Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy

I. Who we are and the purpose of this Privacy Policy

hscale Limited (we, us our or hscale), the owner and operator of www.hscaledc.com, is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy sets out information on how we handle your personal information, in particular, about the type of data we collect when you visit and/or use our Site and on how we use this data. This policy also applies in respect of any personal information we receive through other communication channels (e.g. by email and social media).

This policy may change from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

1. Name of the controller of the website

hscale Limited is the owner and operator of this website and is therefore the primary data controller of your personal information. This means that hscale Limited decides why and how your personal information is processed.

We also operate affiliated companies in multiple countries around who may be a data controller of your personal information where you interact with those companies directly.

Together these companies are referred to in this Privacy Policy as the hscale Group.

Different members of the hscale Group provide our services and may act as a data controller of your personal information. This Privacy Policy covers all the processing of your personal information of the hscale Group. If you would like confirmation on which entity acts as a data controller for your personal information then please contact us using the details in Section I.(2). of this Privacy Policy.

2. Contact Us

Please direct any queries about this policy or about the way we process your personal information to us using our contact details below.

info@hscaledc.com

3. Restriction of the scope of this Privacy Policy for visits to our website

Our Privacy Policy only applies to our content which is stored on our servers. It expressly does not cover any links to websites of third parties in our offerings

II. Processing of personal information in the context of informational use of our website

1. Description and scope of data processing

We collect personal information from you in the following ways:

A. Personal information you give to us:
This personal information is provided by you entirely voluntarily and includes personal information you submit on the Site or on social media. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with the Site. The information you give to us includes:

• Company;
• Name;
• Email address;
• Any information you choose to include in the text-field;
• Enquiry details and other contact information; and
• Records of any correspondence and responses.

If we do not receive this information, you may be unable to use or interact with certain parts of Site and communicate with us effectively.

B Personal information we collect about you:
We may automatically collect information about your use of the Site, such as the number and duration of visits to the Site and details of which particular pages have been visited. We will anonymise this information so that it is not attributable to you (Anonymised Information).

We also automatically collect technical information, including anonymous data collected by the hosting server for statistical purposes, the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer or device to the Internet, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform as well as cookie, tracking pixel and beacon identification information (Technical Information). Please Section IV of this Privacy Policy for further information.

We use any collected Technical Information and Anonymised Information to analyse how the Site is functioning and how it is used by users, for insight purposes and to help us maintain and improve the Site on an ongoing basis.

2. Purposes and legal bases of data processing

Data protection law requires us to have a valid reason to process your personal information. The law refers to each reason as a ‘lawful basis’. The purposes for which we use your personal information and the lawful basis on which we rely is as follows:

Where you have provided CONSENT

We may use and process your personal information where you have consented for us to do so for the following purposes:

• contact you via email with marketing information about the Site and our services:
  • when you indicate that you would like to receive such marketing from us (and legally we require your consent to send this communication); or
  • when you refresh your marketing preferences when responding to a request from us to do so; and
• to identify and record when you have received, opened or engaged with the Site or our electronic communications (please see Section IV of this Privacy Policy for more information).

You may withdraw your consent for us to use your information in any of these ways at any time. Please see Section III for further details.

Where necessary to comply with our LEGAL OBLIGATIONS

We will use your personal information to comply with our legal obligations:

• to send an email to confirm your registration to our newsletter (where it is a legal obligation to verify your email address before adding you to our mailing lists);
• to keep a record relating to the exercise of any of your rights relating to our processing of your personal information;
• to comply with a request from you in connection with the exercise of your rights (for example where you have asked us not to contact you for marketing purposes, we will keep a record of this on our suppression lists in order to be able to comply with your request);
• to anonymise or delete your personal information when it is no longer required for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy;
• to comply with court orders or other notices where failure to do so would result in us breaking the law; and
• to handle and resolve any complaints we receive relating to our processing of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy.

