Privacy Policy

Acorn Group Privacy Policy (last updated: October 2024)

This Privacy Policy sets out how Acorn Group will use your personal information in order to supply vehicles, goods and services to you and to administer our relationship with you. If you have any questions or are unsure about anything contained in this privacy policy, please let us know by contacting our Data Protection Officer at dpo@acorn-group.co.uk.

Acorn Group is made up of a number of independent limited companies. Depending on which of the entities you engage with the data controller responsible for processing your personal information will be one or more of the following:

These include:

  • Acorn Group Limited whose registered address is at Cannock Road, Chase Terrace, Burntwood, Staffordshire, WS7 1JS is registered under company number 00462543 and is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) under number ZA837507.
  • Grenson Motor Company Limited whose registered address is at Cannock Road, Chase Terrace, Burntwood, Staffordshire, England, WS7 1JS is registered under company number 01325746 and is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) under number Z6830498.

We also operate through a number of trading divisions as follows but the data controller will always be one of the companies listed above.

  • Acorn Kia (Burntwood, Crewe, Macclesfield, Warrington & St Helen’s)
  • Acorn Suzuki
  • Acorn MG
  • Acorn Citroen
  • Acorn Ford
  • Acorn Mitsubishi
  • Acorn Business Centre
  • ABC Leasing Hub
  • Acorn Specialist Cars

In this Privacy Policy, references to you mean the person whose personal information (as defined below) we collect, use and process. This includes anyone who visits our Websites, contacts us in connection with the purchase of a Vehicle and/or any goods or services we provide or otherwise interacts with us (for example, via a dealership).

In this Privacy Policy, references to a Website means any website owned and operated by or on behalf of any Acorn Group entity including websites of our dealerships.

If we decide to change this Privacy Policy, we will post the updated Privacy Policy on our websites so that you are always aware of what personal information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we disclose it. The updated Privacy Policy will take effect as soon as it is posted on our Websites.

We are committed to protecting your privacy. We will use your personal information in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation thereafter ‘UK GDPR’, and other applicable UK Data Protection laws and regulation that relate to data protection and privacy (known as Data Protection Legislation).

Who is responsible for your personal information?

For the purposes of the Data Protection Legislation the relevant Acorn Group entity is the data controller in respect of your personal information that we collect, and process as further described in this Privacy Policy.

We may share your personal information with other organisations that may receive and process your personal information as a data controller in their own right. For further details please see below section Disclosure of Personal Information.

What information do we collect?

When you interact with us, we will process personal information about you. The nature of the personal information we will process will depend on the nature of our relationship with you and if, for example, you are a customer, a supplier or are simply visiting our website or submitting an enquiry to us. Personal information we may process will include: -

  • Name
  • Contact details (such as address, email address and mobile phone number)
  • Vehicle details including registration and VIN
  • Purchase history
  • Information collected as part of any finance application or payment (including date of birth, previous addresses, employment details, details of existing finance, proof of identity e.g, passport and bank account details, residential status, country of birth, National Insurance number, occupation, salary information)
  • Information collected as part of the administration of a rental agreement (including proof of identity, driving licence, proof of address, place of birth, bank card details)
  • Information that you provide by filling in forms, including those on our Websites
  • Information about you shared with us by third party lead generation websites such as Auto Trader and CarGurus
  • A copy of your driving licence when you test drive a vehicle, rent a vehicle from us or are provided with a courtesy car
  • When you enquire about or purchase a vehicle or services, we collect personal information to respond to your enquiry and to process and complete your purchase
  • Details about the transactions you carry out with us including vehicle support services and vehicle purchases and purchases of other goods
  • Information collected as part of any application to the Motability Scheme (including vehicle adaptions required, name of guardian, names of other drivers, copy of award notice/ reference number, NI number, driving licence)
  • Call recordings
  • CCTV footage in which you feature when you visit our premises
  • Information contained in and records of communications between us, including e-mails, letters, and text messages
  • Details of your visits to our Websites, including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data (including the country and telephone area code where your computer is located), IP address and the resources that you access (including the pages of our Website that you view)
  • We will collect information concerning your marketing preferences
  • We also collect information to enable third parties to carry out credit reference checks on you (if you are purchasing a vehicle on finance) and we will receive and process information about the outcome of those checks to complete your purchase
  • We will collect information relevant to the insurance products that we sell that are provided by third parties

If you provide us with personal information about another person, you must ensure that before you provide us with their personal information, you have their agreement to do so and that they are aware of the ways in which we use personal information as set out in this Privacy Policy.

Cookie Policy

Please see our cookie policy www.acorn-group.co.uk/cookies

How do we use your personal information?

