Privacy policy

Last updated: 22 July 2026

This policy should be read alongside our Cookie Policy

Tinsley Instrumentation Ltd (“Tinsley”, “we”, “us” or “our”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information.

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store and share personal information when you visit our website, contact us, make an enquiry or otherwise interact with us.

For the purposes of UK data-protection law, Tinsley Instrumentation Ltd is the controller of the personal information described in this policy.

1. Who we are

Tinsley Instrumentation Ltd
1 Warner Drive
Springwood Industrial Estate
Braintree
Essex
CM7 2YW
United Kingdom

Telephone: 01376 335271
Email: info@tinsley.co.uk
Website: www.tinsley.co.uk

2. Scope of this policy

Our website currently operates primarily as a brochure and business-enquiry website for test, measurement and instrumentation products.

It provides information about products and services such as electrical test equipment, resistance standards, earth-testing equipment, cable-testing equipment and related instrumentation.

The website does not currently allow customers to complete purchases or make payments online.

Purchases may instead be arranged directly with us following an enquiry, quotation or other communication. Any information processed in connection with those purchases is also covered by this policy where applicable.

3. Information we collect

3.1 Information you provide to us

We may collect personal information that you provide when you:

  • submit an enquiry through our website;
  • contact us by email or telephone;
  • request information about our products or services;
  • request a quotation;
  • ask for technical or commercial support;
  • subscribe to communications, where this option is available;
  • place or discuss an order directly with us;
  • communicate with our sales, support or other business teams; or
  • otherwise establish or maintain a business relationship with us.

This information may include:

  • your name;
  • your job title;
  • the organisation you work for;
  • your business or delivery address;
  • your telephone number;
  • your email address;
  • details of your enquiry, requirements or intended application;
  • quotation, order and transaction information;
  • correspondence and records of our communications; and
  • any other information you choose to provide.

Please do not provide personal information that is unnecessary for your enquiry.

3.2 Information collected when you use the website

When you visit the website, we or our service providers may process:

  • your IP address;
  • browser, device and operating-system information;
  • screen dimensions;
  • pages viewed and page titles;
  • full page addresses;
  • referring website information;
  • the date and time of visits;
  • interactions with the website;
  • document and file downloads;
  • website-security and diagnostic information;
  • unique visit and request identifiers; and
  • your cookie and tracking preferences.

Some technical information is necessary to deliver, operate and protect the website.

Where you have consented to analytics and marketing technologies, service providers may also use IP-address and network information to infer:

  • the organisation or network associated with a visit;
  • the type of internet connection;
  • an approximate geographic location; and
  • organisation-level or audience characteristics.

These inferences may be inaccurate and do not necessarily identify an individual visitor or their employer.

3.3 Information received from other sources

In a business-to-business context, we may sometimes receive professional contact information from:

another person within your organisation;

  • a distributor, representative or commercial partner;
  • an event or trade-show organiser;
  • a group company;
  • publicly available professional or business sources; or
  • another person who believes our products or services may be relevant to you.

Where required, we will provide appropriate privacy information when we first contact you or within the period required by law.

4. How we use your information

We may use personal information to:

  • respond to enquiries and requests;
  • provide product, technical or commercial information;
  • understand your test, measurement or instrumentation requirements;
  • prepare and follow up quotations;
  • process and administer orders arranged directly with us;
  • arrange delivery, calibration, repair, servicing or support where applicable;
  • provide customer service and technical support;
  • establish and manage customer, supplier, distributor and other commercial relationships;
  • administer and maintain the website;
  • protect the website, our systems and our organisation from fraud, misuse and security threats;
  • understand how consented visitors and organisations engage with the website;
  • assess interest in our products, services and technical materials;
  • improve our website, products, services and communications;
  • maintain appropriate business, accounting and regulatory records;
  • establish, exercise or defend legal claims;
  • comply with legal and regulatory obligations; and
  • send relevant business communications where permitted by law.

We will not use personal information for a purpose that is incompatible with those described in this policy unless permitted or required by law.

5. Our lawful bases

UK data-protection law requires us to have a lawful basis for processing personal information.

Depending on the circumstances, we may rely on the following lawful bases.

5.1 Contract and steps before entering into a contract

We may process your information where necessary to:

  • respond to a request for a quotation;
  • take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
  • process an accepted order;
  • deliver goods or services; or
  • perform a contract with you.

Where you are acting on behalf of an organisation and are not personally a party to the contract, we may instead rely on our legitimate interests.

5.2 Legitimate interests

We may process information where necessary for our legitimate interests or those of another organisation, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights.

Our legitimate interests may include:

  • responding to business enquiries;
  • developing and managing customer and commercial relationships;
  • communicating with relevant business contacts;
  • promoting relevant products and services where permitted by law;
  • administering quotations, orders and after-sales support;
  • operating and improving our website and business;
  • understanding demand for our products and services;
  • maintaining the security of our systems;
  • preventing fraud and misuse;
  • maintaining appropriate business records; and
  • establishing, exercising or defending legal rights.

