Privacy policy

Last updated: Thursday 9th November 2023

Please read all of the following information carefully. By using Our Site and/or registering with us, you are agreeing to the terms of this Policy.MedTree is a trading name of BTME Group Ltd. This website is owned and operated by BTME Group Ltd.BTME Group Ltd are committed to protecting and respecting any personal information that you provide to us complying with the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. Looking after the information you share with us is very important and we want you to be confident that your personal data is kept safely and securely and to understand how we use it to offer you a better and more personalised shopping experience.We have published this notice to help you understand;

• how and why BTME Group Ltd collect information from you;
• who we are sharing your information with, why and on what basis; and
• what your rights are.

If we make changes to the below notice, we will notify you by updating it on our website. BTME Group Ltd will be what is known as the ‘Data Controller’ of the personal data you provide to us and we will sometimes refer to ourselves in this notice as “we” or “us”. By Data Controller, this means BTME Group Ltd determines the purposes and way in which any personal data are, or will be, processed. Your continued use of our site, following the posting of any changes to this policy, will mean that you accept these changes.Should you have any questions or need to contact us please email dataprotection@btme-group.co.uk quoting ‘Privacy & Security Enquiry.’

WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT AND WHY?

When you buy, or attempt to buy goods from us, you are entering into a contract with us. When placing your order, you will be asked to provide some personal information including:

• full name
• billing address
• delivery address
• contact numbers
• email address

We refer to this information as ‘Order Information.’ We may also collect and process the data about you that you provide when filling in forms on or via our website. This includes information provided at the time of requesting products, services or information from us including:

• information that you provide to us when you write to us (including by email)
• information that you provide to us when we speak to you by telephone
• information that you provide to us verbally at exhibitions/conferences/shows/visits
• information that you provide to us when requesting information including but not limited to catalogues and literature
• When you shop in our store BTME Group uses CCTV for security monitoring purposes.

HOW DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION?

We use the Order Information we collect generally to fulfil any orders placed through our website or directly with us including processing your payment information, arranging for shipping, and providing you with invoices and/or other documents relating to your order. Additionally, we use this Order Information to:

• communicate with you;
• screen our orders for potential risk or fraud
• screen our orders containing knives or bladed articles for proof of age; and
• when in line with the preferences you have shared with us, provide you with information or advertising relating to our products or services.

Furthermore, Data Protection says that we are allowed to use your personal data only where we have a proper reason to do so. The law says we must have one or more of these reasons:

• Contract – your personal information is processed in order to fulfil a contractual arrangement e.g. in order to send you your order.
• Consent – where you agree to us using your information in this way e.g. for storing your address information
• Legitimate Interests – this means the interest of BTME Group Ltd in managing our business to allow us to provide you with the best products and service in the most secure and appropriate way e.g. transfer your data to certain Third Party’s such as delivery partners.
• Legal Obligation – where there is a statutory or legal requirement to share the information e.g. when we have to share your information for law enforcement purposes.

Below is a list of the ways we may use your personal information, and which of the reasons described above we rely on to do so. Where we list legitimate interests as a reason, we also describe below what we believe these legitimate interests are:

What We Use Your Personal Information For	Our Reasons (Legal Basis)	Our Explanation Of Legitimate Interests
Set up your account	• Legitimate interest	Process efficiency in dealing with such activity.
Storing payment cards	• Consent	N/A
Process your orders	• Fulfilling a contract	N/A
Notify you of your order status	• Legitimate interests	Process efficiency in dealing with such activity, and to make improvements to our services.
To detect, investigate and report financial crime (e.g. Fraud)	• Legal Obligation / legitimate interests	Developing and improving how we deal with financial crime. Complying with any legal obligation placed on us by regulators such as the FCA. Complying with any regulations that apply to us. Process efficiency in dealing with such activity, and to make service and process improvements.
To age check orders containing knives or bladed articles	• Legal Obligation / legitimate interests	Complying with legal obligations to ensure items are sold to persons over 18 years of age.
Undertake website personalisation and administration	• Legitimate interests	Developing products, services, applications and designs that attract and retain customers. Improving customer interaction with our sites. Defining types of customers for new products or services.
Marketing communications to inform you of special offers, promotions, new lines and Sales. Provide you with online advertising.	• Legitimate interests	Developing products, services, applications and designs that attract and retain customers. Improving customer interaction with our sites.
Notifying you about enhancements to our services, such as changes to the website and new services that may be of interest to you.	• Legitimate interests	Developing products, services, applications and designs that attract and retain customers. Improving customer interaction with our sites.
Contact you to undertake customer satisfaction surveys, invite you to provide product reviews or for market research including third-party review companies	• Legitimate interests	Developing products, services, applications and designs that attract and retain customers. Improving customer interaction with our sites.
Maintaining network and data security	• Legitimate interests	To maintain the security of our network this in turns helps us to maintain the safety and confidentiality of your information.
Logistics planning, demand forecasting, management information and research	• Legitimate interests	We use information about shopping habits, products bought and volumes, to help us to respond to demand, ensure the right products get to the right areas and to help us plan our ranges.

