Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

We ask that you read this website's privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are, how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and on how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

Watch Collecting respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information.

In this privacy policy we have compiled essential information about our handling of your personal information and your corresponding rights.

This privacy policy applies to your use of our website and all Watch Collecting applications, services, mailing lists, products and tools (collectively the “Services”), regardless of how you access or use these Services, including access via mobile devices and apps.

We ask that you read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are, how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and on how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

1. WHO WE ARE

The Services are operated by the Collecting Group Ltd, together with its subsidiaries “Watch Collecting”, “we”, “us” or “our”. This privacy policy is issued on behalf of Watch Collecting.

We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. Watch Collecting Ltd, company registration number 13050798 having its registered office at C/O Bishop Fleming, 10 Temple Back, Bristol, United Kingdom, BS1 6FL is responsible for the collection and processing of your personal information in connection with the provision of our Services.

We are regulated under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) as well as the EU GDPR if you are based in the EU. Watch Collecting is responsible as a ‘controller’ of the personal information for the purposes of those laws.

2. OUR COLLECTION AND USE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect personal information from you either directly when you use our Services, such as when you sign up to our mailing list, create an account in order to sell a watch or bid on a watch, give us feedback, enter a competition, promotion or survey, register or attend one of our events, or indirectly, such as your browsing activity while using our Services (see ‘Cookies’ below).

The personal information we collect about you depends on the activities carried out through our Services. Such information includes:

  • Identity Data: includes first name, last name, username or similar identifier, title, date of birth and gender. It also includes images of your face and appearance when appearing on video footage or photograph when you attend any of our events.

  • Contact Data: includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.

  • Financial Data: includes bank account and payment card details.

  • Transaction Data: includes details about payments to and from you and other details of services you have purchased from us.

  • Technical Data: includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access our Services.

  • Profile Data: includes your username and password, unique account reference number, bids, offers and purchases made by you, your search preferences, feedback, survey responses, and other correspondence.

  • Usage Data: includes information about how you use our Services.

  • Marketing and Communications Data: includes correspondence with us and your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

3. OUR LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

In accordance with data protection laws, when we use your personal information, we are required to have a legal basis for doing so. There are various different legal bases upon which we may rely, depending on what personal information we process and why. The legal bases we may rely on include:

  • Consent: where you have given us clear consent for us to process your personal information for a specific purpose.

  • Contract: where our use of your personal information is necessary for a contract we have with you, or because you have asked us to take specific steps before entering into a contract.

  • Legal obligation: where our use of your personal information is necessary for us to comply with the law (not including contractual obligations).

  • Legitimate interests: where our use of your personal information is necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party (unless there is a good reason to protect your personal information which overrides our legitimate interests).

4. FURTHER INFORMATION: THE PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT, WHEN AND HOW WE USE IT

For further details on when we collect personal information, what we collect, how we use it and our legal basis for doing so please see below:

Purpose/Activity

Type of Data

Lawful basis for processing

To register you as a new customer or user

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

Performance of a contract with you

To provide the services to you including:

(a) Listing your watch for sale

(b) Manage payments, fees and charges

(c) Collect and recover money owed to us

(d) Our Managed Service

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Financial

(d) Transaction

(e) Marketing and Communications

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)

(c) Necessary for the legitimate interests of others (preventing fraud)

(d) Receipt of your consent

To manage our relationship with you which will include:

(a) Notifying you about changes to our terms and conditions or services

(b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey

(c) Notifying you with relevant information relating to your usage of our Services, such as updates on your sales, purchases and bidding activity

(d) Allowing you to report problems with the Services or leave feedback

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Marketing and Communications

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our services)

(d) Receipt of your consent

To enable you to partake in a prize draw, competition, attend an event, receive marketing information, complete a survey, leave feedback, submit an enquiry or participate in any loyalty or affiliate schemes

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Usage

(e) Marketing and Communications

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our services, to develop them and grow our business)

(c) Receipt of your consent

To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Technical

(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

To deliver relevant Service content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you. This includes sending marketing to you from the companies within The Collecting Group

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Usage

(e) Marketing and Communications

(f) Technical

(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

(b) Receipt of your consent

To use data analytics to improve our website, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences

(a) Technical

(b) Usage

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

To enable you to search for, purchase watches and contact the Buyer or the Seller to complete the transaction

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(a) Performance of a contract with our customers

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interest (to support out business model)

To film or photograph event participation for the purpose of promoting attendance

