Privacy policy

Mandarin Stone is committed to responsible information handling practices. You can visit most pages on our website without giving us any information about yourself, but sometimes we need information to provide services that you request. This privacy statement explains data collection and use in those situations. By visiting our web site, you consent to the information practices described in this policy.

We are Mandarin Slate Ltd, a UK limited company trading as Mandarin Stone, registered in England and Wales at Unit 1 Wonastow Industrial Estate, Monmouth, Monmouthshire, NP25 5JB under company number 2343004. In this document Mandarin Slate Ltd will be referred to as Mandarin Stone and sometimes as “we”.

This Privacy Notice is designed to help you understand everything you need to know about the what, why and how’s of our data gathering and processing operations, and what your legal rights are as an individual.

This Privacy Policy applies to Mandarin Stone and the mandarinstone.com website only. This policy does not apply to other websites that may be accessible through or from this site. Our site contains links to other sites that are operated by third parties, including but not limited to third party sites that display the Mandarin Stone logo. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of those other sites to learn how they collect and use information about you.

Mandarin Stone takes its responsibilities of protecting your data very seriously and we do advise you get to know our practices – If there’s anything in this policy you don’t understand or if you want to ask any questions, please feel free to contact us using the details below.

What information does Mandarin Stone collect and how is the information used?

We may obtain personally identifiable information about you ONLY if you elect to give us that information. Types of personally identifiable information we ask you to provide may include your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address.

In addition, some non-personal information may be collected automatically. When you visit our website, we automatically collect information about your visit that does not identify you personally. We can tell the type of computer, browser, and web service you are using. We also know the date, time, and pages you visit. Collecting this information helps us design the site to best suit your needs.

Generally, our uses of information collected online are either responding to an enquiry or to deliver services (such as newsletters or sending quotes, brochures or samples).

Mandarin Stone may also use personally identifiable information for internal purposes, such as tracking demographic data to make this Web site more useful to our visitors.

Does the Mandarin Stone website use cookies, other technologies or third parties to indirectly collect information?

A cookie is a small data file that a Web site may send to your browser and which may then be stored on your hard drive. Our Web sites use cookies to simulate a continuous connection – cookies let us “remember” information about your preferences and session, and allow you to move within areas of our Web sites without reintroducing yourself. No personally identifiable information is stored in these cookies.

Our Web site may also use other technologies to track which pages on our Web sites our visitors view. This non-identifiable click-stream data helps us understand how visitors use our Web site.

Why does Mandarin Stone collect personal data?

The information we collect from customers is done so for the purpose of:

To provide you with goods and services you are looking for
To improve the quality of the services we offer, and to better understand our customers’ needs
To inform you of other goods and services we provide, or offers that may interest you
To send notifications on subjects you have subscribed to
To request feedback and reviews
To allow us to understand the scale and range of our customer base
To recognise when customers re-engage with our services

The conditions of use

Contractual Necessity

Mandarin Stone is required to process your name, addresses, contact number, email address and financial information for the purpose stated above in order to deliver on the terms of a contract between us and yourself, or it may be to deliver on the terms of a contract that is not yet in place but where there is an intention that it soon shall be.

Legitimate Interests

Mandarin Stone will process your name, addresses, contact number, email address and financial information for certain legitimate business interests which include some or all of the following

For direct marketing purposes
To identify and prevent fraud
To enhance the security measures in place that protect data we are responsible for
To provide reference information to third party organisations where you request us to do so
To investigate any future insurance claims
To protect the company’s assets
To provide you with goods and services you are looking for
To improve the quality of the services we offer, and to better understand our customers’ needs
To inform you of other goods and services we provide, or offers that may interest you
To send notifications on subjects you have subscribed to
To request feedback and reviews
To allow us to understand the scale and range of our customer base
To allow us to support and maintain our products in active service
To recognise when customers re-engage with our services

Where we are processing your data for the above reasons we shall always hold your data rights paramount. You have the right to object to this processing if you wish, more details can be found below on objecting to processing.

If we don’t have it, we can’t work with it…

Providing us with your personal data for the purposes above is a contractual requirement, as such you are obliged to provide this information.

It’s always your choice on whether to provide personal data of course, if you decide that you don’t want to provide us with your personal data then in turn we will be unable to enter into contract of sale.

Who will Mandarin Stone share your information with?

Mandarin Stone will never share your personal data with Third-Parties that intend to use it for their own purposes.

No third party we employ who must have access to our data in order to perform their function will be allowed to use any of that data for any purpose unrelated to the purposes stated above.

From time to time, we may be required to provide personal information in response to a valid court order, subpoena, government investigation, or as otherwise required by law. We also reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we, in good faith, believe to be unlawful. We may release certain personal information when we believe that such release is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property, and safety of others and ourselves.

Where is my data going to be kept?

No Data Transfers outside EU by Controller

Mandarin Stone will not transfer your personal data to any country outside the list of countries approved by the EU Commission as having appropriate safeguards for data transfers.

No Data Transfers outside EU by Third Party

Mandarin Stone will not share your personal data with any third party organisation that transfers personal data to any country outside the list of countries approved by the EU Commission as having appropriate safeguards for data transfers.

Do I have choices regarding how my information is used?

If your information is currently being used to send you marketing communications, you can opt out at any time. All marketing e-mail communications from Mandarin Stone tell you how to stop receiving them, or you can visit the unsubscribe page directly.

How long will Mandarin Stone keep my data for?

Consent

Where the lawful basis of our processing is based on your consent we will retain the personal data for:

As long as we have your consent to do so (see below on withdrawing consent)

Contractual Necessity

Where the lawful basis of our processing is based on a contractual necessity, Mandarin Stone will retain your personal data for the period until it has become irrelevant after the contract has ended.

Legitimate Interests

Where the lawful basis of our processing is based on legitimate interests Mandarin Stone will retain your personal data for:

The period until it has become irrelevant.

Your rights, our responsibility

There are several rights granted to you immediately upon providing us with your personal information; we’d like you to know that at Mandarin Stone we take your rights as a Natural Person seriously and will always conduct ourselves in a way that is considerate of our responsibility to serve your legal rights.

Withdrawing consent

Should the time come where you no longer wish for us to have or use your personal data you may withdraw your consent at any time. To withdraw your consent for us to process your data we request you inform Mandarin Stone in writing with instructions of your wishes.

After a withdrawal of consent request is received we may contact you to verify the request.

Withdrawing your consent for us to process your personal data will not affect the lawfulness of the processing beforehand.

The Right of Access

This grants you the right to confirm whether or not your personal data is being processed, and to be provided with all the relevant details of what those processing operations are.

If you would like access to the personal data we have about you, we ask that you contact us in writing with instructions of your wishes.

The Right of Erasure (‘Right to be Forgotten’)

You have the right to request that we erase all personal data we have about you, and we must respond to that request without undue delay. There are some conditions that apply with this right, but we will make every attempt to respond to a ‘Right to be Forgotten’ request within 30 days of receiving it.

The Right to Rectification

Mandarin Stone wants your information and preferences to be accurate and complete. Your personal information is updated automatically if you provide us with new details in any request (e.g. a new quote request). Otherwise, you can email us directly with any updates.

The Right to Restriction

You have the right to have us restrict the processing of your personal data and ensure that processing only takes place with your consent or for legal purposes.

The Right to Objection

The right to object is a basic freedom all democracies enjoy. If you wish to object to the way we use, or have used, your personal data you may do so freely.

The Right to Portability

This is a legal right afforded to you that most companies already provide; it basically states that if you request it, we must pass on all of the details you have given to us to another provider of your choosing.

The Right to Complain

We will always try to maintain the highest standards and encourage the confidence our customers have in us as an organisation. In order that we can achieve this we do request that any complaints be first brought to our attention so we can properly investigate matters; if however you would like to complain about Mandarin Stone to a supervisory authority you may do so by contacting the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 123 1113, or any one of the other reporting methods listed on their website – https://ico.org.uk/concerns

How does Mandarin Stone secure my personal information?

We are committed to properly securing the information we collect online. To help us accomplish this, we take a number of steps. We employ internal access controls to ensure that the only people who see your information are those with a need to do so to perform their official duties; We train relevant personnel on our privacy and security measures; We physically secure the areas where we hold hard copies of the information we collect online; We regularly back up the information we collect online to insure against loss; We use technical controls to secure the information we collect online as appropriate, including but not limited to: Secure Socket Layer (SSL), encryption, firewalls, password protections; We periodically test our security procedures to ensure personnel and technical compliance.

Does Mandarin Stone collect information from children?

Our Web site does not intentionally collect information from children under the age of 13. If we discover that we have inadvertently collected information from a person under the age of 13, we will automatically delete it.

Data Protection Complaints Procedure

This procedure sets out how Mandarin Stone receives, investigates and resolves complaints relating to the process of personal data. It ensures compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

This procedure applies to all employees, volunteers, contractors and third parties acting on behalf of the company.

