Online Privacy Practices

Your right to privacy is important to us. We recognise that when you visit the site and provide us with personal information, you trust that we will act responsibly and keep your information secure and confidential.

This privacy policy statement provides information about how we collect and use personal data about you, and your rights under data protection laws.

We try hard to ensure a fair balance between your personal privacy and ensuring you obtain full value from use of the Tax Advice Network’s website and learn of things you are likely to be interested in.

We are registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 and ensure we comply with all protection the Act gives you. Further information on the Act is here: www.ico.gov.uk

Registration

We ask you to provide information that will enable us to provide the services and send information on topics that we believe will interest you. We may use (and you consent to the use of) your personal data for future e-mail, mailings, phone or other forms of contact, notification of new services and new versions. In relation to any email communications you can ‘unsubscribe’ at any time.

We will not disclose or sell your information outside our corporate group, otherwise than in connection with any sale or disposal of the website and/or the Network.

Security

Making sure you can interact safely online is a priority for us and we have done what we can to ensure that our online security measures help to safeguard your information.

Data Controller and Processor

The Tax Advice Network operates as a limited liability partnership. It has no employees or staff and only one non-corporate partner –  the Network Chairman Mark Lee. Please contact him if you have any queries or require further information or wish to exercise any of your rights related to the personal data we hold and process.

Data retention period

Our general policy is to hold data for as long as you have a continuing relationship with the Network and until you ask for your data to be deleted or you unsubscribe entirely from our email management system. The facility to do this is included at the foot of all our automated emails.

Links to other websites

Our website contains links to other third party websites. If you follow a link to any of those third party websites, you should be aware that we cannot accept any responsibility or liability for their policies or processing of your personal information.

Why we collect information about you

We only collect and process personal information for legitimate and lawful purposes which may include:

  • Keeping track of our past contact and conversations so as to inform our ongoing contact;
  • For the performance of a contract with you or to take steps to enter into a contract;
  • Making anonymised references to data we have obtained. Such references may be included in blog posts, email updates, articles and talks;
  • To identify and prevent fraud;
  • For training and quality purposes;
  • To gather market intelligence, communicate with and tailor offers to individuals;
  • to maintain our accounts and records;
  • to modify, personalise or otherwise improve our services and communications;
  • to defend or make claims;
  • to comply with our legal obligations; and
  • for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of an official authority.

Transmission, storage and security of your personal information

Unfortunately, data transmission over the Internet or via websites is never guaranteed to be secure from intrusion. However, we maintain commercially reasonable physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your personal information in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our website or any other portal we operate, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential and for complying with any other security procedures that we notify you of. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.
Your personal information may be accessed by staff or authorised third parties and, transferred to, and/or stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (EEA) where the data protection laws may be of a lower standard than in the EEA. Regardless of location or whether the person is an employee or contractor we impose the same data protection safeguards that we deploy inside the EEA.

What types of personal data we hold and how we collect and use that data

The types of personal data that we hold and how we collect and use that data vary according to our relationship with the person whose data it is (the ‘data subject’).  We have set out our distinct practices with each type of person towards the end of this privacy statement.

Data sharing

Why might we share your personal data with third parties?

We will share your personal data with third parties where we are required by law or regulation, where it is necessary in the provision of services to our clients, or for administration purposes or where we have another legitimate reason in doing so.

Which third-party service providers process my personal data?

All of our UK based third-party service providers are required to take commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect your personal data. We only permit our third-party service providers to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our or your instructions.

What about other third parties?

The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: IT and cloud services, professional advisory services, banking and bookkeeping services.

Transferring personal data outside of the European Economic Area (EEA)

In common with most small businesses, we do not have any tailor-made software, beyond this website. Instead we use mainstream packages for everything from our customer records, to email, to accounting. This means that much of our data is held in services in the USA. We have picked mainstream suppliers with appropriate security standards:

  • Quickbooks
  • Infusionsoft
  • Receipt Bank
  • Dropbox
  • Evernote
  • Gmail
  • Virtual Assistant (based in the USA)
The suppliers’ privacy policies explain how the suppliers handle and store personal information and protect your privacy. Importantly, the suppliers’ privacy policies detail how and why the suppliers may make available your data to service providers based outside the European Economic Area.
Some users of this website may require tax support and advice from tax advisers outside of the EEA, in which case it is for you to satisfy yourself as to the privacy policies adopted by the advisers you choose to use.

