Privacy Policy

General Privacy Notice
Introduction

Samuels LLP “SLLP” is strongly committed to protecting personal data and complying with data protection legislation.  This privacy statement tells you why and how we collect and use personal data and gives you information about individuals’ rights 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’).  We will lawfully process personal data to meet our contractual or legal and regulatory obligations or legitimate interests in providing our services to you. It applies to personal data provided to us (either by individuals or by others).  We may use personal data provided to us for any of the purposes described in this privacy statement as stated at the point of collection or in our Standard Terms and Conditions. We take the security of all the data we hold very seriously.  We have a framework of policies, procedures and training in place regarding data protection, its security and confidentiality and regularly review the appropriateness of the measures we have in place to keep the data we hold secure. This Privacy Notice was last updated on 6^th April 2018 and any changes we may make in the future will be available on our website at www.samuels.co.uk

What is Personal Data?

Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable living person.  Samuels LLP processes personal data for many purposes.  The lawful basis of processing, use, the means of collection, disclosure, and retention periods for each purpose may differ. When we collect and use personal data, our policy is to be as transparent as we can about why and how we process that personal data.  We summarise our specific processing activities in each section below.

When And How We Share Personal Data And Locations Of Processing?

We will only share personal data with others for legitimate purposes and when we are legally permitted to do so.  When we share data with others, we put contractual arrangements and security measures in place to protect that data and to comply with our policies and procedures.

We generally do not transfer data to non EEA countries but where we transfer personal data outside of the EU to a country not determined by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data, the transfers will be under an agreement which covers the EU requirements for the transfer of personal data outside the EU, such as the European Commission approved standard contractual clauses.  The European Commission approved standard contractual clauses are available here and a model contractual clause document is available here.

Personal data held by us may be transferred to:
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• Third party organisations that provide applications/functionality, data processing or IT services to us.
  We use third parties to support us in providing our services and to help provide, run and manage our internal IT systems.  For example, providers of information technology, cloud based software as a service providers, identity management, website hosting and management, data analysis, data back-up, security and storage services.  The servers powering and facilitating that cloud infrastructure are located in secure data centres around the world, and personal data may be stored in any one of them.
• Third party organisations that otherwise assist us in providing goods, services or information.
• Other professional advisers, administration services, marketing services and banking services.
• Law enforcement or other government and regulatory agencies or to other third parties as required by, and in accordance with, applicable law or regulation.
  Occasionally, we may receive requests from third parties with authority to obtain disclosure of personal data, such as to check that we are complying with applicable law and regulation, to investigate an alleged crime, to establish, exercise or defend legal rights.  We will only fulfil requests for personal data where we are permitted to do so in accordance with applicable law or regulations.
  

Changes to this privacy statement

We recognise that transparency is an ongoing responsibility so we will keep this privacy statement under regular review. This privacy statement was last updated on 12^th April 2018.

Data Controller And Contact Information

Our clients are Data Controllers unless otherwise agreed between us. Samuels LLP is a data controller (the limited partnership registered in England under registration no. OC309019 and with its registration address at 3 Locks Yard, High Street, Sevenoaks, Kent, TN13 1LT), unless we have agreed with you that we act as Data Processor for you.

If you have any questions about this privacy statement or how and why we process personal data, please contact us at:

Senior Partner
Samuels LLP
3 Locks Yard
High Street
Sevenoaks
Kent
TN13 1LT

Email: dataprotection@samuels.co.uk
Phone: 01732 742 089

Individuals’ Rights And How To Exercise Them

Individuals have certain rights over their personal data and data controllers are responsible for fulfilling these rights.  Where we decide how and why personal data is processed, we are a data controller and include further information about the rights that individuals have and how to exercise them below. 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 above.

Access To Personal Data

You have a right of access to personal data held by us as a data controller.  This right may be exercised by emailing us at dataprotection@samuels.co.uk.  We may charge our administrative costs for a request for access in accordance with applicable law.  We will aim to respond to any requests for information promptly and in any event within the legally required time limits. 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 for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances. We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Amendment Of Personal Data

To update personal data submitted to us, you may email us at dataprotection@samuels.co.uk or, where appropriate, on relevant applications with which you registered. When practically possible, once we are informed that any personal data processed by us is no longer accurate, we will make corrections (where appropriate) based on your updated information.

Withdrawal Of Consent

Where we process personal data based on consent, individuals have a right to withdraw consent at any time.  We do not generally process personal data based on consent (as we can usually rely on another legal basis).  To withdraw consent to our processing of your personal data please email us at dataprotection@samuels.co.uk Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your personal information (personal data) for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Other Data Subject Rights

This privacy statement is intended to provide information about what personal data we collect about you and how it is used.  As well as rights of access and amendment referred to above, individuals may have other rights in relation to the personal data we hold, such as a right to erasure/deletion, to restrict or object to our processing of personal data and the right to data portability. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please send an email to dataprotection@samuels.co.uk.