WHO WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION WITH AND WHY

BTME Group works with a number of trusted suppliers, agencies and businesses in order to provide you the high quality goods and services you expect from us such as delivery companies and marketing companies amongst others. Some examples of the categories of third parties with whom we share your data are:

Supplier Partners
BTME Group works with a number of trusted partners who supply products and services on our behalf. All partners are subject to thorough security checks, and will only hold the minimum amount of personal information needed in order to fulfil the orders you place or provide a service on our behalf.

Delivery Partners
In order for you to receive your goods, BTME Group works with a number of delivery partners. Again, we only pass limited information to them in order to ensure delivery of your items.

IT Companies
BTME Group works with businesses who support our website and other business systems.

Marketing Companies
We work with marketing companies who help us manage our electronic communications with you or carry out surveys and product reviews on our behalf.

Payment Processing
BTME Group works with trusted third party payment processing providers in order to securely take and manage payments. We may also disclose your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our Terms and Conditions of Use; to protect the rights, property, or safety of BTME Group, our clients or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection or where we have your consent to do so.

Age Checks
BTME Group works with AgeChecked to screen all orders containing knives or bladed articles to ensure these are sold to persons 18 years or older. The AgeChecked platform was created on a ‘privacy-by-design’ process. All databases are anonymised and scrubbed of identifiable information. AgeChecked adheres to UK Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and the General Data Protection Regulation. No marketing information is sent to individuals. AgeChecked do not retain email addresses of our members, so direct communication to our anonymised members via email is not possible. Whilst personally identifiable information may be used during age verification, AgeChecked does not retain personally attributable personal data once the age verification has taken place. Names, addresses, contact details, are scrubbed from the system. We retain age attributes, but we do not hold data to allow these to be attributed to individuals.

Affiliate Partners
BTME Group works with affiliate partners. In order to calculate remuneration for publishers as part of these networks, we disclose order details (including order numbers, products, values, currency) and end device details (including browser and operating systems). Under no circumstances do we share any personal identifying data with any affiliate partner network.

Returns Processing
We work with AfterShip to facilitate the processing of our returns via our returns portal. In order to offer a full service all order information is shared and are subject to the AfterShip Privacy Policy which can be found here.

KEEPING IN TOUCH WITH YOU

We want to keep you up to date with information about new ranges, special offers and improvements to our website. When you set your account up, we will ask you if you want to receive this type of marketing information.BTME Group will not share your information with companies outside of MedTree for their marketing purposes.If you decide you do not want to receive this marketing information you can request that we stop by emailing us at dataprotection@btme-group.co.uk quoting ‘Privacy & Security Enquiry’, by calling us on 01952 56 56 56, via My Account online or the unsubscribe link and/or update profile link within any of the marketing emails you may receive.You may continue to receive mailings for a short period while your request is dealt with.

YOUR RIGHTS

Your personal data is protected by legal rights, which include your rights to object to our processing of your personal data; request that your personal data is erased or corrected; request access to your personal data. For more information or to exercise your data protection rights, please contact us using the contact details above. You also have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which regulates the processing of personal data.

HOW LONG WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION

If we collect your personal information, the length of time we retain it is determined by a number of factors including the purpose for which we use that information and our obligations under other laws.We may need your personal information to establish, bring or defend legal claims. For this purpose, we will always retain your personal information for 7 years after the date it is no longer needed by us for any of the purposes listed under How we use your information above. The only exceptions to this are where:

• the law requires us to hold your personal information for a longer period, or delete it sooner;
• you exercise your right to have the information erased (where it applies) and we do not need to hold it in connection with any of the reasons permitted or required under the law;
• we bring or defend a legal claim or other proceedings during the period we retain your personal information, in which case we will retain your personal information until those proceedings have concluded and no further appeals are possible; or
• in limited cases, existing or future law or a court or regulator requires us to keep your personal information for a longer or shorter period.

CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

Our website is not intended for use by children under the age of 13. We will not knowingly collect personal information from them. If we discover that a child has provided us with personal information, we will use reasonable efforts to delete this information. If you have reason to believe we may have accidentally received personal information from a child under the age of 13, please immediately email details to us at dataprotection@btme-group.co.uk.

