Privacy Policy

Your privacy is important to us.

All data captured by QMS International is processed to enable us to provide you with our consultation and certification services.

This page details the personal information QMS, and the Citation Group, may retain, process and share with third parties relating to your business and its employees.

QMS is committed to ensuring that your information is secure, accurate and relevant. To prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have implemented suitable physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure personal data we hold.

QMS collects information about our customers to help us review and improve our service offering and website, ensuring the best possible experience for our customers. We also use this information to re-market our services online through text adverts and image adverts.

Inbound and outbound calls may be recorded for training, fraud prevention and investigative purposes – these are processed in QMS’s legitimate interest.

Some of the information we gather about you is gathered via cookies which are placed on your device. This information usually includes:

What information does QMS collect?

Your geographical location
Your age
Your gender

In addition to this, these cookies also provide information regarding the search terms you used, the amount of time you spent on a specific web page and the device you used to access our website.

You are also asked to provide some information directly, by completing web forms, submitting search queries, logging into our client portal, Launchpad or by contacting us for support. The types of information we gather and store in such instances, includes:

Your name
Your email address
Your phone number

Other types of personal information we will typically process are limited to the following:

Name and contact details – such as business address, telephone number, email address
Employment details – such as job title/position, office location
Financial information – such as banking details (business accounts)
IT information – information required to provide access to QMS systems and networks such as IP addresses, log files and login information
Training information – courses undertaken as part of employment

However, in some circumstances, we may be sent other personal or sensitive personal data when evidencing compliance with ISO standards (as part of our auditing function): for example, information about racial/ethnic origin, gender and disabilities, copies of identification documents, medical information etc. It is the client’s responsibility to ensure that any data provided to QMS is done in line with their GDPR obligations.

How do you Control the Information Being Collected?

When you enter the QMS website you will be provided with a cookie notice which enables you to control whether we can gather information about you during each visit. In addition to this we have added opt-in notices to our web forms, to ensure you are aware of how the information you are providing will be used.

If you have opted into something and would like to change your preferences, you can opt out from receiving interest-based advertising from QMS and the Citation Group by visiting our Email Contact Preferences page.

If you would like to opt out of Google’s use of cookies, please visit Google’s Ads Settings. Alternatively, you can opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative Opt Out page.

If at any point you would like to request a copy of the personal information QMS has retained about you, please put such requests in writing (or email) to the QMS Data Protection Officer – contact details are provided at the bottom of this page.

Your rights

Under data protection legislation, you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the information we hold about you.

These rights include:

The Right of Subject Access – this is the right to access data we hold about you and, where required, an explanation of that data.
The Right to Rectification – this is the right to have inaccurate or incomplete data rectified.
The Right to Erasure – this is also known as the ‘right to be forgotten’ and means that in certain circumstances you have the right to ask us to delete data we hold on you.
The Right to Restrict Processing – this is where you can request that we restrict/block processing of personal data (but still retain it)
The Right to Data Portability – this allows people to reuse their persona data by requesting it in a useable format.
The Right to Object – this right allows you to object to us processing your personal data. This is typically related to processing based on legitimate interest, performance of a task in the public interest, direct marketing and processing for scientific or historical research.

You can read more about these rights on the Information Commissioner's Office website.

Data Protection Policies and Statements

Below you can find a list of Data Protection Policies and Statements currently in use at QMS, relating to the use of your personal information:

Should there be any further Policies relating to the use of your personal information which you would like to see, please put such requests in writing (or email) to the QMS Data Protection offices, using the details shown at the bottom of this page.

Complaints

QMS International tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate. We would also welcome any suggestions for improving our procedures.

This privacy notice was drafted with brevity and clarity in mind. It does not provide exhaustive detail of all aspects of QMS International’s collection and use of personal information. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed. Any requests for this should be sent to the address below.

If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office in their capacity as the statutory body which oversees data protection law.