5.3 Consent

We rely on consent where required, including for:

  • non-essential analytics and marketing technologies;
  • Lead Forensics tracking;
  • certain electronic marketing communications; and
  • any other processing for which we specifically request consent.

You may withdraw your consent at any time.

Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before consent was withdrawn.

5.4 Legal obligation

We may process information where necessary to comply with an obligation imposed by law, regulation, a court or a competent authority.

6. Cookies and similar technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies.

Some technologies are strictly necessary to:

  • deliver and operate the website;
  • maintain security;
  • remember privacy choices; or
  • provide a service requested by the visitor.

These technologies do not require consent where an applicable legal exemption applies.

We request consent before using non-essential analytics or marketing technologies.

When you first visit the website, our cookie banner allows you to:

  • accept non-essential technologies;
  • decline non-essential technologies; or
  • manage individual categories of consent.

Optional categories are not enabled before the required consent is provided.

You may change or withdraw your choice at any time by reopening the Cookie Preferences control available on the website.

Further information is provided in our Cookie Policy.

7. Lead Forensics

With your consent, we use Lead Forensics, a business visitor identification, website analytics and business-development service.

When enabled, Lead Forensics and its technology partners may process information about your visit, including:

  • your IP address;
  • the date and time of your visit;
  • the pages you visit and their page titles;
  • the full website addresses of pages viewed;
  • the website or page that referred you to us;
  • the website domain being visited;
  • your browser type and user-agent information;
  • your operating system and device environment;
  • your screen dimensions;
  • unique visit and request identifiers;
  • interactions with the website; and
  • downloads of brochures, datasheets, manuals and other files available through the website.

Lead Forensics and its data-enrichment partners may use your IP address and related network information to infer or provide:

  • the organisation or network associated with the internet connection;
  • whether the connection appears to be associated with a business, internet service provider, wireless network or another network type;
  • approximate geographic information, such as country, region, city, postcode area and approximate coordinates;
  • business or audience classifications;
  • confidence scores relating to inferred information; and
  • other organisation-level attributes associated with the network.

The information returned by these services may not always accurately identify the visitor or their employer.

For example, a visit made through a residential internet service, mobile connection, public network, virtual private network or shared connection may be attributed only to the network provider or an approximate location.

We use this information to:

  • understand which organisations and types of organisations visit our website;
  • assess interest in our products, services and technical materials;
  • improve our website and its content;
  • understand which products or materials appear relevant to visiting organisations;
  • measure the effectiveness of our business communications; and
  • support our sales and business-development activities.

Lead Forensics may use third-party technology, network-intelligence and data-enrichment providers, including providers that assist with IP-address and organisation identification.

Those providers may receive technical identifiers and website-usage information as part of delivering the service.

The Lead Forensics tracking technology is not loaded unless you allow both analytics and marketing technologies through our cookie preference tool.

Our lawful basis for processing personal information through Lead Forensics is consent.

Where a relevant technology stores information on or accesses information from your device, we also request consent in accordance with applicable electronic communications law.

You may change or withdraw your consent at any time by reopening the Cookie Preferences control.

Withdrawal applies to future tracking and cannot reverse processing that took place before consent was withdrawn.

Further information about Lead Forensics’ processing activities, technology partners and privacy practices is available from Lead Forensics.

8. Shopify

Our website is hosted and delivered using Shopify, which supplies the website and ecommerce-platform infrastructure.

Although the website is currently used primarily as a brochure and enquiry site, Shopify may process technical information necessary to:

  • deliver website content;
  • operate website functionality;
  • maintain security;
  • prevent fraud and misuse;
  • manage visitor privacy preferences; and
  • provide platform diagnostics and support.

Shopify may use technologies that are strictly necessary to provide, secure and operate its platform.

Its use of optional technologies is affected by the privacy settings and consent choices configured for our website.

Further information about Shopify’s handling of personal information is available in Shopify’s published privacy information here.

9. Marketing communications

We may send relevant business-to-business communications where permitted by applicable data-protection and electronic-marketing law.

Where consent is required, we will request it before sending marketing communications.

Where permitted to rely on legitimate interests, we will consider:

  • the nature of the communication;
  • our relationship with the recipient;
  • whether the communication is relevant to the recipient’s professional role; and
  • the recipient’s reasonable expectations.

You may ask us to stop sending marketing communications at any time by:

  • using the unsubscribe option provided in a communication; or
  • contacting us at info@tinsley.co.uk.

We may retain a limited suppression record after an objection or unsubscribe request so that we can respect the request and avoid contacting you again for the same purpose.

10. Sharing your information

We may share personal information where necessary with:

  • Shopify and website-infrastructure providers;
  • Lead Forensics and its relevant technology partners, where the required consent has been provided;
  • website, hosting, IT and cybersecurity providers;
  • email and communications service providers;
  • payment providers, if relevant to a purchase arranged directly with us;
  • carriers, freight providers and delivery companies;
  • calibration, repair, manufacturing or fulfilment providers where necessary;
  • distributors, representatives or commercial partners where necessary to address an enquiry or fulfil an order;
  • professional advisers, including legal, accounting, audit and insurance advisers;
  • regulators, public authorities, courts and law-enforcement bodies where required;
  • prospective purchasers, investors or advisers involved in a business or corporate transaction; and
  • other parties where you ask or authorise us to share the information.

Service providers acting on our behalf are expected to process personal information only for authorised purposes and to protect it appropriately.

We do not sell personal information.

11. International transfers

Some of our service providers may process personal information outside the United Kingdom.

Where this constitutes a restricted international transfer, we will use a transfer mechanism permitted by UK data-protection law where required.

This may include:

  • transferring information to a country covered by UK adequacy regulations;
  • using the UK International Data Transfer Agreement;
  • using the UK Addendum to the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses; or
  • relying on another legally permitted safeguard or exception.

You may contact us for further information about the safeguards relevant to your personal information.

12. How long we retain information

We keep personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, including to meet legal, accounting, regulatory and reporting requirements.

The retention period applied will depend on:

  • the nature and sensitivity of the information;
  • the purpose for which it is used;
  • the duration of our relationship with you or your organisation;
  • whether an enquiry, quotation, order, dispute or claim remains active;
  • applicable limitation periods;
  • legal and regulatory record-keeping requirements; and
  • whether the information is needed to demonstrate consent, an objection or compliance.

In general:

  • enquiry and business correspondence is retained for as long as needed to address the enquiry and maintain an appropriate record of the relationship;
  • quotation and order records are retained for as long as necessary to administer the relevant commercial relationship and meet legal obligations;
  • contractual and financial records are retained for the period required by applicable legal, accounting and taxation obligations;
  • marketing information is retained until consent is withdrawn, an objection is received or the information is no longer required, subject to retaining a limited suppression record;
  • cookie and consent records are retained for as long as reasonably necessary to demonstrate and respect the visitor’s choice; and
  • technical and security records are retained according to operational, security and legal requirements.

We may anonymise information so that it can no longer identify an individual.

We may retain and use genuinely anonymised information without a further retention period under data-protection law.

13. Security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures designed to protect personal information against:

  • unauthorised or unlawful access;
  • accidental loss;
  • destruction;
  • alteration;
  • disclosure; and
  • misuse.

Access to personal information is restricted to people and service providers that reasonably require it for authorised purposes.

No internet transmission or information-storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

14. Whether you must provide information

You are generally not required to provide personal information merely to browse the public areas of the website.

However, we may need certain information to:

  • respond to an enquiry;
  • provide technical information;
  • prepare a quotation;
  • process an order;
  • arrange delivery; or
  • establish a business relationship.

Where required information is not provided, we may be unable to respond fully or provide the requested product or service.

15. Automated decision-making

We do not currently use information collected through this website to make solely automated decisions that produce legal effects or similarly significant effects concerning individuals.

If this changes, we will provide the information required by applicable data-protection law.

16. Third-party websites

Our website may contain links to websites operated by third parties.

We do not control those websites and are not responsible for their content, security or privacy practices.

You should review the privacy information provided by the relevant third party.

17. Children

Our website and services are intended for business and professional audiences and are not directed at children.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children through the website.

18. Your rights

Subject to the applicable conditions and exemptions, you may have the right to:

  • receive information about how we process your personal information;
  • request access to your personal information;
  • request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information;
  • request erasure of your information;
  • request restriction of processing;
  • object to processing based on legitimate interests;
  • object at any time to processing for direct marketing;
  • request the transfer of information you provided to us where the right to data portability applies;
  • withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent; and
  • complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

You will not normally be required to pay a fee to exercise these rights.

We may request information necessary to confirm your identity and understand your request.

To exercise your rights, contact us using the details in section 1.

19. Complaints

Please contact us in the first instance if you have concerns about how we handle personal information, so that we have an opportunity to investigate.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the United Kingdom’s data-protection supervisory authority.

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
United Kingdom

Website: www.ico.org.uk

Contacting us first does not affect your right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

20. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy when our processing activities, service providers, website functionality or legal obligations change.

We will publish the latest version on this page together with the revised “Last updated” date.

Where appropriate, we may also bring significant changes to your attention by another reasonable method.

21. Contact us

Questions about this policy or our handling of personal information should be directed to:

Tinsley Instrumentation Ltd
1 Warner Drive
Springwood Industrial Estate
Braintree
Essex
CM7 2YW
United Kingdom

Telephone: 01376 335271
Email: info@tinsley.co.uk