Privacy Policy

This privacy policy sets out how Help Me Fix Ltd and Aareon use and protect your personal data. Help Me Fix Ltd is a company within the Aareon Group, whose parent company is headquartered in Germany. Further information about the Aareon Group can be found at: https://www.aareon.com.

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy gives you information about how Help Me Fix collects and uses your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide when you register with us, sign up to our newsletter, purchase a product or service, take part in a competition or engage with any other features, functions or services offered by Help Me Fix from time to time.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

Controller

Help Me Fix Ltd ("HMF") is the controller of your personal data for the purposes of this website and the services we provide. Certain data may also be processed by other Aareon Group entities (including Aareon UK Ltd) where required for group reporting, compliance, system administration or associated operational purposes. In such cases, HMF remains the primary controller, and the relevant Aareon entity may act as a joint or independent controller for its specific processing activities.

Processor

In addition, HMF may act as a processor (or sub processor) when processing personal data on behalf of clients, Aareon Group companies, or other platform partners. When acting as a processor, HMF only processes personal data in accordance with the documented instructions of the relevant controller and in compliance with applicable data protection legislation and our contractual obligations.

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the DPO on dp@aareon.com.

Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data includes first name, last name, any previous names, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
• Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Financial Data includes bank account and payment details.
• Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products and 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, device ID and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
• Profile Data includes your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
• Usage Data includes information about how you interact with and use our website, products and services.
• Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share aggregated and anonymised data, such as statistical or demographic information. This type of data does not constitute personal data because it does not directly or indirectly identify you. Anonymised data may originally be derived from personal data, but it is processed in a way that permanently removes the ability to identify any individual.

We may generate aggregated or anonymised data from your interactions with our website, platform, and the services we provide (for example, by analysing usage patterns to understand how our services are accessed and to improve system performance, features and customer support).

Aggregated and anonymised data may be shared with Aareon Group companies and trusted external partners for reporting, analytics, service improvement, research or commercial purposes. This may include providing anonymised insights to third parties such as financial institutions, insurers or other commercial partners. Such data is owned exclusively by HMF, and no third party acquires any ownership rights in it.

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

• Your interactions with us. You may give us your personal data by filling in online forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
  • apply for our products or services;
  • create an account on our website;
  • subscribe to our service or publications;
  • request marketing to be sent to you;
  • enter a competition, promotion or survey; or
  • give us feedback or contact us.
• Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see details of the cookies below.

Legal Basis

The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

• Performance of a contract with you: Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
• Legitimate interests: We may use your personal data where it is necessary to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, for example to prevent fraud and enable us to give you the best and most secure customer experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
• Legal obligation: We may use your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to. We will identify the relevant legal obligation when we rely on this legal basis.
• Consent: We rely on consent only where we have obtained your active agreement to use your personal data for a specified purpose, for example if you subscribe to an email newsletter.

Purposes for Which We Will Use Your Personal Data

We have set out below a description of the ways we use your personal data and the legal bases we rely on. Where relevant, we also explain our legitimate interests. Because Help Me Fix Ltd ("HMF") acts as both a controller and, in limited scenarios, a processor for certain activities, we have provided two separate tables to reflect each role.

Controller

Processor

Direct Marketing

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased goods or services from us and you have not opted out of receiving such marketing. This may include marketing from Help Me Fix Ltd, Aareon Group companies, and Aareon's UK subsidiaries where the marketing relates to compatible services within the Aareon Group portfolio.

You can opt out of marketing at any time by following the unsubscribe link in the communication or by contacting us directly.

We may also analyse your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view which products, services and offers may be of interest to you so that we can then send you relevant marketing communications.

Third-Party Marketing

We will get your express consent before we share your personal data with any third party for their own direct marketing purposes.

Opting Out of Marketing

You can ask to stop sending you marketing communications at any time by following the opt-out links within any marketing communication sent to you.

If you opt out of receiving marketing communications, you will still receive service-related communications that are essential for administrative or customer service purposes for example relating to order confirmations for a product/service warranty registration, appointment reminders, updates to our Terms and Conditions, checking that your contact details are correct.

Cookies

We may share your personal data internally and externally where necessary for recruitment, employment, compliance, administration and the performance of our contractual or legal obligations. This includes the following:

Applicants

Your personal data will be stored within our online HR management system and shared only with the hiring manager and, where applicable, other managers participating in the recruitment or interview process.

Employees

Your data may be shared internally with HR, Finance (including payroll), your line manager, and—where necessary for their roles—in limited form with board members or selected staff.

Our Compliance Manager may access your personal data when administering your rights under data protection legislation, working jointly with HR. Access is restricted solely to resolving the relevant request.

