Privacy Policy & GDPR Statement

Privacy Policy

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.

Aiteo Consulting Limited is a data controller within the meaning of the GDPR and we process personal data. The firm is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (registration reference ZA146202).

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

We intend to process personal data for the following purposes:

  • To enable us to supply professional services to clients, which may include but is not limited to accountancy and tax compliance and tax advisory services, as well as management accountancy services.
  • 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 in Practice of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.
  • To use in the investigation and/or defence of potential complaints, disciplinary proceedings and legal proceedings.
  • To enable us to invoice clients for our services and investigate/address any attendant fee disputes that may have arisen.
  • To contact clients and potential clients about other services we provide if it is of legitimate interest to them or if they have consented to us doing so.

The types of data we may store

We may hold your details which may include, but is not limited to, the following:

  • Names, private addresses, date of birth, tax and NI references, company number (if applicable), employer’s reference and name (if applicable), business details (if applicable) and details of past and present taxable income and gains and data on other taxes.
  • We also hold data in order to make ID checks under the Money Laundering Regulations, which may include a copy of your passport or driving licence and evidences of your address.
  • We retain data for as long as statute or regulations demand.

We may use third party contractors in our business and they are required to sign a ‘Fit and proper’ declaration which includes a declaration that they will not remove data or pass on data to other parties.

The legal bases for our intended processing of personal data

Our intended processing of personal data has the following legal bases:

  • The processing is necessary for compliance with legal obligations to which we are subject (e.g. MLR 2017).
  • The processing is necessary for the performance of our contract with our clients.
  • The processing is necessary for the purposes of the following legitimate interests which we pursue, or the legitimate interests of our clients.
  • At the time we are instructed to act by clients, we are given consent to processing personal data.
  • The processing is carried out in line with consents given to us.

It is a requirement of our contract with clients that clients provide us with the personal data that we request. If such information is not provided that we request, we may not be able to provide professional services to the client. 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 (the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) 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 will only share data with HMRC and HM Courts and Tribunal’s service, during the course of an enquiry or investigation or tax appeal or other reasons if:

  • We authorised to do so by the client, or
  • In the case of a Schedule 36 FA 2008 Information Notice, we have either been so authorised by a tribunal or we are compelled to provide data under the terms of a third party notice, or
  • We are obliged by other regulations to provide data.

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.

Data Security

We may hold data electronically and on paper and we take the following precautions in relation to data security:

  • Our computer hard drives are destroyed before disposal.
  • We do not allow third parties to access to our data, although our outsourced IT support service may work on software programmes that hold that data such as our databases.
  • We store data via third party servers and we use applications including Microsoft Office 365 and Google products.
  • We process and store data using our tax and accounting software. Where such software is cloud-based we rely on the software provider’s security features and all access is password protected.
  • Data held on third party servers is highly protected by security features including firewalls, regular scans against malware and measures to prevent SQL injection.
  • When software is installed on our local machines all software is password protected.
  • We prohibit the use of memory sticks to hold client data. If you provide us with a memory stick we will not transport it out of our office.

Transfers of personal data outside the EEA

It may sometimes be necessary to transfer personal information overseas. When this is needed information is only shared within the European Economic Area (EEA). Any transfers made will be in full compliance with all aspects of the data protection act.

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 3 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 no more than 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: 5 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

  • 6 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 (by email is accepted). 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.

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)

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 support@aiteoconsulting.co.uk.

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

 

GDPR Statement

GDPR legislation requires us to use a number of tests to identify the lawful basis for processing the personal data that we hold. Our work usually falls within four lawful basis tests for our processes within the firm and these are noted below.

 

1. Legal Obligation

We rely on this lawful basis to process personal data to comply with a common law or statutory obligation. This includes the following key processes within our organisation:

  • customer onboarding (“Know Your Customer” or “KYC”)
  • acting as a customer’s agent with HMRC
  • submitting money laundering reports to the relevant authorities
  • payroll processing
  • preparation of company statutory accounts
  • sole trader accounting
  • personal tax returns
  • corporation tax returns

It should be noted that the use of this lawful basis extends to retaining key financial records in line with statutory minimums. Due to the nature of this lawful basis, a data subject cannot request personal data to be erased in advance of the expiration of such statutory minimums.

 

2. Contract

We rely on this lawful basis to the when we need to process personal data to fulfil our contractual obligations to customers or to carry out a process which we have been asked to do before entering into a contract. This includes the following key processes within our organisation:

  • preparing a quote or estimate for work
  • delivering elements of any contract relating to personal or business service provision which is not by definition included under the lawful basis of ‘Legal Obligation’.

It should be noted that if the data subject objects to the processing of their data under the lawful basis of ‘Contract’, it is highly likely that we will have to cease acting for them.

 

3. Legitimate Interests

We rely on this lawful basis when the processing is not required by law but is of a clear benefit to you or others; in particular, we use this basis when there is a limited privacy impact on the individual; when the individual should reasonably expect us to use their data in that way; and we cannot, or do not want to, give the individual full up-front control (ie consent) or bother them with disruptive consent requests when they are unlikely to object to the processing.

In summary, we use this lawful basis where there is either a minimal impact on the individual or else there is a compelling justification for the processing.

Examples of how this lawful basis is used in our firm include:

  • sending a periodic newsletter to customers
  • circulating news of developments in accounting, tax or industry which are relevant to the recipient
  • highlighting additional or complementary services to existing customers which may be of interest

Data subjects may request for their data to cease to be used in this way at any time. This is most easily achieved by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in every email which is sent under this basis.

 

4. Consent

The fourth and final lawful basis we most commonly use is ‘Consent’. Under such circumstances, data subjects provide their data willingly, with genuine consent, and understand the purposes for which this data is used. As examples, consent may be sought in the following ways:

  • through a positive and separate opt-in during the customer onboarding process
  • invitations to subscribe to our mailing list via website pop-ups or subscription forms
  • lead-building forms on social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or other similar platforms
  • pop-ups or banner web advertisements

Examples of how this lawful basis is used in our firm include:

  • sending a periodic newsletter to members of our email list
  • circulating news of developments in accounting, tax or industry which are relevant to the recipient
  • highlighting new, additional or complementary services to list members which may be of interest
  • sending special promotions and offers

Data subjects may request for their data to cease to be used in this way at any time. This is most easily achieved by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in every email which is sent under this basis.

 

End Notes

This note should be read in conjunction with our privacy policy previously stated.

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: support@aiteoconsulting.co.uk.

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

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