BESL Online Training Services: Privacy Policy
Introduction
British Engineering Services Limited (“BESL”) is part of the BES Group, a group of companies providing engineering inspection, testing, certification, consultancy and training services.
When a customer purchases a BESL online training course, BESL will require the provision of certain information from the customer, including personal data. This will typically include contact details and user account information relating to the customer and/or the customer’s personnel who will access the BESL online training. BESL will process this personal data for the purposes of setting up and administering accounts, facilitating access to the online training, managing course delivery and completion and otherwise performing the services ordered by the customer.
In order to provide the online training services, BESL shares relevant personal data with Astutis Limited (“Astutis”). Astutis provides and operates the online learning management system used to host, administer and deliver the BESL online training services and BESL and Astutis jointly act as data controllers in respect of personal data processed for those purposes. BESL and Astutis have entered into a joint controller agreement for this purpose in order to comply with the requirements of UK GDPR. This joint controller agreement between BESL and Astutis Limited governs their respective responsibilities for compliance with data protection legislation and the essence of that arrangement is available on request.
We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data in connection with your use of the BESL online training services. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and what to do if you have a complaint.
This privacy policy relates only to the processing of personal data by BESL in connection with the provision of its online training services. Where any processing of personal data is undertaken by Astutis in connection with the provision of the BESL online training services, such processing is governed by Astutis’s own privacy policy which is available at https://www.astutis.com/privacy-policy
1. Who are we and what do we do?
1.1 BESL are the provider of online training courses for their customers.
1.2 We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we must comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).
2. Terminology
It would be helpful to explain some key terms used in this policy:
We, us, our | British Engineering Services Limited | |
Personal data | Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual | |
Special category personal data | Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership Genetic data Biometric data (where used for identification purposes) Data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation | |
Data subject | The individual who the personal data relates to |
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You, your | As the context dictates, our customers and individuals associated with them, contacts, suppliers and any individuals whose personal data we receive in the course of providing our services |
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3. Personal data we collect
3.1 The personal data we collect about our customers depends on the particular services we provide to you. For the purposes of the BESL online training services, we will collect or use the following personal data in relation to our customers:
3.1.1Your name and contact information, including email address and telephone number and company details;
3.1.2 Employment and organisational information;
3.1.3 IP address, ISP and location data (of anyone submitting a website form);
3.1.4Bank account and payment details;
3.1.5 Details of any information, feedback or other matters you give to us by phone, email or post;
3.1.6Your Astutis account details, such as username and login details;
3.1.7 Information in relation to a customer’s and their users’ access to and use of the online learning management system and the use of our online training services;
3.1.8 Information about the services we provide to you.
3.1.9 Your contact history, purchase and saved items.
3.2 The main purpose of collecting and using this information is to provide our services to our customers. However, we may also collect and use the above information for the purposes set out in section 5.3.
3.3 If you do not provide personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing our services to you.
4. How your personal data is collected
4.1 We collect most of the above information from you.
4.2 However, we may also receive and collect information:
4.2.1 provided directly by your organisation;
4.2.2 provided directly by your insurance broker and/or insurer;
4.2.3 provided directly by Astutis in relation to a customer’s and their users’ access to and use of the online learning management system and our online training services;
4.2.4 via our website—we use cookies and similar technologies on our website (for more information on cookies, please see our website privacy and cookie policy at https://besgroup.com/legal-hub/).
5. How and why we use personal data
5.1 Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a lawful proper reason, e.g.:
5.1.1 you have given consent—where we need your consent, we will ask for it separately of this privacy policy and you can withdraw consent at any time;
5.1.2 to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
5.1.3 to fulfil our contract with you or take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
5.1.4 for the purposes of a recognised legitimate interest under UK data protection law; or
5.1.5 for our legitimate interests or those of a third party.
5.2 A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. We will carry out an assessment when relying on legitimate interests, to balance our interests against your own. You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests. We must then stop the processing unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds which override your interests, rights and freedoms or the processing is required to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
