help provide you with the best experience we can.
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile phone when you browse websites
Our cookies help us:
- Make our website work as you’d expect
- Remember your settings during and between visits
- Improve the speed/security of the site
- Allow you to share pages with social networks like Facebook
- Personalise our site to you to help you get what you need faster
- Continuously improve our website for you
- Make our marketing more efficient (ultimately helping us to offer the service we do at the price we do)
We do not use cookies to:
- Collect any personally identifiable information (without your express permission)
- Collect any sensitive information (without your express permission)
- Pass personally identifiable data to third parties
- Pay sales commissions
You can learn more about all the cookies we use below.
Granting us permission to use cookies
If the settings on your software that you are using to view this website (your browser) are adjusted to accept cookies we take this, and your continued use of our website, to mean that you are fine with this. Should you wish to remove or not use cookies from our site you can learn how to do this below, however doing so will likely mean that our site will not work as you would expect.
Website Function Cookies
We use cookies to make our website work including:
- Allowing you to add comments to our site
- Tailoring content to your needs
- Remembering if we have already asked you certain questions (e.g. you declined to use our app or take our survey)
There is no way to prevent these cookies being set other than to not use our site.
Third party functions
Our site, like most websites, includes functionality provided by third parties. A common example is an embedded YouTube video. Our site includes the following which use cookies (disabling these cookies will likely break the functions offered by these third parties):
Social Website Cookies
These are used so you can easily “Like” or share our content on the likes of Facebook and Twitter we have included sharing buttons on our site.
The privacy implications on this will vary from social network to social network and will be dependent on the privacy settings you have chosen on these networks.
Anonymous Visitor Statistics Cookies
We use cookies to compile visitor statistics such as how many people have visited our website, what type of technology they are using (e.g. Mac or Windows which helps to identify when our site isn’t working as it should for particular technologies), how long they spend on the site, what page they look at etc. This helps us to continuously improve our website. These so-called analytics programs also tell us if, on an anonymous basis, how people reached this site (e.g. from a search engine) and whether they have been here before, helping us to put more money into developing our services for you instead of marketing spend.
Site Improvement Cookies
We regularly test new designs or site features on our site. We do this by showing slightly different versions of our website to different people and anonymously monitoring how our site visitors respond to these different versions. Ultimately this helps us to offer you a better website.
Advertising Cookies
Cookies are widely used in online advertising. Neither us, advertisers or our advertising partners can gain personally identifiable information from these cookies.
You can learn more about online advertising at http://www.youronlinechoices.com . You can opt-out of almost all advertising cookies at http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/your-ad-choices although we would prefer that you didn’t as ultimately adverts help keep much of the internet free. It is also worth noting that opting out of advertising cookies will not mean you won’t see adverts, just simply that they won’t be tailored to you any longer.
Remarketing Cookies
You may notice that sometimes after visiting a site you see increased numbers of adverts from the site you visited. This is because advertisers, including ourselves, pay for these adverts. The technology to do this is made possible by cookies and as such we may place a so called “remarketing cookie” during your visit. We use these adverts to offer special offers etc to encourage you to come back to our site. Don’t worry, we are unable to proactively reach out to you as the whole process is entirely anonymised. You can opt out of these cookies at any time as explained above.
Turning Cookies Off
You can usually switch cookies off by adjusting your browser settings to stop it from accepting cookies. Doing so however will likely limit the functionality of ours and a large proportion of the world’s websites as cookies are a standard part of most modern websites.
It may be that your concerns around cookies relate to so called “spyware”. Rather than switching off cookies in your browser you may find that anti-spyware software achieves the same objective by automatically deleting cookies considered to be invasive.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.
Controlling your personal information
You may choose to restrict the collection or use of your personal information in the following ways:
If you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes, you may change your mind at any time by emailing to us at info@qas-international.com.
We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. We may use your personal information to send you promotional information about third parties which we think you may find interesting if you tell us that you wish this to happen.
You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the Data Protection Act 2018.
If you would like a copy of the information held on you, please email QAS International at info@qas-international.com
If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to us as soon as possible at the above email address. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.