Privacy policy issued by Avencia Accountants LLP
Introduction
The Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA 2018”) and the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) impose certain legal obligations in connection with the processing of personal data.
Avencia Accountants LLP is a data controller within the meaning of the GDPR and we process personal data. The firm’s contact details are as follows:
Contact name: Mr Aaron Calver
Registered address: Room 2, Suite 5 Eastbrook House, 40 East Street, Wimborne, Dorset BH21 1DX
Telephone: 01202 856250
Email: [email protected]
We may amend this privacy notice from time to time. If we do so, we will make available to you a copy of the amended privacy notice.
We also act as a data processor on behalf of a data controller (for example, when processing payroll). Our DPA policy details the information we require to carry out this service, which should be read in conjunction with this privacy notice.
The purposes for which we intend to process personal data
We intend to process personal data for the following purposes:
- To enable us to supply professional services to you as our client.
- To fulfil our obligations under relevant laws in force from time to time (e.g. the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (“MLR 2017”)).
- To comply with professional obligations to which we are subject as a member of The Chartered Institute of Taxation.
- To enable us to invoice you for our services and investigate/address any attendant fee disputes that may have arisen.
- To contact you about other services we provide which may be of interest to you if you have consented to us doing so.
The legal bases for our intended processing of personal data
Our intended processing of personal data has the following legal bases:
- At the time you instructed us to act, you gave consent to our processing your personal data for the purposes listed above.
- The processing is necessary for the performance of our contract with you.
- The processing is necessary for compliance with legal obligations to which we are subject (e.g. MLR 2017).
It is a requirement of our contract with you that you provide us with the personal data that we request. If you do not provide the information that we request, we may not be able to provide professional services to you. If this is the case, we will not be able to commence acting or will need to cease to act.
Persons/organisations to whom we may give personal data
We may share your personal data with:
- HMRC
- any third parties with whom you require or permit us to correspond with
- subcontractors
- an alternate appointed by us in the event of incapacity or death
- tax insurance providers
- professional indemnity insurers
- our professional body (The Chartered Institute of Taxation) in relation to practice assurance and/or the requirements of MLR 2017 (or any similar legislation)
If the law allows or requires us to do so, we may share your personal data with:
- the police and law enforcement agencies
- courts and tribunals
- the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”)
We may need to share your personal data with the third parties identified above in order to comply with our legal obligations, including our legal obligations to you. If you ask us not to share your personal data with such third parties we may need to cease to act.
Transfers of personal data outside the EEA
Sometimes data may be transferred between us and our clients via online storage facilities such as dropbox or our client portal, Onvio. These providers have historically used storage facilities outside of the EEA but have now moved their data centres within the EEA in order for them to be compliant with GDPR. For further information, see our Data Protection Policy.
Retention of personal data
When acting as a data controller and in accordance with recognised good practice within the tax and accountancy sector we will retain all of our records relating to you as follows:
- where tax returns have been prepared it is our policy to retain information 7 years from the end of the tax year to which the information relates.
- where ad hoc advisory work has been undertaken it is our policy to retain information for 5 years from the date the business relationship ceased.
- where we have an ongoing client relationship, data which is needed for more than one year’s tax compliance (e.g. capital gains base costs and claims and elections submitted to HMRC) is retained throughout the period of the relationship but will be deleted 7 years after the end of the business relationship unless you as our client ask us to retain it for a longer period.
Our contractual terms provide for the destruction of documents after 7 years and therefore agreement to the contractual terms is taken as agreement to the retention of records for this period, and to their destruction thereafter.
You are responsible for retaining information that we send to you (including details of capital gains base costs and claims and elections submitted) and this will be supplied in the form agreed between us. Documents and records relevant to your tax affairs are required by law to be retained by you as follows:
Individuals, trustees and partnerships
- with trading or rental income: five years and 10 months after the end of the tax year;
- otherwise: 22 months after the end of the tax year.
Companies, LLPs and other corporate entities
- six years from the end of the accounting period.
Where we act as a data processor as defined in DPA 2018, we will delete or return all personal data to the data controller as agreed with the controller at the termination of the contract.
Requesting personal data we hold about you (subject access requests)
You have a right to request access to your personal data that we hold. Such requests are known as ‘subject access requests’ (“SARs”).
Please provide all SARs in writing marked for the attention of Mr Aaron Calver.