Complaints

We hope that you won’t ever need to, but if you do want to complain about our use of personal data, please send an email with the details of your complaint to dataprotection@samuels.co.uk.  We will look into and respond to any complaints we receive.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) (the UK data protection regulator).  For further information on your rights and how to complain to the ICO, please refer to the ICO website here.

Personal Clients/Corporate Clients (and associated individuals)
Collection Of Personal Data

Our policy is to collect only the personal data necessary for agreed purposes and we ask our clients only to share personal data where it is strictly needed for those purposes.

Where we need to process personal data to provide our services, we ask our clients to provide the necessary information to other data subjects concerned, such as family members, regarding its use.

Generally, we collect personal data from our clients or from third parties acting on the instructions of the relevant client, as well as contact details for our clients in order to manage and maintain our relationships with them.

Given the diversity of the services we provide to personal clients, we process many categories of personal data, including as appropriate for the services we are providing:

• Personal/Contact details, such as your name address, email and contact details. This will include our correspondence and communication with you;
• Business activities and details of any services you have received/requested;
• Family information;
• Income, taxation  and other financial-related details;
• Investments and other financial interests; and
• Research, surveys and marketing activities.

For certain services or activities, and when required by law or with an individual’s consent, we may also collect special categories of personal data.   Examples of special categories include race or ethnic origin; political opinions; religious or philosophical beliefs; trade union membership; physical or mental health; genetic data; biometric data; sexual life or sexual orientation; and, criminal records.

Generally, we collect personal data from our clients or from a third party acting on the instructions of the relevant client. For some of our services, for example, when undertaking a due diligence review of an acquisition target on behalf of a client, we may obtain personal data from that target’s management and employees or from a third party acting on the instructions of the target.

Use Of Personal Data

We may use personal data for the following purposes:

• Providing contracted professional services
  We provide a diverse range of professional services which require us to process personal data in order to provide advice.  For example, we need to use personal data to provide individual tax advice, financial advice, payroll services, audit services or pensions advice.
• Administering, managing and developing our businesses and services
  We process personal data in order to run our business, including:

• • managing our relationship with clients;
  • developing our businesses and services (such as identifying client needs and improvements in service delivery);
  • maintaining and using IT systems;
  • hosting of events; and
  • administering and managing our website, systems, applications and for our own legitimate interests provided those interests do not override any of your own interests, rights and freedoms which require the protection of personal data.

• Security, quality and risk management activities
  We have put in place commercially reasonable and 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 data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so. Personal data may be processed as part of the security monitoring that we undertake; for example, automated scans to identify harmful emails.  We monitor the services provided to clients for quality purposes, which may involve processing personal data stored on the relevant client file.  We have policies and procedures in place to monitor the quality of our services and manage risks in relation to client engagements.  We collect and hold personal data as part of our client engagement and acceptance procedures and we carry out searches using publicly available sources (such as internet searches and sanctions lists) to identify politically exposed persons and heightened risk individuals and organisations and check that there are no issues that would prevent us from working with a particular client such as sanctions, criminal convictions (including in respect of company directors), conduct or other reputational issues.
• Providing our clients with information about us and our range of services
  With consent or otherwise in accordance with applicable law, we use client contact details to provide information that we think will be of interest about us and our services.  For example, updates and insights, other services that may be relevant and invites to events.
• Complying with any requirement of law, regulation or a professional body of which we are a member
  As a provider of professional services, we are subject to legal, regulatory and professional obligations. We need to keep certain records to demonstrate that our services are provided in compliance with those obligations and those records may contain personal data.

We are continually looking for ways to help our clients and improve our business and services.  Where agreed with our clients, we may use information that we receive in the course of providing professional services for other lawful purposes, including analysis to better understand a particular issue, provide insights back to our clients, to improve our business, service delivery and offerings. Please note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. In some circumstances we may anonymise or pseudonymise the personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use it without further notice to you. If you refuse to provide us with certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you. Alternatively, we may be unable to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations. We may also process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in accordance with this notice, where we are legally required or permitted to do so.

Data Retention

We retain the personal data processed by us for as long as is considered necessary for the purpose for which it was collected (including as required by applicable law or regulation). In the absence of specific legal, regulatory or contractual requirements, our baseline retention period for records and other documentary evidence created in the provision of services is 8 years (or up to 20 years in cases where HMRC may require this).

• 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; and
• The amount and categories of your personal data.

Suppliers (including subcontractors and individuals associated therewith)
Collection Of Personal Data

We collect and process personal data about our suppliers (including subcontractors and individuals associated with our suppliers and subcontractors) in order to manage the relationship, contract, to receive services from our suppliers and, where relevant, to provide professional services to our clients.

