Metals4U Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 17 September 2025

At metals4U, we are committed to protecting your privacy and personal data. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and share your personal information when you interact with us, including when you visit our website, make a purchase, or contact us. We adhere to applicable data protection laws in the UK, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, and the recently enacted Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

1. Who We Are

Metals4U Limited, trading as Metals4U, is a leading supplier of metals for trade and DIY. Metals 4U Limited is a company registered in England and Wales under Company Number 04452887 and our registered address is Armitage Works, Sandbeck Way, Sandbeck Industrial Estate, Wetherby, West Yorkshire, LS22 7DN 

For any questions regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal data, please contact metals4U using the details below:

• Email: info@metals4u.uk
• Postal Address: metals4U, Ltd Armitage Works, Sandbeck Way, Sandbeck Industrial Estate, Wetherby, West Yorkshire, LS22 7DN 
• Phone: 01937 534318

2. Information We Collect About You

We may collect various types of personal information from you, depending on your interactions with us. This may include:

a) Information you provide to us directly:

• Contact Information: Name, company name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number.
• Account Information: Username, password (encrypted), and other details you provide when creating an account.
• Payment Information: Partial credit/debit card numbers (full card numbers are processed by our secure payment gateway and are not stored on our servers), banking details, and transaction history.
• Order Information: Details of products purchased, order history, and any specific requirements or preferences related to your order.
• Communications Data: Information you provide when you contact us via phone, email, live chat, or social media, including the content of your communications. (Note: Inbound and outbound calls may be recorded for quality assurance, training, and legal compliance purposes. You will be notified if a call is being recorded.)
• Marketing Preferences: Your preferences for receiving marketing communications from us.
• Survey and Feedback Data: Information you provide when participating in surveys, competitions, or providing feedback.

b) Information we collect automatically:

• Website Usage Data: Your IP address, device type, browser type and version, operating system, pages visited, time spent on pages, referral sources, and clickstream data. This is collected through cookies and similar technologies (see Section 5 for more details).
• Technical Data: Information about how you use our website and services, including login data, system activity, and error reports.

c) Information from third parties:

• Payment Processors: Confirmation of payment and transaction details (excluding full card numbers).
• Delivery Partners: Updates on shipping and delivery status.
• Publicly Available Information: In some limited cases, we may collect information from publicly available sources e.g. Companies House, to verify business details or as part of our fraud prevention processes.
• Third Party Databases: We obtain certain business data from third party databases to which we have access. These databases may or may not be publicly available but the data is made available to us under applicable contracts or licences.

3. How We Use Your Personal Information

We use your personal information for the following purposes, based on the following legal bases:

a) To Fulfil Our Contractual Obligations (Performance of a contract):

• Processing your orders and payments.
• Arranging delivery of products.
• Managing your account and providing customer support.
• Communicating with you about your orders, deliveries, and account.

b) For Our Legitimate Business Interests:

• Improving our website, products, and services.
• Personalising your experience on our website.
• Using your purchase history and website Browse data to tailor and personalise the content of our marketing communications, ensuring they are relevant to your interests
• Conducting analysis and research to understand customer behaviour and market trends.
• Preventing and detecting fraud and unauthorised activities.
• Ensuring the security and integrity of our systems and data.
• Responding to your enquiries and providing requested information.
• For internal record-keeping and administrative purposes.
• Call recording may help with our quality assurance, training and compliance procedures.
• For our marketing communications via email or other electronic channels, we rely on the 'soft opt-in' exception under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) for our existing customers regarding similar products and services, where we collected your details in the course of a sale or negotiations for a sale, and you were given a clear opportunity to opt out at the time of collection and in every subsequent communication. For other marketing communications, we will seek your consent as detailed below

c) With Your Consent:

• Sending you marketing communications, including our newsletter, via email or other electronic channels such as SMS about our products, services, and special offers (beyond the ‘soft opt-in’ scope) where you have provided your explicit, affirmative consent for such communications. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.
• Using certain cookies or tracking technologies that require your consent (see Section 5).
• Processing any sensitive personal data (e.g., specific accessibility needs for delivery) if voluntarily provided and is absolutely necessary for a specific service, and with your explicit consent.

d) To Comply with Legal Obligations:

• Complying with applicable laws, regulations, and legal processes (e.g., tax, accounting, consumer protection laws).
• Responding to requests from law enforcement or regulatory authorities.

