Avant Consult Ltd (Avant) and its group of subsidiary companies, Bodynet Limited and Avant Motor Accident Repair Network Ltd are committed to the protection, safe storage and appropriate use of any personal information you may choose to share with us.

Avant shall always give you the option not to receive marketing communications from us. We will never send you unsolicited ‘junk’ emails or communications. We do not sell your information to third parties.

We work closely with our selected partners, including:

• Vehicle Manufacturers.
• Our clients (which include insurance companies).
• Subcontract suppliers and vehicle repairers.

These organisations help us to provide you with the information, products and services that you and our clients request from us. We will on occasion forward, transfer and or send your information to these organisations to facilitate your requests and or instructions and provide our services.

The contents of this and our other policies may be amended, reviewed and updated at any time. Therefore, we recommend that you regularly review this page to ensure that you remain satisfied to share your personal information with Avant and its subsidiary businesses.

What information do we collect?

We only collect information, which is necessary, relevant and adequate for providing the requested services to you.

We may collect information about you and or your vehicle when you require vehicle accident repair services, enquire or use Avant services, visit or use our offices or websites.

We may collect the following categories of personal information in order to implement our business objectives and to facilitate the delivery of services that you have indicated.

• Name (including title).
• Address
• Phone number, including mobile phone number.
• Email address.
• Vehicle information (including registration number, VIN, mileage and warranty repair information).
• The date and time you used our services.
• The pages you visited on our website and how long you visited us for.
• The internet browser and devices you are using.
• Cookies
• Details of any transactions between you and us or any authorised repairer.
• Where you engage with us in a business context, we may collect your job title, company contact details (including email addresses) and relevant company details.
• Voice recordings of telephone calls for training and provision of services.
• “Live chat” records.
• Any information within correspondence you send to us.

Avant will only process information that is required for the purpose for which it has been collected. You will always have the option to unsubscribe from Avant’s (and any of its subsidiaries) marketing communications. It is also your option not to receive marketing communications and you can withdraw your consent at any stage. We will not share or sell your personal information with anyone else who may send unsolicited marketing. There are a variety of ways in which we may use, store or process your personal information.

In the circumstances where your consent has been provided, we may use and process your information to:

• Contact you from time to time about promotions, offers, events, products, services or information which we think may be of interest to you from Avant and our manufacturer partners.
• To share your personal information with our third-party partners, so that they can contact you regarding the services you have requested.
• Where you represent a company, which is one of our supplier partners, we may share your contact details with our customers or carefully selected supplier partners to allow marketing information about promotions, offers, events, products and services.

We may use and process your personal information where it is required and or essential in order to perform or complete a contract (or contractual elements) with you and to fulfil and complete your orders, purchases, services and other transactions entered into with us (or one of our authorised repairers or selected partners).

We may collect, use and process your personal information as detailed within this statement where Avant must carry out actions, processes, services and activities for which it is in our legitimate interests as an organisation to do so.

How do we use your personal information?

We use your personal information in connection with our business activities. In particular, we may use your personal information in the following ways:

• To respond to customer correspondence (telephone calls, emails, letters, live chats, social media) and to address the instructions and requests made by customers.
• To provide aftersales support and repair warranty processing.
• To analyse, assess and improve our products and or services so that your interaction with our website, our members of staff and our business is more useful and enjoyable, professional and proficient.
• To undertake analysis and research (including contacting you with customer surveys) so that we can better understand you as a customer, the service you have received. We will only send marketing communications to you if you have provided your consent for us to do so or which we have obtained in the ways mentioned within this policy.
• In some cases, we may use methods to analyse, combine and evaluate information that you have provided to us. We collect and analyse this information so that we can deliver the most appropriate customer experience and journey to you by tailoring and making appropriate all our service and messages (for example vehicle repair update communications).
• To contact you from time to time with marketing information (unless you object) if you have expressly indicated to us that you are acting on behalf of a business and or a professional capacity or where we have obtained your business contact details from an online or public business directory. In relation to any such information we send by email, we include an option allowing you to object to receiving future communications by responding to us accordingly.
• To contact you with targeted advertising delivered online through social media and other platforms operated by other companies, unless you object. You may receive advertising based on information about you that we have provided to the platform or because, at our request, the platform has identified you as having similar attributes to the individuals whose details it has received from us. To find out more, please refer to the information provided in the help pages of the platforms on which you receive advertising from us.
• To identify and record when you have received, opened or engaged with our website or electronic communications.
• Processing necessary for Avant to operate the administrative, procedural and technical aspects of our business efficiently effectively and professionally.
• To verify the accuracy of information that we store, process and document about you.
• For network and information security purposes. In order for Avant to take steps to protect and secure your information against loss, damage, theft or unauthorised access.
• To allow Avant to comply with a request from you in connection with the exercise of your rights available under the GDPR (for example where you have asked Avant not to contact you for marketing purposes, we will keep a record of this on our no contact lists in order to be able to comply with your instruction(s)).
• To inform and advise you of updates to our terms and conditions, policies or other information that is relevant to the services you have received.

We may and can process your personal information to comply with our legal, legislative and regulatory requirements.

There are certain situations and circumstances in which Avant will require to process your personal information to contact you if there is an urgent after-sales, safety or product recall notice with regard to the services you have received, and we must inform you of it.

How do we share this information?

We do not sell your personal information to third parties. We may from time to time release your information to the following categories of companies or organisations to which we pass the responsibility to handle services on our behalf:

• The vehicle manufacturers we represent.
• Our insurance product provider.
• Our customer contact centres.
• Mobility and car hire providers.
• Our legal and other professional advisors.
• We may also share your information with external third-party repairers, maintenance and service providers and suppliers in situations where we need to pass your information to them in order to manage any request, instruction or complaint you have made to us.

We take steps to ensure that any third-party partners who handle your information comply with data protection legislation, the GDPR and any updates and amendments of said legislation and protect your information to the same standards that we enforce.

We only provide personal information that is required for the third party to provide the product and or service that they are undertaking on our and your behalf. We can and have the option to carry out any necessary due diligence checks on our third-party partners to assess their data protection preparedness.

Data Transfer

We do not transfer any information we hold about you out of the European Union / EEA. If you use our services while you are outside the EEA, your information may be transferred outside the EEA in order to provide you with those services.

How long do we keep your information for?

In general, we will not hold your personal information in an identifiable format (physical or electronic) for any longer than is necessary. Personal information is held in accordance with our retention policies.

In addition, we hold your personal information for the aforementioned periods of time to initiate, bring or defend legal matters.

The only exemptions to the periods mentioned above are where:

• Legislation and regulations require us to hold your personal information for a longer period or delete it sooner.
• Where a complaint or concern has been submitted regarding a product or service provided by us, in which case we will retain your information for a period of 7 years following the date of that complaint or query; or
• You exercise your right to have the information erased (where it applies) and we do not need to hold it in connection with any of the reasons permitted or required under the law.

Access to your personal information

The Data Protection Legislation gives you the right to access your personal information. To request access to your personal information, please contact us using the details below. You also have the right to withdraw any consent you have previously given us and ask us to erase information we hold about you.

Right to be forgotten

You have the right to request that Avant delete your personal data in certain circumstances if you would like more information about this please contact us using the details below. If you have purchased goods or services from us we will retain details of your purchase for 7 years. If we are unable to delete your data as we believe that we are required to retain it, we will delete as much information as we are able to and will also stop sending you any further information.

You can also object to us using your personal information (where we rely on our business interests to process and use your personal information).

How to contact us

If you have any questions, comments or requests regarding this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us by writing to us at Data Protection Officer, Avant Consult Limited, Kevin Conway House, Longbow Close, Pennine Business Park, Bradley, Huddersfield. HD2 1GQ or emailing [email protected].

You also 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.