Where there is a LEGITIMATE INTEREST

We may use and process your personal information where it is necessary for us to pursue our legitimate interests as a business, or that of a third party, for the following purposes:

Processing necessary for us to provide customer services in relation to an order you have made which may not be contractual requirement

• to provide effective services to you;
• to process and deal with any complaints or enquiries about services we have provided to you;

Processing necessary for us to promote our business and measure the reach and effectiveness of our campaigns

• to contact you with marketing information by post or by phone (if consent is not required for this communication);
• for analysis and insight conducted to inform our marketing and business strategies, and to enhance your user experience;
• to identify and record when you have received, opened or engaged with the Site or our electronic communications (if consent is not required for this communication, please see Section IV of this Privacy Policy for more information);

Processing necessary for us to respond to changing market conditions and the needs of our users

• to analyse, evaluate and improve the Site so that your visit and use of the Site and social media pages are more useful and enjoyable (we will generally use data amalgamated from many people so that it does not identify you personally);
• to undertake market analysis and research (including contacting you with customer surveys) so that we can better understand your use of the Site;

Processing necessary for us to operate the administrative and technical aspects of our business efficiently and effectively

• to administer the Site and our social media pages and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, testing, statistical purposes;
• for the prevention of fraud and other criminal activities;
• for network and information security in order for us to take steps to protect your information against loss or damage, theft or unauthorised access;
• for the purposes of corporate restructure or reorganisation or sale of our business or assets;
• for efficiency, accuracy or other improvements of our databases and systems, for example, by combining systems or consolidating records we hold about you;
• to enforce or protect our contractual or other legal rights or to bring or defend legal proceedings;
• to inform you of updates to our terms and conditions and policies; and
• for other general administration including managing any reports you make, your queries, complaints, or claims, and to send service messages to you.

Where necessary for us to carry out PRE-CONTRACT STEPS you have requested or for the performance of our CONTRACT

We will use your personal information where this is necessary for us to perform our contract with you or to carry out any pre-contract steps you’ve asked us to so that you can enter into that contract, for the following purposes:

• To understand the nature of your needs and to collect personal information necessary to enter into a suitable contract;
• To fulfil the services you have contracted with us and manage your business account; and
• To enable you to rely on any contractual warranty or guarantee you have in place with us.

3. Disclosure to third parties

a. Recipients of personal information

To facilitate the purposes described we may share your data with third parties we use to process orders and inquiries. In this context we may provide access to your information to third parties that support our provision of services to you. Our suppliers can be categorised as follows:

Recipient / relationship to us	Industry sector (& sub-sector)
Advertising, PR, digital and creative agencies	Media (Advertising & PR)
Cloud software system providers, including database, email and document management providers	IT (Cloud Services)
Facilities and technology service providers including scanning and data destruction providers	IT (Data Management)
Insurers and insurance brokers	Insurance (Underwriting & Broking)
Legal, security and other professional advisers and consultants	Professional Services (Legal & Accounting)
Market and customer research providers	Media (Market Research)
Social media platforms	Media (Social Media)
Site and data analytics platform providers	IT (Data Analytics)
Site and app developers	IT (Software Development)
Site hosting services providers	IT (Hosting)
Members of the hscale Group	Real Estate & Construction (Data Centres)

When sending your information to third parties, we only disclose to them any personal information that is necessary for them to provide their service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it other than in accordance with our specific instructions.

Otherwise we only provide your personal information to third parties in the event:

• we are obligated to do so by compulsory legal regulations;
• if you ask us to do so or have consented to the disclosure; or
• of any third party who is restructuring, selling or acquiring some or all of our business or assets or otherwise in the event of a merger, re-organisation or similar event.

b. Where we store your personal information

Our data processing operations may involve the transfer of certain personal information to jurisdictions outside the UK/EEA.

We will implement appropriate safeguards to secure the transfer of your personal information to jurisdictions outside the UK/EEA. These safeguards include:

• relying on declarations made by regulators or governments (e.g. adequacy decisions/regulations)
• where the third country where data is being sent is not subject to such declaration, the standard contractual clauses approved by relevant regulators or governments, as applicable;
• ensuring that the recipients are subscribed to international frameworks; or
• such alternative measures as are valid and appropriate at the time.

4. Data retention

If we collect your personal information, the length of time for which 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 do not retain personal information in an identifiable format for longer than is necessary.

