Privacy Policy

Advance Welding is the trading name of Advance Technical Systems Limited. This privacy policy explains how we, Advance Welding, use any personal information we collect about you. Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), Advance Technical Systems Limited is the “Data Controller” of your personal data.

 

How do we collect information about you?

We collect information about you when you sell products/services to us or buy products/services from us. We also collect information when you register on our website, voluntarily complete surveys, provide feedback, participate in competitions, or submit inquiries through our online contact form.

  • Comments: When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it (the Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/). After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
  • Media: If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Website usage information is also collected using cookies and analytics tools.

 

What information do we collect?

The personal data we collect may include your name, contact details (such as email address, phone number, and postal address), billing and payment information, and your IP address or device information when you browse our site.

 

How will we use the information about you?

We collect information about you to process your order, manage your account, and maintain warranty records. Our legal basis for this is the performance of a contract with you.

If you agree, we will email you about other products and services we think may be of interest to you. When you tick the “I would like to receive…” option on our Contact Us form, you provide explicit consent for us to add you to our mailing list.

We use your information collected from the website to personalise your repeat visits to our website. Our legal basis for this is our legitimate business interest in improving our website user experience.

  • Account Security: If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
  • Spam Detection: Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

If you agree, we shall pass on your personal information to our group of companies so that we may offer you their products and services. Advance Technical Systems will not share your information for marketing purposes with any other companies outside our Group.

In processing your order, we may send your details to, and also use information from, credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies. Our legal basis for this is our legitimate business interest in protecting against fraud and credit risks.

 

Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

  • Transactions & Warranties: Warranty records and transaction data are kept for a minimum statutory period to comply with tax and legal obligations.
  • Marketing Data: Marketing data is kept until you withdraw your consent.
  • Registered Users: For users that register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
  • Comments: If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

 

Marketing

We would like to send you information about products and services of ours and other companies in our group which may be of interest to you.

If you have consented to receive marketing, you may opt out at a later date. You have a right at any time to stop us from contacting you for marketing purposes or giving your information to other members of the Advance Technical Systems Group.

If you no longer wish to be contacted for marketing purposes, please email us at privacy@advancewelding.co.uk telling us this, or click the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any marketing email we send you.

 

Access to your information and your rights

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you. If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information, please email us at privacy@advancewelding.co.uk.

We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove information you think is inaccurate.

Under the UK GDPR, you also have the following rights regarding your data:

  • The right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’): You can ask us to delete your personal data. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
  • The right to restrict processing: You can ask us to block or suppress the processing of your personal data.
  • The right to object to processing: You can object to our processing of your personal data, particularly for direct marketing.
  • The right to data portability: You can request that we transfer your data to another organization, or directly to you.
  • The right to lodge a complaint: You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you believe we have mishandled your data.

 

Website Cookies, Google Analytics, and Embedded Content

Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. This information is used to track visitor use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity.

 

WordPress & Functional Cookies:

  • If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
  • If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
  • When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
  • If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

 

Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to analyze how visitors interact with our website. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect anonymous data regarding website traffic and user behavior. This helps us improve our website and tailor it to customer needs. The data collected by Google Analytics is transmitted to and stored by Google on their servers. You can opt-out of Google Analytics tracking across all websites by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

 

Embedded Content: Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

For further information visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org. You can set your browser not to accept cookies, manage your preferences via the cookie consent banner when you first visit our site. The above websites also tell you how to remove cookies from your browser. However, in a few cases some of our website features may not function as a result.

 

Other websites

Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to our website so when you link to other websites you should read their privacy policies.

 

Changes to our privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any updates on our website. This privacy policy was last updated in June 2026.

 

How to contact us

Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you by emailing privacy@advancewelding.co.uk. Alternatively, you can write to us at our registered business address.