Privacy Statement

Our Privacy Policy aims to help you understand what information we might collect about you and how we use it.

Entrepreneurs Circle (“EC”) is the data controller of your personal data.

EC is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and will comply with all applicable data protection laws in all our dealings with your personal data.

As data controllers, we want you to feel both informed and empowered when it comes to the handling and usage of your personal information. In this privacy statement, we explain how and why we collect and use personal data, which is information relating to an identified or identifiable living person. We will only use your personal information lawfully in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 (‘GDPR’).

If you have any questions about our Privacy and Cookie Policy, please do get in contact by calling 0121 765 5551 or send an email to [email protected]

We process personal data for a variety of reasons, with each means of collection, lawful basis of processing, use, disclosure, and retention periods set out on a situational basis.

When you visit our site, we collect anonymous data from our cookies. This means we can see number of users, page views and visits within a selected timeframe, but we cannot link this information back to you as an individual.

When you sign up to receive content or downloads from us you are actively opting in to receiving marketing communications from us. You can unsubscribe or opt-out from our emails at any time. Every email we send you will have an ‘unsubscribe’ link in it.

If you download any of our free content or buy anything from us we securely store personal data such as you name, address and contact details. We may also share this information with our third-party delivery partners so that we can get your goods delivered to you. We only share your financial data with our trusted third-party payment provider when it is required to fulfil your order. We do not store any of your card details on our system, so your financial information and data is fully secure.

We use GoCardless to process your direct debit payments. More information on how GoCardless processes your personal data and your data protection rights, including your right to object, is available at https://gocardless.com/legal/privacy/

Personal data may also be used to send triggered emails, such as cart abandonment, notifications, and purchase confirmation emails for instance. We may also use this information to personalise our marketing, for example, to suggest products or services related to your previous purchases or interests. It may also be used to send you special offers and product news by email.

You can opt out of this at any time by unsubscribing from our mailing list or contacting us: [email protected]

What information do we collect?

We may collect and process the following data about you:

  • Information about you, such as your name, your business name, telephone number and email address;
  • Additional information that is provided by you filling in forms on our websites or at exhibitions/events, say. This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our site, subscribing to our services, posting material, or requesting further services or information;
  • If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence;
  • We may also ask you to complete surveys from time to time that we use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them;
  • Details of transactions you carry out through our site and of the fulfilment of your orders;
  • Details of your visits to our websites and emails received including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, web logs and other communication data, whether this is required for our own billing purposes or otherwise.

In addition, we may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to prevent fraudulent access to our member-only areas.

How do we collect your information?

There are a couple of ways that we collect your information. Depending on how you use our site and what for, we collect your information using the following methods:

  1. When you directly give it to us (“Directly Provided Data”)

This includes when you sign up to download or receive something from us, sign up to one of our competitions say, or place an order with us.

  1. When our system collects data as you use our website (“System Collected Data”)

Typical of many websites, when you visit our website certain information automatically gets created and recorded by IT systems necessary to operate the site. This can be broken down into:

  • Cookies. When you visit our site a small text file called a ‘cookie’ is downloaded onto your PC. The next time you visit our site, your computer will check to see if it has a cookie that is relevant and then sends the information contained in that cookie back to the site. This lets us know if you’re a new or returning visitor and what items you’ve viewed or added to cart, for instance. This is all to improve your experience with us. For more information about cookies, how we use them and what we do with them, please see the section titled “Cookie Consent” further down this page.
  • Devices. The type of device you’re using to access our site will also be recorded, such as what type of device it is, what operating system you’re using, what your device settings are, and potentially why a crash has happened. This is again to help us improve your user experience by making sure our site is working and optimised on all devices. This falls under “Anonymous Information” as we can’t trace this information back to you as an individual.

Why do we collect your information and personal data?

We process personal information for certain legitimate business purposes, which include some or all of the following:

  • To educate you and/or to share with you, techniques, strategies and insights that are designed to help you improve your business and/or to become more successful;
  • To update our records and generally maintain your accounts/membership with us;
  • To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us;
  • To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so;
  • To notify you about any changes to our service.
  • To identify and prevent fraud;
  • To enhance the security of our network and information systems;
  • To better understand how people, interact with our websites;
  • To communicate with you about offers, products, services and other information that we believe may be helpful to you and your business;
  • To determine the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and marketing.
  • To enhance, modify, personalise or otherwise improve our services/communications for the benefit of you and our customers;

Whenever we process data we will ensure that we always keep your personal data rights in high regard and take full account of these rights.

When contacting you for the above purposes we may do so by phone, post, email or other electronic means, unless you tell us otherwise.

None of your personal details will ever be passed to any third parties or shared with companies or people outside of EC and our associated businesses.

What’s the lawful basis in which we process your data?

Under the applicable data protection laws (GDPR) we need a lawful basis to collect and use your personal data. The law allows for six lawful bases to process people’s personal data, and one of them allows personal data to be legally collected and used if it is necessary for a legitimate interest of the organisation – as long as it is fair and balanced and does not unduly impact the rights of individuals.

We have assessed our business interests in carrying out marketing activities and we have carefully considered the impact the collection and use of personal data could potentially have on individuals’ rights.

