Privacy policy

Introduction

Ceres 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 visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

This privacy notice is provided in a layered format so you can click through to the specific areas set out below.

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy notice

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how Ceres collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you contact us, sign up to our newsletter, or purchase a product or service. It is our aim to ensure that your personal data is well protected.

This privacy notice applies to the personal data of our Website Users, Candidates, Clients, Suppliers, Shareholders and other people whom we may contact in the interests of developing our business, carrying out checks on candidates and/or carrying out our services. It also applies to the emergency contacts of our Staff.

If you are a member of Ceres’ Staff, you should refer to the Ceres Data Protection Notice for Employees, Workers and Contractors which is available from the Data Protection Officer.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

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, for example with our Terms of Business, or any processing agreement so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data.

Controller

Ceres is the controller and responsible for your personal data as well as a data processor for the purposes of the GDPR (collectively referred to as “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice).

Questions, comments and requests about this privacy notice are welcomed, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, and should be addressed to the data privacy manager using the details set out below.

Contact details

Our full details are:

Full name of legal entity: Ceres Power Holdings plc

Email address: dataprotection@cerespower.com

Postal address: Viking House, Foundry Lane, Horsham, West Sussex, RH13 5PX, UK

Telephone number: 01403 273 463

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). However, we would 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 notice and your duty to inform us of changes

This version was last updated on  2020.

We work hard to keep your personal data secure which includes regularly reviewing it. We may therefore update this privacy policy from time-to-time by posting a new version on our website. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes but we will also notify you of important changes to our privacy policy and remind you to take a look at the updated privacy policy so you are aware of how we use your data and what your options are.

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 by emailing us at dataprotection@cerespower.com.

Third party links

This website contains links to third party websites, plug-ins and applications. Please be advised that clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control 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. Type of data we collect about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified whether directly or indirectly. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data). It includes, for example, name, address, date of birth but also what you do for a living and who you work for and anything else that can be used to identify you as an individual.

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

• Identity Data includes first name, last name, title and gender, postal address, postcode, email address, telephone numbers including mobile phones and employment status.
• Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Financial Data includes bank account 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 used to connect your computer to the Internet and information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (“URL”) clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time); products you viewed or searched for; page response times; download errors; length of visits to certain pages; page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs); methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.
• Profile Data includes your purchases or orders made by you, feedback and any survey responses.
• 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 or purchasing a specific service. 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.

We are also working closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, accountants, marketing agencies, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies) and may receive information about you from them.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

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, telephone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
  • apply for our products or services;
  • send us an online enquiry through our website;
  • subscribe to our service or publications;
  • subscribe to become a shareholder of the Company;
  • apply for a job with the Company;
  • request marketing to be sent to you;
  • enter a competition, promotion or survey; 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 using Google Analytics. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy below for further details.  
• Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:
  • Technical Data from the following parties:    
    1. analytics providers such as Google based outside the EU; and
    2. search information providers such as Google based outside the EU.
  • Contact, Financial and Transaction Data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services including credit reference agencies.
  • Identity and Contact Data from publicly availably sources such as client websites, corporate websites, regulatory body websites, suppliers’ websites, professional membership body websites, recruitment agency websites, Companies House, the Land Registry and the Electoral Register based inside the EU.

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 above and with business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them or you, and credit reference agencies for the purpose of assessing your credit score where this is a condition of us entering into a contract with you.

• External Third Parties as set out below.
• Specific third parties such as HMRC.
• 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.

External third parties

• Service providers acting as processors based in the UK who provide Investor Registrar services, Nominated Adviser and Broker services, and marketing services.
• Professional advisers based in the UK who provide banking, legal, insurance, accounting and auditing services and company secretarial services.
• HMRC, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the UK who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
• Fraud prevention agencies, credit reference agencies, HM Courts & Tribunals Service.

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. If you require further information please contact us by emailing dataprotection@cerespower.com.

6. International transfers

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) to be used by any other party. We do however use US-based cloud email and storage system providers. This will therefore involve transferring your data outside the EEA.

Whenever we transfer your personal data outside the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission.
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe.
• Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between Europe and the US.

If you require further information please contact us by emailing dataprotection@cerespower.com.

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. We will take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information. We will store all the personal information you provide on our secure servers. All electronic transactions you make to or receive from us will be encrypted using SSL technology. Of course, data transmission over the Internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the Internet. You are responsible for keeping your password and user details confidential. We will not ask you for your password.

In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents 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 also 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 and storage

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. We review the personal data that we hold every 12 months.

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 accounting, tax and legal purposes. This also helps us, for example, in the event that there is a complaint about our Services, to respond to you in full.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available from us by emailing us at dataprotection@cerespower.com.

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

In other 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

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

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.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please email us at dataprotection@cerespower.com with specific details of who to contact for subject access rights.

No fee usually required

Data Subjects have the right to access their personal data and supplementary information. The right of access allows individuals to be aware of and verify the lawfulness of the processing.

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, or requires copies of previously provided information. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

In the event of manifestly unfair or excessive requests, we may refuse to respond to the request and any such refusal will be notified to the requester with a reason for the refusal and, in addition, information as to your rights to complain to the ICO or judicial authority within one month of such a request being received.

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.