PRIVACY NOTICE issued by City & Cambridge Consultancy Limited

Your privacy is important.

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.

We may amend this privacy notice from time to time. If we do so, we will supply you with and/or otherwise make available to you a copy of the amended privacy notice.

The purposes for which we intend to process personal data

  • 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 Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
  • To use in the investigation and/or defence of potential complaints, disciplinary proceedings and legal proceedings.
  • 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

  • At the time you instructed us to act, you gave consent to our processing your personal data for the purposes listed above. Consent to our use of your data for the above purposes is explicitly requested within our standard engagement letter.
  • 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).
  • The processing is necessary for the purposes of the following legitimate interests which we pursue: including investigating and defending legal claims.

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.

What type of data do we collect from a data subject or from someone other than the data subject?

  • Usually basic information
    • Name of person
    • Business organisation
    • Email address (predominantly a business email address)
    • Phone number (predominantly a business phone number)
  • Where necessary for legal reasons, detailed information
    • Details on a passport
    • Details on a driving licence
    • Details on utility documents

How do we collect data from a data subject or someone other than the data subject?

  1. Website
    • Data may be provided through the website to us through the enquiry form.
  2. Phone
    • A phone call may provide us with data.
  3. Business card
    • A business card given to or picked-up by us may contain data.
  4. Letters
    • A letter or attachment to a letter received by us may contain data.
  5. Emails and attachments to those emails
    • An email or attachment to an email received by us may contain data.
  6. Cheque
    • A cheque received by us may contain data.

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
  • subcontractors
  • an alternate appointed by us in the event of incapacity or death
  • tax insurance providers
  • professional indemnity insurers
  • our professional body (Chartered Institute of Taxation) and/or the Office of Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervisors (OPBAS) 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

Your personal data will be processed in the EEA only.

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 ad hoc advisory work has been undertaken it is our policy to retain information for 6 years from the date the business relationship ceased, or until our company ceases trading, whichever is sooner.

Our contractual terms provide for the destruction of documents after 6 years, or until our company ceases trading, whichever is sooner, 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 and this will be supplied in the form agreed between us.

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, addressed to your delegated accountant.

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 tax reference number(s), 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 40 days 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.

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.

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. Any requests will be considered in the context of our legal and other responsibilities.

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 your delegated accountant who will then pass it on.

The company Data Protection Officer will review your complaint and will respond to you within 40 days of the any actions to be taken and the process for resolving your complaint as best as we can within our legal and other responsibilities. This process, as per your right to ask about having data processing blocked in regards to your data, will be free of charge.

If you are not happy with our response, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the ICO (www.ico.org.uk).

Data transfer policy

We will only ever transfer data where either it is necessary to perform the agreed services or you have requested for us to do so. The primary necessary recipients of your data in order for us to complete the services are HMRC, Companies House, the ONS, and any pensions provider that we must transfer payroll data to.

As these data transfers are mandatory or required in order to complete our agreed services, they are set out within our standard engagement letter. Where we are required to transfer data to any other recipient except the above, we will inform you and ask for your consent.

As stated above, if you do not consent to a data transfer that is inherently required in order for us to complete our agreed services with you, then we are not liable for any consequences of the non-transfer of this data.

We will not complete data transfers unless we are satisfied that the recipient has adequate data protection measures in place. If we are not satisfied, we will inform you, but not complete the transfer until this is rectified. We will not be liable for any consequences of non-transfer in such scenarios.

Data transfers will be completed using methods of transfer that are encrypted and/or secured using multiple forms of authentication, with the exception of data sent by post. We will take all reasonable steps to secure documents sent by post – including using signed-for mail delivery for particularly important or sensitive information. However, if you have not provided us with a correct postal address for you, then we are not liable for any consequences arising from our sending to the best-known address for you.

All our staff will be fully-trained on secure data transfers, and regular audits will be undertaken to ensure that all reasonable steps are taken so that data transfers remain secured by encryption and/or multiple forms of authentication.

Data storage

Data will be stored in digital or physical formats, in accordance with how we receive it. However, as we store digital formats using encryption and/or multiple forms of authentication, we will as policy take digital copies of the data for its storage and for its use in our agreed services.

Data in physical formats will be kept in locked storage, with key access only to staff. This will be monitored, with regular audits of data storage security.

All of our staff will be regularly trained in best practice for ensuring data security is maintained at this high standard at all times.