(a) Image

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our services and grow our business)

To enable you to partake in research projects conducted to improve our website, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences

(a) Identity 

(b) Contact 

(c) Profile  

(d) Technical  

(e) Usage 

(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our services, to develop them, to grow our business and inform our strategy)

(b) Receipt of your consent

To manage our relationship with you when you purchase merchandise

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how our customers use our products or services, to develop them, grow our business and inform our marketing strategy)

To authenticate and verify your identity, including for anti-money laundering checks and requests to exercise your rights under this policy

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(a) Receipt of your consent

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

(c) Performance of a contract with you

We will keep your personal information while you have an account with us or we are providing our services to you. Thereafter, we will keep your personal information for as long as is necessary:

  • to respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;

  • for the assertion of claims, examination, processing or defence against any liability claims that may reasonably be expected within the applicable limitation periods; or

  • to keep records required by law.

We will not keep your personal information for longer than necessary. Different retention periods apply for different types of personal information.

How long we retain personal information may vary depending on the Services we provide and our legal obligations under applicable national law. The following factors typically affect the retention period:

  • Necessary for the provision of our Services. This includes such things as executing our Terms and Conditions of service with you, maintaining and improving the performance of our products, keeping our systems secure and maintaining appropriate business and financial records.

  • Consent based processing of personal information. If we process data on the basis of consent, we store the data for as long as necessary in order to process it according to your consent.

  • Statutory, contractual or other similar obligations. Corresponding storage obligations might arise, for example, from laws or official orders. It may also be necessary to store personal information with regard to pending or future legal disputes. Personal information contained in contracts, notifications and business letters may be subject to statutory storage obligations depending on national law.

4. WHO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH

We do not share your personal details with companies, organisations and individuals outside Watch Collecting except where necessary, including the following circumstances:

We may share your personal information with other companies in The Collecting Group.

Where a watch has been lost or stolen, we may share your personal information with the Art Loss Register, the police or any other law enforcement agencies in order to try and recover it. A lost or stolen watch can be searched against the global Watch Register in order to try and locate and recover the watch. Further information on the Art Loss Register is available here.

We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law. We may share your personal information with the parties mentioned in this privacy policy for the purposes set out herein.

We may share your personal information in order to introduce you to the buyer or seller of a watch, to facilitate the transaction or in connection with any dispute relating to a transaction.

In order to assess the legitimacy of the users of our website and protect against fraud, we may share your personal data (including your email and postal address) with background checking agencies who use your personal information to undertake a fraud risk assessment. We do not share more personal information than is necessary.

Where you would like to appoint a third party photographer to photograph your watch for the listing, we share your contact details with the photographer.

5. OUR THIRD-PARTY SERVICE PROVIDERS

As part of the provision of our services we use third-party service providers, such as our Services’ hosting provider, our payment services provider Stripe, and other partners that we believe can provide useful services to you in connection with the Services. They perform the processing on our behalf, and we do not share more personal information with them than is necessary.

Throughout our Services, we may link to other websites owned and operated by these third parties. These other third-party websites and services may also gather information about you in accordance with their own separate privacy policies. For privacy information relating to these other third-party websites, please consult their privacy policies as appropriate.

6. WHETHER INFORMATION HAS TO BE PROVIDED BY YOU, AND IF SO WHY

To create an account, we require your name, username and email address. If we do not have this information, we will not be able to create an account for you.

If you wish to list your watch on Watch Collecting, we will require you to provide your name, an email address and details of your watch to enable us to consider your watch and create a suitable listing. We will also collect your payment information in order to process the fee payable to us if you remove the listing or withdrawing from the sale, as specified in our Terms and Conditions. If we do not have this information, we will not be able to create a listing. If you bid in an auction, Stripe will need to process your payment details in order to process the fee payable to us if you are the successful bidder. If this information is not provided, your bid will not be accepted.

7. TRANSFER OF YOUR INFORMATION OVERSEAS

To deliver services to you, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your personal information outside of the United Kingdom or the European Union, including:

  • with our offices or other companies within our group located outside the United Kingdom or the European Union (specifically, we have a group company in the United States);

  • with your and our service providers located outside the United Kingdom or the European Union, such as website hosts (where applicable) – please note that our UK website is hosted in the United Kingdom;

  • if you are based outside the United Kingdom or the European Union;

  • where there is an international dimension to the services we are providing to you; for example, if you are a Buyer of a watch and the seller is located in a different country (or vice versa);

  • our third-party payment provider, Stripe, may process and store your personal information outside of the United Kingdom or the European Union in accordance with its privacy policy: https://stripe.com/gb/privacy.