Group Companies

We may share your personal data with other companies within the Aareon Group (including Aareon's UK subsidiaries and shareholders in the Aareon Group) for operational purposes such as reporting, compliance, HR administration, system support, or where group-level involvement is required.

We may also obtain or provide employment references within the Group.

Third Parties

We may share your information with selected third parties, including:

• Business partners, suppliers and sub contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them or with you.
• Business partners, suppliers and sub contractors who offer services we believe may be of interest to you.
• Third party providers who assist us with payroll, HR services, employee benefit schemes, occupational health, background checks, regulatory checks, and criminal records checks (such as via the Disclosure and Barring Service).
• Analytics and search engine providers that support the improvement and optimisation of our website and digital services.
• Developers based in Ukraine; however, no personal data is transferred to Ukraine. All personal data remains hosted in the UK within Aareon Group's secure infrastructure. The developer accesses our systems only through Aareon Group's secure Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). This means the data stays within the UK environment and never leaves the controlled UK hosting location. We have implemented access controls, audit logging and confidentiality obligations to ensure that access is secure, monitored and fully compliant with UK GDPR requirements.

Further information on these third parties can be found at Annex 1 below.

Data Protection Obligations

We require all third parties to respect the security and confidentiality of your personal data and to process it only in accordance with the law.

We do not permit our third party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only allow them to process it for specified purposes and strictly in accordance with our instructions.

We share your personal data within the Aareon Group. This may involve transferring your data outside the UK, including to our overseas offices in Germany.

Whenever we transfer your personal data into or out of the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area (EEA), we ensure an appropriate level of protection by implementing one or more of the following safeguards:

• Adequacy Decisions: We only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the UK Government or the European Commission.
• Transfers to the United States: Where we use service providers based in the United States, we conduct due diligence before onboarding and throughout the relationship. We verify whether the provider is certified under the EU‑U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF), the UK Extension to the EU‑U.S. DPF, and/or the Swiss‑U.S. DPF, as administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Further information about the DPF can be found at: https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/Program-Overview.
• Intra‑Group Arrangements: Help Me Fix and other Aareon Group companies have entered into a Data Sharing Agreement which, following the UK's exit from the EU, enables the continued lawful sharing of data within the Group under appropriate safeguards and in compliance with UK GDPR.
• Remote Access by Group Personnel: Our directors and authorised individuals working for AUK may, in limited circumstances, access personal data from outside the UK or EU (for example, while remote working, travelling, or working abroad). Where this occurs, access is strictly controlled and subject to our security measures. All such individuals remain bound by their contractual arrangements with us, which are governed by English law and require adherence to UK GDPR‑compliant protections equivalent to those applied within the UK.

Why Your Data May Be Accessed Internationally

Because we operate as part of the wider Aareon Group and use specialist service providers located both inside and outside the UK and EEA, your personal data may be accessed internationally where this is necessary for us to:

• provide you with our services and platform functionality;
• ensure system support, maintenance and security;
• carry out group level reporting and compliance activities;
• enable our authorised staff to access systems securely when working remotely or travelling; and
• make use of third party providers who help us deliver payroll, HR, analytics, IT hosting, or customer support services.

Whenever this occurs, access is strictly controlled, and we ensure that equivalent protections apply no matter where in the world your data is accessed. This includes the use of adequacy decisions, the Data Privacy Framework, Standard Contractual Clauses, and robust security measures.

Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs)

Where a transfer of personal data involves a country that does not benefit from an adequacy decision and the receiving organisation is not certified under the Data Privacy Framework (including its UK Extension), we will use the ICO approved International Data Transfer Addendum or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) as appropriate.

These clauses form a legally binding contract between us and the overseas recipient and require the recipient to apply privacy and security standards equivalent to those that apply under the UK GDPR and EU GDPR. Where required, we will also carry out a Transfer Risk Assessment (TRA) to ensure that appropriate technical, organisational and contractual safeguards are in place before any such transfer occurs.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

How long will you use my personal data for?

Details of retention periods where we are the Controller for different aspects of your personal data are above. Retention periods for Customers are as set out in your terms and conditions.

You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You have the right to:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing, where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
• Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) as the legal basis for that particular use of your data (including carrying out profiling based on our legitimate interests). In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object. You also have the absolute right to object any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes.
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios:
  • If you want us to establish the data's accuracy;
  • Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
  • Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
  • You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

No Fee Usually Required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What We May Need From You

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time Limit to Respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or about the use of your personal data or you want to exercise your privacy rights, please contact our DPO at dp@aareon.com.

We keep our privacy policy under regular review.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us, for example a new address or email address.

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.