4. How We Share Your Personal Information

We will not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to third parties for their independent marketing purposes. We may share your information with the following categories of third parties only when necessary and with appropriate safeguards:

• Service Providers: Third-party companies that perform services on our behalf, such as payment processing, order fulfilment, delivery, website hosting, IT support, marketing services, emails service providers and data analytics. These providers are obligated to protect your information and can only use it for the purposes for which we disclose it to them.
• Financial Institutions: Banks and payment gateways for processing transactions.
• Regulatory and Law Enforcement Bodies: When required by law or to protect our rights, property, or safety, or the rights, property, or safety of others.
• Professional Advisors: Lawyers, accountants, and other professional advisors.

5. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Our website uses "cookies" and similar technologies (such as web beacons, pixel tags, and tracking pixels) to enhance your Browse experience and collect information about your visits.

• What are cookies? Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website. They allow the website to remember your actions and preferences over time.
• How we use cookies: We use cookies for various purposes, including:
• Essential Cookies: Necessary for the website to function correctly (e.g., enabling shopping cart functionality).
• Analytical/Performance Cookies: To understand how visitors use our website, monitor performance, and identify areas for improvement.
• Functionality Cookies: To remember your preferences and personalise your experience.
• Marketing/Advertising Cookies: These cookies help us understand your interests to show you relevant advertisements on our site and other sites (e.g., Google Adwords Remarketing), and in some cases, to inform the content of our marketing emails, subject to your marketing preferences and consent.
• Your Choices: Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser settings to decline cookies or to notify you when a cookie is being placed. Please note that blocking or deleting cookies may impact the functionality of our website. You can typically opt out of Google's use of cookies by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page.

6. Data Security

We take the security of your personal data seriously. We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information from unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. These measures include:

• Encryption: Our website uses SSL encryption technology (HTTPS) to secure data transmission.
• Access Controls: Restricting access to personal data to authorised employees, agents, and contractors who need the information to perform their duties and are bound by confidentiality obligations.
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Compliance: Our shopping cart system is PA-DSS and PCI-compliant, ensuring secure handling of payment information.
• Regular Security Reviews: We regularly review our security practices to ensure they remain robust.

While we strive to protect your personal data, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

We may transfer your personal data to service providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf. These service providers are generally in the UK however some service providers, such as Google, may be outside of the UK. In some limited circumstances, we may transfer personal data outside the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK law. Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK to service providers, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded as if the service provider was based in the UK.

7. Data Retention

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

To determine the appropriate retention period, we consider:

• The amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data.
• The potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data.
• The purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means.
• Applicable legal requirements (e.g., retaining transaction records for tax purposes).

By law, we have to have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax and legal purposes.

In some circumstances, you can ask us to delete your data as set out below.

8. Your Rights

Under UK data protection laws, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• The Right to Be Informed: To be informed about our collection and use of your personal data (this Privacy Policy serves this purpose).
• The Right of Access: To request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• The Right to Rectification: To request that we correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold about you.
• The Right to Erasure (the "Right to be Forgotten"): To request the deletion of your personal data where there is no valid reason for us to continue processing it.
• The Right to Restrict Processing: To request that we limit or suspend the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
• The Right to Data Portability: To obtain a copy of your personal data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and to transfer it to another organisation.
• The Right to Object: To object to our processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest or for direct marketing purposes.
• Rights in Relation to Automated Decision Making and Profiling: To object to decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact metals4U using the contact details provided in Section 1. We may require proof of identity to verify your request.

9. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for legal or regulatory reasons. Any changes will be posted on this page, and we encourage you to review this policy periodically to stay informed about how we are protecting your information.

10. Complaints

If you have any concerns about how we handle your personal data, please contact us in the first instance using the contact details in Section 1. We will do our best to resolve your concerns.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's independent authority for upholding information rights. You can find their contact details on their website: www.ico.org.uk.