When you buy goods or services from us, you are entering into a contract with us. We will need to set up an account for you in order to fulfil our obligations as a supplier. To set this up, we will ask you to provide some personal information such as;
If you have a pre-payment account with us, we may require some further details to enable payment.
If you have a credit account with us or are setting up a credit account with us, we get information about you from credit reference agencies. This is covered in more detail in the section, Who we share your information with and why.
To enable us to fulfil our support obligations, we may need to obtain the following pieces of information, but this will be discussed with you should the need arise:
In the unlikely event that goods need to be returned to Boston, you will need to initiate a returns request with us for us to authorise the return and issue you with a unique returns number; this will link to the hardware you’re returning and your Boston account.
To fulfil onsite warranty obligations, we will need to obtain further information from you, including:
In order to undertake website personalisation, we will also gather information about the devices you use to access our sites (desktop and mobile), and this may include IP address. For further information on our use of cookies and tracking please see our Cookie Policy.
If you should visit our premises, Boston uses CCTV for security purposes so images; video footage of you and/or your vehicle may be stored.
For fire safety reasons, we will also insist that a visitor pass be completed which will request the following information:
Information on your visitor pass will be destroyed when you leave our premises.
All personal data is processed and stored securely, for no longer than is necessary in light of the reason(s) for which it was first collected, see section titled How long we keep your information. We will comply with our obligations and safeguard your rights under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the GDPR at all times.
Data Protection says that we are permitted to use and share your personal data only where we have a proper reason to do so. The law says we must have one or more of these reasons and these are:
Here is a list of some of the ways that we may use your personal information, and which of the reasons described above we rely on to do so. Where we list legitimate interests as a reason, we also describe below what we believe these legitimate interests are.
What we use your personal information for | Our reasons (legal basis) | Our explanation of Boston’s Legitimate Interests |
---|---|---|
Creation and maintenance of your Boston account | Legitimate Interest | To enable efficient and professional business activities |
Storing payment information (where applicable) | Consent | N/A |
Replying to your e-mails | Legitimate Interest / Consent | To enable functional communication for business activities |
Processing of orders | Contractual | N/A |
Notifying you of your order status | Legitimate Interest | To keep you informed and to enable us to maximise our service to you |
Provide technical support | Consent / Contractual | N/A |
Provide warranty services | Consent / Contractual | N/A |
To detect, investigate and, where necessary, report suspected illegal activities | Legal Obligation | We have a duty to comply with any regulations that apply to us and that potentially involves reporting suspected illicit and/or illegal activities |
Undertake website personalisation and administration | Legitimate Interest | Enabling our website to work for you and provide the best viewing experience |
Marketing Communications | Legitimate Interest / Consent | To keep you informed and enable functional communication for business activities |
Notifying you of critical product updates (e.g. security updates) | Legitimate Interest | To keep you informed should we identify a critical update or piece of information relating you’re a product or service you have purchased from us |
To contact you regarding customer satisfaction surveys | Legitimate Interest | To ensure you are satisfied with our levels of service and support |
To contact you in the event that you submit a complaint about our products and services | Legitimate Interest | Should you have cause to complain about our products and services, we have a duty to investigate and follow up on this complaint |
Logistics planning and stock forecasting | Legitimate Interest | We observe procurement trends to help us better forecast with our suppliers which, in turn, reduces future lead time and an improved service. |
With your permission and/or where permitted by law, we may also use your data for marketing purposes which may include contacting you by e-mail, telephone, text message, and/or post with information, news, and offers on our products and services. If you wish to withdraw your consent at any time, simply click the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of the communication in question or alert us by any of the methods described in the Keeping in touch with you section. We will not, however, send you any unsolicited marketing or spam and will take all reasonable steps to ensure that we fully protect your rights and comply with our obligations under the GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.