We may need your personal information to establish, bring or defend legal claims.  For this purpose, we will always retain your personal information for 7 years after the date it is no longer needed by us for any of the purposes listed under Section I.(2). above. The only exceptions to this are where:

• the law requires us to hold your personal information for a longer period, or delete it sooner;
• you exercise your right to have the information erased (where it applies) and we do not need to hold it in connection with any of the reasons permitted or required under the law (see Section III below); or
• you exercise your right to require us to retain your personal information for a period longer than our stated retention period (see Section IV below).

5. Security

We take diligent precautions to protect your data against manipulations, loss, destruction and against access by unauthorised persons. We continuously improve our security measures in accordance with the development of technology. All employees are obligated to maintain data confidentiality and are trained on their obligations to protect your personal information.

We use https to transmit data in a tap-proof manner on the internet. Through the use of TLS (Transport Layer Security), an encryption protocol for secure data transmission on the internet, we protect confidential data as best as possible. You can recognise the use of this data transmission security by the small lock symbol in the upper left corner of the browser and the use of the https scheme (instead of http) as part of our Internet address.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do everything possible to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any personal information during its transmission to us online. You accept the inherent security implications of using the internet and will not hold us responsible for any breach of security unless we are at fault.

6. Automated Processing

We do not envisage that any decisions that have a legal or significant effect on you will be taken about you using purely automated means, however we will update this Privacy Policy and inform you if this position changes.

Your personal information will be partially processed automatically, to analyse certain personal aspects (profiling). Profiling is used in the following areas: We are subject to certain legal and regulatory requirements, e.g. anti-money laundering, terrorist financing and asset risk offenses. Concurrently, these measures are for your protection.

III. Your rights

As a data subject, you have various rights with regard to your personal information that is processed by the hscale Group. In relation to certain rights, we may ask you for information to confirm your identity and, where applicable, to help us to search for your personal information. Except in rare cases, we will respond to you within 1 calendar month from either:

• the date that we have confirmed your identity; or
• where we do not need to do this because we already have this information, from the date we received your request.

You have the following rights, some of which may only apply in certain circumstances:

• Right to rectification: You have the right to have your information corrected if it is inaccurate and to have incomplete personal information completed. If you change your name or address/email address, or you discover that any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please let us know by contacting us using the details in Section I.(2). of this Privacy Policy.
• Right to withdraw consent: You have the right to withdraw your consent to processing your personal information. Where we rely on your consent as the lawful basis for processing your personal information, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the details in Section I.(2). of this Privacy Policy. If you would like to withdraw your consent to receiving any direct marketing to which you previously opted-in, you can also do so using our unsubscribe tool. If you withdraw your consent, our use of your personal information before you withdraw is still lawful.
• Right to deletion: You have the right to request the deletion of your personal information. In certain circumstances, you may ask for your personal information to be removed from our systems by contacting us using the details in Section I.(2). of this Privacy Policy. Unless there is a reason that the law allows us to use your personal information for longer, we will make reasonable efforts to comply with your request.
• Right to restriction: You have the right to request the restriction of the processing of your personal information by contacting us using the details in Section I.(2). of this Privacy Policy. You may ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in the following situations:
  • where you believe it is unlawful for us to do so; or
  • you have objected to its use and our investigation is pending or you require us to keep it in connection with legal proceedings.

  In these situations, we may only process your personal information whilst its processing is restricted if we have your consent or are legally permitted to do so, for example for storage purposes, to protect the rights of another individual or company or in connection with legal proceedings.

• Right to access: You have the right to request access to your personal information and how we process it. You have the right to ask for a copy of the information that we hold about you by contacting us using the details in Section I.(2). of this Privacy Policy. We may not provide you with a copy of your personal information if this concerns other individuals or we have another lawful reason to withhold that information.
• Right to data portability: You have the right to request to electronically move, copy or destroy your personal information in a standard, machine-readable form by contacting us using the details in Section I.(2). of this Privacy Policy. Where we rely on your consent as the lawful basis for processing your personal information or need to process it in connection with a contract in place directly with you, you may ask us to provide you with a copy of that information in a structured data file. We will provide this to you electronically in a structured, commonly used and machine readable form, such as a CSV file.You can ask us to send your personal information directly to another service provider, and we will do so if this is technically possible. We may not provide you with a copy of your personal information if this concerns other individuals or we have another lawful reason to withhold that information.
• Right of objection: you have the right to object to processing of your personal information.  Where we rely on our legitimate interests as the lawful basis for processing your personal information for particular purposes, you may object to us using your personal information for these purposes by contacting us using the details in Section I.(2). of this Privacy Policy. Except for the purposes for which we are sure we can continue to process your personal information, we will temporarily stop processing your personal information in line with your objection until we have investigated the matter. If we agree that your objection is justified in accordance with your rights under data protection laws, we will permanently stop using your data for those purposes. Otherwise, we will provide you with our justification as to why we need to continue using your data.
• Right to lodge a complaint: You have the right to complain to a data protection supervisory authority. As a rule, you can contact the supervisory authority of your usual place of residence or workplace or the registered office of the responsible controller.

