Privacy policy

1.1 This notice sets out the manner in which ABUS Crane Systems Ltd collects, uses, discloses and retains personal data in connection with the website at abuscranes.co.uk, with enquiries made to it, and with the supply of its products and services. It is provided in accordance with Articles 12, 13 and 14 UK GDPR.

1.2 In this notice the following expressions have the following meanings:

• “ABUS”, “we”, “us” and “our” mean ABUS Crane Systems Ltd, whose particulars appear at clause 2;
• “the 2018 Act” means the Data Protection Act 2018;
• “the Commission” means the Information Commission, being the supervisory authority for the United Kingdom, known as the Information Commissioner's Office until 30 September 2026;
• “PECR” means the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003;
• “UK GDPR” has the meaning given by section 3(10) of the 2018 Act;
• “the Website” means the website published at abuscranes.co.uk and any subdomain of it;
• “you” and “your” mean the individual to whom the personal data relates.

 1.3 References in this notice to an Article are to an Article of the UK GDPR, and references to a regulation are to a regulation of PECR, in each case as amended from time to time.

1.4 Clause headings are for convenience only and do not affect the construction of this notice.

2.1 The controller in respect of the personal data described in this notice is:

ABUS Crane Systems Ltd
Unit 1 Business Village, Blackbushe Business Park
Yateley, Hampshire GU46 6GA, United Kingdom
Registered in England and Wales, company number 02591463
VAT registration number GB 572 7340 34
Telephone +44 1252 749 000 · info@abuscranes.co.uk

2.2 ABUS is registered with the Commission as a payer of the data protection fee under registration number Z6307209.

3.1 The data protection contact for the United Kingdom is Saffron Hayman. Any question, request or complaint concerning this notice or the personal data to which it relates should be addressed to her:

Saffron Hayman, Data Protection Contact
ABUS Crane Systems Ltd
Unit 1 Business Village, Blackbushe Business Park
Yateley, Hampshire GU46 6GA, United Kingdom
hr@abuscranes.co.uk · +44 1252 749 000

3.2 The ABUS group has additionally retained UIMC Dr. Voßbein GmbH & Co KG, of Otto-Hausmann-Ring 113, 42115 Wuppertal, Germany, telephone +49 202 9467726-200, datenschutz.uimc.de, as external data protection adviser to the companies within the group. Enquiries concerning the United Kingdom should be directed to the data protection contact at clause 3.1.

4.1 We collect only such personal data as is necessary for the purposes set out below. The table at clause 4.2 identifies, in respect of each purpose, the categories of personal data processed, the lawful basis relied upon under Article 6, and the period for which the data is retained.

4.3 Where we rely upon Article 6(1)(f), we have carried out an assessment balancing our legitimate interests against your interests, rights and freedoms, and have concluded that the former are not overridden by the latter. A copy of that assessment is available upon request made under clause 3.1.

4.4 We do not seek, and do not knowingly process through the Website, any special category data within the meaning of Article 9, nor any personal data relating to criminal convictions or offences within the meaning of Article 10. You are asked not to submit such data by means of our forms.

5.1 The Website may be used without disclosing your identity. Where you wish to receive a response from us, our forms request the personal data necessary for that purpose.

5.2 The provision of your personal data is neither a statutory nor a contractual requirement, nor a requirement necessary to enter into a contract, and you are under no obligation to provide it. The fields identified as mandatory are, however, those required in order to identify and answer your enquiry, and we shall be unable to respond in their absence. All remaining fields are optional.

5.3 Your enquiry will be referred to the appropriate person within ABUS, which may include a colleague at another company within the ABUS group or an authorised distribution partner, in order that advice may be given by a person familiar with your region and your application. Where you request a contact in a country outside the United Kingdom, your particulars will be transmitted to that country in accordance with clause 15.

5.4 Records of enquiries are deleted 24 months after our last contact with you, save where the enquiry has resulted in a quotation or an order, in which case the record is retained with the contract records in accordance with clause 16.

6.1 As at the date of this notice ABUS Crane Systems Ltd does not send marketing by electronic mail. Should it commence doing so, the following provisions shall apply and this notice will be amended to identify the service provider engaged for that purpose.

Corporate subscribers

6.2 The restrictions imposed by regulation 22 PECR upon unsolicited marketing by electronic mail do not apply to corporate subscribers, being limited companies, limited liability partnerships, Scottish partnerships and other bodies corporate. Where you are employed by such a subscriber we may accordingly send marketing to your business address without your prior consent, relying upon Article 6(1)(f).

Individual subscribers

6.3 Where you are a sole trader, or a partner in a partnership constituted in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, you are an individual subscriber for the purposes of PECR. We shall send you marketing by electronic mail only where you have consented, or where each of the following conditions in regulation 22(3) PECR is satisfied:

–  we obtained your contact details in the course of a sale, or negotiations for a sale, of a product or service to you;

–  the marketing relates solely to our own similar products and services; and

–  you were given a simple means of refusing, free of charge, the use of your details for marketing at the time those details were collected and in every subsequent communication.

