Auto-Thentic International Ltd (“Auto-Thentic”, “we”, “us”) takes care with the personal information you share with us through this website. In plain English: we use your details to reply to you, to send the quarterly newsletter if you asked for it, and for nothing else. This notice explains what we hold, how long we hold it, and the rights available to you.

Applicable frameworks: UK data protection law (UK GDPR & the Data Protection Act 2018), US state privacy laws (including CCPA/CPRA and equivalents) where they apply to you, and the South African Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (“POPIA”).

1. Who we are

Auto-Thentic International Ltd is a private-collection consultancy incorporated in the Republic of Seychelles as an International Business Company, IBC number 237702, with registered office at Suite 108, Premier Building, Victoria, Mahé, Seychelles. We operate across the United Kingdom, Europe, South Africa, Mauritius and the United States.

Data Custodianship. A single named Data Officer is the point of contact for every privacy question. We reply within five working days, ahead of any statutory deadline. Contact: start@auto-thentic.com. Under POPIA, this address is also our Information Officer contact (registration with the South African Information Regulator maintained where applicable).

UK / EU representative (Art. 27). This website is a marketing site; enquiry data received from UK or EU visitors is processed only in response to that visitor's own request. Where an Article 27 representative is required for a specific engagement we will appoint one and disclose their contact details to the client concerned.

2. What data we collect through this website

We only collect personal information you provide directly through our enquiry forms, contact form, or newsletter sign-up. That may include:

  • Your name.
  • Your email address.
  • Your phone number (if you provide one).
  • The content of your message, and any information you choose to share about your collection, vehicle, or enquiry.
  • The subject line and context of the form you used (for example a vehicle-enquiry form specifies which vehicle).

What we do not do: we do not enrich, append or purchase third-party data about you. What you tell us is the only file we hold on you. We do not run advertising trackers, third-party analytics that fingerprint or identify you, or behavioural profiling on this site. The site does not require cookies to function.

3. Why we use it

Plainly:

  • To reply to your enquiry and to carry out any steps you have asked us to take before agreeing to work together.
  • To send the quarterly Overviews newsletter, but only if you opted in.
  • To keep a record of correspondence so we can reconstruct what was said or agreed if it matters later.
  • To comply with the law, including tax, record-keeping and legitimate requests from public authorities.

Regulatory shorthand: the corresponding lawful bases are UK GDPR Art. 6(1)(b), (a), (f) and (c) respectively; equivalents under POPIA s.11(1)(b), (a), (f) and (c); PECR reg. 22 for the newsletter.

4. Consent, and how to withdraw it

The consent tick-box on our forms is separate for (a) being contacted about your enquiry and (b) receiving the quarterly newsletter. Consent is voluntary. You can withdraw it at any time without affecting anything you asked us to do before you withdrew.

To withdraw consent, unsubscribe from the newsletter, or ask us to delete your record entirely, email start@auto-thentic.com. Every newsletter also carries a one-click unsubscribe link.

5. Who we share your data with

Your details are not sold, rented, or shared for third-party marketing. We only share personal information with:

  • A small set of service providers acting on our written instructions — currently our email host, our transactional-email provider, our form endpoint and our website host. The current list of categories, and the countries in which they hold data, is available on request.
  • Professional advisers (lawyers, accountants, auditors) under a duty of confidentiality, only where necessary.
  • Public authorities, where we are legally required to do so, or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

6. International transfers

Because we operate across the UK, EU, US, Mauritius and South Africa, your data may sit on servers in, or be accessed from, jurisdictions outside your own. We contract with providers whose data-protection standards are equivalent to those you would expect at home. Where required, we put in place appropriate safeguards — the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, EU Standard Contractual Clauses, an adequacy decision, or the equivalent under POPIA s.72 — before a transfer takes place.

Confidentiality of your enquiry. Enquiries about specific vehicles or collections are treated as commercially sensitive. Access is restricted internally on a need-to-know basis and is never shared with vendors, consignors or other third parties without your written instruction.

7. How long we keep it

  • Enquiries that do not become a client engagement: up to 24 months from your last contact with us, reviewed and deleted or anonymised when no longer needed.
  • Enquiries that become a client engagement: the identifying record is retained for the duration of the engagement plus up to 7 years, but only where accounting, tax or other legal record-keeping duties apply to that data. Free-text personal narrative that is not part of the financial or legal record is deleted with the engagement file.
  • Newsletter subscribers: until you unsubscribe, plus a small suppression record so we do not re-add you by mistake.
  • Server access logs: up to 30 days for security and diagnostic purposes.

