Interested in real-time dust monitoring? See the page for our new DustScan Cloud

Privacy & Cookies

DustScan is committed to protecting your privacy and developing technology that gives you the most powerful and safe online experience. This Statement of Privacy applies to the DustScan website and governs data collection and usage. By using the DustScan website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.

DustScanAQ is committed to complying with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We understand that we are responsible for ensuring transparency with regards to data use, lawful, consented processing of data where necessary, data accuracy and data security and for recognising the right to be forgotten.

Our Data Protection Office (DPO), Oliver Puddle, oversees our commitment to GDPR best practice, monitors compliance and communicates related issues to the firms Directors.

Under GDPR DustScanAQ act as a Service Provider and are responsible for all personal data provided by our clients. Where any processing of data takes place our clients act as Data Controllers and the Service Provider acts as a Data Processor, as defined in the GDPR.


Collection of your personal data

Personal data means any information capable of identifying an individual. It does not include anonymised data.

We may collect data about you by you providing the data directly to us (for example by filling in forms on our site or by sending us emails). We may automatically collect certain data from you as you use our website by using cookies and similar technologies.

We may receive data from third parties such as analytics and information providers such as Google based outside the EU, providers of marketing data, technical, payment and delivery services, such as data brokers or aggregators.

We may also receive data from publicly availably sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Register based inside the EU and from online credit checking companies.

Processing personal data

We may process the following categories of personal data about you:

  • Communication Data that includes any communication that you send to us whether that be through the contact form on our website, through email, text, social media messaging, social media posting or any other communication that you send us. We process this data for the purposes of communicating with you, for record keeping and for the establishment, pursuance or defence of legal claims. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to reply to communications sent to us, to keep records and to establish, pursue or defend legal claims.
  • Customer Data that includes data relating to any purchases of goods and/or services such as your name, title, billing address, delivery/site address email address, phone number, contact details and purchase order details (we do not retain any credit card information for any purpose). We process this data to supply the goods and/or services you have purchased and to keep records of such transactions. Our lawful ground for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps at your request to enter into such a contract.
  • User Data that includes data about how you use our website and any online services together with any data that you post for publication on our website or through other online services. We process this data to operate our website and ensure relevant content is provided to you, to ensure the security of our website, to maintain back-ups of our website and/or databases and to enable publication and administration of our website, other online services and business. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to enable us to properly administer our website and our business.
  • Technical Data that includes data about your use of our website and online services such as your IP address, your login data, details about your browser, length of visit to pages on our website, page views and navigation paths, details about the number of times you use our website, time zone settings and other technology on the devices you use to access our website. The source of this data is from our analytics tracking system. We process this data to analyse your use of our website and other online services, to administer and protect our business and website, to deliver relevant website content and to understand and optimise the effectiveness of our online advertising. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to enable us to properly administer our website and our business and to grow our business and to decide our marketing strategy.
  • Marketing Data that includes data about your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our partners and your communication preferences. We process this data to enable you to partake in our customer feedback surveys, to deliver relevant website content and promotional materials to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of this advertising. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to decide our marketing strategy.

We may use Customer Data, User Data, Technical Data and Marketing Data to deliver relevant website content and promotional materials to you and to measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve you. Our lawful ground for this processing is legitimate interests which is to grow our business. We may also use such data to send other marketing communications to you. Our lawful ground for this processing is either consent or legitimate interests (namely to grow our business).

Sensitive Data

We do not collect any Sensitive Data. Sensitive data refers to data that 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. We do not collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

Where we are required to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of the contract between us and you do not provide us with that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract (for example, to deliver goods or services to you). If you don’t provide us with the requested data, we may have to cancel a product or service you have ordered but if we do, we will notify you at the time.

We will only use your personal data for a purpose it was collected for or a reasonably compatible purpose if necessary. For more information on this please contact our DPO. In case we need to use your details for an unrelated new purpose we will let you know and explain the legal grounds for processing.

We may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent where this is required or permitted by law.

