Privacy Policy

Overview

At Connell Accountants we are committed to protecting and safeguarding your personal information whilst always respecting your rights to privacy.

The privacy policy explains what we do with any personal data that you either provide to us, or that we collect from you. This policy was last updated on 13 July 2018 and may be updated on our website as required, and therefore please ensure that you do regularly review this.

Where we include links to third parties on this website, this does not mean that we endorse or approve that site’s policy towards visitor privacy. You should review their privacy policy before sending them any personal data. This privacy policy only extends to Connell Accountants.

We are confident in the way we use your personal information, but we also care and want you to be confident too! Your personal data is stored securely and used only for the services that you have engaged us to undertake.

From time to time, we will want to send you tax and accounting news that we believe would be of legitimate interest to you. Naturally, you can opt out from these at any time you want by following the unsubscribe links in any email marketing or by contacting us directly.

The Full Privacy Policy

This notice describes how we collect and use personal data about you, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Data Protection Act [1998 OR 2018] and any other national implementing laws, regulations and secondary legislation, as amended or updated from time to time, in the UK (‘Data Protection Legislation’).

Please read the following carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

Who we are

Our website address is: https://connellaccountants.com.

This policy applies to Connell Accountants Limited, registered number 09746487 which is a company registered in England and Wales. The registered office of the above company is at The Office, 4 Higher Yalberton Road, Paignton, Devon, United Kingdom, TQ4 7PD.

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. For our firm, the person in charge is Christine Connell, Director, who can be contacted on Chrissy@connellaccountants.com or by calling 01803 527 162.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

General

We collect personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our engagement with you, or your employer, or our clients, and where it is necessary to comply with statutory and legal obligations.

Personal data may be processed where it is necessary as part of our engagement with our client, and therefore this includes where you are an employee, supplier or customer of our clients. In addition to this, we may use your personal data for our legitimate interests (including marketing, business development and statistics) as long as our interests do not override your own rights and interests.

There may be certain further situations where we will require your consent before additional processing of your personal data, and you have the right to withdraw your consent for this.

Please note that we may use and process your personal data for more than one statutory or legal basis where we have a contractual or legal obligation to do so.

Your personal data may be used so that we can:

  • complete the work as detailed in our engagement with you, your employer, or our clients and us. In most cases this will be the provision of accounting, payroll and tax services;
  • complete our obligations to our clients, where you are a subcontractor, supplier or customer of our client;
  • provide you with information that you request from us relating to our offering;
  • provide information to you relating to other products that we believe may be of interest to you;
  • provide news and information to you relating to changes in laws and regulations to ensure you are up to date;
  • notify you about any changes to our offering.

There may be scenarios where we anonymise or pseudonymise the personal data so that there is no longer any way to associate this with you. In these scenarios we may use this data without further notice to you.

Although you have the right to refuse to provide us with certain information when requested, this may result in us being unable to perform the work that we are engaged to do, and, we may be unable to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations. We will always ensure that we advise you where this is the case, so that you are aware of the potential consequences.

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

We will not disclose your personal information to any other party other than in accordance with this privacy policy and in the circumstances detailed below:

  • In the event that we sell any or all of our business to the buyer.
  • Where we are legally required by law to disclose your personal information.
  • To further fraud protection and reduce the risk of fraud.

Forms

When you submit information via the contact us page or signup forms we collect your first name, last name, email address and your phone number so that we can correspond with you. Your personal data will not only be stored in the website’s database but also in AccountancyManager the application we use to manage our practice and if you opt in to our marketing emails on MailChimp.

Cookies

We utilise cookies for collecting data and this can be seen in more detail in our cookies policy here.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to track visitors on this site. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect this data. In order to be compliant with the new regulation Google included a data processing amendment. The data we collect will be processed anonymously and “Data sharing” is disabled. We don’t use other Google services in combination with Google Analytics cookies.

Data transferred outside of the EEA

In order to provide the best service to you, it may be necessary to transfer your personal data to other professional organisations outside the European Economic Area which may not have the same level of data protection as the UK.

This will only be done when appropriate to do so and we will ensure that your personal data is protected at all times. We have ensured that all non-EEA companies have sufficient privacy policies in place, and if possible a GDPR policy. Details of the research that we have undertaken is available on request.

Our security precautions

We have reviewed our security measures and put commercially reasonable and appropriate systems in place to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, only employees, agents, contractors and third parties with a business need to have access to your data, will be provided with access, and no other access will be given without your explicit consent.

They are subject to the same duty of confidentiality as we are, and they will only process your personal data on our instructions.

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

How long do we hold your data?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as it is necessary based on the purpose it was collected for.

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;
  • the purposes for which we originally collected the personal data;
  • the lawful grounds on which we based our processing;
  • the types of personal data we have collected;
  • the amount and categories of your personal data; and
  • whether the purpose of the processing could reasonably be fulfilled by other means.

Where the data relates to services covered in our engagement terms, this data will be held for 7 years in line with our regulatory requirements.

Where the data relates solely to marketing, this data will be reviewed every three years, and we will hold your data for a maximum of 6 years. As detailed above, any marketing includes the option to opt out at any point should you desire to.

It’s your information

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, using the contact details below.

By law you have the right (under certain circumstances) to:

  • Request access to your personal data, what we hold, and how we process it.
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
  • 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.
  • 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.

No fee usually required

Although you will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights), we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such 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 contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

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.

If you wish to exercise your rights as noted above please contact Christine Connell using the contact information below.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you, please feel free to contact us:

Christine Connell
The Office
4 Higher Yalberton Road
Paignton
TQ4 7PD

Email: Chrissy@connellaccountants.com

Phone: 01803 527 162

You also have the right to take this up with the relevant supervisory authority which, in the UK is the Information Commissioner’s Office. 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/concernq

Glossary of useful terms

What is personal data?

The meaning of ‘personal data’ refers to any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified in particular by reference to an identifier. It may include (but is not limited to):

  • Your name and your contact information
  • National Insurance Numbers
  • Financial information including your credit history
  • Employment history
  • Specific data that we provide you with, such as personal tax information or payroll and accounting data

What is sensitive personal data?

The GDPR refers to sensitive personal data as “special categories of personal data”. The special categories specifically include genetic data, and biometric data where processed to uniquely identify an individual.

What is a Data Controller?

A ‘data controller’ determines the purposes and means of processing personal data.

What is a Data Processor?

A “data processor” is a person or organisation which processes personal data for the controller.

What is Data Processing?

Data processing in relation to information or data means obtaining, recording or holding the information or data or carrying out any operation or set of operations on the information or data, including:

  • the organisation, adaptation or alteration of the information or data,
  • the retrieval, consultation or use of the information or data,
  • the disclosure of the information or data by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, or
  • the alignment, combination, blocking, erasure or destruction of the information or data.
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