DATA PRIVACY NOTICE 17 JUNE 2022

BH Associates is committed to protecting your information by handling it responsibly and safeguarding it using appropriate technical, administrative and physical security measures.

The privacy notice below explains what information we gather about you, what we use it for and who we share it with. It also sets out your rights and who you can contact for more information or queries.

Privacy notice

  1. Purpose of this notice

This notice will tell you how we look after your personal data, about your privacy rights, and about our compliance with and your protections under Data Protection Legislation.

In this notice “Data Protection Legislation” means any applicable law relating to the processing, privacy, and use of Personal Data, including the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, as amended by The Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

  1. Who we are

BH Associates are Business Advisers and Chartered Accountants. We operate under a limited liability company from private premises in Warrington, under ICO registration reference C1136250.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Legislation and this notice, we are the ‘data controller’. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal data about you. We are required under the Data Protection Legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer who is our Data Protection Point of Contact. They are responsible for assisting with enquiries in relation to this privacy notice or our treatment of your personal data. Should you wish to contact our Data Protection Point of Contact you can do so using the contact details noted at paragraph 12 (Contact Us), below.

  1. How we may collect your personal data

We may collect, record and use your personal data in physical and electronic form, and will hold, use and otherwise process that data in line with Data Protection Legislation. Circumstances in which we may process your data include:

  • you request a proposal from us in respect of the services we provide;
  • you engage us to provide our services and also during the provision of those services;
  • you contact us by email, telephone, post or social media (for example, when you have a query about our services);
  • other people give it to us (for example, your employer or adviser, or third-party service providers that we use to help operate our business); or
  • it is publicly available (for example, from Companies House and from social media platforms including LinkedIn and Instagram).
  1. The kind of information we hold about you

The information we hold about you may include the following:

  • your name, gender, age and date of birth
  • contact information such as your address, email and mobile number;
  • lifestyle and social circumstances (for example, your hobbies);
  • family circumstances (for example, your marital status and dependents);
  • employment and education details (for example, the organisation you work for, your job title and your education details);
  • financial and tax-related information (for example your income, bank account details and PAYE deductions);
  • details of contact we have had with you relating to the provision of our services;
  • details of any services you have received from us;
  • our correspondence and communications with you;
  • information from research, surveys, and marketing activities;
  • information about any complaints and enquiries you make to us;
  • details of how you like to interact with us, and other similar information relevant to our relationship;
  • information we receive from other sources, such as publicly available information, information provided by your employer or our clients.

The personal data we collect may also include so called ‘sensitive’ or ‘special categories’ of personal data, such as details about your:

  • dietary requirements (for example, when BH Associates is making dining choices for a meeting);
  • health (for example, so that we can consider access when arranging meetings); and
  • sexual orientation (for example, if you provide us with details of your spouse or partner).

We may also process personal data relating to ethnic or racial origin (for example, any multicultural networks you belong to), or about your political opinions (inferred from information you give us about political associations you belong to or have donated to).

We will typically seek separate permission from you in writing to process these special categories of personal data.

If you choose not to provide, or object to us processing, the information we collect, we may not be able to process your instructions or continue to provide some or all of our services to you or our client.

  1. How we use personal data we hold about you

We may process your personal data for purposes necessary for the performance of our contract with our clients and to comply with our legal obligations. This may include processing your personal data where you are an employee, subcontractor, supplier or customer of our client.

We may also process your personal data for the purposes of our own legitimate interests provided that those interests do not override any of your own interests, rights and freedoms which require the protection of personal data. This includes processing for marketing and business development purposes.

Please note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data.

Situations in which we will use your personal data

We may use your personal data in order to:

  • carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between you, our clients and us (which will most usually be for the provision of our services);
  • carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between our clients and us (which will most usually be for the provision of our services) where you may be a subcontractor, supplier or customer of our client;
  • provide you with information related to our services and our events or seek your thoughts and opinions on the services we provide; and
  • notify you about any changes to our services.

In some circumstances we may anonymise or pseudonymise the personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use it without further notice to you.

We may also process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in accordance with this notice, where we are legally required or permitted to do so.

Our lawful basis for processing

We rely on several lawful basis of processing when we collect and use personal data to operate our business and provide products and services to our clients. These include:

  • you have explicitly agreed to us processing your information for a specific reason;
  • the processing is necessary to perform the agreement we have with you or to take steps to enter into an agreement with you;
  • the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation we have such as keeping records for tax purposes or providing information to a public body or law enforcement agency; or
  • the processing is necessary for the purposes of a legitimate interest pursued by us or a third party, which might be:
    • to provide our services to you or our clients and other third parties and ensure that our client engagements are well-managed;
    • to prevent fraud;
    • to protect our business interests;
    • to ensure that complaints are investigated;
    • to evaluate, develop or improve our services or products; or
    • to keep you or our clients informed about relevant products and services and provide you with information, unless you have indicated at any time that you do not wish us to do so.

To the extent that we process any special categories of data relating to you for any of the purposes outlined above, we will do so because:

  • you have given us your explicit consent to process that data;
  • we are required by law to process that data in order to ensure we meet our ‘know your client’ and ‘anti-money laundering’ obligations (or other legal obligations imposed on us);
  • the processing is necessary to carry out our obligations under employment, social security or social protection law;
  • the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; or
  • you have made the data manifestly public.

Please note that in certain circumstances it may be still lawful for us to continue processing your information even where you have withdrawn your consent, if one of the other legal bases described above is applicable.

Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it is collected.

When assessing what retention period is appropriate for your personal data, we take into consideration the requirements of our business and the services provided, any statutory or legal obligations and the purposes for which we originally collected the personal data.

Change of purpose

Where we need to use your personal data for a reason other than the purpose for which we originally collected it, we will only use your personal data where that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your data for a new purpose, we will notify you and communicate our legal basis for this new processing.

  1. Data sharing

Why might you share my personal data with third parties?

We will share your personal data with third parties where we are required to do so by law, where it is necessary to administer the relationship between us or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so. This may include sharing your personal data with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

Which third-party service providers process my personal data?

“Third parties” includes third-party service providers and the members of our firm’s network. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: IT and cloud services, professional advisory services (for example, insurance brokers, solicitors), administration services, marketing services and banking services. We only permit our third-party service providers to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

What about other third parties?

We may share your personal data with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. We may also need to share your personal data with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

  1. Transferring personal data outside the United Kingdom (UK)

Whilst we store personal data on cloud servers within the UK, we may transfer personal data outside the UK to third parties that help us run our business. Contractual obligations are imposed on the recipients of any data transferred in order to to ensure that your personal data is treated by those third parties in a way that is consistent with and which respects the Data Protection Legislation.

  1. Data security

We have put in place commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

  1. Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Should your personal information change, please notify us of any changes of which we need to be made aware by contacting us at bren.hutchinson@bhassoc.co.uk.

Your rights in connection with personal data

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal data. This enables you to receive details of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are processing it lawfully.
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.
  • Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this basis. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
  • Request the restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal data about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or another data controller if the processing is based on consent, carried out by automated means and this is technically feasible.

If you want to exercise any of the above rights please email our Data Protection Point of Contact at bren.hutchinson@bhassoc.co.uk.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee for the administrative costs of complying with the request if your request for access is manifestly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

  1. Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data for a specific purpose (for example, in relation to direct marketing that you have indicated you would like to receive from us), you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please email our Data Protection Point of Contact at bren.hutchinson@bhassoc.co.uk.

Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your personal information (personal data) for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

  1. Changes to this notice

Any changes we may make to our privacy notice in the future will be provided to you in writing along with revisions to our engagement letter, our schedule of services and terms of business.  This privacy notice was last updated on 17 June 2022.

  1. Contact us

If you have any questions regarding this notice or if you would like to speak to us about the manner in which we process your personal data, please email our Data Protection Point of Contact at bren.hutchinson@bhassoc.co.uk or telephone us on 07717 199336.

You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues, at any time. The ICO’s contact details are as follows:

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

Telephone – 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745

Website – https://ico.org.uk/concerns

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