We use your personal information in connection with our business activities. We may use your personal information in the following ways:

  • To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us including purchase and rental of vehicles and provision of services, and to respond to queries from you regarding those contracts.
  • To manage and administer the relationships between you and us (or one or more of the members of the Acorn Group).
  • To help us identify you when you contact us.
  • To book any test drive, manage and respond to any requests you make to us.
  • To remind you about important dates such as the end of your current finance agreement.
  • To notify you about changes to our services and to otherwise communicate with you; for example, we will use your contact details to respond to any queries that you submit to us.
  • To obtain feedback from you regarding us.
  • To respond to any complaints made.
  • To provide you with reminders regarding your vehicle including, for example, when your vehicle is due to have a service or MOT undertaken.
  • To provide you with the most user-friendly online navigation experience.
  • To comply with law for example if we are required by any law enforcement agency, court, regulator, government authority or other third party.
  • We record and monitor all telephone calls for training, regulatory compliance, and quality evaluation.
  • To help us detect and prevent fraud and money laundering and to recover any debt owed to us.
  • To send you marketing communications including promotional offers and events.
  • To arrange delivery of a vehicle to you (if this is applicable).
  • We capture CCTV recordings for the prevention and detection of crime, to ensure the safety of our employees and visitors to our premises and to exercise and defend our legal rights.

Marketing Communications

If you agree, we will send you marketing communications via your preferred method of contact to keep you updated with news, offers and promotions that we think may be of interest to you. You can opt out from receiving marketing communications at any time by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in these emails or alternatively, contacting us directly at dpo@acorn-group.co.uk.

Please note that, even if you choose not to receive marketing communications, we will continue to use your personal information to provide you with important services communications. These communications relate to purchases or vehicle support services as we have a legitimate interest and or contractual obligation to provide you with this information.

What legal basis do we rely on to process your information?

Data protection law sets out a number of conditions which organisations can rely on in order to lawfully handle personal information. The conditions we rely on are as follows: -

Legitimate interests

The law permits us to handle your personal information where necessary in our legitimate interests provided that this isn’t outweighed by your interests. Many of the processing activities described above fall into this category as they enable us to run Acorn Group effectively. For example, we have a legitimate interest in using third party service providers who review, maintain and improve the services we provide. We may, if necessary, also use your information to defend our legal rights or to obtain legal advice and to manage any complaint that you might have. We ensure that your rights and interests are protected when we do this.

Acorn Group relies on legitimate interests for the purpose of sending you service communications. For example, we will contact you to remind you about important safety and quality issues relating to your vehicle including to remind you about service and MOT due dates. This is important to help ensure that you comply with legal requirements and maintain the quality of your vehicle. Additionally, we will send a reminder to you about the date your finance agreement is due to end. If you would prefer that we didn’t remind you of these dates, you can let us know anytime by contacting our Data Protection Officer at dpo@acorn-group.co.uk.

Consent

We are permitted to use your personal information when you give us your consent for us to do so. For example, we will only use your personal information to contact you for direct marketing purposes if you give us your consent to do so. You can opt out from receiving marketing communications at any time by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in these emails or alternatively, contacting us directly at dpo@acorn-group.co.uk.

Performance of a contract

Where we have a contract with you, we will process your personal information to comply with our obligations under that contract. For example, where you transact with us to buy vehicles or parts or to book a service or MOT, we will use your personal information so that we can fulfil our part of the contract. For example, to provide the services, sell you a car and take payment from you. Where we need personal information to perform our contract and you do not provide it, we will be unable to provide our services to you.

Required by law

We will process information where it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation. For example, where we are required by law to disclose your personal information in response to a court order or where requested by a law enforcement agency. We will also disclose your personal information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, non-compliance with of our terms and conditions, or as otherwise permitted or required by law and consistent with legal requirements.

Who do we share your personal information with?

In order to manage our business effectively, and to provide the services we offer to you, we will need to share your personal information with certain third parties. Acorn Group will not share your personal information unnecessarily and will always ensure that all third parties who process your personal information on our behalf, have entered an appropriate written contract with us, are required to process it in accordance with our instructions, and have appropriate measures in place to protect it.

Our Affiliates
We will share your personal information with other Acorn Group entities in the Acorn Group including authorised franchised dealerships. We may also share non-personal aggregate statistics (group) data about visitors to our Websites, sales and traffic patterns with members of the Acorn Group and other parties.

Our Service providers
To third party organisations that provide services to us including legal and other professional advisors, marketing agencies, finance companies (who may perform credit checks), insurers, vehicle delivery providers, customer satisfaction partners and those who help us run our business such as IT support providers.

To third party organisations where you have purchased their product (such as insurance providers, warranty providers and roadside assistance providers) and to register your vehicle.

We may share your information with debt collection agencies should there be an outstanding debt owed to us.