Objection

6.4 You have an unqualified right under Article 21(2) to object at any time to the processing of your personal data for the purposes of direct marketing. That right is not subject to any balancing exercise and admits of no exception. Upon receipt of an objection we shall cease such processing forthwith and shall retain your email address upon a suppression list for the sole purpose of ensuring that no further communication is sent to you.

7.1 Regulation 6 PECR provides that a person must not store information, or gain access to information stored, in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user, save as permitted by Schedule A1 to PECR. The exceptions in that Schedule include consent and storage which is strictly necessary for the provision of a service requested by the user.

7.2 Technologies falling within the strictly necessary exception are used without consent. These are limited to those required for the delivery of the Website, for the recording of your preferences, and for the recording of the choice you make in response to the consent banner.

7.3 All other technologies identified in clause 8 are used only where you have consented. Consent is obtained by means of a consent banner operated on our behalf by consentmanager AB. Refusal is presented with equal prominence to acceptance.

7.4 You may vary or withdraw your consent at any time by means of the link marked “Cookie settings” which appears at the foot of every page of the Website. Withdrawal is as straightforward as the giving of consent, and does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

7.5 The technologies identified in clause 8 are deployed through Google Tag Manager, container GTM-WNGJW3M, a service of Google Ireland Limited. Google Tag Manager sets no cookies of its own and collects no personal data independently; its function is to ensure that the other services load only after consent has been given.

7.6 Cookies may in addition be blocked or deleted by means of your browser settings. Certain parts of the Website may not then function correctly.

8.1 The following table identifies the cookies and equivalent storage in use on the Website, the party by whom each is set, its purpose and its duration. It was established by direct examination of the Website and will be revised whenever the Website changes.

8.2 Durations stated above are those specified by the party setting the cookie. Certain browsers impose shorter maximum lifetimes, in which case the shorter period applies.

9.1 We use Google Analytics 4, a service of Google Ireland Limited of Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, in order to ascertain which pages are read and from where visitors arrive, and thereby to improve the Website. The property identifier is G-7T5ZLRX34N.

9.2 Google Analytics 4 does not store complete IP addresses. Your IP address is truncated upon receipt within the European Union and is not retained as a discrete record. We have entered into a processor agreement with Google in accordance with Article 28.

9.3 Analytics operates only where you have consented by means of the consent banner. Consent may be withdrawn at any time under clause 7.4. You may in addition install the browser add-on published by Google at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout, which prevents measurement by Google Analytics upon any website.

10.1 We advertise upon search engines and upon professional and social networks. In order to ascertain which advertisements result in enquiries, and in order to present our advertisements to persons who have visited the Website, the following services place tags upon the Website. Each operates only where you have consented.

10.2 These services receive your IP address, the pages of the Website which you have viewed, and an identifier by which your device may be recognised. Where you hold an account with the provider in question and are signed in to it, the provider may associate that information with your account. We have no control over the further use made of that information by the provider, and we do not receive it in a form which identifies you individually.

10.3 Consent may be withdrawn at any time under clause 7.4. You may in addition exercise the controls made available by each provider within your account with it.

11.1 We use Hotjar, a service of Hotjar Ltd of Dragonara Business Centre, 5th Floor, Dragonara Road, Paceville St Julian's STJ 3141, Malta, in order to understand how the Website is used and where visitors encounter difficulty. The site identifier is 3737369.

11.2 Hotjar records the movement of your pointer, the places at which you click and tap, how far you scroll, the keys you press other than in fields containing personal data, the pages you visit and the order in which you visit them, together with your approximate location derived from your IP address, your device, screen size, browser and operating system. From that record Hotjar produces aggregated heatmaps and individual session replays which may be viewed by us.

11.3 Hotjar suppresses by default the text entered into input fields, with the consequence that what you type into an enquiry form is not captured in a recording. We do not disable that suppression. Hotjar does not identify you by name, and we do not combine its records with the enquiry data you submit to us.

11.4 Hotjar operates only where you have consented, and consent may be withdrawn at any time under clause 7.4. You may in addition prevent Hotjar from recording your use of any website by following the procedure described at hotjar.com/policies/do-not-track.

12.1 Our web server records an entry upon each request made to it. Those entries comprise your IP address, the page from which you arrived, any search terms by which you found us, your browser, operating system and screen resolution, and the duration of your visit.

12.2 Those entries are processed in order to maintain the availability and security of the Website, to diagnose faults, and to produce statistics in which no individual is identified. Your IP address is evaluated solely in order to determine the country and the internet service provider from which a request originated.