8. How we protect it

We apply appropriate technical and organisational measures for a business of our size, including transport encryption (TLS) on all form submissions, access-controlled mailboxes, encryption at rest with our hosted email provider, two-factor authentication on administrator accounts, and periodic review of who holds access.

No system is perfectly secure. Where a security incident affects your personal data and the law requires it, we will notify the relevant supervisory authority (in the UK, the ICO, within 72 hours of becoming aware where the threshold is met) and, where required, the individuals affected.

9. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the following rights:

  • Access — a copy of the data we hold about you.
  • Rectification — correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
  • Erasure — deletion of your data, subject to legal retention duties.
  • Restriction & objection — to certain kinds of processing, including direct marketing.
  • Portability — receiving your data in a portable, machine-readable format.
  • Withdrawal of consent — at any time.
  • Complaint — to a supervisory authority: the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk), the South African Information Regulator (inforegulator.org.za), or your relevant EU member-state authority.
  • US residents: under US state privacy laws where applicable, the right to know, delete, correct, and (where relevant) opt out of “sale” or “sharing” of personal information, plus the right to limit the use of sensitive personal information. We do not sell or share your data for cross-context behavioural advertising.

To exercise any of these rights, contact start@auto-thentic.com. We will respond within one month (UK/EU), 45 days (CCPA/CPRA), or as soon as reasonably practicable under POPIA. We do not normally charge a fee; we reserve the right to do so only where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, as the law allows.

10. Children

The site is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. Age thresholds vary: under 13 in the United States (COPPA), under 16 in the UK/EU for consent-based processing (some US states use 16 or 17 for teen data), and under 18 in South Africa (POPIA s.34–35). If you believe a child has provided us data, contact us and we will delete it.

11. Automated decisions & profiling

We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing, and we do not profile you for marketing.

12. Cookies and similar technologies

This site uses no advertising cookies and no third-party analytics that identify you individually. If we later add optional analytics or embedded content that sets cookies, we will show a consent banner and only load those cookies after you opt in. Strictly-necessary browser state (for example, a remembered menu preference) may be kept in your own browser's local storage; it is not transmitted to us.

13. Terms of use of this website

13.1 Acceptance

By using this website you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, please do not use the site. We may update these terms from time to time; the “Effective” date at the top shows the current version.

13.2 Information provided

Content on this site is provided for general information about our services and does not constitute regulated financial, legal or tax advice. Vehicle descriptions, provenance references and market observations are given in good faith based on the information available to us at the time of publication; we make no warranty of accuracy or of continued availability of any vehicle referenced.

13.3 Enquiries are not contracts

Submitting an enquiry through this website does not by itself create a client engagement or any commitment to buy, sell or provide services. A written engagement letter or contract is required before we act.

13.4 Intellectual property

All text, photography, logos, layout and code on this site are owned by, or licensed to, Auto-Thentic International Ltd and are protected under international copyright, trademark and related rights. You may view and print pages for your personal, non-commercial reference. Any other use — including copying, redistribution, framing or scraping — requires our prior written permission. We do not consent to the use of any of the site's content, or of any client identity or enquiry content held by us, for training, fine-tuning or evaluation of machine-learning or generative AI systems.

13.5 Third-party links

Links to third-party sites (for example, our associate providers, or social platforms) are provided for convenience. We are not responsible for the content, security or privacy practices of those sites.

13.6 Acceptable use

You agree not to: (a) use the site for any unlawful purpose; (b) attempt to gain unauthorised access to systems or data; (c) upload malicious code; (d) submit false or misleading information through our forms; (e) use the site to send unsolicited communications or to sign other people up to our contact lists without their consent.

13.7 Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, we exclude liability for indirect, incidental or consequential loss arising from your use of this site or reliance on any information on it. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot be limited or excluded by law. If you are a consumer resident in the United Kingdom, the European Union or another jurisdiction whose consumer-protection law applies to you, these limits do not affect any mandatory rights or remedies you have under that local consumer law.

13.8 Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England & Wales, and disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts. If you are a consumer resident in the European Union, South Africa or the United States, you retain the benefit of any mandatory protections available under your local law.

13.9 Contact

Questions about these terms, or about how your personal information is handled, can be sent to start@auto-thentic.com.

This notice is provided for information and does not constitute legal advice. Please seek independent professional advice for your specific circumstances.