COOKIE NOTICE

This notice is designed to help you understand what cookies are, how BTME Group uses them and the choices you have in regards to their use.By continuing to use www.medtree.co.uk the “Site”, you are agreeing to our use of cookies in the manner described in this notice.

WHAT ARE COOKIES?

Cookies are small text files that are stored on your browser or the hard drive of your computer or other device when you visit the Site. This allows the Site to recognise you as a user either for the duration of your visit (using a ‘session cookie’) or for repeat visits (a ‘persistent cookie’). They are not harmful and do not contain any information such as your home address, date of birth or credit card details. The cookies we use fall into four broad types:

Strictly Necessary Cookies
These cookies are essential in helping you to move around our Site and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website. Without these cookies, services you have asked for, such as setting up an account cannot be provided. These cookies do not gather information about you that could be used for marketing or remembering where you've been on the internet.

Analytical/Performance Cookies
In order to keep the Site, its services and products relevant, easy to use and up-to-date, we use web analytics services to help us understand how people use our Site. For example, we can see which parts of the Site and products are most popular, identify when errors occur, and test different versions of a page or feature to see which one works best.

Functionality Cookies
These cookies allow websites and applications to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. The information these cookies collect is usually anonymised which means we can't identify you personally. They do not gather any information about you that could be used for selling advertising or remembering where you've been on the internet, but do help us to serve you with advertising that is more relevant to you.

Targeted Marketing Cookies
We also use cookies to assist in targeted advertising. Without these cookies, online advertisements you encounter will be less relevant to you and your interests. We also use them to measure the effectiveness of our marketing communications, for example by telling us if you have responded to an advert that we have sent you.If you would like more information on any of these types of Cookies, including how to opt-out, please visit www.youronlinechoices.com

WHAT DO WE USE COOKIES FOR?

• They enable you to transact, whilst other non-essential cookies enable us to give you an enhanced, personalised web experience and determine relevant products to show you.
• To personalise and improve your customer experience.
• To allow you to securely sign in to your account, so that you can use "My Account" features such as order information.
• To recognise the device that you are using.
• To store the content of your online shopping bag whilst you browse the site and to complete an order.
• To record the areas of the Site that you have visited, products you have viewed and time spent browsing, as well as the products you purchased. BTME Group uses this information to help make the website more user friendly, develop our
• Site design and to continuously improve the quality of the service we provide.
• To distribute visitors to our Site evenly across platforms to ensure the content is served at the fastest possible speed.
• For re-marketing purposes to determine relevant related products to show you when you're browsing on other selected websites. These cookies can be associated with services provided by a third party such as an advertising network.
• We also offer you the facility to share your experience on our Site through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. By using these features, you are consenting to allow cookies from these providers. More information about how these providers use cookies can be found at their websites.
• Cookies are an essential part of how our Site works, as they remember certain information about a visitor. BTME Group uses First Party cookies (these are placed there and used solely by BTME Group) and Third Party cookies (these are placed there by third parties we work with).

ARE COOKIES SAFE?

Yes. The information stored in cookies is safe and anonymous to any external third party, and your account security is never compromised. You can find more information about cookies here. For a video about cookies visit Google

CAN I TURN OFF COOKIES?

Yes – but if you choose not to allow the use of cookies, your experience of our Site will be limited and many integral aspects of the Site, including (but not limited to) adding items to your shopping bag and accessing your account, will not work at all.To change your cookie settings, or if you want to be notified each time a cookie is about to be used, you should amend the settings provided in your web browser to prevent us from storing cookies on your computer hard drive.For information on how to disable cookies, please consult the "Help" tab of your browser via the menu bar. For further information on non-essential cookies used for targeting and banner advertising please see below.

DETAILS OF OUR THIRD PARTY COOKIES

BTME Group allows selected Third Parties who participate with us in marketing programs to place cookies when you visit our site. These cookies enable us to monitor which adverts you see and click on to get to our site.For details of the Third Party cookies we use please see the table below. BTME Group is not responsible for the content or privacy policies of Third Parties or other websites, and we advise that you check these yourself.The following Cookies are all used for Analytical and Targeting purposes

• Google Tag Manager
• Google Analytics
• GA Audiences
• Facebook Connect
• Facebook Custom Audiences
• Hotjar
• Microsoft Clarity
• Webgains Affiliate Marketing Network

Website visitors who don’t want their data used by Google Analytics can install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. To opt-out of Analytics for the web, visit the Google Analytics opt-out page and install the add-on for your browser. Learn more about the opt-out and how to properly install the browser add-on at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881?hl=en-GBVisitors can also opt-out of Google Analytics for Display Advertising and customize Google Display Network ads using the Ads Settings at https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated