Privacy Policy

Introduction

This Privacy Notice sets out how we collect and process information about you when you interact with Abacus Performance Media Ltd, whether it is through Electric Road, www.electricroad.co.uk or Car Finder www.carfinder-services.co.uk including via Facebook (META) or through completing surveys, owner reviews and/or quizzes. 

We will only use personal data that we collect in line with applicable UK laws, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regs (PECR) in respect of marketing to you.   

We only ask for or collect your personal information to help us run and improve our services, and to deliver automotive brand information that you have requested, or we believe will be of interest to you based upon your engagement and responses to our quizzes, surveys, or our advertisements on Facebook. This helps us understand your interests and provide you with information about brands, services and offers that may be of interest to you. 

We only collect information that you choose to provide, and we are committed to handling it responsibly. This means we will use your data to send you relevant information about automotive products and services that we believe that you may be interested in. 

We also want to reassure you that we keep your data safe. We follow strict rules to protect your information from unauthorised access or unlawful use. In this notice, you will find detailed information about the types of data we collect, how we use it, and your rights regarding your personal information. Thank you for trusting us with your data, and we hope you find our services helpful. 

Who we are

Electric Road and Car Finder are part of ABACUS Performance Media LTD, a limited company registered in England and Wales (registration number 13693616).

We are also registered with the Information Commissioners Office (registration number ZB691663).

Our registered address is: 52 Peverel Drive, Bearsted, Maidstone, England, ME14 4PS. 

Data collection and Use

Legal Basis

We’re allowed to process your data for one or more of these lawful reasons: 

1.    Consent

Where we process your personal data for direct marketing, whether for the purpose of sending communications from us or information on behalf of our automotive business partners (third parties), it will be based on us having obtained appropriate consent from you. You may remove your consent at any time by contacting info@electricroad.co.uk or unsubscribing via the link in our emails or newsletter.

2.   Legitimate interests

We consider that we have a legitimate interest in analysing your engagement with us to ensure that you receive appropriate and relevant communications from us or where we send you information on behalf of our automotive partners. We do this by tagging the source of your engagement with us e.g. via one of our surveys.  We always balance our use of this lawful basis against your lawful data protection rights and freedoms.

We may process your personal data to keep audit logs, maintain data security or to perform research and development.

What we collect

Personal data is information that is capable of identifying you, directly or indirectly, as an individual – on its own or in combination with other information.

Depending on how you have contacted us we may collect some or all of the following information about you for our own usage or shared directly with one of our automotive partners where you have specifically expressed an interest in their products or services e.g. requesting a test drive: 

1.              Identity information – your name 

2.              Your contact postal address  

3.              Telephone number(s) (mobile and/ or landline) 

4.              Your email address(es) 

5.              Records of your communications with us 

6.              Marketing and Communication data e.g. whether you have opened an email from us, or your expressed contact preferences

Where you have requested a specific engagement with one of our automotive partners e.g. to request a test drive, the partner may request us to collect additional information on their behalf, for example your preferred funding method. We will only collect this type of information in these specific circumstances.

How we use your information

We use your personal data for a number of purposes

·     To provide requested services and information to you 

·     To analyse your engagement with us in order to provide you with relevant information and/or to provide appropriate marketing on behalf of selected automotive industry partners. 

·     To keep a record of, and to respond to, any communications with you or enquiry from you 

·     To send you marketing information from automotive partners that you may be interested in when you have engaged with us through our surveys, quizzes or prize draws.

·     Social media marketing – we engage in social media marketing on platforms such as Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter). While we utilise Facebook ads to reach our audience, we do not employ Facebook Lookalike Audiences or Custom Audiences. Our marketing activities are designed to inform and engage with you while respecting your privacy and data preferences.

·     To provide your details to our automotive industry partners where you have specifically expressed an interest in, or requested details of their products or services

·     To ensure we do not send unwanted information if you have informed us that you do not want to be contacted

·     To comply with applicable law and regulations.

Cookies and third-party technologies

Our website uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience.

Cookies are small text files that are stored on your device when you visit a website.

When you use our website, we use Google Analytics to collect information such as your IP address, the browser you use (e.g. Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge etc.), domain names, the time of day you accessed the website and referring website addresses.

This information helps improve our online services, ensures security and helps protect against fraud. It also assists with diagnosing online problems with our website.

We also have cookies that enable a seamless transition of your information to our 3^rd party automotive partners where you specifically request a service or product from them.

Information sharing and Disclosure

We limit who we share your information with but do use contracted suppliers to help deliver our services.

Where you engage with one of our surveys, quizzes or owner reviews from us we use Typeform to capture your details. Typeform are an EU based organisation, and your data is processed by them on Amazon Web Servers (AWS) in Virginia USA. Typeform’s privacy notice can be found here.

Our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform is ConvertKit and your information is transferred to Idaho in the USA. ConverKit are signatories to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and under the UK Data Protection (Adequacy) (USA) Reg 2003 (known as the UK-US ‘data bridge’) are deemed to meet the required standards to maintain the privacy of citizens when data is transferred to and processed by them on behalf of UK based organisations. Their privacy policy is here

Where you express an interest in, or request details of one of our automotive partners they may require more information than Electric Road or Car Finder need for our own purposes. In these instances, your information is captured via our website and through our Facebook advertising on Driftrock. Driftrock are a UK based company and their privacy notice can be found here. We have signed and comply with Driftrock’s Data Processing Agreement

Some specific automotive organisations e.g. BMW require us to utilise their data and technical partners. In these instances, your information is shared from Driftrock to Leadscale, a UK company whose CRM is hosted in the USA and whose technical support services are based in India. Their privacy policy is here. 

Automotive Partners

Electric Road and Car Finder currently partner with the following automotive brands:

·       BMW

·       Ford

Information Retention and Deletion

We keep your personal data in a form which allows you to be identified for no longer than is necessary for the purposes we are processing your data for.

Your marketing preferences

We will retain your preference within our marketing platform to ensure that we do not continue to send you unwanted marketing emails. We will retain your preference information indefinitely unless you request us to remove your details.

Profiling and audience analysis data retention

If you unsubscribe from our mailings, our CRM will automatically cease and delete the analysis we have previously carried out to understand your engagement. Where you may have provided your personal information via one of our surveys or a vehicle review, the review itself or survey will be retained in an anonymous format.

Security

We ensure there are appropriate technical and organisational controls in place to protect your personal details both within our organisation and with the suppliers we use to process your information.

Information is retained in secure electronic systems and access is restricted to those who need it.

Choice and transparency

We are transparent about how we use your information and give you control over your privacy rights.

·         Your marketing preferences

You may change your marketing preferences at any time by unsubscribing via the link at the bottom of any email you receive from Electric Road or Car Finder. We will retain your preference within our marketing platform to ensure that we do not continue to send you unwanted marketing emails.

You have a number of rights under UK data protection law. These are listed below, along with our contact details, should you wish to make a request.

·         Informed: You have the right to be informed about how we handle your personal data.  This privacy notice is one of the ways we do this.

·         Access: You have the right to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you and the purposes for which we are using it.

·         Rectification: You have the right to ask us to change any details that we hold which are incorrect, inaccurate or need updating.

·         Erasure (known as the ‘right to be forgotten’): You have the right to ask us to delete your personal details under certain circumstances. If you subscribe to our email list, we can quickly fulfil your request, but in other circumstances there may be reasons why we need to keep information about you.

·         Object: You have the absolute right to object to receiving direct marketing from us.  You also have the right to raise an objection about how we are handling your personal information, and in these circumstances, you have the following further right:

·         Restriction: You have the right to ask us to restrict or suppress your personal information. This would mean we’d store it but not use it.

·         Portability: You have the right to obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purposes across different services.  Due to the nature of our organisation and the limited nature of the personal data we handle, we do not believe this right is likely to apply.

You also have the right to make a complaint if you believe we have not handled your information appropriately. We would prefer that you contact us in the first instance so we can discuss your concerns and put things right, but you also have the right to escalate your concerns at any time to the UK Regulator (The Information Commissioner’s Office) by contacting them here

Contact

How to get in touch

The people with responsibility for data protection at Electric Road and Car Finder are our Directors, Ed Whelan and Russell Whitehouse.

If you want to exercise any of your rights, please contact us at info@electricroad.co.uk