Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 16 May 2025

Automation Boutique B.V. ("we", "us", "our") respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will inform you about how we collect, use, share, and protect your personal data when you visit our website (automationboutique.com), your privacy rights, and how the law protects you. This policy is intended to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and relevant Dutch privacy laws.

1. Who We Are

Automation Boutique B.V. is the controller responsible for your personal data.

2. What Data We Collect About You

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. We may collect, use, store, and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data: Includes first name, last name, username or similar identifier.
  • Contact Data: Includes email address and telephone numbers (if you provide them, for example, via a contact form).
  • Technical Data: Includes internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
  • Usage Data: Includes information about how you use our website, products, and services, such as pages visited, time spent on pages, and links clicked. This is often collected via cookies.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

3. How Your Personal Data Is Collected

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

  • Direct interactions: You may give us your Identity and Contact Data by filling in forms on our website or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email, or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
    • Inquire about our products or services;
    • Give us feedback or contact us.
  • Automated technologies or interactions: As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. Please see our Cookies section (Section 7) for further details.

4. How We Use Your Personal Data

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:

  • 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 obligation.
  • Where you have given consent (e.g., for using analytical cookies).

Purposes for which we will use your personal data:

  • To operate and maintain our website: (Legal Basis: Legitimate interest to ensure our website is running correctly and efficiently).
  • To manage our relationship with you: This includes responding to your inquiries or requests. (Legal Basis: Legitimate interest to respond to you; or performance of a contract if your inquiry relates to services).
  • To improve our website, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences: Through analysis of Usage Data (e.g., via Google Analytics, if you consent). (Legal Basis: Consent for analytical cookies; Legitimate interest for general improvements not reliant on specific personal data tracking).
  • To comply with legal obligations: Such as requests from supervisory authorities. (Legal Basis: Compliance with a legal obligation).

We will only use your personal data 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 data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

5. Disclosures of Your Personal Data

We may share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in Section 4:

  • Service providers acting as processors who provide IT and system administration services, website hosting.
  • Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors, and insurers who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance, and accounting services.
  • Tax authorities, regulators, and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
  • Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.
  • With your explicit consent, we may share Usage and Technical data with analytics providers like Google (for Google Analytics).

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. Data Security and Retention

Data Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorized way, altered, or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors, and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

For example, basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data - if applicable) is generally kept for seven years after they cease being customers for tax purposes in the Netherlands.

Preferences for analytical cookies (consent given or declined) are stored for 6 months, after which you will be prompted again. If you decline optional cookies, this specific choice is remembered for 1 day to avoid immediate re-prompting.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Your legal rights (Section 8) below for further information.

7. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to distinguish you from other users, to provide a good experience when you browse our website, and also to allow us to improve our site.

What are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile device by websites that you visit. They are widely used to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.

How We Use Cookies

We use the following types of cookies:

  • Strictly Necessary Cookies: These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable core site functionality. These cookies cannot be disabled through our consent manager as the website cannot function properly without them.
  • Analytical/Performance Cookies: These allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it (e.g., Google Analytics). This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. We only use these cookies if you give us your explicit consent.

The `user_cookie_consent` cookie is used to store your preferences regarding cookie consent. Your consent for analytical cookies is valid for 6 months. If you decline, this choice is remembered for 1 day.

Managing Your Cookie Preferences

You can manage your cookie preferences at any time. When you first visit our website, a cookie consent banner will appear, allowing you to accept or decline optional cookies, or customize your preferences.

You can also change your cookie settings at any time by clicking on the "Manage Cookies" link in the footer of our website. This will reopen the cookie consent dialog where you can adjust your choices.

8. Your Legal Rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. These include the right to:

  • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request").
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.
  • Request erasure of your personal data.
  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest.
  • Request restriction of processing of your personal data.
  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party (data portability).
  • Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data (e.g., for analytical cookies or marketing). This will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us using the details in Section 1 (Who We Are).

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive, or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

9. Privacy Policies of Other Websites

Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. Any changes will be posted on this page, and where appropriate, notified to you if the change is significant.

11. How to Contact Us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our privacy practices, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using the details provided in Section 1 (Who We Are).