Our databases contain primarily business data, which is used to help, and promote to, businesses in the UK and such activities are unlikely to affect the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals concerned. We have therefore concluded that the most appropriate lawful ground for the processing of your personal data is our legitimate interests.

In the event you request any goods and/or services from us, we will rely on our contractual relationship to process your personal data to provide such goods and/or services to you.

In certain circumstances we may also rely on a specific consent provided by you for the processing of your personal data.

You have the right to object to this processing if you wish and if you do so we will remove your data from all our systems and cease all communication with you. If you wish to make that happen just send an email to: [email protected]

Who do we share your information with?

Core Service Providers

We share your personal information externally with our core service providers when required for our business to function. This includes our delivery partners and our third-party payment provider who carries out transactions and fraud protection.

Third Parties

We may also share your information such as your browsing behaviour with external partners when we have your consent to do so. This includes accepting the use of cookies on our website. We work with a number of third parties that, whilst not essential for our business to operate, do enhance your experience when shopping with us. This includes when you visit our site, add something to your basket, sign up to our mailing list or when you use external sites such as social media. We only work with companies that we believe are the best for you and our business, and that follow the GDPR guidelines. Therefore, we feel we can safely disclose information for the appropriate purposes.

External Links

Although this website only aims to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this site.

EC cannot and does not guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website. You therefore click on external links at your own risk and EC cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links on this Site.

Social Media Platforms

Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners participate on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate/engage upon them with due care and caution in regard to their own privacy and personal details. EC will never ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and we encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact us through our primary communication channels i.e. telephone or email.

This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.

For how long do we store your personal data?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as we believe it is up-to- date. We verify our data periodically and if we learn that you are no longer involved with a business that is in our database, we will remove your data from our records.

If you want us to remove your data from our records, then we will do so. All you have to do is ask. You can do so by sending an email to: [email protected]

How do we protect your personal data whilst we have it?

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area (“EEA”). We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that any personal data transferred outside the UK or the EEA is treated securely and in accordance with the applicable data protection laws.

We will store all information about you on secure servers.

Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to prevent any unauthorised access.

What controls do you have over your data?

You have the right to:

  • Request to see the personal data we hold about you. This includes the right to obtain confirmation as to whether or not we process any of your personal data. There may be a charge to provide this as set out under applicable law;
  • Request that we correct any inaccuracies in the personal data that we hold on you;
  • If you wish you can request to have your personally identifiable data deleted from our database and/or to stop receiving communications from us;
  • Request that we do not process your personal data for marketing purposes;
  • Object to our processing of your personal data if we are relying on legitimate interest as the lawful ground for processing;

If you wish to talk to us about any of the above, please drop us an email at [email protected]

If you have any concerns or complaints about our activities, you can contact us on [email protected] or you can call 0121 765 5551 during normal office hours.

Under no circumstance do we sell your information or personal data to third parties.

Right to rectification & erasure

If you believe the data we hold for you to be incorrect or you wish to no longer be on our records, you can request a rectification or use your right to be forgotten, whereby we will remove your information. Just email us at [email protected].

Right to restrict processing

You can restrict the information we gather about you by either opting out of cookies or unsubscribing from our mailing list. However please note, opting out or blocking cookies will not mean you’ll completely stop seeing adverts from us, but rather, they will be less specific to your interests.

Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority

As a data subject, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority if the you consider that the processing of personal data relating to you infringes the GDPR.

The supervisory authority in which the complaint has been lodged will inform you on the progress and the outcome of your complaint.

Right to be informed & right to access

Under the GDPR, you are able to request from us what information we hold about you on our system. If requested, this will be provided to you in an easily understandable format within 21 days.

Cookie Consent

We use cookies and similar technologies for a variety of purposes on our websites or when we send you an email.

Cookies are small files that are stored on your browser when you visit a website. The main purpose is to keep a record of your visit, time spent on the site, pages visited, and searches made. We may also use cookies to automatically collect information from your computer when you visit our sites, and automatically store it in the log files. This may include information on type of browser software, website activity and IP address.

The main purposes of the cookies we use are:

  • Session – to allow the user to navigate our sites more easily; for example, you don’t have to login in as a new user every time.
  • Analytics – to improve the user experience of the site by providing statistics on how the site is used.
  • Tracking – we may use cookies hosted by third parties which allow for an improved site experience by collecting data such as browser, IP address, pages visited, content viewed, timing of visits etc. When you visit our websites or open an email we have sent, we or one of our third-party partners may place a cookie on your browser.
  • Authentication – this enables us to identify you and therefore where appropriate, personalise information for you.

How to refuse and delete cookies

You can refuse to accept all or some cookies by modifying your settings within your browser – for help on how to do this visit www.aboutcookies.org.uk

You may also delete all cookies on your browser – click help on your browser or visit www.aboutcookies.org.uk

Please remember that if you block the session cookies you may be unable to access certain parts of our websites.

Phone Calls

To help us maintain a high level of customer service when you call our offices your call may be monitored and recorded.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

Contact Us

Have a question? You can get in touch with us by sending an email to [email protected] or you can call 0121 765 5551