Boston works with a number of trusted partners who provide some of the products and services we offer. Our partners are contractually obliged to maintain the highest levels of personal data security and will only hold the minimum amount of personal information needed to fulfil the orders/services you require (such as deal registration, third party warranty services, courier services, etc)
Boston works with a number of trusted partners who provide some of the products and services we offer. Our partners are contractually obliged to maintain the highest levels of personal data security and will only hold the minimum amount of personal information needed to fulfil the orders/services you require (such as deal registration, third party warranty services, courier services, etc)
If you have opted into our marketing communications, some of these communications are delivered from third party services and it will be necessary to provide some details to enable this function. The minimal amount of data provided will be used only for this purpose. Our primary third-party marketing provider for electronic communications is dotmailer and their privacy policy can be found here: https://legal.hubspot.com/privacy-policy
Boston works with a number of trusted third-party payment processing providers in order to securely take and manage payments. Our primary payment processing provider for online and credit/debit card transactions is PayPal and their privacy policy can be found here: https://www.paypal.com/en/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full
When you apply for credit with us we will make searches with credit reference agencies. We do this to make sure customers who apply for credit accounts are able to manage the level of credit offered and not committing fraud by providing false or inaccurate information.
In order to process an application, we will supply your personal information to credit reference agencies (CRA’s) and they will give us information about you, such as your financial history. We do this to assess your creditworthiness and product suitability, check your identity, manage your account, trace, recover debts and prevent criminal activity.
We will also continue to exchange information about you with the CRAs on an ongoing basis, including about your settled accounts and any debts not fully repaid on time. CRAs will share your information with other organisations. Your data may be linked to any joint applicants or other financial associates.
We want to keep you up to date with information about new products, services, and special offers that we feel would be of benefit to you. When you set your account up with Boston, we will ask you if you want to receive this type of marketing information; our default position is to not provide this service unless you consent.
Boston will not share your information with companies outside of Boston Group without your explicit consent.
If you decide you no longer want to receive marketing information you can request that we stop by speaking with your account manager, by clicking the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of any of our marketing correspondence, or by e-mailing [email protected]. You may continue to receive mailings for a short period while your request is dealt with.
If we collect your personal information, the length of time we retain it is determined by a number of factors including the purpose for which we use that information and our obligations under other laws. We may need your personal information to establish, bring, or defend legal claims. For this purpose, we will, in general, retain your personal information for up to 7 years after the date it is no longer needed by us for any of the purposes listed under How we use your information above. Exceptions to this are where:
We may, from time to time, expand or reduce our business and this may involve the sale and/or the transfer of control of all or part of our business. Any personal data that you have provided will, where it is relevant to any part of our business that is being transferred, be transferred along with that part and the new owner or newly controlling party will, under the terms of this Privacy Policy, be permitted to use that data only for the same purposes for which it was originally collected by Boston.
In the event that any of your data is to be transferred in such a manner, you will be contacted in advance and informed of the changes. When contacted you will be given the choice to have your data deleted or withheld from the new owner or controller.
You are entitled to request the following from Boston, these are called your Data Subject Rights and there is more information on these on the Information Commissioners website (www.ico.org.uk).
You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection regulator in Europe, in particular in a country you work or live or where your legal rights have been infringed. The contact details for the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the data protection regulator in the UK, are available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk) where your personal information has or is being used in a way that you believe does not comply with the GDPR, however, we encourage you to contact us before making any complaint and we will seek to resolve any issues or concerns you may have.
We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time (for example, if the law changes). Any changes will be immediately posted on Our Site and you will be deemed to have accepted the terms of the Privacy Policy on your first use of our Site or your continued business practices following the alterations. We recommend that you check this page regularly to keep up-to-date.
Should you need to contact us for any information security or privacy matters please contact us using one of the following options:
Write to us at:
Data Protection Team, Boston Limited, Unit 5 Curo Park, Frogmore, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL2 2DD, UK
E-mail us at:
[email protected]
Alternatively, please phone us on +44 (0) 1727 876100 and ask to speak to your account manager or the Data Protection Team.
To help our clients make informed decisions about new technologies, we have opened up our research & development facilities and actively encourage customers to try the latest platforms using their own tools and if necessary together with their existing hardware. Remote access is also available
The annual GPU Technology Conference is returning once again in San Jose, California!