To help us provide the information you want and deal with your request more quickly, you should include enough details to enable us to verify your identity and locate the relevant information. For example, you should tell us:
- your date of birth
- previous or other name(s) you have used
- your previous addresses in the past five years
- personal reference number(s) that we may have given you, for example your national insurance number, your tax reference number or your VAT registration number
- what type of information you want to know
If you do not have a national insurance number, you must send a copy of:
- the back page of your passport or a copy of your driving licence; and
- a recent utility bill.
DPA 2018 requires that we comply with a SAR promptly and in any event within one month of receipt. There are, however, some circumstances in which the law allows us to refuse to provide access to personal data in response to a SAR (e.g. if you have previously made a similar request and there has been little or no change to the data since we complied with the original request).
We will not charge you for dealing with a SAR.
You can ask someone else to request information on your behalf – for example, a friend, relative or solicitor. We must have your authority to respond to a SAR made on your behalf. You can provide such authority by signing a letter which states that you authorise the person concerned to write to us for information about you, and/or receive our reply.
Where you are a data controller and we act for you as a data processor (e.g. by processing payroll), we will assist you with SARs on the same basis as is set out above.
Putting things right (the right to rectification)
You have a right to obtain the rectification of any inaccurate personal data concerning you that we hold. You also have a right to have any incomplete personal data that we hold about you completed. Should you become aware that any personal data that we hold about you is inaccurate and/or incomplete, please inform us immediately so we can correct and/or complete it.
Deleting your records (the right to erasure)
In certain circumstances you have a right to have the personal data that we hold about you erased. Further information is available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk). If you would like your personal data to be erased, please inform us immediately and we will consider your request. In certain circumstances we have the right to refuse to comply with a request for erasure. If applicable, we will supply you with the reasons for refusing your request, which would normally be that we are required by law to hold your information for a said time period.
The right to restrict processing and the right to object
In certain circumstances you have the right to ‘block’ or suppress the processing of personal data or to object to the processing of that information. Further information is available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk). Please inform us immediately if you want us to cease to process your information or you object to processing so that we can consider what action, if any, is appropriate.
Obtaining and reusing personal data (the right to data portability)
In certain circumstances you have the right to be provided with the personal data that we hold about you in a machine-readable format, e.g. so that the data can easily be provided to a new professional adviser. Further information is available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk).
The right to data portability only applies:
- to personal data an individual has provided to a controller;
- where the processing is based on the individual’s consent or for the performance of a contract; and
- when processing is carried out by automated means
We will respond to any data portability requests made to us without undue delay and within one month. We may extend the period by a further two months where the request is complex or a number of requests are received but we will inform you within one month of the receipt of the request and explain why the extension is necessary.
Withdrawal of consent
Where you have consented to our processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Please inform us immediately if you wish to withdraw your consent.
Please note:
- the withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of earlier processing
- if you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to continue to provide services to you
- even if you withdraw your consent, it may remain lawful for us to process your data on another legal basis (e.g. because we have a legal obligation to continue to process your data)
Automated decision-making
We do not intend to use automated decision-making in relation to your personal data.
Complaints
If you have requested details of the information we hold about you and you are not happy with our response, or you think we have not complied with the GDPR or DPA 2018 in some other way, you can complain to us. Please send any complaints to Mr Aaron Calver of Avencia Accountants LLP, Suite 5 Eastbrook House, 40 East Street, Wimborne, Dorset BH21 1DX or email: [email protected]
If you are not happy with our response, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the ICO (www.ico.org.uk).
Privacy policy relating to our website
Avencia Accountants LLP understands that your privacy is important to you and that you care about how your personal data is used. We respect and value the privacy of everyone who visits this website, avencia.tax (“Our Site”) and as described in Parts 5 and 6, below, we I do not collect personal data about you unless you contact us.
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully and ensure that you understand it. Your acceptance of this Privacy Policy is deemed to occur upon your first use of Our Site. If you do not accept and agree with this Privacy Policy, you must stop using Our Site immediately.
1. Information About us
Our Site is owned and operated by Avencia Accountants LLP, with details as shown on the Privacy tab. We are a member of The Chartered Institute of Taxation.
2. What Does This Policy Cover?
This Privacy Policy applies only to your use of Our Site. Our Site may contain links to other websites. Please note that we have no control over how your data is collected, stored, or used by other websites and we advise you to check the privacy policies of any such websites before providing any data to them.
