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.
Valley Accountancy Ltd is a data controller within the meaning of the
GDPR and we process personal data. The firm’s contact details are as follows: Andrew Dunn,
andy@valleyaccountancy.com
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.
Where we act as a
data processor on behalf of a data controller (for example, when processing
payroll), we provide an additional schedule setting out required information as
part of that agreement. That additional schedule 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 as amended (“MLR 2017”)). - To comply with
professional obligations to which we are subject as a member of Association of
Accounting Technicians - 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
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). - The processing is
necessary for the purposes of the following legitimate interests which we
pursue
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 - subcontractors
- an alternate
appointed by us in the event of incapacity or death - tax
insurance providers - professional
indemnity insurers - our
professional body Association of Accounting Technicians 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
tax returns have been prepared it is our policy to retain information for 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 7 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 annually/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 Andrew Dunn
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 (eg 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 (eg 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.
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 andy@valleyaccountancy.com
If you are not happy with our
response, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the ICO (www.ico.org.uk).