Privacy Policy

Last updated: 27 June 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how First Essential collects, uses, shares and protects your personal data when you visit our website, make an enquiry, book a demo, open an account, place an order through our shop, or use our products and services. We are committed to handling your personal data lawfully, fairly and transparently in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. What data we collect

Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect the following categories of personal data.

Enquiries and demo bookings

• Your name and the name of your business or organisation
• Contact details such as email address, phone number and, where you provide it, your business address
• Information about your enquiry, including the products or services you are interested in and any details you choose to share with us
• Records of our communications with you, including emails, calls, messages and demo notes

Accounts and the shop

• Account details such as username, login credentials and account preferences
• Order and purchase details, including the products or services bought, order history and delivery information
• Billing information. Card payments are handled by our payment providers, and we do not store full card numbers on our website

Products and services

• Information needed to set up and support the products and services you use, including EPOS, card payment solutions, self-service kiosks, AI assistants, web and app development, print, and our all-in-one platform First Essential One
• Support requests, service tickets and the information you give us to resolve them

Website use

• Technical data such as IP address, browser type and version, device information, operating system and approximate location
• Usage data about how you use our website, including pages visited and time spent
• Cookies and similar technologies, where you consent to them. See our cookies section and our Cookie Policy

We do not seek to collect special category data (such as data about health, race or religion) through our website. Please do not send us such data unless we have specifically asked for it for a clear and lawful reason.

2. How we collect your data

• Directly from you, when you complete a form, book a demo, open an account, place an order, contact us, or use our products and services
• Automatically, through cookies and similar technologies when you use our website, where you have consented
• From third parties, such as our payment providers, analytics providers and, where relevant, partners or referrers, in line with their own privacy notices

3. How and why we use your data

We use your personal data to:

• Respond to your enquiries and arrange and deliver demos
• Provide quotations, set up your account and supply the products and services you have asked for
• Process orders, take payment and provide receipts and invoices
• Provide customer support, training and ongoing service
• Manage our relationship with you, including service updates and important notices
• Improve our website, products and services, and understand how they are used
• Send you marketing about our products and services where you have agreed to receive it, or where we are otherwise allowed to do so
• Meet our legal, regulatory, accounting and tax obligations
• Protect our business, prevent fraud and keep our systems secure

4. Our lawful bases for using your data

Under UK GDPR we must have a lawful basis for each use of your personal data. We rely on the following.

5. Sharing your data and our processors

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal data. We share it only where necessary, with:

• Service providers and processors who help us run our business, for example hosting, website and platform providers, payment providers, email and communication tools, analytics providers and customer support tools
• Partners and suppliers where this is needed to deliver a product or service you have asked for, such as hardware suppliers or development partners
• Professional advisers such as accountants, auditors and lawyers
• Authorities and regulators where we are required to do so by law
• A buyer or successor if we sell or reorganise all or part of our business

Where we use processors, we put written agreements in place that require them to protect your data and to use it only on our instructions.

6. International transfers

Some of our providers may process data outside the United Kingdom. Where this happens, we take steps to make sure your data is protected to a standard equivalent to UK law. This may include relying on UK adequacy regulations, the International Data Transfer Agreement, the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or other approved safeguards. You can ask us for more detail about the safeguards we use.

7. How long we keep your data

We keep personal data only for as long as we need it for the purposes set out in this policy, and then we delete or anonymise it securely. How long we keep data depends on the type of data and why we hold it. As a general guide:

• Enquiry and demo data is kept for a reasonable period to follow up and for our records, then reviewed and deleted if you do not become a customer
• Account, order and service data is kept for the life of the relationship and for a period afterwards
• Financial, tax and accounting records are kept for the period required by law, which is normally at least six years
• Marketing data is kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to stop, after which we keep a minimal record so we respect your choice

You can ask us for more information about our retention periods at any time.

8. How we keep your data secure

Card payment data is handled by payment providers that operate to the PCI-DSS security standard. We do not use your personal data to train artificial intelligence models without your explicit consent.

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against loss, misuse and unauthorised access, including access controls, secure hosting, encryption in transit where appropriate, and staff awareness. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to protect your data and to respond promptly if a problem arises. If a personal data breach is likely to result in a risk to your rights, we will notify the ICO and, where required, you.

9. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge in most cases:

• Access. The right to be told whether we hold your data and to receive a copy of it
• Rectification. The right to have inaccurate data corrected and incomplete data completed
• Erasure. The right to ask us to delete your data in certain circumstances, sometimes called the right to be forgotten
• Restriction. The right to ask us to limit how we use your data in certain circumstances
• Portability. The right to receive certain data in a structured, commonly used, machine readable format, and to have it transferred to another controller where technically feasible
• Objection. The right to object to our use of your data based on legitimate interests, and to object to direct marketing at any time
• Withdraw consent. Where we rely on consent, the right to withdraw it at any time, without affecting earlier processing
• Automated decisions. The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing that produces legal or similarly significant effects, where this applies

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details below. We may need to verify your identity. We will respond within one month, which we may extend for complex requests, and we will tell you if we do.

10. Cookies and analytics

We use cookies and similar technologies to make our website work, to understand how it is used and, where you consent, for analytics and marketing. You can control non essential cookies through our cookie banner and your browser settings. For full details, please see our Cookie Policy.

11. Children

Our website, products and services are intended for businesses and organisations and are not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us so we can remove it.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or the law. We will post the updated version here and change the date at the top of the page. Where changes are significant, we will take reasonable steps to bring them to your attention.

13. How to contact us and how to complain

If you are not happy with how we have handled your personal data, please tell us first so we can try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection:

• Website: ico.org.uk
• Helpline: 0303 123 1113
• Post: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF