Privacy
notice

Who we are

Sidewinder Auto Locksmiths Ltd is an auto locksmith business registered in England and Wales, company number 13884210, at Unit 7, Blenheim Court, Blenheim Industrial Estate, Bulwell, Nottingham, NG6 8UP. We are the data controller for the information described here.

There is no separate data protection officer. Either director can be reached at keys@sidewinderlocksmiths.co.uk or on 0115 960 4128.

What we collect

Almost all of it comes from you, by phone, text, email or the form on this site.

• Your name, phone number and email address.
• Where the vehicle is when you need us, which may be your home, your workplace or a roadside.
• The vehicle registration, make, model and year, and what has happened to the keys.
• A record of the identity and ownership check made before any work starts, described below.
• Job and invoice records. Card payments go through our payment provider and we never store card numbers.
• Basic technical information from this website, covered under cookies.

Ownership checks

Before we open a vehicle or make a key for it, we check that the person asking is entitled to. This protects you as much as anyone: it is the reason a stranger cannot ring us and have a key made for your car.

We look at the V5C registration document, or other evidence linking you to the vehicle, alongside photo ID. We record that the check was made and the type of document seen. We do not photograph or copy your ID unless you ask us to, or unless the police request a record in connection with a specific incident.

Key codes and vehicle data

This is the part most specific to what we do, and the part we treat most carefully.

Making a key produces information that could be used to make another: the cut code for the blade, and data read from or written to the vehicle’s immobiliser. In the wrong hands, that is a way into your car.

• Cut codes are kept against the job so a spare can be made without reading the lock again. They are stored securely and never shared outside the business.
• Immobiliser data read during programming is used for that job only. We do not retain a copy of your vehicle’s security data once the job is complete.
• Deleted keys are logged by date so we can tell you which keys were removed from the car’s memory, if you ever need to know.

You can ask us to delete the cut code for your vehicle at any time. The only consequence is that a future spare will need the lock reading again.

Why we are allowed to

Data protection law needs a lawful basis for each use. Ours are:

• Performing a contract — quoting, attending, carrying out the work and invoicing.
• Legal obligation — keeping accounting records for as long as HMRC requires.
• Legitimate interests — checking ownership before opening a vehicle, keeping a record that we did, and holding cut codes so a spare can be made later.
• Consent — marketing messages and publishing a photograph of a job. Both can be withdrawn at any time.

Who we share it with

We do not sell personal information and we do not pass it to anyone for their own marketing.

• Key and blank suppliers receive vehicle details where a part must be identified. They never receive cut codes.
• Our customer management platform stores enquiries, bookings and messages as a processor, under contract.
• Our accountant and payment provider receive what is needed to invoice and take payment.
• The police, where we are legally required to disclose something, or where we have reason to believe a request to open a vehicle was not genuine.

Some providers process data outside the UK, covered by the safeguards UK data protection law requires.

How long we keep it

• Enquiries that never became a job — one year, then deleted.
• Job records and ownership check notes — six years, in case a job is ever questioned.
• Cut codes — for as long as you might want a spare, or until you ask us to delete them.
• Invoices and accounting records — six full financial years, as HMRC requires.
• Marketing contacts — until you unsubscribe, and removed after three years of no contact.

Your rights

You can ask to see what we hold, correct it, delete it, restrict what we do with it, or receive it in a portable format. You can object to processing based on legitimate interests and withdraw consent at any time.

Email us and we will respond within one month, free of charge. Because some of what we hold relates to vehicle security, we will confirm who you are first — usually the vehicle and the address the job was done at.

Some records we cannot delete on request, such as invoices HMRC requires us to keep. We will tell you if that applies.

Cookies

This site sets no advertising or tracking cookies of its own. Fonts are served from the site itself, so loading a page makes no request to an external font service.

Where a quote form, chat widget or review feed is embedded, that provider may set the cookies it needs to work, under its own notice. If analytics are added later this section will say so, and a banner will appear before anything non-essential is set.

Complaining

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, tell us first. Most of it is a misunderstanding we can sort the same week.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. You do not have to come to us first, but we would rather you did.