Website Privacy Policy for Accountants 4 Trades

www.accountant4trades.co.uk (our website) is provided by Andrew Hague, a chartered accountant, who provides accountancy services to clients (‘we’, ‘our’ or ‘us’). We are the controller of personal data obtained via our website, meaning we are the organisation legally responsible for deciding how and for what purposes it is used.

We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share any information relating to you (your personal data) in connection with your use of our website. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or a relevant regulator in the event you have a complaint.

We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). 

Given the nature of our website, we do not expect to collect the personal data of anyone under 18 years old. If you are aware that any personal data of anyone under 18 years old has been shared with our website please let us know so that we can delete that data.

This privacy policy is divided into the following sections:

 

• What this policy applies to

• Personal data we collect about you

• How your personal data is collected

• How and why we use your personal data

• Marketing

• Who we share your personal data with

• How we store your personal data and how long your personal data will be kept

• Transferring your personal data out of the UK 

• Cookies and other tracking technologies

• Your rights

• Keeping your personal data secure

• How to complain

• Changes to this privacy policy

• How to contact us
   

What this policy applies to

 

This privacy policy relates to your use of our website only.
Throughout our website we may link to other websites owned and operated by certain trusted third parties to make additional products and services available to you. Those third-party websites may also gather information about you in accordance with their own separate privacy policies. For privacy information relating to those third-party websites, please consult their privacy policies as appropriate.

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Personal data we collect about you

The personal data we collect about you depends on the particular activities carried out through our website. We will collect and use the following personal data about you:

 

• your name, address and contact information, including email address and telephone number and company details

• information to check and verify your identity, e.g. date of birth

• your gender, if you choose to give this to us

• location data, if you choose to give this to us

• details of any information, feedback or other matters you give to us by phone, email, post or via social media

• your activities on, and use of, our website

• information about the services we provide to you

• your contact history and saved items

• information about how you use our website and technology systems

• your responses to surveys, competitions and promotions
   

You must provide this personal data to use our website unless we tell you that you have a choice. 

Sometimes you can choose if you want to give us your personal data and let us use it. Where that is the case, we will tell you and give you the choice before you give the personal data to us. We will also tell you whether declining to share that personal data will have any effect on your use of our website.

We collect and use this personal data for the purposes described in the section ‘How and why we use your personal data’ below.

We do not generally collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information regarding you: 

• information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions

• information about your trade union memberships

• information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records, medical records and health professional information

• biometric information about you, for example fingerprints, retina scans

Also we do not generally collect, store and use any criminal records history relating to you. 

If we process such special category personal data, we will also ensure we are permitted to do so under data protection laws. 

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How your personal data is collected

We collect personal data from you: 

• directly, when you enter or send us information, such as when you register with us, contact us (including via email), send us feedback, purchase products or services via our website, post material to our website and complete client surveys or participate in competitions via our website, and 

• indirectly, such as your browsing activity while on our website; we will usually collect information indirectly using the technologies explained in the section on ‘Cookies and other tracking technologies’ below.
   

How and why we use your personal data
Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, e.g.:

• where you have given consent

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

• for the performance of a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, or

• for our legitimate interests or those of a third party
   

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. We will carry out an assessment when relying on legitimate interests, to balance our interests against your own. You can obtain details of this assessment by contacting us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).

This is what we use your personal data for and why.

Creating and managing your account with us    
For our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price or in other cases, to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract

Providing services to you    
To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract

Enforcing legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings    
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations or in other cases, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect our business, interests and rights

Customising our website and its content to your particular preferences based on a record of your selected preferences or on your use of our website    
Depending on the circumstances:

• your consent as gathered by the cookies tool our on website see ‘Cookies and other tracking technologies’ below

• where we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price

If you have provided such a consent, you may withdraw it at any time by changing the setting on the cookies tool (this will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn)

Retaining and evaluating information on your recent visits to our website and how you move around different sections of our website for analytics purposes to understand how people use our website so that we can make it more intuitive or to check our website is working as intended    

Depending on the circumstances:

• your consent as gathered by the cookies tool our on website see ‘Cookies and other tracking technologies’ below

• where we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price

If you have provided such a consent, you may withdraw it at any time by changing the setting on the cookies tool (this will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn)

Communications with you not related to marketing, including about changes to our terms or policies or changes to the services or other important notices    

Depending on the circumstances:

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

• in other cases, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price
   

Protecting the security of systems and data used to provide the services    

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

We may also use your personal data to ensure the security of systems and data to a standard that goes beyond our legal obligations, and in those cases our reasons are for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect systems and data and to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us

Statistical analysis to help us understand our client base    
For our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price

 

Updating and enhancing client records    

Depending on the circumstances:

• to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

• where neither of the above apply, for our legitimate interests, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our clients about existing and new services
   

Disclosures and other activities necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. to record and demonstrate evidence of your consents where relevant     
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Marketing our services to existing and former clients    
For our legitimate interests, i.e. to promote our business to existing and former clients
See ‘Marketing’ below for further information

To share your personal data with members of our group and third parties that will or may take control or ownership of some or all of our business (and professional advisors acting on our or their behalf) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale, initial public offering or in the event of our insolvency
In such cases information will be anonymised where possible and only shared where necessary    
Depending on the circumstances:

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

• in other cases, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect, realise or grow the value in our business and assets
   

Marketing
We will use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text message, telephone or post) about our services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new services.

