So that we can provide you with our products and services, we have to share some of your personal data with trusted third parties.
When we share your personal data, we make sure that it remains secure:
We conduct a data security review of third parties we share your personal data with to ensure that they will keep your personal data secure and confidential to the standards you and we would expect
Every external company we work with is required to have a contract with us which clearly describes our expectations about the way in which they keep your personal data secure, the purposes for which they can use your personal data and which holds them fully responsible for meeting those expectations
We will only send to third parties the personal data that is necessary for the purposes it is required for.
Folio does not sell customer data but we share your data as follows:
Authorized third-party vendors and service providers.
We may disclose your personal information to authorized third‐party vendors and service providers that assist us in operating our website, providing customer support, and delivering targeted advertising.
With core service providers to enable our business to function
We rely on a set of external companies to provide us with services that enable our business to run properly. Our core service providers include the delivery companies we use to send our books to you; banks and clearing houses to process your payments; our warehousing and despatch company; IT service providers; our provider of independent product and service reviews; and the company which handles some of our orders by telephone. It also includes companies to help us with our marketing, including catalogue printers and mailing houses, our advertising agencies, email marketing provider and data analytics companies. These companies help us ensure that our marketing communications are relevant, not duplicated and abide by your marketing preferences.
With regulators and law enforcement agencies when required to do so by law
We are required to co-operate with regulators (like the UK Information Commissioner's Office or HMRC) and law enforcement agencies (like the police or the Serious Fraud Office) in every country we operate in. Although it does not happen often, regulators and law enforcement agencies can require us to share information with them as part of an investigation; this may include your personal data. We would have to disclose your personal data where we believe that disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with the regulator or crime enforcement agency's demand.
When we think it is reasonably necessary to protect you or us
Occasionally businesses are subject to attempted criminal activities; this can affect both us and you. We will take all reasonable steps to protect you and our business but sometimes we may need to share your personal data where we think it is reasonably necessary to:
Detect, monitor, investigate or prevent any suspected illegal activities, fraud or security issues
Enforce our terms and conditions and to protect your and our rights and property
Investigate and defend any third party claims or allegations
As part of a business sale or purchase, merger or reorganisation
Although we have no current plans to do so, from time to time we may look to purchase another business or sell or re-organise parts of our business to ensure that we remain in strong shape. Sometimes these types of corporate transactions involve the transfer of your personal data solely for the purposes of assessing the transaction. In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, personal data which we hold about you may be one of the transferred assets.
In aggregated format
Strictly speaking this is not personal data, but on occasions we will use data from which you cannot be personally identified but which does include information that relates to you (such as your purchase history). This data is combined with data from other customers to provide general trends on customers’ preferences, ratings and reviews and general buying habits.