Use Of Personal Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

• Receiving services
  We process personal data in relation to our suppliers and their staff as necessary to receive the services. For example, where a supplier is providing us with facilities management or other outsourced services, we will process personal data about those individuals that are providing services to us.
• Providing professional services to clients
  Where a supplier is helping us to deliver professional services to our clients, we process personal data about the individuals involved in providing the services in order to administer and manage our relationship with the supplier and the relevant individuals and to provide such services to our clients (for example, where our supplier is providing people to work with us as part of a team providing professional services to our clients).
• Administering, managing and developing our businesses and services
  We process personal data in order to run our business, including:
  • managing our relationship with suppliers;
  • developing our businesses and services (such as identifying client needs and improvements in service delivery);
  • maintaining and using IT systems;
  • hosting of events; and
  • administering and managing our website and systems and applications.
• Security, quality and risk management activities
  We have security measures in place to protect our and our clients’ information (including personal data), which involve detecting, investigating and resolving security threats.  Personal data may be processed as part of the security monitoring that we undertake; for example, automated scans to identify harmful emails.  We have policies and procedures in place to monitor the quality of our services and manage risks in relation to our suppliers.  We collect and hold personal data as part of our supplier contracting procedures.  We monitor the services provided for quality purposes, which may involve processing personal data.
• Providing information about us and our range of services
  Unless we are asked not to, we use business contact details to provide information that we think will be of interest about us and our services.  For example, industry updates and insights.
• Complying with any requirement of law, regulation or a professional body of which we  are a member
  As a provider of professional services, we are subject to legal, regulatory and professional obligations.  We need to keep certain records to demonstrate that our services are provided in compliance with those obligations and those records may contain personal data.

Data Retention

We retain the personal data processed by us for as long as is considered necessary for the purpose for which it was collected (including as required by applicable law or regulation). Personal data may be held for longer periods where extended retention periods are required by law or regulation and in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights.

Visitors To Our Website
Collection Of Personal Data

Visitors to our websites are generally in control of the personal data shared with us. We may capture limited personal data automatically via the use of cookies on our website. Please see our Cookie Policy.

We may receive personal data, such as name, title, company address, email address, and telephone and fax numbers, from website visitors; for example when an individual contacts us.

Visitors are also able to send an email to us through our website. Their messages will contain the user’s screen name and email address, as well as any additional information the user may wish to include in the message.

We ask that you do not provide sensitive information (such as race or ethnic origin; political opinions; religious or philosophical beliefs; trade union membership; physical or mental health; genetic data; biometric data; sexual life or sexual orientation; and, criminal records) to us when using our website; if you choose to provide sensitive information to us for any reason, the act of doing so constitutes your explicit consent for us to collect and use that information in the ways described in this privacy statement or as described at the point where you choose to disclose this information.

Cookies

We may use small text files called ‘cookies’ which are placed on your hard drives to assist in personalising and enriching your browsing experience by displaying content that is more likely to be relevant and of interest to you.   The use of cookies is now standard operating procedure for most websites.  However if you are uncomfortable with the use of cookies, most browsers now permit users to opt-out of receiving them.  You need to accept cookies in order to register on our website.  You may find other functionality in the website impaired if you disable cookies. After termination of the visit to our site, you can always delete the cookie from your system if you wish.

You can find out more details regarding our use of cookies on our Cookie Policy Page.

Use Of Personal Data

When a visitor provides personal data to us, we will use it for the purposes for which it was provided to us as stated at the point of collection (or as obvious from the context of the collection).  Typically, personal data is collected to:

• Register for certain areas of the site;
• Subscribe to updates;
• Enquire for further information;
• Distribute requested reference materials;
• Submit curriculum vitae;
• Monitor and enforce compliance with our terms and conditions for use of our website;
• Administer and manage our website, including confirming and authenticating identity and preventing unauthorised access to restricted areas, premium content or other services limited to registered users; and
• Aggregate data for website analytics and improvements.

Unless we are asked not to, we may also use your data to contact you with information about our business, services and events, and other information which may be of interest to you.  Should visitors subsequently choose to unsubscribe from mailing lists or any registrations, we will provide instructions on the appropriate webpage, in our communication to the individual, or the individual may contact us by email to dataprotection@samuels.co.uk.

Our websites do not collect or compile personal data for the dissemination or sale to outside parties for consumer marketing purposes or host mailings on behalf of third parties.

Data rentention

Personal data collected via our websites will be retained by us for as long as it is necessary (e.g. for as long as we have a relationship with the relevant individual).

Others Who Get In Touch With Us

We collect personal data when an individual gets in touch with us with a question, complaint, comment or feedback (such as name, contact details and contents of the communication). In these cases, the individual is in control of the personal data shared with us and we will only use the data for the purpose of responding to the communication.

Partners and Staff

We collect personal data concerning our own personnel as part of the administration, management and promotion of our business activities. Partners and staff should refer to section 21 of the Staff Handbook for information on why and how personal data is collected and processed.