3. What is Personal Data?
Personal data is defined by the General Data Protection Regulation (EU Regulation 2016/679) (the “GDPR”) as ‘any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified in particular by reference to an identifier’.
Personal data is, in simpler terms, any information about you that enables you to be identified. Personal data covers obvious information such as your name and contact details, but it also covers less obvious information such as identification numbers, electronic location data, and other online identifiers.
4. What Are My Rights?
Under the GDPR, you have the following rights, which we will always work to uphold:
- The right to be informed about our collection and use of your personal data. This Privacy Policy should tell you everything you need to know, but you can always contact us to find out more or to ask any questions using the details in Part 10.
- The right to access the personal data we hold about you. Part 9 will tell you how to do this.
- The right to have your personal data rectified if any of your personal data held by us is inaccurate or incomplete. Please contact us using the details in Part 10 to find out more.
- The right to be forgotten, i.e. the right to ask us to delete or otherwise dispose of any of your personal data that we I have. Please contact us using the details in Part 10 to find out more.
- The right to restrict (i.e. prevent) the processing of your personal data.
- The right to object to us using your personal data for a particular purpose or purposes.
- The right to data portability. This means that, if you have provided personal data to us directly, we are using it with your consent or for the performance of a contract, and that data is processed using automated means, you can ask us for a copy of that personal data to re-use with another service or business in many cases.
- Rights relating to automated decision-making and profiling. We do not use your personal data in this way.
For more information about our use of your personal data or exercising your rights as outlined above, please contact us using the details provided in Part 10.
Further information about your rights can also be obtained from the Information Commissioner’s Office or your local Citizens Advice Bureau.
If you have any cause for complaint about our use of your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
5. What Personal Data Do You Collect & Cookie Policy
Subject to the following, we do not collect any personal data from you.
If you send us an email using the links within our website or via our contact form, we may collect your name, your email address, and any other information which you choose to give us, for the purposes of contacting you to answer your enquiry. Any information submitted via our online form is not stored on the web server or database.
This site uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. For this service, Google creates 4 cookies (small text files) which can be used to evaluate the use of the website and produce activity based reports. This will record the visitors to our website, together with the session information such as the duration of the visit to the site and the nature of the browser used. This information is for administration purposes and in the compilation of statistics used by us to assess the use of the site.
No personal data is retained or accessed for any other use.
Google stores the collected information on servers in the United States which may be transferred to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.
Google Inc are members of the US Safe Harbor Scheme. This scheme allows the transfer of data from within the EEA to countries that are outside of the EEA without having to enter into a specific data transfer agreement. Companies that sign up to the scheme are deemed to provide adequate protection for personal data transmitted from Europe.
You can also set your browser not to accept cookies which can be found within your chosen browsers settings. However some websites rely on cookie information to provide additional functionality, so disabling all cookies may interfere with your user experience.
Google has also created their own opt-out plugin which you can get here.
Our site website is secured by an SSL Certificate.
6. How Do You Use My Personal Data?
If we do collect any personal data, it will be processed and stored securely, for no longer than is necessary in light of the reason(s) for which it was first collected. We will comply with our obligations and safeguard your rights under the GDPR at all times. For more details on security see Part 7, below.
As stated above, we do not generally collect any personal data. If you contact us and we obtain your personal details from your email, we may use them to respond to your email.
You have the right to withdraw your consent to us using your personal data at any time, and to request that we delete it.
We will not share any of your data with any third parties for any purposes other than storage on an email server.
7. How and Where Do You Store My Data?
We will only store your personal data in the UK. This means that it will be fully protected under the GDPR.
8. Do You Share My Personal Data?
We will not share any of your personal data with any third parties for any purposes, subject to one important exception.
In some limited circumstances, we may be legally required to share certain personal data, which might include yours, if we are involved in legal proceedings or complying with legal obligations, a court order, or the instructions of a government authority.
9. How Can I Access My Personal Data
If you want to know what personal data we have about you, you can ask us for details of that personal data and for a copy of it (where any such personal data is held). This is known as a “subject access request”. Please see page 3 for the process of requesting this information.
10. How Do I Contact You?
To contact us about anything to do with your personal data and data protection, including to make a subject access request, please use the details at the top of this document.
11. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. This may be necessary, for example, if the law changes, or if we change our business in a way that affects personal data protection.