Privacy Policy

Thistle has been providing high quality home improvement products and services to customers across Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire & North East Scotland since 1995.

The Thistle Group of Companies includes:

Thistle Windows & Conservatories Ltd, a company registered in Scotland (SC159622).  Registered Office: Thistle House, Woodside Road, Bridge of Don, Aberdeen, AB23 8EF.

Thistle Artificial Grass Ltd, a company registered in Scotland (SC522003).  Registered Office: Thistle House, Woodside Road, Bridge of Don, Aberdeen, AB23 8EF.

Our Privacy Policy applies to both Thistle Windows & Conservatories Ltd and Thistle Artificial Grass Ltd.

Thistle Kitchens and Thistle Homes are trading names of Thistle Windows & Conservatories Ltd.

Thistle Gardens & Outdoors is a trading name of Thistle Artificial Grass Ltd.

We will only require you to provide personal information to us where it is necessary to provide you with a service at your request.

We may obtain personal information about you when you whenever you contact us, for example:

By using and browsing our website

By filling in any of the contact forms on our website

By enquiring about our products and services

By enquiring about, or applying for, job vacancies

By calling us, texting us, emailing us, writing to us by post or by visiting our showroom

We will only require you to provide personal information to us where it is necessary for us to provide you with a service at your request.

The personal information we collect may include the following:

Normal identification information, such as your full name, date of birth, age, gender and marital status;

Contact information, such as your postal address, email address and telephone number/s;

Additional information relevant to your use of our website and interest in our products and services, such as your marketing preferences, survey responses and feedback;

In respect of our products and services – details of your property, your requirements, the details of your installation and payment information.

In respect of job applications – your CV including details of your education and employment history (and any other information which you may choose to provide us with your CV).

When you visit our website, we may also collect the following information:

Which pages you view and which links you follow;

Your IP address and general location;

Details of the hardware and software that you are using to access our website;

Any passwords that you use on our website.

Our website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

Website Cookies:

We collect information using Cookies on our website to help distinguish you from other users.  These can streamline your online experience by saving you from re-inputting some information and also allows us to make improvements to our website.  For more information about how and why we use Cookies please click here to view our Cookie Policy.

We may collect information about you from other sources.  This may include the following:

Referrals from any third parties through which you have agreed for your personal data to be shared.  For example, when requesting further information from an organisation we are a member of (such as Independent Network), an associated supplier (such as Ultraframe, Solidor or VELUX), or by using an online business directory (such as Yell.com);

Information from any third parties that we work with to provide our products and services, such as payment processors, delivery companies, technical support companies and advertising companies;

Publicly available information, for example information displayed online in local authority planning application lists;

Information that you have shared publicly, including on social media (particularly in respect of job applications);

This list is not exhaustive and, in specific instances, we may need to collect additional data for the purposes set out in this Policy.

Whenever we receive information about you from third parties we will let you know what information we have received and how and why we intend to use it.

We may collect information about you from the CCTV security system at our business premises:

This information could include for example the number plate of your vehicle when arriving and leaving our premises and a visual record of yourself visiting our showroom.  Please be assured that our CCTV system is purely for security purposes and the information held on our systems is not shared with any third parties unless we are under a legal obligation to do so.

The information recorded on our CCTV system is held for a limited amount of time before deletion and is not held indefinitely.

Sensitive Personal Data:

There may be instances where it is necessary for you to share information with us containing special categories of personal information or ‘sensitive personal data’.  This relates to things such as details of medical conditions which you may need to share with us so we are able to meet your specific requirements when providing our goods and services.

Due to the sensitive nature of this information, we will only take it from you if you have given us your explicit consent and it is necessary for us to do so.  We will also inform you of what we will do with this informationa nd who we will share it with.

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to.  Most commonly we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

A) To allow us to enter into and perform our contract with you;

B) To enable us to comply with legal obligations;

C) In order to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties (provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests).