IV. Cookies and social media

1. Presence on social networks 

a. Description of activities

We maintain publicly accessible profiles on social networks. The individual social networks used by us can be found below.

Social networks such as Facebook etc. can generally comprehensively analyse your user behaviour when you visit their website or a website with integrated social media content (e.g. Like buttons or advertising banners). By visiting our social media presences, numerous data protection-relevant processing operations are triggered. In detail:

If you are logged into your social media account and visit our social media presence, the operator of the social media portal can assign this visit to your user account. However, your personal information may also be collected under certain circumstances if you are not logged in or do not have an account with the respective social media portal. In this case, this data collection takes place, for example, via cookies that are stored on your end device or by recording your IP address.

With the help of the data collected in this way, the operators of the social media portals can create user profiles in which your preferences and interests are stored. In this way, you can be shown interest-based advertising inside and outside the respective social media presence. Provided you have an account with the respective social network, the interest-based advertising may be displayed on all devices on which you are or were logged in.

Please also note that we are not able to track all processing procedures on the social media portals. Depending on the provider, further processing procedures may therefore be carried out by the operators of the social media portals. For details, please refer to the terms of use and data protection provisions of the respective social media portals.

Facebook (Meta)

We have a profile on Facebook. The provider is Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd, 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2 in Ireland, a company of the Meta Group (Meta Platforms Inc., 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA) (“Facebook” or “Meta”).

We have entered into a Joint Processing Agreement (Controller Addendum) with Facebook. This agreement specifies the data processing operations for which we or Facebook are responsible when you visit our Facebook page. You can view this agreement at the following link: https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms/page_controller_addendum

You can adjust your advertising settings yourself in your user account. To do so, click on the following link and log in: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads.

For details, please refer to Facebook’s privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/.

LinkedIn

We have a profile on LinkedIn. The provider is LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company, Wilton Plaza, Wilton Place, Dublin 2, Ireland. LinkedIn uses advertising cookies.

If you would like to disable LinkedIn advertising cookies, please use the following link: https://www.linkedin.com/psettings/guest-controls/retargeting-opt-out.

For details on how they handle your personal information, please refer to LinkedIn’s privacy policy: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy.

YouTube

We operate a YouTube channel for which YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066, USA, is the provider. When you visit one of our pages on which a YouTube video is embedded, YouTube sets a cookie that stores your IP address and our URL. If you are logged into your YouTube account, YouTube can assign your interactions on our website to your profile using cookies. If you are not logged into a Google Account or YouTube account, Google stores data with a unique identifier associated with your device, browser or app.

Most of the data received and processed by YouTube is stored on Google servers in the US. The retention period of the collected data varies. Some data can be manually deleted by you at any time, while others are automatically deleted after a certain period of time and still others are stored for a longer period of time

You generally have the option to manually delete data in your Google Account. Even if you are not signed in to a Google Account, you can delete some data associated with your device, browser or app. You can also set your browser to delete or disable cookies from Google.

b. Responsible party and assertion of rights

If you visit one of our social media sites (e.g. Facebook), we are jointly responsible with the operator of the social media platform for the data processing operations triggered during this visit. In principle, you can assert your rights (information, correction, deletion, restriction of processing, data portability and complaint) both vis-à-vis us and vis-à-vis the operator of the respective social media portal (e.g. vis-à-vis Facebook).

Please note that despite the joint responsibility with the social media portal operators, we do not have full influence on the data processing procedures of the social media portals. Our options are largely determined by the corporate policy of the respective provider.

