Privacy Policy
Last updated 27th August 2020
1. Introduction
Here at Aculab, we respect the privacy of our customers and contacts who have expressed an interest in our products and services.
Aculab will use personal information for account management, administration, technical support, marketing and providing user IDs and passwords for protected areas of Aculab’s websites.
Aculab will not rent, sell or distribute your personal information with other organisations for their own marketing or data mining purposes. For users of the Aculab Cloud service, sharing of certain data with third parties is required to enable us to provide the service – section 8.3 provides more detail.
All email marketing/e-newsletters contain instructions on how to unsubscribe.
Emails from Aculab and any files transmitted with them, are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. General email communications may represent the originator’s personal views and opinions, and not necessarily reflect those of Aculab. If you are not the original recipient or the person responsible for delivering the email to the intended recipient, be advised that you have received the email in error, and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this email is strictly prohibited.
The anti-virus software used by Aculab is updated regularly in an effort to minimise the possibility of viruses infecting our systems. However, you should be aware that there is no absolute guarantee that any files attached to emails from Aculab are virus free.
2. What information we collect and why we need it
This privacy notice tells you what to expect when Aculab collects personal information. It is possible you can interact and supply us with information in a number of different ways:
- Visiting our websites
- Entering information in our forms
- Using the Aculab Cloud console and licensing portal
- Subscribing to our e-newsletter service
- Emailing us
- Using our LiveChat service
- Responding to our polls and surveys
- Applying for a job or are, or have been, employed by Aculab
- Using our VoiSentry Demonstration Applications
2.1 Visiting our websites
When someone visits an aculab.com domain we use a third-party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is processed in a way that does not identify anyone. We do not make any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will make that clear and will explain what we intend to do with it.
2.2 Entering information in our forms
When someone voluntarily enters their information into a data collection form of ours, both in physical (printed) and digital mediums, the information gets stored into our Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) tool. Full details of the data we collect for the CRM, and its purpose, can be found in section 3.
2.3 Using the Aculab Cloud console and licensing portal
We collect data from you when you set up an account on Aculab Cloud, such as your name, company, address, email address, and billing information. We use that data to communicate with you about your account or the health of the services and to bill you for using the services. Full details of the data we collect for the Aculab Cloud service can be found in section 8.
For users with accounts on the Aculab licensing portal, we collect information such as name, email address and company. We use that data to communicate with you about your software licences, about new licensing system features, about your account, or the health of the licensing system.
2.4 Subscribing to our e-newsletter service
We use third-party tools to deliver various e-newsletters. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies including clear gifs to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter.
2.5 Emailing us
Any email sent to Aculab directly or via a website form, including any attachments, may be monitored and used by us for reasons of security and for monitoring. Email monitoring or blocking software may also be used to prevent malicious intent on the Aculab network. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send to us is within the bounds of the law.
2.6 Using our LiveChat service
We use a third-party provider, LiveChat, Inc., to supply and support our LiveChat service, which we use to handle customer enquiries in real time.
If you use the LiveChat service we will collect your name, email address (optional) and the contents of your LiveChat session. This information will not be shared with any other organisation. You can request a transcript of your LiveChat session if you provide your email address at the start of your session or when prompted at the end. To read more about LiveChat, Inc., you can view their privacy policy here.
2.7 Applying for a job or are, or have been, employed by Aculab
When individuals apply to work at Aculab, we will use the information they supply to us to process their application and to monitor recruitment statistics. Where we want to disclose information to a third party, for example where we want to perform background screening, we will not do so without informing the individual beforehand, unless the disclosure is required by law. Once a person has taken up employment with Aculab, we will compile a file relating to their employment. The information contained in this will be kept secure and will only be used for purposes directly relevant to that person’s employment. Once their employment with Aculab has ended, we will retain the file in accordance with the requirements of our retention schedule and any applicable regulations or legislations.
2.8 Using our VoiSentry Demonstration Applications
We collect data from you when you sign up to use our VoiSentry demonstration applications, such as your name, company and email address. We use that data to communicate with you about your account, and to provide further information on Aculab products.