12.3 We reserve the right to examine those entries where we have specific grounds to suspect unlawful use of the Website. They are otherwise deleted as soon as they are no longer required for the purpose for which they were created.

13.1 Links to our profiles upon Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube appear at the foot of the Website. Those are ordinary hyperlinks and are not embedded buttons or feeds. No data is transmitted to those networks by reason of the link alone.

13.2 Upon following such a link you leave the Website, and the terms and privacy policy of the network in question apply. The network will receive your IP address and the page from which you arrived, and where you are signed in it may associate that visit with your account.

13.3 Where we operate a company page upon such a network, the network provides us with aggregated statistics as to the reach of our posts. In respect of those statistics we and the network are joint controllers within the meaning of Article 26. Individual visitors cannot be identified from them.

13.4 The advertising tag operated by LinkedIn upon the Website is addressed separately at clause 10, and is not affected by this clause. No advertising tag operated by Meta is present upon the Website.

14.1 We do not sell personal data and we do not disclose it for the marketing purposes of any other person. Personal data is disclosed to the following recipients, and to no others save where required by law:

14.2 Where a recipient acts as our processor it may process personal data only upon our documented instructions, and we remain responsible for that processing. A written contract complying with Article 28 is in place with each such recipient.

15.1 Where personal data is transferred outside the United Kingdom, we ensure that one of the following applies:

• the country or territory in question is the subject of adequacy regulations made under section 17A of the 2018 Act. This includes Germany, Ireland, Malta and the remainder of the EEA, with the consequence that our hosting in Germany and our engagement of providers established in Ireland and Malta require no further safeguard;
• the recipient is certified under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, where the transfer is to the United States; or
• we have entered into the International Data Transfer Agreement, or the International Data Transfer Addendum to the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, and have carried out a transfer risk assessment, in accordance with Article 46.

 15.2 Where you request a contact within a country to which none of the foregoing applies, we shall inform you before your particulars are transmitted, and shall transmit them only to distribution partners with whom we work.

15.3 A copy of the safeguards upon which we rely may be obtained upon request made under clause 3.1.

16.1 Personal data is retained only for so long as is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, save where a longer period is required by law. The periods applied are:

• enquiries not resulting in a quotation or order — 24 months from our last contact with you;
• customer and contract records — 6 years from termination of the contract, that being the limitation period for actions founded on simple contract under section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980;
• accounting records — 6 years from the end of the financial year to which they relate, under section 388 of the Companies Act 2006;
• marketing contacts — until objection, following which the email address is retained upon a suppression list;
• server log files — until no longer required for security and fault diagnosis;
• cookies and similar technologies — as stated in the table at clause 8.

 16.2 Upon expiry of the applicable period the personal data is deleted or irreversibly anonymised.

17.1 We do not take decisions concerning you based solely upon automated processing, and we do not carry out profiling which produces legal effects concerning you or which similarly significantly affects you. Enquiries, quotations and orders are dealt with by a person.

Complaint to ABUS

19.1 You have the right under section 164A of the 2018 Act to make a complaint to us where you consider that there has been an infringement of the UK GDPR in connection with personal data relating to you.

19.2 A complaint may be made by email to hr@abuscranes.co.uk, or in writing to Saffron Hayman, Data Protection Contact, ABUS Crane Systems Ltd, Unit 1 Business Village, Blackbushe Business Park, Yateley, Hampshire GU46 6GA. No particular form is required and no charge is made. Please state that you are making a complaint, so that it is dealt with as one.

19.3 We shall acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 30 days beginning with the day upon which it is received. We shall thereafter, without undue delay, take appropriate steps to respond to it, including making such enquiries into its subject matter as are appropriate, shall inform you of the progress of those enquiries, and shall inform you of the outcome.

Complaint to the Commission

19.4 You also have the right under section 165 of the 2018 Act to make a complaint to the Information Commission, being the independent supervisory authority for data protection in the United Kingdom. The Commission was known as the Information Commissioner's Office, or ICO, until 30 September 2026.

Telephone 0303 123 1113
ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
The current postal address is published at ico.org.uk

19.5 A complaint may be made to the Commission at any time. The Commission will ordinarily enquire whether the matter has first been raised with us, and we invite you to do so in order that we may have the opportunity of resolving it.

20.1 The content of the Website has been compiled with care. We do not, however, warrant its accuracy, completeness or currency. As a service provider we are responsible for our own content upon the Website under the general law.

20.2 Our own content is to be distinguished from links to content published by others. We exercise no control over such content. The provider or operator of the linked site is responsible for its content and for its processing of your personal data.

21  Amendments to this notice

21.1 We may amend this notice from time to time in order that it continues to comply with the law in force and to reflect changes in our services and in the technologies deployed upon the Website. The version number and the date of the current version appear at the head of this notice.

21.2 Where an amendment materially affects you we shall bring it to your attention rather than rely upon your noticing it.