Data security

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 our 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.

We do not sell or exchange the data we hold with organisations who may want to sell you something or use your data for research or other purposes. nor are we planning to do so. If at any point we decided to exchange lists with another organisation, we would ask you to ‘opt-in’ to such a system. Our continuing silence means we are not doing so.

We have an outsourced support team for our own business, including Virtual Assistants, Web Designers, IT support, Sales and Marketing, Accounting and more. They have limited access to your data, where the service they provide to us necessitates that. For example, if you want to set up a meeting, our diary VA needs to know your email address in order to sort out a date. If we invoice you, our Accountant needs to see the invoice in order to sort out the books.

Our outsourced team use our software to access any data they need. We do not permit copying or sharing by the team and actively monitor for any potential breaches.

Your information/advice is held in the strictest confidence. Our team are all contracted to strict confidentiality clauses and we monitor and restrict their data usage. We only use mainstream software and we use the most secure login options available to us.

We restrict who can export or download data that is held to a limited number of individuals who are authorised to back up data.

Rights to access, correction, erasure and restriction

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal data we hold is accurate and current. Should your personal information that you have supplied to us change, please notify Mark of any changes of which we need to be made aware.

Your rights in connection with personal data

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to require us to:
  • provide you with further details on the use we make of your personal information
  • provide you with a copy of the personal information we hold about you
  • update any inaccuracies in the personal information we hold about you
  • delete any of your personal information that we no longer have a lawful ground to use
  • where processing is based on consent, stop that particular processing by withdrawing your consent
  • object to any processing based on our legitimate interests unless our reasons for undertaking that processing outweigh any prejudice to your data protection rights
  • restrict how we use your personal information whilst a complaint is being investigated
  • transfer your personal information to you or another data controller if the processing is based on consent, carried out by automated means and this is technically feasible.
If you want to exercise any of the above rights, please contact Mark Lee.
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.

Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data for a specific purpose (for example, in relation to direct marketing that you have indicated you would like to receive from us), you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please email Mark Lee
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.

Changes to this notice

We will keep this privacy statement under regular review and any changes will be shown on this web page.
This privacy notice was last updated on 29 May 2018.

Contact us

If you have any questions regarding this notice or if you would like to speak to us about the manner, in which we process your personal dat, please contact Mark direct.
You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues, at any time. 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

Tax Accountants and Tax Advisers

Who do we collect information about?

We collect information about tax accountants and tax advisers who enquire about or wish to join the Network, about their firms and  about colleagues or staff who we interact with in the course of our work (for example we may have contact details for those members of clients’ finance departments with whom we have interacted.

What personal information do we collect?

We often monitor who opens our emails, how many times, and which links you choose to use and read. We use this information to increase the content’s level of interest, and to help us improve our targeting of information and services. You can remove your information from this monitoring by disabling cookies on your website browser before opening emails from us.

We may use anonymised data about you from time to time to target advertising campaigns based on profiling the sort of person who wants to receive information from us. For example, if we have a sudden rush of interest from sole practitioner accountants we may place advertisements targetting similar accountants.

It is our policy only to collect the personal information which is required for our work. In some cases this may mean that the only personal information that we hold is contact information and details of any communications with that person, but in other cases this may include:

  • Financial information
  • Information about business activities
  • Information about family or business relationships
  • Information about marketing activities

If you pay us by credit card, we use external secure processors. We do not receive your credit card details. We do not take telephone orders and the only way to pay us by credit card is online via a secure processor.

If you pay us by BACS, Go Cardless or direct transfer, we know only what the bank identify – usually the name of the person who paid us and how much and the reference number.

