The Policy

This privacy policy is for the websites www.akita.co.uk and www.akitais.com, which are published by Akita Systems Ltd and governs the privacy of its users who choose to use it. It explains how we comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), the DPA (Data Protection Act 2018) and the PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations).

This policy will explain areas of the websites that may affect your privacy and personal details, how we process, collect, manage and store those details and how your rights under the GDPR, DPA & PECR are adhered to. Additionally, it will explain the use of cookies or software, advertising or commercial sponsorship from third parties and the download of any documents, files or software made available to you (if any) on this website. Further explanations may be provided for specific pages or features of this website in order to help you understand how we, this website and its third parties (if any) interact with you and your computer/device in order to serve it to you. Our contact information is provided if you have any questions.

DPA & GDPR

We and our websites comply with the DPA (Data Protection Act 2018) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

Downloads & media files

Any downloadable documents, files or media made available on this website are provided to users at their own risk. While all precautions have been undertaken to ensure only genuine downloads are available users are advised to verify their authenticity using third party anti-virus software or similar applications.

We accept no responsibility for third party downloads and downloads provided by external third party websites and advise users to verify their authenticity using third party anti-virus software or similar applications.

Google Analytics

Akita Systems Ltd’s websites use Google Analytics for the purposes of monitoring and improvement. In compliance with GDPR, all user data captured by Google Analytics is logged anonymously. Akita Systems Ltd has also disabled IP address referencing within Google Analytics’ settings.

Contact & data retention

Users contacting us through this website, via email or by phone do so at their own discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely for a period of 24 months unless requested otherwise.

Where we have clearly stated and made you aware of the fact, and where you have given your express permission, we may use your details to send you products/services information through a mailing list system. This is done in accordance with the regulations named in ‘The Policy’ above.

Akita Systems Ltd will not share your data with third parties other than those detailed under ‘Email Mailing List & Marketing Messages’ and ‘Feedback’ below.

Telephone calls

All telephone calls to and from Akita Systems Ltd are recorded for the purposes of training, monitoring, and the fulfilment of contracts and requests in accordance with the following legislation:

• Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (“RIPA”)
• Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000 (“LBP Regulations”)
• Data Protection Act 2018
• The Employment Practices, Data Protection Code
• Telecommunications (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 1999
• Human Rights Act 1998
• The General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) 2018

Calls are stored as digital recordings and kept securely for a period of 30 days. Recordings are not shared with third parties unless Akita Systems Ltd is legally required to do so in accordance with the above legislation.

In accordance with GDPR and the Right To Erasure, anyone calling Akita Systems Ltd has the right for their call recording/s to be deleted. To request a call recording to be deleted, please email info@akita.co.uk, stating the date and time of the call.

Email mailing lists & marketing messages

We operate an email mailing list program, used to inform subscribers about products, services and/or news we supply/publish. Users can subscribe through an online automated process where they have given their explicit permission. Subscriber personal details are collected, processed, managed and stored in accordance with the regulations named in ‘The Policy’ above.

The type and content of marketing messages subscribers receive is clearly outlined at the point of subscription. Subscribers can unsubscribe at any time by contacting marketing@akita.co.uk or via the footer of sent marketing messages.

Email marketing messages may contain tracking beacons / tracked clickable links or similar server technologies in order to track subscriber activity within email marketing messages. Where used, such marketing messages may record a range of subscriber data relating to engagement and already stored subscriber data.

Our email marketing service provider is SharpSpring and you can read their privacy policy here: https://sharpspring.com/legal/privacy/

Feedback

As part of our commitment to offering the best possible service for our customers, we welcome customer feedback. This can be submitted via our feedback form.

Akita Systems Ltd will on occasion seek reviews and feedback from them. We use Reviews.co.uk (www.reviews.co.uk) to facilitate the distribution of feedback request emails to customers and consolidate their replies. Customers may opt out from receiving further contact from Reviews.co.uk by clicking the unsubscribe link found at the bottom of the email.

You can read Reviews.co.uk privacy policy here: https://www.reviews.co.uk/front/privacypolicy

External website links & third parties

Although we only look to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised to adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website or across our social media channels. External links are clickable text / banner / image links to other websites.

Shortened URL’s. URL shortening is a technique used on the web to shorten URL’s (Uniform Resource Locators) to something substantially shorter. This technique is especially used in social media and looks similar to this (example: http://bit.ly/zyVUBo). Users should take caution before clicking on shortened URL links and verify their authenticity before proceeding.

We cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite our best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and we cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Social media policy & use

We adopt a Social Media Policy to ensure our business and our staff conduct themselves accordingly online. While we may have official profiles on social media platforms, users are advised to verify authenticity of such profiles before engaging with, or sharing information with such profiles. We will never ask for user passwords or personal details on social media platforms. Users are advised to conduct themselves appropriately when engaging with us on social media.

There may be instances where our website features social sharing buttons, which help share web content directly from web pages to the respective social media platforms. You use social sharing buttons at your own discretion and accept that doing so may publish content to your social media profile feed or page. You can find further information about some social media privacy and usage policies in the resources section below.

COOKIES

What is a cookie?

Cookies are small files that are stored on a user's computer. They are designed to hold data specific about a particular user and their use of websites.  They can be accessed either by the web server or the user’s computer. The information stored by the cookie allows the server to deliver a page tailored to the user. Alternatively, the page itself can contain scripts which can read the data in the cookie and is able to carry information from one visit to the website (or related site) to the next.

How does Akita use cookies?

Akita Systems Ltd uses cookies to provide online customer support, provide effective marketing and improve the user experience of our website with Google Analytics and Mouseflow.

Where applicable, Akita Systems Ltd’s websites (https://www.akita.co.uk and https://akitais.com/) use a cookie control system allowing the user on their first visit to the website to allow or disallow the use of cookies on their computer or device. This complies with the EU Directive issued on 25 May 2011 that requires websites to obtain explicit consent from users before leaving behind or reading files such as cookies on a user’s computer / device.

 What cookies does Akita use?

The following cookies are used by Akita. Cookies are used on both akita.co.uk and akitais.com unless a specific website is stated in the description.

How to opt-out of Google Analytics cookies

In order to provide website visitors with more choice on how data is collected by Google Analytics, Google has developed a Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to stop data being sent to Google Analytics. The Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on does not affect usage of websites in any other way. A link to further information on the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on is provided here: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=None

For more information on the use of cookies by Google Analytics please see the Google website. A link to the privacy advice for this product is provided below for your convenience: http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/privacy.html

How to disable all cookies

Users can control the use of cookies within their Internet browser(s). Links to advice on how to do this for the most popular Internet browsers are provided below for convenience and will be available for the Internet browser of your choice either online or via the software help (normally available via key F1).

Internet Explorer

Google Chrome

Mozilla Firefox

Apple Safari