We do not carry out automated decision making or any type of automated profiling.

Marketing communications

Our lawful ground of processing your personal data to send you marketing communications is either your consent or our legitimate interests (namely to grow our business).

Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, we may send you marketing communications from us if (i) you made a purchase or asked for information from us about our goods or services or (ii) you agreed to receive marketing communications and in each case you have not opted out of receiving such communications since. Under these regulations, if you are a limited company, we may send you marketing emails without your consent. However, you can still opt out of receiving marketing emails from us at any time.

Before we share your personal data with any third party for their own marketing purposes we will get your express consent.

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by contacting our DPO.

If you opt out of receiving marketing communications this opt-out does not apply to personal data provided as a result of other transactions, such as purchases, warranty registrations etc. 

Disclosures of personal data

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below:

  • Service providers who provide IT and system administration services.
  • Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors, accountants and insurers.
  • Government bodies that require us to report processing activities.

We require all third parties to whom we transfer your data to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We only allow such third parties to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

International transfers

Countries outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) do not always offer the same levels of protection to your personal data, so European law has prohibited transfers of personal data outside of the EEA unless the transfer meets certain criteria.

Some third-party service providers (e.g. Google) are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.

We do not directly transfer your personal data out of the EEA by any other means.

Data security

We have put in place security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, altered, disclosed, or accessed without authorisation. We also allow access to your personal data only to those employees and partners who have a business need to know such data. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they must keep it confidential.

 We have procedures in place to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach if we are legally required to.

Our Information Technology (IT) is managed by a specialist IT support firm. Sophos Antivirus Intercept X Advanced is installed on all servers and staff personal computers/laptops (PCs). Sophos XG125 firewall is updated on an hourly basis and limits traffic in and out of all devices. All PCs are encrypted using bitlocker and managed by Sophos Central. All PCs also have local Windows firewall enabled. All servers are backed up every 24-hours using Veeam to a local backup store and to the IT support office, the remote store retains 1 years worth of monthly backup data. Complex passwords are used on all PCs. All PCs and servers are monitored using Datto AEM software and are set to apply Windows updates automatically. Servers are also updated regularly and critical updates are applied immediately. All firmware is updated regularly following the successful testing of any updates.

Data retention

We will only retain your personal/our contract 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.

When deciding what the correct time is to keep the data for we look at its amount, nature and sensitivity, potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure, the processing purposes, if these can be achieved by other means and legal requirements.

For tax purposes the law requires us to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they stop being customers.

We retain our clients dust samples for up to eight years in secure, off-site archive storage. Our clients have the right to request we return some or all of their samples at any time.  

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Your legal rights

Under data protection laws you have rights in relation to your personal data that include the right to request access, correction, erasure, restriction, transfer, to object to processing, to portability of data and (where the lawful ground of processing is consent) to withdraw consent.

 You can see more about these rights at:

Guide to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) Individual Rights 

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

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 refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances. A fee will be chargeable to retrieve archived dust samples from off-site storage.

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.

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.

If you are not happy with any aspect of how we collect and use your data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We should be grateful if you would contact us first if you do have a complaint so that we can try to resolve it for you.

Use of Cookies

The DustScan website uses "cookies" to help you personalise your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize DustScan pages, or register with DustScan site or services, a cookie helps DustScan to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same DustScan Web site, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the DustScan features that you customized.

Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the DustScan services or Web sites you visit.

Third-party links

Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these 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.

Changes to this Statement

DustScan will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect company and customer feedback. DustScan encourages you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how DustScan is protecting your information.

Contact Information

DustScan welcomes your comments regarding this Statement of Privacy. If you believe that DustScan has not adhered to this Statement, please contact our DPO Oliver Puddle - oliverp@dustscan.co.uk. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly determine and remedy the problem.

DustScanAQ would be pleased to hear from you if you would like to discuss your requirements and how we can help you with your project, please contact us on 01608 810110 or email info@dustscan.co.uk.