Privacy Policy

Thank you for your interest in this Privacy Policy! At Visual Square, we take the protection of your Personal Data very seriously.

In principle, we will only use your Personal Data in accordance with the applicable data protection laws, in particular with the UK`s Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA”) and the EU`s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), and only as described in this Privacy Policy.

Unfortunately, it is in the nature of things that these explanations sound very technical, but we have tried to describe the most important things as simply and clearly as possible when creating them.

Responsible for data processing

Responsible for data processing in accordance with the provisions of the DPA and GDPR is:

Visual Square

Company Registration details:
VISUAL SQUARE LIMITED
Registered in England & Wales No. 09733247

London
86-90 Paul Street
EC2A 4NE

If you have any questions about your Personal Data or about data protection at Visual Square in general, you can reach us via email using admin@visual-square.com

General information on data processing

In the course of our business and website operations, we process your Personal Data . This also includes disclosure by transmission to third parties and, where applicable, to so-called third countries outside the UK. Where we transfer data outside the UK, this is governed by Processing Agreements that include Standard Contractual Clauses to ensure a high level of data protection.

Data processing

All Personal Data that we obtain from you via the website will only be processed if:

• you have given your consent,
• the data is necessary for the fulfilment of a contract / pre-contractual measures,
• the data is necessary for the fulfilment of a legal obligation or
• the data is necessary to protect the legitimate interests, provided that your interests are not overridden.

Data Storage and retention

Visual Square processes and stores your Personal Data only for the period of time required to achieve the respective processing purpose or for as long as a legal retention period (in particular the UK`s commercial and tax law which is typically 6 years) exists. Once the purpose has been achieved or the retention period has expired, the corresponding data is routinely deleted.

Data that you provide automatically

a) Hosting
To provide our website, we use the services of Hostinger International, Ltd who process all data to be processed in connection with the operation of our website on our behalf. The legal basis for the data processing is our legitimate interest in providing our website.

b) Log files
We or rather Hostinger on our behalf, collects data on every access to our website. The access data includes the name of the website accessed, file, date and time of access, amount of data transferred, notification of successful access, browser type and version, the user’s operating system, referrer URL (the previously visited page), IP address and the requesting provider.

Log file information is stored for security reasons (e.g., for the clarification of abuse or fraud) for a maximum of 7 days and then deleted. Data whose further storage is necessary for evidentiary purposes is exempt from deletion until the respective incident is finally clarified. The legal basis for the data processing is our legitimate interest in providing an appealing website.

c) Use of cookies
We use so-called cookies on our web site. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your respective device (PC, smartphone, tablet, etc.) and saved by your browser. For further information please refer to our Cookie Policy. The legal basis for the use of cookies is your consent as well as our legitimate interest.

d) Google Maps
Our website uses Google Maps on Google LLC, to visually display our location. When using Google Maps, Google also collects, processes, and uses data about visitors’ use of the map functions, and this may include your IP address and device IP. The integration of Google Maps represents a legitimate interest.

e) Wordpress
We also use the Content Management System (CMS) of WordPress a service provided by Automattic Inc to publish and maintain the created and edited content and texts on our website. This means that all content and texts submitted to us is transferred to WordPress. This represents a legitimate interest.

Data that you provide automatically

Based on both, your consent when you first visit our website and our legitimate interest, we use the following tools for analytics. For further details, please also refer to our Cookie Policy.

a) Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics from Google LLC to evaluate your use of our website, to compile reports on the activities and to provide other services related to the use of our website in order to improve the user experience. When Google Analytics is used, interactions of website visitors are primarily recorded and systematically evaluated with the help of cookies.

Google states that it will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You can prevent the storage of cookies by setting your browser accordingly. You can also prevent the collection of the data generated by Google as well as the processing of this data by Google by downloading and installing the browser plugin available under the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en. The use of Google Analytics is based on your consent.

b) Hotjar
We use Hotjar, a web analytics service provided by Hotjar Ltd, to better understand usage patterns, the needs of our users and to optimise our services and user experience. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect information about user behaviour and user devices (in particular, a device’s IP address (which is collected and stored in anonymised form), screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic information (on a country-by-country basis only), preferred language for viewing my website).

Hotjar stores this data in a pseudonymised user profile. Neither Hotjar nor we will use this information to identify individual users, nor will the data be merged with other data about individual users. You can object to the creation of user profiles, the storage of data about your use of our website by Hotjar, and the use of tracking cookies by Hotjar on other sites at any time by following this link https://www.hotjar.com/opt-out. The use of Hotjar is based on your consent.

c) Remarketing
On the same legal basis as Google Analytics and Hotjar, we use “Facebook pixels” of the social network Facebook, which is operated by Meta Websites Inc. With the help of the Facebook pixels (_fbp and fr), it is possible for Facebook to determine the visitors of our website as a target group for the display of advertisements, so-called “Facebook ads”.

You can object to the collection by the Facebook pixels and use of your data for the display of Facebook ads. To do so, you can visit the page set up by Facebook and follow the instructions there on the settings for usage-based advertising: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads or declare the objection via the US page http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ or the EU page http://www.youronlinechoices.com/.

Data that you provide voluntarily

a) Contacting us
If you contact us, we process the following data from you for the purpose of processing and handling your enquiry: Name, contact details (phone number and e-mail address) -if provided by you- and your message. The legal basis of the data processing is our obligation to fulfil the contract and/or to fulfil our pre-contractual obligations and/or our legitimate interest in processing your enquiry.

b) Scheduling a call
For booking a meeting in an easy and convenient way, we use Calendly LLC. Your data from the form will be transferred to our appointment account at Calendly after you press the “Schedule a call” button. You will then receive a confirmation email with a link to the event. Your data will be kept at Calendly until the purpose for storing the data no longer applies (appointment made) or you request us to delete it. Calendly undertakes not to pass on your data to third parties. The legal basis is your consent as well as our legitimate interest.

c) When you use our services
If you have contracted us to provide a service, we process your data (if provided: Name, contact details (email address and phone number), address, and all information required in the context of the performance of the services including other data you may provide, exclusively for the purpose of processing and handling the contractual relationship. This includes in particular support, correspondence with you, invoicing, fulfilment of our accounting and tax obligations.

d) Administration
We process data within the scope of administrative tasks as well as organisation of our business, financial accounting, service, and compliance with legal obligations, such as archiving. In doing so, we process the same data that we process in the context of providing our contractual services (see above). The purpose and our interest in the processing lies in the administration, financial accounting, archiving of data, i.e., tasks that serve the maintenance of our business activities, performance of our tasks and provision of our services.

e) Newsletter
If you register for our newsletter, we will regularly send you information about our services. The only data required or sending the newsletter is your e-mail address. Responsible outreach is important to us and you can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time via the link provided for this purpose in the newsletter or by sending a message to admin@visual-square.com. After unsubscribing, your e-mail address will be deleted from our newsletter distribution list immediately. The legal basis for the data processing is your consent and our legitimate interest.

Transfer of Personal Data

We will not disclose or otherwise distribute your Personal Data to third parties unless this is necessary for the performance of our services, you have consented to the disclosure, or the disclosure of data is permitted by relevant legal provisions.

However, we are entitled to outsource the processing of your Personal Data in whole or in part to external service providers to support us, for example, in the technical operation of the service and the website, data management, the provision and performance of services marketing, as well as the implementation and fulfilment of reporting obligations.

The service providers commissioned by us however will process your data exclusively in accordance with our instructions and we remain in accordance with the DPA and the GDPR responsible for the protection of your data. Doing so we always make sure that service providers commissioned by us are carefully selected, follow strict contractual regulations, technical and organisational measures, and additional controls by us.

We may also disclose Personal Data to third parties if we are legally obliged to do so e.g., by court order or if this is necessary to support criminal or legal investigations or other legal investigations or proceedings at home or abroad or to fulfil our legitimate interests.

Social Media

We are present on social media on the basis of our legitimate interest. If you contact us via social media platforms, you should note that the chat history can neither be deleted by us nor by you. And that, in accordance with the DPA and GDPR, the relevant social media platform and we are jointly responsible for the processing of your data and enter into a so-called joint controller agreement. The legal basis for the use of the relevant social media platform is our legitimate interest, your consent or, in the case of a (pre) contractual relationship with us, the initiation of a contractual service, if any.

Automated decision-making

Automated decision-making including profiling does not take place.

Do Not Sell

We do not sell your Personal Data.

Children Data

We do not knowingly collect and process Personal Data of children.

Your data subject rights

These rights are standardised in the DPA and the GDPR. These include:

• the right to information,
• the right to rectification,
• the right to erasure,
• the right to restriction of data processing,
• the right to data portability,
• the right to object to data processing,
• the right to revoke any consent you have given, and
• the right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority.

Please contact us at any time with questions and suggestions regarding data protection and to enforce your rights.

The Supervisory Authority

The competent data protection authority in the UK is:

The Information Commissioner`s Office (ICO)
Wycliffe House, Water Ln,
Wilmslow SK9 5AF, UK
www.ico.org.uk

Updating your information

If you believe that the information, we hold about you is inaccurate or that we are no longer entitled to use it and want to request its rectification, deletion, or object to its processing, please do so by contacting us using admin@visual-square.com.