2. Cookies and related technologies

a. What are cookies?

When we refer to cookies we mean the small data files that are placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website and which are used to recognise you as a user when you visit and return to the website or in some cases in email communications we send to you, either for the duration of your visit (using a ‘session cookie’) or for repeat visits (a ‘persistent cookie’), but also other technologies which perform a similar functions (such as web beacons, flash cookies, pixel-tags etc).

More information on how cookies work can be found on the following website: http://www.allaboutcookies.org.

b. Description and scope of data processing

Cookies are widely used by website owners in order to make their website work, or function more efficiently, to provide reporting information, to more generally provide you with a better and safe experience.

We use first party cookies (cookies set by us) and third-party cookies (cookies set by someone other than us) for the reasons set out in this Privacy Policy.

Some cookies are required for technical reasons in order for our Site to operate, and we refer to these as “essential” or “strictly necessary” cookies. Other cookies are optional and either allow us to provide enhanced functionality or personalise elements of our Site to you or enable us to analyse how users interact with our Site in order to more generally enhance your experience. Third parties serve cookies through our Site for functionality, analytics, and other purposes. This is described in more detail below.

• Essential cookies. These cookies are strictly necessary for the operation of our Site. Such cookies enable core functionality within the Site, are used for security, network management, accessibility, to allow you to access secure areas (such as your account) and to remember your cookies preferences. As a result of the essential nature of these cookies, they cannot be opted out, but you can disable or delete them by adjusting your browser settings. Please note, however, that without these cookies, your user experience may be impacted and you may not be able to access secure parts of our Site (such as your account page).
• Analytics cookies. These cookies assist us with improving how our Site works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. For example, certain Google Analytics cookies gives us information that allows us to recognise and count the number of visitors to our Site and to see how visitors move around our Site when they are using it.
• Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our Site and to embed functionality from third party services. They assist with improving the functionality of content to you including by remembering your preferences and managing the performance of the Site. Without these cookies, certain functionality (like embedded video content) may become unavailable.
• Advertising and Social Networking cookies. Advertising cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.Social networking cookies are used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on our Site through third party social networking Site. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes.Advertising and social networking cookies may be set through our Site or by our partners. They may also be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites.

The list of cookies we use is set out in the Cookie Table at the end of this Privacy Policy.

c. How can you control cookies?

You have the right to control and manage cookies. In particular, you may manage your cookie preferences through the consent management platform.  Please bear in mind that blocking or refusing cookies can impact your user experience, and parts of our Site may no longer be fully accessible.

Most web browsers will allow you to see what cookies you have and delete them on an individual basis or block cookies from specific or all of the Site. For more information on how to modify your browsers settings to block or filer cookies, please see www.aboutcookies.org or www.cookiecentral.com/faq.

In addition, most advertising networks offer you a way to opt out of targeted advertising. If you would like to find out more information, please visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ or  http://www.youronlinechoices.com

Our Site also use Google Analytics, a popular web analytics service offered by Google. You can opt-out of having your anonymised browsing activity within Site recorded by Google Analytics by clicking on the following link: http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/privacy.html.

In relation to our Site you can also update your preferences in the settings of our Consent Management Tool.

d. What about other tracking technologies, like web beacons?

Cookies are not the only way to recognise or track visitors to a website.  We may use other, similar technologies from time to time, like web beacons (sometimes called “tracking pixels” or “clear gifs”). These are tiny graphics files that contain a unique identifier that enable us to recognise when someone has visited our Site or opened an email that we have sent them.  This allows us, for example, to monitor the traffic patterns of users from one page within our Site to another, to deliver or communicate with cookies, to understand whether you have come to our Site from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website, to improve site performance, and to measure the success of e-mail marketing campaigns.  In many instances, these technologies are reliant on cookies to function properly, and so declining cookies will impair their functioning.

We also use session replay tools (in accordance with applicable law).  Session replay tools log your interactions with the Site, such as how you move throughout the Site or engage with the Site.  The information collected through session replay tools helps us to understand your Site experience and identify and fix technical issues visitors may have while using the Site.

Your rights with regard to data processing are outlined in Section III of this Privacy Policy.