Roles and Responsibilities

Rachel Wyatt, Head of HR, is the point of contact for data protection complaints within our organisation. They will work alongside other members of our organisation who have been identified as relevant to the investigation of each complaint.
All staff are responsible for recognising data protection complaints.
Staff who receive or identify a data protection complaint, whether in person, via social media or through any other channels, must report the complaint as soon as possible.
We are committed to handling data protection complaints in line with our legal obligations and in an accessible, fair, transparent and timely manner. We will handle complaints confidentially and only share information where appropriate to investigate and resolve the complaint, as required or authorised by law or otherwise in accordance with our privacy notices.

Types of complaints

Examples of a data protection complaint include (but are not limited to) the following:

the way we have responded to a subject access request (SAR), or other data rights request (see our separate ‘policy on your rights in relation to your data’ for information on individual data rights)
the security measures we have used to store your information (e.g. where you have been impacted by a data breach); or
how we have collected or used your personal information (e.g. where we have stored it, how long we have kept it for, or its accuracy).

This list is not exhaustive. You have the right to complain to us at any time if you consider that there has been an infringement of any of your rights in relation to your personal data. Information on how we handle your personal data is set above.

Complaints about other matters that do not relate to data protection, such as customer service issues, will not be treated as a data protection complaint.

If we are not sure whether you are making a data protection complaint, we will contact you to clarify the nature of your complaint.

Employees who want to raise a grievance should do so under our grievance procedure.

If your complaint relates to whistleblowing, please read our separate whistleblowing procedure.

This procedure applies to all employees, volunteers, contractors and third parties acting on behalf of the company.

How to make a complaint

Individuals may submit a complaint by:

Email – (datacomplaints@mandarinstone.com)
Post (Data Complaints, Unit 1, Wonastow Industrial Estate East, Wonastow Road, Monmouth, NP25 5JB)
Telephone (01600 715444)

We will comply with our duty to make reasonable adjustments to our data protection complaints process for disabled people under the Equality Act 2010. If you feel that you would benefit from any adjustments to our data protection complaints process, you should raise this with us when making your complaint.

Complaints made on social media

Although data protection complaints may be made on social media, we would advise that a complaint may be dealt with more efficiently and effectively if it is made using of the methods set out above.

Where we identify a data protection complaint about our organisation on social media, we will take appropriate steps to respond to the complaint in line with this policy. However, as responding on social media is not usually a secure way of providing information, we will ask the individual making the complaint for an alternative contact method that we can use to respond to their complaint.

Where possible, complainants should provide:

Their name and contact details
Details of the complaint
Relevant dates
Supporting evidence

Responding to a complaint

When we receive a data protection complaint, we will acknowledge receipt no later than 30 days from receiving it.

If we have any doubts about your identity, we may need to ask you for proof of ID before we respond to your complaint.

Complaints made on your behalf by a third party must be accompanied by evidence that the third party is authorised to act on your behalf. If this is not provided, we will contact the third party to ask that such evidence is provided before we respond to your complaint. If we are unsure whether a letter of authority is valid, we will contact you about this before we respond to your complaint.

We will take appropriate steps to respond to your complaint without undue delay, including making enquiries into the complaint and keeping you informed about the progress of our investigation and timescales for the next update or outcome.

We may need to contact you to request further information to assist with our investigation. It may take us longer to investigate and resolve complaints which are complex, serious or which relate to multiple data protection issues.

Following our investigation, we will inform you of the outcome of your complaint without undue delay.

Complaints from children

We will respond to data protection complaints from children in plain, clear language they can understand at all stages of the complaints process. We will comply with our obligations to assess the competence of the child to understand and exercise their rights. 

Complaints about data processors

Where we receive a complaint that relates to the processing of personal information by our service providers, we will ask them to provide us with information relevant to the complaint without undue delay and in line with our contractual terms with the service provider.

Training

We will provide training for all staff on recognising a data protection complaint and what to do if they receive one, including where to direct a complaint within our organisation.

Record Keeping

We will keep a record of:

the date we receive the data protection complaint
our acknowledgement
any relevant conversations and documents
the outcome of the complaint
any actions we take because of our investigation.

We will use these records to demonstrate compliance, for audit and monitoring purposes, training, to support consistent handling and to identify recurring issues, trends or areas for organisational improvements or remediation.

We will not retain personal data relating to complaints for longer than is necessary.

Complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

You have the right to make a data protection complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The ICO’s contact details are as follows:

The ICO’s address:

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

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk