Privacy
What we do with your information, in plain English.
AMD Tyres, Brakes and Service, 177 North Station Road, Colchester, CO1 1UX, is the data controller for this website.
This site collects information in four ways: the enquiry form, the free car check, the cookie banner and, only if you say yes to it, Google Analytics. If you ring us instead, we take the details we need to do the work on your car and nothing else.
What the enquiry form collects
Your name and a phone number, which are the two we need to ring you back. Your vehicle registration, what you need doing, when suits you and anything you want to add are all optional, and the form works without them.
It also records which page you sent it from and the time you sent it. It does not record your IP address or your browser.
What happens to it: it is saved on this website first and then emailed to the workshop through Google's Gmail service, in that order, so that an email that fails to send cannot lose your enquiry. Nobody else receives it. It is not sent to a form service, a CRM or a marketing tool.
If you give us a registration, we look up when its MOT is due, the same way the car check does, so that we can remind you. That is explained under messages below.
We keep enquiries while the job is live and for a reasonable period after, for the same reason we keep records of work done. Ask us and we will delete yours.
Our web server also keeps an access log, as every web server does. It records the address your request came from, the page you asked for, the time, and what browser you used. That keeps the site running and secure, and it is deleted on a rolling basis.
The free car check
When you type a registration into the car check, we send it to the DVSA's MOT history service, the government's public record of MOT tests, and show you what comes back. We keep that answer on our server for up to 12 hours, so looking the same car up again is instant, and then it is thrown away.
To stop anybody using the check to flood the DVSA's service, we keep a scrambled version of the internet address your request came from for one hour, and count how many lookups it makes. After the hour it is deleted.
We also count, month by month, which kinds of repair come up in the results. That count holds no registration and nothing about you.
Messages we send you
If you have used us, or asked us for a price, we may text or email you about your own car: that it is ready, that we have not heard back about a price we gave you, or that something like an MOT or a service is falling due. That is it. We do not send offers, we do not send anything about other people's cars, and we never pass your number to anyone else.
If you gave us a registration and the DVSA record shows when its MOT runs out, we may send one text four weeks before and one a week before. We check the record again first, so if the MOT has already been done you hear nothing.
Every message tells you how to stop it, and stopping is one tap. You can also just tell us and we will take you off. Once you have said no, nothing else goes out, including anything already queued.
We keep a record of what we sent you and when, so that two different reminders cannot both land in the same week and so that we can answer you if you ask what we sent.
Measuring the website, only if you say yes
The first time you visit, a banner asks whether you accept analytics cookies. If you choose essential only, nothing is sent to Google and no analytics cookie is set.
If you accept, the site loads Google Tag Manager, which runs Google Analytics. It sets two cookies, listed on the cookies page, and records the pages you look at, how you got here (for example from a Google search or one of our Google ads), the kind of device and browser, your approximate town, and whether you tap the phone number or send the enquiry form. It does not record what you type into the form.
We use it to see which pages and which ads lead to people ringing us. Our Google Analytics is linked to our Google Ads account for that reason, so when a visit came from one of our ads, Google Ads is told about it too. Google Analytics keeps this for 14 months.
The banner records your choice so that it does not ask again: a random reference, a scrambled version of your internet address, your browser type, the page and what you chose. We keep that for two years as proof of what you agreed to.
You can change your mind at any time with the Cookie settings button at the bottom of every page.
What we collect when you ring or come in
Your name, a phone number, your vehicle registration and what is wrong with the car. We use it to do the work, to order the right parts and to contact you about the job.
If you ring the number shown in one of our Google ads, Google tells us that a call came from the ad, when, how long it lasted and the caller's area code. It does not give us the conversation.
We keep records of work done because we may need them if there is a query later, and because some parts carry a guarantee. We do not pass them on except to a supplier where that is needed to get a part for your vehicle.
Who else handles it
Our hosting company, which runs the server this website is on, in London.
Google, for Gmail (the enquiry emails), Google Analytics if you accept it, and the call reports from our Google ads. Google may process data in the United States, which UK law covers through the UK's data bridge with the US.
The DVSA, which receives a registration you type into the car check, and nothing else.
We do not sell your details to anyone.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, and in most cases ask us to delete it. Where we rely on your consent, as with analytics, you can withdraw it at any time with the Cookie settings button. Ring us or come in and ask about anything else, and we will sort it out.
If you are not happy with how we have handled your information you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
Any questions about this?
Ring the workshop and ask. It is a short conversation.
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