We may require your information to:

Provide a quotation for our products or services;

Make a decision to supply our products or services;

Administer any contract we have entered into with you and to carry out our obligations concerning the supply and installation of any order you place, including the handling of related payments;

Make arrangements for the termination of any contract we have entered in to (where the situation requires it);

Facilitate post-installation maintenance services and after-care;

Obtain post-installation feedback;

Publish genuine customer feedback on our website;

Facilitate the activation and ongoing protection of any insurance backed guarantees;

Facilitate repairs, alterations or improvements to any products or services supplied;

Comply with health and safety obligations;

Logistics management and planning, including accounting and auditing;

Verify your identity and ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date;

Contact you about any changes to our products or services;

Resolve any complaints you may have;

Contact you from time to time about products or services we may offer that we reasonably believe may be of interest to you*;

Administer our website, including troubleshooting problems, analysing statistics, conducting research, tests and keeping the site secure;

Facilitate staff training and the continual improvement of our systems, processes and overall service;

Analyse our products, services and marketing activities and to carry out market research;

Interact with government and industry regulators;

Interact with third parties in order to ensure the products and services have been delivered to your satisfaction;

To detect and prevent fraud, money-laundering and other crimes;

To protect your interests, or the interests of others (such as in the event of criminality such as identity theft, piracy or fraud).

*If you tell us we can, we may also use your personal information to provide you with information about services, promotions and offers that may be of interest to you.  We may use your personal information to identify additional products and or services that are likely to be of particular interest to you.

If you enquire about, or apply for, a job vacancy, it is necessary for us to use your personal information as part of the recruitment process, in order to asses your suitability for a particular role.

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.  If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Important Note: We may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law in the circumstances outlined at the beginning of this section.

Telling you about other products or services that we think may be of interest to you:

When requesting a quotation for our products and services we may ask you if you would like to hear about any products or services that we think may be of interest to you.  We will only do this where you have informed us that you would like to receive marketing-related communications.

We may also use your information to invite you to participate in market-research.  If we do contact you about market-research, you do not have to participate.  If you tell us that you do not want to receive market-research communications, we will respect this.

Whether you choose to receive marketing communications, or market-research communications is entirely up to you.  You can choose to receive both, none, or just one or the other.  Your choice will not affect any products or services that you have purchased from us, nor will it affect any quote for products or services.

You can update your preferences by using the links in any of our emails to you, or by getting in touch.

If you have already bought a product or service from us, we may contact you by email or post with some information about products or services that are similar.  You can choose not to receive this information at any time, simply contact us to let us know or follow the instructions in the message we send you.

Making our business better:

We always strive to offer the best products, services and customer experience that we possibly can, sometimes this means we may use your information to find ways that we can improve what we do, or how we do it.

In this context, we will only use your information where it is necessary so that we can:

Review and improve our existing products and services and develop new ones;

Review and improve the performance of our systems, processes and staff (including training);

Improve our website to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and the devices you use to browse our site;

Measure and understand the effectiveness of our marketing activities and how we can best deliver relevant advertising to you and others.

Contacting you:

It would be our pleasure to stay in touch with you!  Sometimes we may need to use the information that we have about you in order to respond to any questions you may have, or to let you know about important changes.

We will only use your information in this respect where it is necessary so that we can:

Interact and respond to any communications you send us, including where you use any of our website contact forms, and any social media posts that you tag us in;

Let you know about any important changes to our business or policies.

Verifying your identity:

We may use your information where it is necessary for us to do so in order to meet our legal obligations or to detect and prevent fraud, money-laundering and other crimes.

Protecting you and others from harm:

We may use your information where it is necessary to protect your interests, or the interests of others.  This may include in the event of criminality such as identity theft, piracy or fraud.

Sharing your information within our company and group:

Your personal data may be shared with members of our staff who require access to process such information for a variety of purposes – please see the “How is your information used?” section of our Privacy Policy for further details.