We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data for marketing purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal data’). This means we do not need your consent to send you marketing information. If we change our marketing approach in the future so that consent is needed, we will ask for this separately and clearly.

You have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by:

• contacting us at hello@andrewhague.co.uk;

• using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in emails or ‘STOP’ number in texts; or 

We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.

We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.

For more information on your right to object at any time to your personal data being used for marketing purposes, see ‘Your rights’ below.
 

Who we share your personal data with

We routinely share personal data with:

• third parties we use to help deliver our services to you, or help us run our business, e.g. marketing agencies or website hosts and website analytics providers;

We or the third parties mentioned above may occasionally also share personal data with:

• our and their external auditors, e.g. in relation to the audit of our or their accounts, in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations;

• our and their professional advisors (such as lawyers and other advisors and sub contractors), in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations;

• law enforcement agencies, courts, tribunals and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; and

• other parties that have or may acquire control or ownership of our business (and our or their professional advisers) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale, initial public offering or in the event of our insolvency—usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible. The recipient of any of your personal data will be bound by confidentiality obligations.

If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).

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How we store your personal data and how long your personal data will be kept

We securely store your data on our hosting platform which is located in the UK. 

We will not keep your personal data for longer than we need it for the purpose for which it is used. 

Different retention periods apply for different types of personal data. 
 

If you require us to stop using your account we will delete or anonymise your account data after seven years.

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Transferring your personal data out of the UK

The personal data we collect may be transferred to and stored in countries outside of the UK and the European Union. Some of these jurisdictions require different levels of protection in respect of personal data and, in certain instances, the laws in those countries may be less protective than the jurisdiction you are typically resident in. 

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal data is only used in accordance with this privacy policy and applicable data protection laws and is respected and kept secure and where a third party processes your data on our behalf we will put in place appropriate safeguards as required under data protection laws. 

For further details, please contact us by using the details set out in the ‘How to contact us’ section below. 

Our directors and other individuals working for us may in some circumstances access personal information outside of the UK and European Union if they are on holiday abroad outside of the UK or European Union. If they do so they will be using our security measures and will be subject to their arrangements with us which are subject to English Law and the same legal protections that would apply to accessing personal data within the UK. In limited circumstances the people to whom we may disclose personal information as mentioned in section ‘Who we share your personal data with’ may be located outside of the UK and European Union. In these cases we will impose any legally required protections to the personal information as required by law before it is disclosed.
 

Cookies and other tracking technologies

A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your device (e.g. computer, smartphone or other electronic device) when you use our website. We use cookies and other similar tracking technologies such as web beacons, action tags, single-pixel gifs on our website. These help us to monitor the performance and functionality of our website and recognise you and your device and store some information about your preferences or past actions.

For further information on cookies and other tracking technologies, our use of cookies and tracking technologies, when we will request your consent before placing them and how to disable them, please see our Cookie Policy.

Your rights

You generally have the following rights, which you can usually exercise free of charge:

Access to a copy of your personal data    
The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data.

Correction (also known as rectification)    
The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data.

Erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten)    
The right to require us to delete your personal data in certain situations.

Restriction of use    
The right to require us to restrict use of your personal data in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data.

Data portability    
The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party—in certain situations.

To object to use    
The right to object:

• at any time to your personal data being used for direct marketing (including profiling); and

• in certain other situations to our continued use of your personal data, e.g. where we use your personal data for our legitimate interests unless there are compelling legitimate grounds for the processing to continue or the processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

Not to be subject to decisions without human involvement    
The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you

We do not make any such decisions based on data collected by our website.

The right to withdraw consents    
If you have provided us with a consent to use your personal data you have a right to withdraw that consent easily at any time

You may withdraw consents by emailing us at hello@andrewhague.co.uk

Withdrawing a consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn.

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For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they do and do not apply, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below). You may also find it helpful to refer to the guidance from the UK’s Information Commissioner on your rights under the UK GDPR. 

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email, call or write to us—see below: ‘How to contact us’.  When contacting us please:

• provide enough information to identify yourself (e.g. your full name and, address) and any additional identity information we may reasonably request from you, and

• let us know which right(s) you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.

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Keeping your personal data secure
We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine need to access it. 

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

If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your personal data and other information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit https://www.getsafeonline.org/. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.

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How to complain
Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data (see below ‘How to contact us’). We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner in the UK. The Information Commissioner may be contacted using the details at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by telephone: 0303 123 1113.

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Changes to this privacy policy
We may change this privacy policy from time to time. When we make significant changes we will take steps to inform you by including a prominent link to a description of those changes on our website for a reasonable period or by other means, such as email.

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How to contact us
You can contact us by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.

Our contact details are shown below:
hello@andrewhague.co.uk
01244 780070

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This policy was published on 20 October 2024 and last updated on 20 October 2024.

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