This Statement describes how we use your personal information in connection with any personal information you provide in the course of the complaints process to us.  Please take the time to read it carefully. You have a number of rights in relation to your information including the right to object to processing of your personal information where that processing is carried out for our legitimate interests.

When you use the SIMI Consumer Complaints Service, the SIMI, will be one of the companies responsible for handling your personal information (known as a “Controller” under Data Protection Law)

The personal information collected by us in the course of the complaints process includes your name address, contact information, telephone number, email address, and any other details furnished by you during the complaints process.

1. The purpose and legal basis for processing your information

We collect and process your personal information in order to deal with and attempt to resolve your complaint.  If you do not provide us with all necessary information we may not be in a position to deal with your complaint as effectively.  If this is the case we will advise you accordingly. 

We do this in our legitimate interest of the effective resolution of complaints within the motor industry.

2. Your Information and Third Parties

The Dealer: we may pass your personal information on to the dealer and all other parties involved in your complaint.

Third Party Service Providers: We may share your personal information with third party service provides that perform services and functions at our direction and on our behalf such as our accountants, IT service providers, printers, lawyers and other business advisors, and providers of security and administration services.

Any party at your request: we may disclose your personal information with a party with whom you specifically request us to such as your lawyers or other professional advisors.

The Retail Motor Industry Standards Tribunal: we will pass your personal information to the standards tribunal so that they can make a recommendation on the complaint.

3. Storage Periods

We may hold your personal information for a period of 6 months from the date of completion of the complaints process.  We may hold this data for any longer period if we are required to do so. 

4. Transfers outside of the European Economic Area

We may transfer your personal data outside of the European Economic Area. These countries do not always afford an equivalent level of privacy protection and in such circumstances we will take specific steps, in accordance with data protection law, to protect your personal information. In particular, for transfers of personal data, outside the EEA where there is no adequacy decision by the European Commission we may rely on contractual protections approved by the European Commission.

5. Your Rights

You have several rights under data protection law in relation to how we use your personal information. You have the right, free of charge, to:

1. check what type of personal data we hold about you and what we do with that information.
   You are also entitled to receive a copy of this information;
2. rectify any inaccurate personal information we hold about you;
3. erase personal information we hold about you;
4. stop us from using your personal information in certain cases, including if you believe that the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate or our use of your information is unlawful. If you exercise this right, we will store your personal information and will not carry out any other processing until the issue is resolved;
5. object to us using your personal information where we rely on our legitimate interests to use your information. We will stop using your personal information unless we can demonstrate an overriding legitimate grounds for the continued processing of this information; and
6. receive your personal information in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and to have that data transmitted to another data controller.

These rights are in some circumstances limited by data protection legislation. If you wish to exercise any of these rights please contact us using the contact details contained in this complaint form.  We will endeavour to respond to your request within a month.  If we are unable to deal with your request within a month we may extend this period by a further two months and we will explain why.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint to the office of the Data Protection Commission.