We may also share the information that you provide to us with other companies within the Thistle group – please see the “Who are we?” section of our Privacy Policy for further details.

Sharing your information with third parties:

We may also share your personal information with selected third parties.  For example, we may share your data with:

Independent Network (part of Network VEKA Limited) – for the purpose of contacting you to ensure that you are satisfied with the service we have provided and in order to put in place a separate insurance-backed 10 year guarantee for certain products.

Safety Scotland – for Health & Safety auditing purposes, to ensure that there has been independent verification that your installation has been completed in accordance with Health & Safety legislation.

Product Manufacturers, Fabricators or Suppliers – for the purpose of delivering products, materials or equipment directly to your property when this is required for the completion of your installation.  Also for instances where you may need to call upon a guarantee administered by a Manufacturer, Fabricator or Supplier.

Important Note: There are certain exceptional circumstances in which we may disclose your information to additional third parties.  This would be where we believe that the disclosure is:

Required by law, or in order to comply with judicial proceedings, court orders or legal or regulatory proceedings;

Necessary to protect the safety of our employees, our property or the public;

Necessary for the prevention or detection of crime, including exchanging information with other companies or organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction;

Proportionate as part of a merger, business or asset sale, in the event that this happens we will share your information with the prospective seller or buyer involved.

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis.

If you contact us to request a quotation for our products or services and you decide not to accept our quote, we will retain your information for a maximum period of 12 months and may contact you during that period to remind you that it is outstanding.  After this time frame we will delete your personal data unless you ask us not to.

If you do accept a quotation for our products or services and place an order we will retain your personal information for:

The duration of time it takes to complete the supply and installation of your order;

The duration of any active and valid guarantees you may have in place;

The duration of any additional service & maintenance plan you may have in place.

If you apply for a job vacancy (or otherwise send us your CV) we will retain your CV (and any publicly available information, for example from social media) for a period of 6 months.  If we are considering you for a particular role, we may retain this information for longer than that period.

In all other circumstances, we will hold your personal information for a period of 12 months, or until none of the following lawful justifications for holding your data apply:

Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you;

Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests;

Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Policy.

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely.  Our website is fully HTTPS compliant and features 256-bit SSL encryption – you should see a secure padlock icon in the address bar on all of our web pages.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure.  Although we will strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.

Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems through stringent in-house data protection policies and procedures.  We also make our best effort to ensure the security of our cloud-based data backups which are stored by a third party.

We continually review our data collection and IT procedures and infrastructure with reference to our own internal policies to ensure that the highest levels of data security are achieved and maintained.

Transferring your information outside of Europe:

As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (“EU).  By way of example, this may happen if any of our web server is temporarily located in a country outside of the EU.  These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK.  By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing.  If we transfer your information outside of the EU in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.

If you think that the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate or incorrect, you can request that we correct this information (including your marketing preferences).

You can choose to stop receiving marketing communications from us by using the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any marketing emails that are sent to you, or by contacting us via any of the methods outlined at the top of this web page and confirming your preferences.

Please note that, even if you choose not to receive marketing communications, we may still use your personal data to provide you with important services communications.

Even if we already hold your personal data, you still have various rights in relation to it.  For full details, please read the “What rights do you have regarding your personal information?” section of our Privacy Policy.

We will seek to deal with any request for access to or amendment of your personal data without undue delay, and in any event in accordance with the requirements of any applicable laws.  Please note that we may keep a record of your communications to help us resolve any issues which you raise.

If you have any queries regarding accessing or amending the personal information that we hold for you, please contact us using any of the following methods:

By email: privacy@thistle.group

By writing to: Thistle Group of Companies, Thistle House, Woodside Road, Bridge of Don, Aberdeen, AB23 8EF

Or by calling 01224 706 555

You have the right to be informed:

We have a legal obligation to provide you with concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible information about your personal data and our use of it.  We have developed this Privacy Policy to do just that, however if you have any questions or require more specific information, you can contact us via any of the methods outlined at the top of this page.