5.3 The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why.
What we use your personal data for | Our reasons | |
Providing services to our customers | To fulfil our contract with customers or to take steps at their request before entering into a contract | |
Preventing and detecting fraud against you or us | Depending on the circumstances: for our and/or your legitimate interests, i.e. to minimise fraud that could be damaging for you and/or us for the recognised legitimate interest under UK data protection law of preventing, detecting or investigating crimes | |
Conducting checks to identify our customers and verify their identity Other activities necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety law | Depending on the circumstances: to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations for our legitimate interests | |
To enforce legal rights or defend or take legal proceedings | Depending on the circumstances: to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations for our legitimate interests, or those of a third party | |
Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies | Depending on the circumstances: to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations for our legitimate interests | |
Ensuring internal business policies are complied with, e.g. policies covering security and internet use | For our legitimate interests, i.e. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to our customers | |
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control | For our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to our customers at the best price | |
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information | Depending on the circumstances: for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect trade secrets and other commercially valuable information to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations | |
Statistical analysis to help us manage our business, e.g. in relation to our financial performance, customer base, services range or other efficiency measures | For our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to our customers at the best price | |
Protecting the security of systems and data used to provide services, prevent unauthorised access and changes to our systems | Depending on the circumstances: for our legitimate interests, i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations | |
Updating and enhancing customer records | Depending on the circumstances: to fulfil our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations for our legitimate interests, e.g. making sure we can keep in touch with our customers about existing and new services | |
Statutory returns | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations | |
Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments | Depending on the circumstances: to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations for our legitimate interests, e.g. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you | |
Providing information updates and/or marketing our services and those of selected third parties to existing and former customers and third parties | Depending on the circumstances: for our legitimate interests, i.e. to promote our business consent (which you can withdraw at any time) | |
Dealing with complaints or claims | Depending on the circumstances: to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations for our or your legitimate interests, e.g. to make sure any potential claim is reported to our insurer | |
External audits and quality checks, e.g. for accreditation and the audit of our accounts - to the extent not covered by ‘activities necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations’ above | Depending on the circumstances: for our legitimate interests, i.e. to achieve and maintain relevant accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations | |
Sharing your personal data with members of our group and third parties that will or may take control or ownership of some or all of our business (and professional advisors acting on our or their behalf) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale or in the event of our insolvency In such cases information will be anonymised where possible and only shared where necessary | Depending on the circumstances: to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations in other cases, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect, realise or grow the value in our business and assets |
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Sharing information relating to customers’ and users’ use and completion of the BESL online training services with insurer and insurance broker partners for statistical and risk‑analysis purposes relating to the BESL online training services | For our legitimate interests, namely to monitor training uptake and completion trends and for statistical and risk‑analysis purposes. Where shared, insurers act as independent data controllers in respect of the personal data they receive |
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Voluntarily sharing relevant personal data with public authorities, regulators or other bodies exercising official functions in response to written requests where we consider disclosure is necessary and appropriate | For a recognised legitimate interest, namely to respond to a request from another organisation that needs the personal data for the purposes of carrying out its task in the public interest or exercising its official authority |
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5.4 Where we process special category personal data (see section 2 ‘Terminology’), we will also ensure we are permitted to do so under applicable data protection laws.
6. Marketing
6.1 We and the companies within the BES Group of companies may use your personal data to send you updates (e.g. by email, text message, telephone, post or social media channels) about our services and about the services of the other companies within the BES Group, including marketing, exclusive offers, promotions or new services.
6.2 We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data for marketing purposes (see section 5 ‘How and why we use your personal data’). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you marketing information. Where this is not the case, we will always ask for your consent.
6.3 In all cases, you have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by:
6.3.1 contacting us at data.protection@besgroup.com;
6.3.2 using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in emails or ‘STOP’ number in texts.
6.4 We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
6.5 We and all companies within the BES Group of companies will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and will never share it with other organisations outside the BES Group of companies for their marketing purposes.
7. Who we share your personal data with
7.1 We routinely share personal data with:
7.1.1 companies within the BES Group;
7.1.2 third parties we use to help deliver our services, e.g. providers of our online training system, finance system, IT service providers including cloud service providers such as data storage platforms, shared service centres and financial institutions in connection with invoicing and payments;
7.1.3 other third parties we use to help us run our business and also to promote our business, e.g. marketing agencies, market research partners, companies that deploy our email campaigns, website hosts, insight and analytics providers, customer service and feedback organisations, insurance brokers and social media providers;
7.1.4 third parties approved by you, e.g. third party payment providers;
7.1.5 our bank; and
7.1.6 our insurers.
7.2 We may also share information, including personal data, relating to customers’ and users’ access to and completion of the BESL online training services with our insurer and insurance broker partners for statistical and risk‑analysis purposes. Where reasonably practicable, such information will be aggregated or anonymised. Where personal data is shared, it will be limited to what is necessary for those purposes and our insurer and insurance broker partners will act as independent data controllers in respect of the personal data they receive, processing it in accordance with their own privacy policies and applicable data protection legislation.
7.3 We only allow those organisations to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We ensure all outsourcing providers operate under service agreements that are consistent with our legal obligations.