Access Request and updating your Personal Data

In the event that you wish to make a Data Subject Access Request, you may inform us in writing of the same using admin@visual-square.com. We will respond to requests regarding access and correction as soon as reasonably possible. Should we not be able to respond to your request within thirty (30) days after receiving your request, we will inform you in writing within thirty (30) days of the time by which we will be able to respond to your request. If we are unable to provide you with any Personal Data or to make a correction requested by you, we shall generally inform you of the reasons why we are unable to do so (except where we are not required to do so under the respective legal regulations mentioned above).

Security and confidentiality

Our data processing is subject to the principle that we only process the Personal Data that is necessary for the use of our services. In doing so, we take great care to ensure that your privacy and the confidentiality of all Personal Data are always guaranteed.

All transmitted data is protected by HTTPS encryption. Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a protocol used to ensure secure data transmission on the Internet. The public-private key procedure is used here. This means that data encrypted with a publicly accessible key can only be decrypted again with a separate private key.

We also use technical and organisational security measures (TOMs) throughout the company to protect the data we manage from you against accidental or intentional manipulation, loss, destruction or against access by unauthorised persons.

Advertising and Marketing

Insofar as you have also given us your consent, we may contact you for the purposes of advertising and marketing via the communication channels you have given your consent to. Advertising and Marketing generally takes the form of e-mail but may also include other less traditional or emerging channels. These forms of contact will be managed by us, or by our contracted service providers. Every directly addressed marketing sent or made by us or on our behalf will include a means by which you may unsubscribe or opt out.

Links to other providers

Our website also contains – clearly recognisable – links to the websites of other companies. Insofar as there are links to websites of other providers, we have no influence on their contents. Therefore, no guarantee or liability can be assumed for these contents. The respective provider or operator of the pages is always responsible for the content of these pages.

Changes and updates

We kindly ask you to regularly inform yourself about the content of our privacy policy. We will amend this Privacy Policy as soon as changes to the information processing activities we carry out make this necessary. We will inform you as soon as the changes require an act of cooperation on your part (e.g., consent) or other individual notification. This Privacy Policy was last updated on Sunday, 29 January 2023.

Concerns and Contact

If you have any concerns about a possible compromise of your privacy or misuse of your Personal Data on our part, or any other questions or comments, you can contact us.

Cookie Policy

Thank you for your interest in this Cookie Policy. You are about to read more about the purposes for which we and our partners use cookies and similar technologies and how you can manage your preferences regarding cookies.

This Cookie Policy applies to www.visual-square.com operated by Visual Square (“we”, “us”, “our”) acting as the data controller in accordance with UK`s Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (“PECR”) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA”). As well as the EU`s Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive (“PECD”) and the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

If you have any questions about Cookies or about data protection in general, you can reach to us via email using admin@visual-square.com.

What cookies are?

On this website we use so-called “cookies”. Cookies are small text files that are stored in the memory of your device via your browser. Cookies store certain information (e.g., your preferred language or page settings) which can be sent back to us by your browser when you visit the website again (depending on the lifetime of the cookie).

Which cookies we use?

We distinguish between two categories of cookies: (1) function-related cookies, without which the functionality of our website would be limited and (2) optional cookies, e.g., for the purposes of website analysis and marketing.

In the following table, we describe the optional cookies used on this website in detail. Please keep in mind that this list may be updated from time to time.

Optional cookies

• _ga_HY10QQ22W2
– This cookie is installed by Google Analytics.
– 2 years
– Analytics

• _ga
– The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site’s analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognise unique visitors.
– 2 years
– Analytics

• _gid
– Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website’s performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.
– 1 day
– Analytics

• fbp
– This cookie is set by Facebook to display advertisements when either on Facebook or on a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising, after visiting the website.
– 3 months
– Advertisement

• _hjFirstSeen
– Hotjar sets this cookie to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether it was the first time Hotjar saw this user.
– 30 minutes
– Analytics

• _hjIncludedInSessionSample
– Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site’s daily session limit.
– 2 minutes
– Analytics

• _hjIncludedInPageviewSample
– Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site’s pageview limit.
– 2 minutes
– Analytics

• _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress
– Hotjar sets this cookie to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie.
– 30 minutes
– Analytics

Disabling Cookies

If you do not wish us to use cookies, you can configure the use of cookies in your browser settings by following the for you relevant link Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Flash cookies, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Edge, Opera, Safari at any time or deactivate them completely. Of course, you can still use our website entirely without cookies. However, be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionality and features of this site. Therefore it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.

Does this policy change?

We may update our Cookie Policy from time to time. This might be for a number of reasons, such as to reflect a change in the law or to accommodate a change in our business practices and the way we use cookies. We recommend that you check here periodically for any changes to our Cookie Policy. This Cookie Policy was last updated on Saturday, 14 January 2023.

Who should I contact for more information?

If you have any questions or comments about our Cookie Policy or wish to exercise your rights under applicable laws, please contact us.