When using the VoiSentry demonstration applications your voice will be recorded, and those recordings used to create a unique biometric voiceprint, which is stored within Aculab’s VoiSentry platform. You may delete your voiceprint at any time via the application, or deactivate your account using the opt-out link provided in your initial signup email.
3. Customer Relationship Management system (CRM)
Aculab uses a customer relationship management platform to helps us manage our engagement activities with customers, suppliers and prospective customers.
3.1 The data we collect on our CRM
Aculab collects:
- The name of your organisation including your parent department or organisation, if applicable
- Your organisation’s type, address, site, website and number of employees
- Your name, role and contact details, such as email address and phone number
- Details of meetings, phone calls, emails, agendas, outcomes, actions, minutes and other documents
- Questions, comments, queries or feedback from engagement activities
3.2 Why we collect your data
Aculab collects this data to help us:
- Track our engagement activity with you and your organisation
- Ensure our contact details are up to date
- Develop a comprehensive view of our engagement activity with you and your organisation
- Avoid duplicating meetings or communications
- Understand and analyse the type and quality of our engagement activity with you and your organisation so we can improve it
- Respond to any actions, questions, feedback or queries that you’ve raised with us
4. What’s the legal basis for the processing of your personal data?
Aculab is a business-to-business (B2B) company, and therefore uses legitimate interest as our primary lawful basis of processing as per ICO guidelines.
Your data is used as would be reasonably expected, and would have a minimal privacy impact if the data was unintentionally exposed outside of the company.
Aculab has produced a Legitimate Interest Assessment (LIA) as per ICO recommendations, identifying our legitimate interest, showing that the processing is necessary to achieve it, and is balanced against the individual’s interests, rights and freedoms.
Business contacts will be contacted, regardless of whether consent had previously been given or not.
Non-business contact consent is honoured where previously asked and refused.
You may withdraw your marketing consent at any time by using the unsubscribe link on emails sent from us. Any contacts that have unsubscribed will not be contacted about marketing subjects after opt-out.
5. How long we keep your data
Aculab keeps your data for as long as necessary to fulfil our legitimate interest in addition for any legal & contractual reasons. Aculab regularly reviews the data we hold to ensure that it’s accurate. Once data is no longer needed it is removed from our platforms. This applies to data collected from:
- Visitors to our websites
- Aculab Cloud console1 and licensing portal
- Subscribing to our e-newsletter service
- Emailing us
- LiveChat service
- Responding to our polls and surveys
- Job applicants and current or former employees
Note 1: Further detail of how long we keep specific data on the Aculab Cloud platform can be found in section 8.
5.1 CRM platform data
If your account becomes inactive, the customer data records in our CRM system are retained for contact preferences.
You may request the deletion of your data (see section 10). Records of payments and invoices may be kept for longer or statutory periods for accounting, tax, and audit purposes.
6. Who will your data be shared with?
We may share your data with:
- Internal relevant Aculab teams (sales, marketing, support, finance) so that we can provide you with the best possible service
- Credit reference agencies to assess your credit score, in the context of wanting to become an invoice customer
- Third-party services to qualify resellers, distributors, customers and potential customers
- Analytics and search engine providers to optimise and improve our sites
- Any Governmental body where legal obligation complies us to share data
7. Your options to unsubscribe or opt-out
If you receive marketing emails from us, you can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the unsubscribe links in the footer of the marketing message.
If you are a user of the Aculab Cloud service or the Aculab licensing system, then our legitimate engagement with you, and use of your data as set out in this privacy policy regarding these services, is necessary to properly provide an effective service.
If you have an Aculab Cloud user account and no longer agree to the processing of your data as set out in this privacy policy, you can close your account and terminate your Aculab Cloud agreement according to the Aculab Cloud
Terms of Service and any contract documents in place between us.
8. Data on the Aculab Cloud platform
Your use of the Aculab Cloud platform requires us to store both your account data, and data that may include personal information about your end customers such as phone numbers, call and SMS logs, and phone number type (mobile/landline).
8.1 What data do we store?
Details of each account created when you sign up for the Aculab Cloud platform are stored. This information includes:
- Email address
- Account key
- Phone number
- Address (for billing and for registration purposes, in some countries, of purchased numbers)
When you use the service, we will also store data for the usage:
- Call data records (CDRs)
- Application data records (ADRs)
- SMS messages (MSG)
- Encrypted media files (if the voice messaging feature is used)
8.2 Where your data is stored
Aculab runs its Aculab Cloud service in multiple locations to provide customers with the flexibility to use region-specific servers and keep data within that region.
We currently run the Aculab Cloud in the following locations:
- US East (Virginia)
- US West (California)
- Europe (Ireland)
The choice of region is made when you sign up for a cloud account. If you need to run systems in more than one region, a separate account is needed for each.
Your data will be stored solely in the region that you choose to operate in.
8.3 Who we share the data with
In order to run Aculab Cloud and provide you with the best possible service, we will internally share relevant parts of your account data such as phone number and email address with our sales and support teams.
Data regarding calls and messages being placed/received is also shared with our voice and SMS messaging carrier partners so that we can terminate calls and send/receive messages. Your address data may also be required to be shared with our third-party number provider for legal purposes in certain countries.
We use a third-party TTS provider and share text information with them to be processed into speech.
We use a third-party speech recognition provider and share voice data with them to be converted into text.
We share billing information with our payment gateway service when a credit card payment is to be processed.
We have data protection agreements in place with our partners who enable us to provide the Aculab Cloud service in order to provide you the assurance that all possible steps have been taken to keep your data secure when you use Aculab Cloud.
8.4 How long we store your data
The Aculab Cloud account data is stored for as long as needed to provide you with our services. For an active account the following timescales apply:
- CDR, ADR and message data – stored for six months
- Aculab Cloud logs – stored for up to 28 days
- Speech recordings – stored for up to 28 days
- Database backups – stored for 180 days
8.5 Data storage after Aculab Cloud account closure/deletion
Aculab keeps your data for as long as we are engaged with you and your organisation.
Accounts which either have not been used in six months to perform any traffic or has not been used to log into the Cloud Console will become inactive and the account deleted. A warning is sent to the user a month before becoming inactive.
On account deletion your marketing preferences will still be stored in our CRM system. Your Aculab Cloud account, and Aculab’s marketing operations, are two separate entities.
If your account is closed or made inactive, we will delete the following account data according to the following timescales. Certain data such as billing records will need to be kept for longer period to meet our statutory/financial/regulatory/tax reporting commitments.
- Purchase addresses, phone numbers, and media store – deleted immediately
- Account information, services, consent data – deleted at end of calendar month
- Trace elements of accounts (in database backup files) – will remain for up to 7 weeks
9. Security
Aculab treats information security seriously, and ensures appropriate levels of protection for the storage of your personal data, considering the confidentially, integrity and availability triad.
Personnel are trained in information security awareness issues, including the treatment of personally identifiable information. Aculab maintains a number of information security related policies and processes that are adhered to via contractual agreement and disciplinary procedures.
10. Complaints or queries
Aculab tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage you to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate. We would also welcome any suggestions for improving our procedures.
11. Your rights
Depending on the circumstance, you may be entitled to:
- Request a copy of your personal information
- Request your information be corrected
- Request your data be erased/deleted
- Request Aculab to restrict processing of your data
- Request a structured and standard formatted copy of your personal data
- Request to object to automated decision making and profiling
To make a request to Aculab regarding any rights, you should submit your request in writing to the address or email address provided below.
12. Supervisory authority
Aculab is a UK based company operating in the business-to-business (B2B) market. The information supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
13. Changes to this privacy notice
We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 27th August 2020.
14. How to contact us
If you want to request information about our privacy policy you can email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (monitored by the Digital Compliance Manager and deputy) or write to:
Digital Compliance Manager
Aculab
Lakeside
2 Bramley Road
Milton Keynes
MK1 1PT
United Kingdom
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