7.4 We or the third parties mentioned above may occasionally also share personal data with:
7.4.1 our and their external auditors, e.g. in relation to the audit of our or their accounts, in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations;
7.4.2 our and their professional advisors (such as lawyers and other advisors), in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations;
7.4.3 law enforcement agencies, courts, tribunals and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
7.4.4 public authorities, regulators and other bodies exercising official functions, where they make a written request for personal data they need for their public task or official functions and we decide it is necessary and appropriate to disclose it;
7.4.5 other parties that have or may acquire control or ownership of our business (and our or their professional advisers) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition or asset sale or in the event of our insolvency—usually information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible and the recipient of any of your personal data will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
7.5 If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ at section 16).
8. Where your personal data is held
8.1 Personal data may be held at our premises and those of our group companies, third party agencies, service providers, representatives and entities as described in section 7 ‘Who we share your personal data with’.
8.2 Some of these third parties may be based outside the UK. For more information, including on how we safeguard your personal data when this occurs, see section 10 ‘Transferring your personal data abroad’.
9 How long your personal data will be kept
9.1 We will not keep your personal data for longer than we need it for the purpose for which it was collected or as required by law.
9.2 Following the end of the of the relevant retention period, we will delete or anonymise your personal data.
9.3 If you would like further information about how long we keep your personal data, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us at section16).
10. Transferring your personal data abroad
10.1 It is sometimes necessary for us to transfer your personal data to countries outside the UK. This may include countries which do not provide the same level of protection of personal data as the UK.
10.2 We will transfer your personal data outside the UK only where:
10.2.1 the UK government has decided the recipient country ensures an adequate level of protection of personal data (known as an adequacy regulation); or
10.2.2 there are appropriate safeguards in place (e.g. standard contractual data protection clauses published or approved by the relevant data protection regulator), together with enforceable rights and effective legal remedies for you; or
10.2.3 a specific exception applies under data protection law.
10.3 For more information, please contact us (using the ‘How to contact us’ information at section 16).
11. Your rights
11.1 You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:
Access | You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal data. You can request other information such as where we get personal data from and who we share personal data with. There are some exemptions which means you may not receive all the information you ask for | |
Rectification | You have the right to ask us to correct or delete personal data you think is inaccurate or incomplete | |
Erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten) | You have the right to ask us to delete your personal data—in certain situations | |
Restriction of processing | You have the right to ask us to limit how we use your personal data—in certain situations, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data | |
Data portability | You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal data you gave us to another organisation or to you—in certain situations | |
To object | You have the right to object: at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling); in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, e.g. processing carried out for our legitimate interests or a recognised legitimate interest condition under UK data protection law unless we demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests or for establishing, exercising or defending legal claims | |
Rights in respect of automated decision-making | Where significant decisions (those which produce a legal or similarly significant effect on you) are made using your personal data and based on solely automated processing with no meaningful human involvement, you have the right to have certain safeguards in place to protect your data subject rights, freedoms and legitimate interests. These safeguards include giving you information about the decision and enabling you to make representations, obtain human intervention, and contest the decision In addition to also requiring the above safeguards, significant decisions made using special category personal data and based on solely automated processing are only permissible in certain specified scenarios (e.g. where you have given your explicit consent for the decision to be made using such data) |
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The right to withdraw consent | When we use your consent as our lawful basis, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time You may withdraw consents by contacting us at data.protection@besgroup.com Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn |
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11.2 If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email, call or write to us (see section 16: ‘How to contact us’) and i) provide enough information to identify yourself and any additional identity information we may reasonably request from you; and ii) let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.
12. Keeping your personal data secure
12.1 We have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep your personal data confidential and secure from unauthorised access, use and disclosure. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your personal data will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
12.2 We require our business partners, suppliers and other third parties to implement appropriate security measures to protect personal data from unauthorised access, use and disclosure.
12.3 We also have procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are required to do so.
13. How to complain
13.1 Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data (see below ‘How to contact us’).
13.2 You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (the UK data protection regulator, also known as the ICO).
13.3 The contact details for the ICO are:
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire,SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
Website: https://www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
14. Changes to this privacy policy
14.1 This privacy policy was published on …….. and last updated on 17.04.2026.
14.2 We may change this privacy policy from time to time. When we do, we will publish the updated version on our website and ask for your consent to the changes if legally required.
15. Updating your personal data
We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal data remains accurate and up to date. To help us with this, please let us know if any of the personal data you have provided to us has changed, e.g. your surname or address—see below ‘How to contact us’.
16. How to contact us
You can contact us by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.
Our contact details are shown below:
Our contact details |
By Post: Data Protection Officer, BES Group, Unit 718 Eddington Way, Birchwood Park, Warrington, WA3 6BA By email: data.protection@besgroup.com By telephone: please use the contact number published on our website |