Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Alexander Duckham & Co. Limited (“Duckhams”, “we”, “us” or “our”) collects, uses and protects personal information through this website.

Duckhams does not sell products directly through this site, and there are no customer accounts, payments or ordering. Most of the information we handle comes from enquiry forms and from the tools that help you find the right oil or a place to buy it.

1. Who we are

Alexander Duckham & Co. Limited is the data controller responsible for the personal information collected through this website.

Company: Alexander Duckham & Co. Limited

Company number: 00162738

Contact: info [at] duckhams.com

Telephone: +44 (0)1204 589720

We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer, as we are not required to. Questions about this policy, or any request to exercise your rights, should go to the address above.

2. The information we collect

Information you give us

• your name, email address, telephone number, company and country when you submit an enquiry form
• the content of your enquiry, including any vehicle or product details you choose to include
• what you type into the oil advisor when you ask it a question
• a postcode or town when you search the stockist finder
• vehicle details, such as make, model or registration, when you use Find My Oil
• the details an entry form asks for, if you enter a competition, prize draw or promotion
• your email address, if you choose to sign up for updates where that is offered

Information collected automatically

• technical information such as IP address, browser type and version, device type, operating system and screen size
• usage information such as the pages you view, how you arrived at the site, and how you move through it
• cookie and consent preferences
• diagnostic information when something goes wrong, so we can find and fix the fault

Information about stockists

We publish a stockist finder so customers can find somewhere to buy Duckhams products. Most listings are branches of national retailers, and those details are company information rather than personal information. Where a stockist is a sole trader or a partnership, their business details are personal information and we treat them as such. We publish only what someone needs in order to find the shop, and any stockist can ask us to correct or remove their listing using the contact details in section 1.

We do not collect special category data through this website, and we do not ask for it. Please do not include health, biometric or similar information in an enquiry.

3. How we collect it

• directly from you, when you complete a form, use one of the site tools, or contact us
• automatically, through cookies and similar technologies, and through our hosting and security systems
• from third parties, where a distributor or retailer gives us details of a stockist to list

4. Why we use your information, and our lawful basis

We only use personal information where the law allows. The purposes below set out what we do and the basis we rely on.

Responding to enquiries

We use the details you submit to answer your question, to route it to the right team or market representative, and to keep a record of the exchange. Our basis is that the processing is necessary to take steps at your request, and our legitimate interest in managing and recording business enquiries.

Helping you find the right product

The oil advisor and Find My Oil use what you tell them about your vehicle to return a recommendation. The stockist finder uses the postcode or town you enter to order results by distance. Our basis is our legitimate interest in helping visitors find suitable products and somewhere to buy them.

Running, securing and improving the website

We use technical and usage information to keep the site working, to detect and block automated abuse, to diagnose faults and to understand which pages are useful. Our basis is our legitimate interest in operating a secure and reliable website.

Measuring our advertising

We measure which of our adverts lead to genuine enquiries. Our basis is our legitimate interest in understanding whether our advertising reaches the right people and is worth continuing. Section 6 explains exactly what is shared and in what form, and you can object at any time.

Analytics and cookies

Non-essential cookies and analytics run only where you have given consent through the cookie banner, and you can change your choice at any time.

Promotions, competitions and campaigns

Duckhams runs promotions and prize draws, sometimes with retail partners, and printed packs and point-of-sale material may carry codes or links that bring you to a campaign page on this site. Where you enter a promotion we use your details to administer it, to contact a winner and to keep the records that the promotion terms and the law require. Our basis is that the processing is necessary to take steps at your request, together with our legitimate interest in running and evidencing the promotion fairly. Any additional terms for a specific promotion are given with it.

Marketing

We do not currently send marketing emails from this website, and there is no newsletter sign-up on it. If we introduce one, we will only send marketing where you have asked for it, every message will carry an unsubscribe link, and you will be able to withdraw consent at any time without affecting anything else. Consent given for a promotion is not treated as consent to marketing.

Meeting legal obligations

We process information where we have to, for example to respond to a lawful request or to keep records the law requires.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we weigh your rights and reasonable expectations before we proceed, and we do not process information where our interest is outweighed by the effect on you.

If we ever need to use your information for a purpose that is not described here, we will explain the new purpose and the basis for it before we do.

5. Website tools

The oil advisor is an assistant that answers questions about Duckhams products. Its answers are grounded in our own product information. Your question is sent to a specialist AI provider, which generates the answer. Before it is sent, we automatically remove any email addresses, telephone numbers, postcodes and vehicle registrations that it recognises. You can ask us who that provider currently is using the contact details in section 1. We do not use these conversations to build a profile of you, and they are not used to train the provider's models.

Find My Oil returns a product recommendation from the vehicle details you enter. When you search by registration, or by make and model, those details are sent to our vehicle data provider, Olyslager, which identifies the vehicle and returns the recommended Duckhams products. We do not keep your registration once the result has been shown. Where analytics is on, we record the type of vehicle searched for (its make, model and year), never the registration.