Under UK data protection law, we can only transfer your personal information to a country or international organisation outside United Kingdom or the European Union where:

  • the UK government or, where the EU GDPR applies, the European Commission has decided the particular country or international organisation ensures an adequate level of protection of personal information (known as an ‘adequacy decision’);

  • there are appropriate safeguards in place, together with enforceable rights and effective legal remedies for data subjects; for example, the standard contractual clauses or “model clauses”; or

  • a specific exception applies under data protection law.

Where there is no adequacy decision, we may transfer your personal information to another country or international organisation if we are satisfied the transfer complies with data protection law which is applicable in your country, appropriate safeguards are in place and enforceable rights and effective legal remedies are available for data subjects.

The safeguards will usually include using legally approved standard data protection contract clauses that are in accordance with the GDPR. We also put contractual provisions, including standard contractual clauses, in place between our group companies where necessary.

8. EU REPRESENTATIVE

Our representative in the EU is bbm SERVICE GbR, Kerstin Brauner and the address for the purposes of Article 27 EU GDPR is at: Wichertstrasse 13, 10439, Berlin, [email protected].

9. COOKIES AND SIMILAR TECHNOLOGIES

When you use our Services, we and selected third parties use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better, faster and safer user experience. A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your device when you use our Services. For further information on our use of cookies, please click here.

10. MARKETING

We would like to send you information about the services that Watch Collecting and the companies within The Collecting Group offers, which may be of interest to you. Where we have your consent, we will send you marketing emails.

We will only send you marketing messages if you tick the relevant boxes when you sign up to our newsletters, provide your consent in another format, and/or create an account.

If you have previously agreed to being contacted in this way, you can unsubscribe at any time by:

  • contacting us at: [email protected].

  • using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in emails or in your account preferences.

11. YOUR RIGHTS

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have a number of important rights free of charge. In summary, those include rights to:

  • access to your personal information and to certain other supplementary information that this Privacy Notice is already designed to address;

  • require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold;

  • require the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations;

  • receive the personal information concerning you which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to a third party in certain situations;

  • object at any time to processing of personal information concerning you for direct marketing;

  • object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you;

  • object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information; and

  • otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

If you are based in Australia, under the Privacy Act, you have a number of important rights to:

  • access your personal information; and

  • require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold.

We may decline your request to access or correct your Personal Information in circumstances in accordance with Australian Privacy Principles. If we do refuse your request, we will provide you with a reason for our decision and, in the ase of a request for correction, we will include a statement with your personal information about the requested correction.

If you would like to exercise any of the above rights, please:

  • email us at [email protected];

  • let us have proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill); and

  • let us know the information to which your request relates.

12. KEEPING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION SECURE

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place 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 legally required to do so.

13. HOW TO COMPLAIN

If you believe that your privacy has been breached, you may make a complaint to us and provide details of the incident so that we can investigate it.

We will first consider your complaint to determine whether there are simple or immediate steps which can be taken to resolve the complaint. We will generally respond to your complaint within a week.

If your complaint requires more detailed consideration or investigation, we will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within a week and endeavour to complete our investigation into your complaint promptly. We may ask you to provide further information. In most cases, we will investigate and respond to a complaint within 30 days of receipt of the complaint. If the matter is more complex or our investigation may take longer than 30 days, we will let you know.

After we have completed our enquiries, we will contact you, usually in writing, to advise you of the outcome and invite a response to our conclusions about the complaint. If we receive a response from you, we will assess it and advise if we have changed our view.

The UK GDPR also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or European Economic Area) member state where you work, normally live or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred.

If you are based in Australia and you consider that we have breached the Australian Privacy Principles or the Privacy Act, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

The Officer of the Australian Information Commissioner can be contacted as follows:

  • by telephone on 1300 363 992 from inside Australia or +61 2 9284 9749 from outside Australia.

  • by using the contact details on the website www.oaic.gov.au

The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner, who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/.

For Germany you can obtain a list of the competent supervisory authorities and the relevant contact details here.

14. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

This privacy policy was published on 11 May 2019 and last updated on 4 May 2023.

We may change this privacy policy from time to time and we advise you to check this page on a regular basis.

15. HOW TO CONTACT US

Please contact us if you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information we hold about you.

If you wish to contact us, please send an email to [email protected].