Hooper & Co is strongly committed to protecting your data. The following statement sets out why and how we collect and use your data and your rights. It applies to data provided to us for any of the purposes described in this privacy statement or as otherwise stated at the point of collection.

Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable living person. We processes personal data for numerous purposes, and the means of collection, lawful basis of processing, use, disclosure, and retention periods for each purpose may differ.

When collecting and using personal data, our policy is to be transparent about why and how we process personal data.

Security

We take the security of all the data we hold very seriously and regularly review the appropriateness of the measures we have in place to keep the data we hold secure.

When and how we share personal data and locations of processing

We will only share personal data with others when we are legally permitted to do so. When we share data with others, we put contractual arrangements and security mechanisms in place as appropriate to protect the data and to comply with our data protection, confidentiality and security standards.

We use third parties located in other countries to help us run our business. As a result, personal data may be transferred outside the countries where we and our clients are located. This includes countries outside the European Union and to countries that do not have laws that provide specific protection for personal data. All personal data is provided with adequate protection and that all transfers of personal data outside the EU are done lawfully.

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

On certain client engagements, we may engage or otherwise work with other providers to helps us provide professional services to our clients.

Our clients

Where we must process personal data to provide professional services to our clients we may share personal data in reports and other documents.

Insurers and professional advisers

We have a number of business insurance policies and may need to share personal data with the insurer, for example, in the event of a claim. We may use other professional advisers, for example, law firms, as necessary to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights and obtain advice in connection with the running of our business. Personal data may be shared with these advisers as necessary in connection with the products and services they have been engaged to provide.

Law enforcement or other government and regulatory agencies or to other third parties as required by, and in accordance with, applicable law or regulation

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 regulation.

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 25 May 2018.

Data controller and contact information

We are controllers for the personal data we process. If you have any questions about this privacy statement or how and why we process personal data, please contact us at our registered office address.

Individuals’ rights and how to exercise them

Individuals have certain rights over their personal data and controllers are responsible for fulfilling these rights.

Individuals’ rights may include the right of access to personal data, to rectification of personal data, to erasure of personal data / right to be forgotten, to restrict processing of personal data, to object to processing of personal data, to data portability, the right to withdraw consent at any time (where processing is based on consent) and the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

• Your right of access to personal data
  • You have the right to obtain confirmation as to whether we process personal data about you, receive a copy of your personal data held by us as a controller and obtain certain other information about how and why we process your personal data (similar to the information provided in this privacy statement). This right may be exercised by email or write to our registered office address. We aim to respond to any requests for information promptly, and in any event within the legally required time limits.
• Your right to rectification/amendment of personal data
  • You have the right to request for your personal data to be amended or rectified where it is inaccurate (for example, if you change your name or address) and to have incomplete personal data completed.
  • To update personal data submitted to us please email us or write to our registered office address.
  • When practically possible, once we are informed that any personal data processed by us is no longer accurate, we will make updates as appropriate based on your updated information.
• Your right to erasure/right to be forgotten
  • You have the right to obtain deletion of your personal data in the following cases:
    • the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected and processed;
    • our legal grounds for processing is consent, you withdraw consent and we have no other lawful basis for the processing;
    • our legal grounds for processing is that the processing is necessary for legitimate interests pursued by us or a third party, you object to our processing and we do not have overriding legitimate grounds;
    • you object to our processing for direct marketing purposes;
    • your personal data have been unlawfully processed; or
    • your personal data must be erased to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject.
  • To request deletion of your personal data, please email us or write to our registered office address.
• Your right to restrict processing
  • You have the right to restrict our processing of your personal data in the following cases:
    • for a period enabling us to verify the accuracy of your personal data where you have contested the accuracy of the personal data;
    • your personal data have been unlawfully processed and you request restriction of processing instead of deletion;
    • your personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected and processed but the personal data are required by you to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
    • for a period enabling us to verify whether the legitimate grounds relied on by us override your interests where you have objected to processing based on it being necessary for the pursuit of a legitimate interest identified by us.
  • To restrict our processing of your personal data, please email us or write to our registered office address.
• Your right to object to processing
  • You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data in the following cases:
    • our legal grounds for processing is that the processing is necessary for a legitimate interest pursued by us or a third party; or
    • our processing is for direct marketing purposes.
  • To object to our processing of your personal data, please email us or write to our registered office address.
• Your right to data portability
  • You have a right to receive your personal data provided by you to us and have the right to send the data to another organisation (or ask us to do so if technically feasible) where our lawful basis for processing the personal data is consent or necessity for the performance of our contract with you and the processing is carried out by automated means.
  • To exercise your right to data portability, please email us or write to our registered office address.
• Your right to withdraw 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). Where we rely on your consent for our processing of your personal data, to withdraw your consent please email us or write to our registered office address. Please see the relevant “Use of personal data” sections of this privacy statement for further details about our processing of personal data based on consent.

Complaints

If you do want to complain about our use of personal data, please email us or write to our registered office address. We will look into and respond to any complaints we receive.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority in your country of residence, place of work or the country in which an alleged infringement of data protection law has occurred within the EU. The Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) is the UK data protection regulator/supervisory authority. For further information on your rights and how to complain to the ICO, please refer to the ICO website.