Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.
We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).
Key terms
It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this policy:
| We, us, our | Walkers the Builders Merchant Ltd (a company incorporated in England under company number 01443891 whose registered office is at Riverview House, Cray Avenue, Orpington, Kent, BR5 3RU |
| [Our data protection officer] | [[Insert [name and ]contact details—if you have a data protection officer]] |
| Personal data | Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual |
| Special category personal data | Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership Data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation |
| Data subject | The individual who the personal data relates to |
Personal data we collect about you
The personal data we collect about you depends on the particular services we provide to you. We will collect and use the following personal data about you:
- your name and contact information, including email address and telephone number and company details
- [information to check and verify your identity, eg your date of birth]
- your billing information, transaction and payment card information
- [your personal[ or professional] interests]
- [your professional online presence, eg LinkedIn profile]
- [your contact history, purchase history and saved items]
- [information to enable us to undertake credit or other financial checks on you]
- [Information about how you use our website, IT, communication and other systems]
We collect and use this personal data for the purposes described in the section ‘How and why we use your personal data’ below. If you do not provide personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing products[ and services] to you.
How your personal data is collected
We collect most of this personal data directly from you—in person, by telephone or email and/or via our website. However, we may also collect information:
- from publicly accessible sources, eg Companies House or HM Land Registry;
- from a third party with your consent;
- from cookies on our website—for more information on our use of cookies, please see our cookie policy
- via our IT systems, eg:
- from door entry systems and reception logs; and
- through automated monitoring of our websites and other technical systems, such as our computer networks and connections, CCTV and access control systems, communications systems, email and instant messaging systems.
How and why we use your personal data
Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, eg: where you have given consent;
- to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
- for the performance of a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract; or
- for our legitimate interests or those of a third party.
A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. We will carry out an assessment when relying on legitimate interests, to balance our interests against your own.
The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why.
| What we use your personal data for | Our reasons |
| Providing products and services to you | To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract |
| Preventing and detecting fraud against you or us | For our legitimate interest, ie to minimise fraud that could be damaging for you and/or us |
| To enforce legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings | Depending on the circumstances: —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; —in other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect our business, interests and rights |
| Ensuring business policies are adhered to, eg policies covering security and internet use | For our legitimate interests, ie to make sure we are following our own internal procedures |
| Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control | For our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price |
| Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information | Depending on the circumstances: —for our legitimate interests, ie to protect trade secrets and other commercially valuable information; —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems | Depending on the circumstances: —for our legitimate interests, ie to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us; —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Updating customer records | Depending on the circumstances: —to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract; —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; —for our legitimate interests, eg making sure that we can keep in touch with our customers about existing orders and new products |
| Statutory returns | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments | Depending on the circumstances: —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; —for our legitimate interests, eg to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you |
| Marketing our services to: —existing and former customers; —third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services; —third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings. | For our legitimate interests, ie to promote our business to existing and former customers |
| Credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies | For our legitimate interests, ie to ensure our customers are likely to be able to pay for our products and services |
| To share your personal data with members of our group and third parties that will or may take control or ownership of some or all of our business (and professional advisors acting on our or their behalf) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or in the event of our insolvency In such cases information will be anonymised where possible and only shared where necessary | Depending on the circumstances: —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; —in other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect, realise or grow the value in our business and assets |
How and why we use your personal data—in more detail
More details about how we use your personal data and why are set out in the table below
| Purpose | Processing operation | Lawful basis relied on under the UK GDPR | Relevant categories of personal data |
| Communications with you not related to marketing, including about changes to our terms or policies or changes to the products or other important notices (other than those addressed above) | Addressing and sending communications to you as required by data protection laws, ie: —the UK GDPR or Data Protection Act 2018 | Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject (Article 6(1)(b)) | Your name, address and contact information, including email address and telephone number and company details |
| Addressing and sending communications to you about changes to our terms or policies or changes to the products or other important notices | Our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)), which is to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you | —your name, address and contact information, including email address and telephone number and company details |
How and why we use your personal data—Special category personal data
We do not generally use, record or keep special category personal data.
If (in the unlikely event) we process special category personal data, we will also ensure we are permitted to do so under data protection laws, eg:
- we have your explicit consent;
- the processing is necessary to protect your (or someone else’s) vital interests where you are physically or legally incapable of giving consent; or
- the processing is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
How and why we use your personal data—sharing
See ‘Who we share your personal data with’ for further information on the steps we will take to protect your personal data where we need to share it with others.