Where we are required to do so
We may disclose personal information where necessary to (i) comply with legal obligations (ii) comply with information requests received from the police and other law enforcement agencies for the prevention and detection of crime and to (iii) prevent and detect fraud including fraudulent transactions or, to (iv) enforce the terms of any agreements we have with or otherwise concerning you (including agreements between you and us (or one or more members of the Acorn Group); or to protect our rights, property or safety or those of our customers, employees or other third parties.

Other Third Parties
If we buy or sell any business or assets (including car dealerships), we may disclose personal information held by us about our customers to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets. If we or substantially all our assets are acquired by a third party (or subject to a reorganisation within our corporate group), personal information held by us about our customers will be one of the transferred assets.

If you purchase a vehicle from us that you found through a third-party lead generation website, we may share limited sales information with them such as the vehicle identification number (VIN), the date of the sale and your postcode. Sharing this information enables them to understand sales conversion rates and value of their services.

We may pass your personal information to the relevant franchise manufacturer partner relating to your vehicle. They may contact you directly regarding your vehicle and to obtain feedback and/or to provide offers. For more information about how the manufacturer will use your information you can access their full Privacy Policy below;

Kia

www.kia.com/uk/privacy

Mitsubishi

www.imgroup.co.uk/privacy-notice

MG

www.mg.co.uk/privacy-policy

Suzuki

cars.suzuki.co.uk/privacy

Citroen

www.citroen.co.uk/tools/privacy-policy

Ford

www.ford.co.uk/useful-information/terms-and-privacy/privacy-policy

Personal Information Retention

We will keep your personal information for as long as we need it to provide the services and products you request from us. We may also retain your personal information to comply with our legal obligations, to resolve complaints and to enforce our rights. As a result, the length of time that we keep your personal information for will vary depending on the purposes for which we have it. In any event, we will review what personal information we need on an ongoing basis and will only retain it for the minimum amount of time that we need it for.

Protecting your personal information

We use technical and organisational measures that provide a level of security appropriate to the risk of processing your personal information. Nonetheless, the security of information transmitted via the internet can never be guaranteed, any transmission made is at your own risk.

To ensure your information remains secure and confidential, for any requests to access personal information or receive copies, we may first require you to provide proof of your identity.

Exercising your Data Subject Rights

We will try to keep your personal information up to date but rely on you telling us promptly if your name, address, telephone number or any other details change. You can correct or amend your personal information by e-mailing us at dpo@acorn-group.co.uk.

Data protection laws also mean that you have a number of additional rights including the right to access your personal information and to receive a copy of it. You can also object to your personal information being processed or ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information we hold about you. You can exercise these rights by e-mailing us at dpo@acorn-group.co.uk

You can also request to have your personal information erased or transferred either to you or a third party in a commonly structured format and to have your personal information restricted.

Please be aware that some of these rights only apply in limited circumstances and therefore even if you wish to exercise them, we may not always be required to comply.

For further information about how these rights apply, or to exercise your rights, please e-mail us at dpo@acorn-group.co.uk

Third Party sites

Our Websites contain links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to our websites. Visitors should always be aware when they are moving to another site and read the privacy statement of any site which collects personal information. We do not have control over third party websites cannot accept responsibility for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access those using links from our Websites.

We do not pass on any personal information about our visitors to any other site (unless we have obtained your consent to do so). In addition, if you linked to a Website from a third-party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third-party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site and contact the owner or operator if you have any concerns or questions.

Data Transfers

Your personal information may be processed and held by third parties outside the United Kingdom (UK) or European Economic Area (EEA).

Whereas in the UK/EU, we implement a high standard of data protection law, some parts of the world do not implement such stringent laws. As a result, if we do send personal information overseas, we will make sure that appropriate safeguards are in place to ensure it is protected in accordance with European and UK data protection laws. These might include: -

  • Sending personal information only to countries that European Authorities have indicated have adequate data protection laws in place e.g. Canada or Switzerland;
  • Putting in place contracts with the recipient containing terms which the European Authorities have approved as providing adequate protection; organisations which are members of a scheme which has been approved by European Authorities as achieving adequate protection.

For more information about where we send your information, please contact dpo@acorn-group.co.uk

Confidentiality

The personal information collected via our website, forms and various electronic or telephone communications we maintain with you, will be processed confidentiality by the Acorn Group in accordance with the provisions of UK Data Protection laws.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about how the Acorn Group handle your personal information or are unhappy about how we have done so, you can contact us directly on 01543 685656 or dpo@acorn-group.co.uk or write to us at: Data Protection Officer, Acorn Group, Cannock Road, Chase Terrace, Burntwood WS7 1JS.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority. To do this, you can contact The Information Commissioner’s Office through their website at www.ico.org.uk, by phone on 03031231113 or in writing to Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5A.