You have the right to access your personal data:

You have the right to ask us to confirm whether or not we hold any of your personal information.  If we do, you have the right to have a copy of your information and to be informed of the following:

Why we have been using your information;

What categories of information we were using;

Who we have shared the information with;

How long we intend to hold your information.

In order to maintain the security of your information, we will have to verify your identity before we provide you with a copy of the information we hold.

The first copy of your information that you request from us will be provided free of charge, if you require further copies we may charge an administrative fee to cover our costs.

You have the right to correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal data:

Where you have requested a copy of the information we hold about you, you may notice that there are inaccuracies in the records, or that certain parts are incomplete.  If this is the case you can contact us so that we can correct our records.

You have the right to be forgotten:

There may be times where it is no longer necessary for us to hold personal information about you.  This could be if:

The information is no longer needed for the original purpose that we collected it for;

You withdrew your consent for us to use the information (and we have no other legal reason to keep using it);

You object to us using your information and we have no overriding reason to keep using it;

We are subject to a legal requirement to delete your information.

In the above situations you have the right to have your personal data deleted.  If you believe one of these situations applies to you, please get in touch with us via any of the methods outlined at the top of this web page.

You have the right to have a copy of your data transferred to you or a third party in a compatible format:

Also known as Data Portability, you have the right to obtain a copy of your personal data for your own purposes.  This right allows you to move, copy or transfer your personal data more easily from one IT system to another, in a safe and secure way.

If you would like us to transfer a copy of your data to you or another organisation in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, please contact us.  There is no charge for you exercising this right.

You have the right to object to direct marketing:

You can tell us at any time that you would prefer that we do not use your information for direct marketing purposes.  If you would not like to receive any direct marketing from us, please contact us or use the instructions or links provided in any of our marketing communications and we will stop sending direct marketing immediately.

You have the right to object to us using your information for our own legitimate interests:

Sometimes, we use your personal information to achieve goals that will help us as well as you.  This includes:

When we tell you about products or services that are similar to ones that you have already purchased;

When we use your information to help us make our business better;

When we contact you to interact, communicate or let you know about changes we are making.

We aim to always ensure that your rights and information are properly protected.  If you believe that the way we are using your data is not justified due to its impact on you or your rights, you have the right to object.  Unless we have a compelling reason to continue, we must stop using your personal data for these purposes.

In order to exercise your right to object to our use of your data for the purposes above, please contact us.

Important Note: Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, the supply and installation of any of our products or the ongoing administration of a guarantee).  In such a situation, we may have to cancel a service you have with us but we will always notify you if this is the case at the time.

You have the right to restrict how we use your personal data:

You have the right to ask us to stop using your personal data in any way other than simply keeping a copy of it.  This right applies where:

You have informed us that the information we hold about you is inaccurate, and we have not yet been able to verify this;

You have objected to us using your information for our own legitimate interests and we are in the process of considering your objection;

You feel that we have used your information in an unlawful way, but you do not want us to delete your data;

We no longer need to use the information, but you need it for a legal claim.

If you believe any of these situations apply, please contact us.

Our Privacy Policy was last updated on Monday 15th November 2021.

Any changes we make to our Privacy Policy in the future will be posted on this dedicated web page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email,  Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our Privacy Policy.

We’re always here to help:

If you have any questions at all regarding our collection or use of your personal data, please feel free to contact us at any time using of the methods detailed below:

By email: privacy@thistle.group

By writing to: Thistle Group of Companies, Thistle House, Woodside Road, Bridge of Don, Aberdeen, AB23 8EF

Or by calling 01224 706 555

We will always respond to queries regarding your personal data as quickly and efficiently as possible.

You can also find additional guidance and advice regarding personal data privacy from the Information Commisioner’s Office (ICO), the statutory body which oversees data protection law in the UK.  If you believe we have not complied with your rights, you can complain to the Information Comissioner by visiting their website at https://ico.org.uk.