We do not keep credit scores, credit card or other financial details.

What is the source of this information?

This information is usually supplied by clients and prospective clients on the phone or face to face, usually at exhibitions and events, networking groups and other meetings attended by Mark Lee.

How do we use this data?

We may use this data to carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between our clients and us.
In addition we may use this data in managing our relationships with our clients and in providing to our clients information about our services or other information that we consider may be of interest to them.

We may engage sales and marketing people  to contact prospective clients from time to time. We are not a hard sell organisation. This is normally because you have requested a call, or because we are actively trying to let you know about something you may benefit from.

Our services are designed to be business to business. We aim to build long-term relationships with satisfied and relaxed clients.

How long do we retain this data for?

We will retain personal data in accordance with our data retention policy for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it is collected and to allow for the time to be right to engage in a business relationship some time after ‘first contact’ when the information may have been supplied.

Business contacts

Who do we collect information about?

We also collect information about business contacts, influencers and introducers.

What is the source of this information?

This information is provided by the business contacts themselves on the phone or face to face, usually at exhibitions and events, networking groups and other meetings attended by Mark Lee.

What personal information do we collect?

In the case of business contacts we collect information necessary for our communications with them. This may include:
  • Contact details
  • Business details

How do we use this data?

We may use this data to communicate with contacts about possible business opportunities, our range of professional services, sharing insight and to invite them to events.
The basis for this processing is either the consent of the contacts themselves or legitimate business interest. This consent may be withdrawn at any time (see the contact us section of the privacy policy for details of who to contact).

How long do we retain this data for?

We will retain personal data in accordance with our data retention policy for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it is collected. For business contacts the data is retained for at least as long as we have a business relationship with them.

Our suppliers

 

Who do we collect information about?

We collect personal information about our suppliers (where these are individuals) and persons associated with them (for example our relationship manager at a supplier).

What is the source of this information?

The source of this information is the suppliers themselves.

What personal information do we collect?

We collect the information necessary to manage our relationships with our suppliers. This may include:
  • Contact details
  • Business activities
  • Bank details

How do we use this data?

We use this data to manage our relationships with our suppliers.
The basis for this processing is the contracts that we have with our suppliers, legal obligations and/or that such processing is necessary for our legitimate interests.

How long do we retain this data for?

We will retain personal data in accordance with our data retention policy for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it is collected. For suppliers such data will be held for at least as long as we have a business relationship with them.

Users of our website

Who do we collect information about?

We collect personal data about users of our website if they choose to provide this information to us. In addition we collect some limited personal data via the use of cookies on our website.

What personal information do we collect?

The principal information that is collected is the contact details provided by the website user however, depending on the nature of the submission other personal information may be provided.

How do we use this data?

Data is used in order to respond to communications from the users of the website. In some cases users will sign up to services which will result in them becoming business contacts, in which case their data will be used in accordance with the ‘Business Contacts’ section of this policy.
Data is processed on the basis of the consent of the website user, which is given when the data is provided.
If you have used the website to source tax support or advice and submitted data on an enquiry form we will normally pass on your enquiry to the adviser(s) you have selected.

How long do we retain this data for?

We will retain personal data in accordance with our data retention policy for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it is collected.

If you have contacted us but never purchased any service or products from us, you will remain on the list you joined until you unsubscribe from that list. We clean our lists from time to time and unsubscribe people who do not open or click on links in our emails. But in order to avoid adding you again by mistake, unsubscribes are kept on an unsubscribe list.
If you are not happy with being on any of our lists you can simply unsubscribe. If you want to be removed from our customer records, please let us know.

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file written to the hard drive when a visitor accesses a website, it contains information about their actions on the website. Most web browsers allow users to opt out of receiving cookies, however you may find that some features of the website are impaired if you do this.

Disclaimer

The information contained on our website is of a general nature and not intended to address the circumstances of any particular individual or entity. Whilst we have made an effort to provide accurate and up to date information, it is recommended that you consult us before taking or refraining from taking action based on matters discussed.