PRIVACY
WE WILL TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA
Our privacy policy sets out how we use and protect any information that you give to us.
Welcome to BM Howarth Chartered Accountants's privacy notice.
BM Howarth Chartered Accountants ("we, "us", or "our") respects your privacy and we are committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
This privacy notice is provided in a layered format so you can click through to the specific area set out below. Please also use the glossary to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this privacy notice.
1. Who we are and important information
2. The data we collect about you
3. How is your personal data collected
4. How we use your personal data
5. Disclosures of your personal data
1. Who we are and important information
Who we are
BM Howarth Limited Chartered Accountants Halifax, West House, King Cross Road, Halifax HX1 1EB. BM Howarth Limited are listed as a ‘data controller’ under the General Data Protection Regulation (also known as the GDPR). Our registration number with the Information Commissioner’s Office is Z9241288
This privacy notice aims to give you information on how we collect and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you sign up to our newsletter.
It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes
This version was last updated on 16th March 2020. It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.
Third-party links
Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
2. The data we collect about you
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:
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Identity data includes first name, last name.
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Contact data includes email addresses, telephone numbers and home/business addresses.
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Technical data includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access our website.
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Marketing and communications data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences.
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Professional data includes any information we may collect in the course of providing our services to you for the purpose of those services.
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Financial information (e.g., taxes, payroll, investment interests, pensions, assets, bank details, insolvency records).
We do not collect any special categories of personal data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and bio-metric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.
If you fail to provide personal data
Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with an answer to an enquiry). In this case, we may have to cancel a service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.
3. How is your personal data collected
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
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Direct interactions. You may give us your identity, contact and professional data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by telephone or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when your submit an enquiry or request marketing content to be sent to you.
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Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
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CCTV. At our sites we collect images of visitors. Our policy is to automatically overwrite CCTV footage within 60 days.
4. How we use your personal data
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will your personal data in the following circumstances:
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When we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
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Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
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Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending marketing communications to you via email. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.
Purposes for which we will use your personal data
We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.
Marketing
We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising.
We may use your identity, contact, technical and marketing and communications data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services and offers may be relevant for you.
If you have given consent for us to use your data for marketing purposes you can opt out or withdraw consent at any time by contacting us.
Cookies
A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computers hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.
We use traffic log cookies to identify which web pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.
Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.
You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly.
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, if we need to use your data for anything other than that which has been agreed we will contact you for your permission to do so.
5. Disclosures of your personal data
We may have to share your personal data with third parties listed in the glossary for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
6. International transfers
Some of our external third parties are based outside the European Economic Area ("EEA") so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.
Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:
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We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries.
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Where we can use certain service providers, we may use specific contacts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe. For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries.
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Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield where requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between Europe and the US. For further details, see European Commission: EU-US Privacy Shield.
7. Data security
We have put in place 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 personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so. If you think that any part of our process is not secure please contact us.
8. Data retention - how long will you use my personal data for?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
9. Your legal rights
You have rights under protection laws in relation to your personal data. Please click on the links below to find out more about these rights:
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.
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 if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
What we may need from you
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contract you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
10. Glossary
Lawful Basis
Performance of a contract means processing your data where it is necessary in order for us to provide services to you as agreed in a contract or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
Third Parties
Below is a current list of third parties we may share your data with in order for us to provide our services to you.