The stockist finder converts the postcode or town you enter into an approximate location so results can be ordered by distance. That lookup is carried out by a public UK postcode service. We do not store your search against you or use it to identify you. We may keep aggregated figures about which areas people search in, so we can see where customers are looking for stockists and improve distribution. Our basis for that is our legitimate interest in understanding demand.

6. Sharing your information

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing.

Service providers

We share information with the providers that operate this website on our behalf. Each of them handles it under contract, only on our instructions, and only to the extent needed to do their job:

• hosting, content management and website security providers
• an email delivery provider, which sends enquiry notifications
• a specialist AI provider, whose language model generates the oil advisor's answers
• an error monitoring provider, which records diagnostic information when something goes wrong
• analytics providers, currently Google Analytics, where you have consented
• mapping and postcode lookup providers, used by the stockist finder
• a vehicle data provider, which identifies vehicles and returns product recommendations for Find My Oil

You can ask us who a particular provider is at any time using the contact details in section 1.

Advertising platforms

When you send us an enquiry, we share your email address, telephone number and country with Meta so that we can measure which of our adverts lead to genuine enquiries. These are hashed before they leave our systems, which converts them into a fixed string of characters that cannot be turned back into your details. We do not share your name or anything you write in your message. We rely on our legitimate interest in understanding which of our advertising works, and you can object at any time using the contact details in section 1.

Within Duckhams and our network

We may pass an enquiry to a Duckhams group company, an authorised distributor or a market representative where that is who needs to answer it. Trade, technical and partnership enquiries may be shared with the relevant business partner for the same reason.

Legal and professional

We may share information with professional advisers, regulators or authorities where the law requires it or to establish or defend a legal claim, and with a buyer or their advisers if the business is sold or reorganised.

7. International transfers

Duckhams operates internationally, and some of the providers above are based outside the United Kingdom. Where information is transferred out of the UK we rely on one of the following: a country the UK Government has assessed as providing adequate protection; the ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses; or, for providers in the United States, the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified under it.

You can ask us which mechanism applies to a particular provider using the contact details in section 1.

8. How long we keep information

We keep personal information only for as long as it is needed for the purpose it was collected for.

• enquiries and the correspondence attached to them: up to three years from the last contact, so we can pick up a returning conversation and keep a record of what was asked
• oil advisor conversations: not retained by us once the answer has been given
• postcodes entered into the stockist finder: not retained
• vehicle details entered into Find My Oil: not retained by us
• analytics information: for the period set on the analytics account, currently fourteen months
• error diagnostics: for a short period, normally ninety days, then deleted
• promotion and prize draw entries: for the period set out in that promotion's terms, and afterwards only where a record is needed to evidence that it was run fairly
• records we are required by law to keep: for as long as the law requires

Where we no longer need information but cannot delete it immediately, we restrict access to it until we can.

9. Your rights

You have rights over your personal information. You can ask us to:

• give you a copy of the information we hold about you
• correct information that is wrong or incomplete
• delete information where there is no good reason for us to keep it
• restrict how we use it while a question about it is resolved
• provide it in a portable format, where that right applies
• stop using it where you have withdrawn consent

Your right to object

Where we rely on legitimate interests, you have the right to object at any time. If you object we will stop that processing unless we can show compelling grounds to continue, and we will tell you if that is the case. If you object to your information being used to measure advertising, we will stop that.

We do not make decisions about you by automated means that produce legal effects or similarly significant effects, and we do not build marketing profiles from your use of this site.

You do not have to give us your personal information, but if you choose not to we may not be able to answer your enquiry.

Making a request

Write to info [at] duckhams.com. We may need to confirm your identity before we act, which is a safeguard to make sure information is not disclosed to the wrong person. We answer within one month, and will tell you if a complex request needs longer. There is no fee, unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK supervisory authority, at ico.org.uk. If you are in the EU or EEA, you may complain to your local supervisory authority instead.

10. Cookies and analytics

We use cookies and similar technologies to operate the website, remember your preferences, and measure how the site is used. Only the cookies needed to make the site work are set without your consent. Everything else, including analytics and any advertising measurement in your browser, runs only if you agree through the cookie banner, and you can change your choice at any time.

For more detail, please read our Cookie Policy.

11. Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal information, including encryption in transit, access controls, automated-abuse protection on the forms and tools, and monitoring for faults and intrusions. Access is limited to those who need it.

No website is completely secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect what we handle, and we have procedures for dealing with a suspected breach, including notifying the ICO and affected individuals where we are required to.

12. Children

This website is intended for a general, trade and motoring audience. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has given us information, please contact us and we will delete it.

13. Other websites

This site links to other websites, including distributor sites, the trade portal, motorsport partners and social media. Those sites have their own privacy policies and we are not responsible for them. Please read them before providing your information.

14. Changes to this policy

We update this policy when our practices or the law change. The current version is always on this page, and the date it was last updated is shown at the top. Where a change materially affects how we use your information, we will make that clear.