Marketing
We will use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text message, telephone or post) about our products, including exclusive offers, promotions or new products.
We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data for marketing purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal data’). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you marketing information. If we change our marketing approach in the future so that consent is needed, we will ask for this separately and clearly.
You do, however, have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by:
- contacting us at [insert contact details for marketing opt-out];
- using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in emails or ‘STOP’ number in texts[; or]
- [updating your marketing preferences on our [insert link to preference centre].
We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further products [and services] in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.
Who we share your personal data with
We routinely share personal data with:
- third parties we use to help deliver our products to you, eg payment service providers, warehouses and delivery companies;
- other third parties we use to help us run our business, eg marketing agencies or website hosts;
- third parties approved by you, eg social media sites you choose to link your account to or third party payment providers;
- credit reference agencies;
- our insurers and brokers;
- our bank.
We only allow those organisations to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data.
We or the third parties mentioned above occasionally also share personal data with:
- our external auditors, eg in relation to the audit of our accounts, in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations;
- our and their professional advisors (such as lawyers and other advisors), in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations;
- law enforcement agencies, courts, tribunals and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
- other parties that have or may acquire control or ownership of our business (and our or their professional advisers) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or in the event of our insolvency—usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible. The recipient of any of your personal data will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
We will not share your personal data with any other third party.
Who we share your personal data with—further information
If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).
Where your personal data is held
Personal data may be held at our offices and those of our third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see above: ‘Who we share your personal data with’).
How long your personal data will be kept
We will not keep your personal data for longer than we need it for the purpose for which it is used. For example, [insert any particular examples].
Different retention periods apply for different types of personal data. Further details on this are available [eg create URL title ‘here’ and link to these details].
[If you no longer have an account with us or we are no longer providing [goods or ]services to you, we will usually delete or anonymise your account data after [seven] years.]
[Following the end of the of the relevant retention period, we will delete or anonymise your personal data.
Transferring your personal data out of the UK
It is sometimes necessary for us to transfer your personal data to countries outside the UK. In those cases we will comply with applicable UK laws designed to ensure the privacy of your personal data.
Under data protection laws, we can only transfer your personal data to a country outside the UK where:
- the UK government has decided the particular country ensures an adequate level of protection of personal data (known as an ‘adequacy regulation’) further to Article 45 of the UK GDPR. A list of countries the UK currently has adequacy regulations in relation to is available here. We rely on adequacy regulations for transfers to the following countries: [list any particularly relevant, eg the US]
- there are appropriate safeguards in place, together with enforceable rights and effective legal remedies for you; or
- a specific exception applies under relevant data protection law.
Your rights
You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:
| Access | The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data |
| Rectification | The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data |
| Erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten) | The right to require us to delete your personal data—in certain situations |
| Restriction of processing | The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, eg if you contest the accuracy of the data |
| Data portability | The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party—in certain situations |
| To object | The right to object: —at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling); —in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, eg processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests unless there are compelling legitimate grounds for the processing to continue or the processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims |
| Not to be subject to automated individual decision making | The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you |
| The right to withdraw consent | If you have provided us with a consent to use your personal data you have a right to withdraw that consent easily at any time You may withdraw consent by [insert details as relevant depending on consents] Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn |
For more information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below) or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:
- email, call or write to us—see below: ‘How to contact us’; and
- provide enough information to identify yourself (eg your full name, address and customer or matter reference number) and any additional identity information we may reasonably request from you;
- let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.
Keeping your personal data secure
We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being lost accidentally, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your personal data will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
How to complain
Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data (see below ‘How to contact us’). We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.
You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner (the UK data protection regulator).
Changes to this privacy policy
This privacy notice was published on 2025.
We may change this privacy notice from time to time—when we do we will inform you via our website.
Updating your personal data
We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal data remains accurate and up to date. To help us with this, please let us know if any of the personal data you have provided to us has changed, eg your surname or address—see below ‘How to contact us’.[ You can also update your personal data yourself via [insert eg our online customer portal].]
How to contact us
Individuals in the UK
You can contact us by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.
Our contact details are shown below:
| Our contact details | [Our Data Protection Officer’s contact details] |
| Riverview House, Cray Avenue, Orpington, BR5 3RX sales@walkersbm.co.uk 01689 898733 | [[Insert contact address]] [[Insert contact email address]] [[Insert contact telephone number]] |