PRIVACY NOTICE
1. Purpose of this notice
This notice explains how BCT Accountants Ltd collects and uses personal data about you, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018, and any other applicable data protection legislation as amended from time to time. Please read it carefully so you understand how we treat your personal data.
2. About us
BCT Accountants Ltd is an independent accountancy and tax advisory practice. We are registered in England and Wales under company number 07718264, and our registered office is at Beechley, Minskip Road, Boroughbridge, YO51 9HY.
For the purposes of data protection legislation, we are the ‘data controller’ — meaning we are responsible for deciding how your personal data is held and used. Our point of contact for data protection matters is Catherine Stork, who can be reached using the details in section 12 below.
3. How we collect your personal data
We may obtain personal data about you when:
● you request a proposal or quote from us for our services;
● you, your employer, or one of our clients engages us to provide services, and during the course of providing them;
● you contact us by email, telephone, post or social media (for example, with a query about our services); or
● we receive it from third parties or publicly available sources (for example, from your employer or from Companies House).
4. The kind of information we hold about you
The information we hold about you may include:
● your personal details (such as your name and address);
● details of contact we have had with you about our services;
● details of any services you have received from us;
● our correspondence and communications with you;
● information about any complaints or enquiries you make;
● information from research, surveys and marketing activities; and
● information from other sources, such as publicly available information or information provided by your employer or our clients.
5. How we use your personal data
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use it:
● to perform the contract we have entered into, or are about to enter into, with you or with our clients (which is usually for the provision of our services);
● to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation; or
● for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party), provided your own interests and rights do not override those interests. This includes marketing, business development, and statistical and management purposes.
In limited circumstances we may rely on your consent — for example, for certain direct marketing. Where we do, you can withdraw that consent at any time (see section 10).
If you refuse to provide information we reasonably need, we may be unable to perform our contract with you, or to meet our legal or regulatory obligations.
Data retention
We will keep your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, taking into account our business needs, any statutory or legal obligations (including the record-keeping periods that apply to accountancy and tax work), and the nature of the data.
6. Sharing your data
We will share your personal data with third parties only where we are required to by law, where it is necessary to administer our relationship with you, or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.
Where we use third-party service providers — for example, IT and cloud services, professional advisers, administration, marketing, and banking — they are required to take appropriate security measures and may only process your personal data on our instructions and for specified purposes.
We may also share your personal data with a regulator, or otherwise to comply with the law.
7. Transferring data outside the UK
Some of our third-party providers (for example, certain cloud and software services) may process data outside the UK. Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, we will ensure a similar degree of protection by making sure at least one appropriate safeguard is in place — for example, transferring to a country the UK Government has deemed to provide adequate protection, or using contractual protections approved for use in the UK (such as the International Data Transfer Agreement).
8. Data security
We have put appropriate security measures in place to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. We limit access to those who have a business need to know, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We also have procedures to deal with any suspected data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator where we are legally required to do so.
9. Your rights
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please let us know if your details change.
Under data protection law, in certain circumstances you have the right to:
● request access to your personal data;
● request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data;
● request erasure of your personal data where there is no good reason for us to continue processing it;
● object to processing where we are relying on a legitimate interest, and to object to direct marketing at any time;
● request restriction of processing; and
● request the transfer of your data to you or another controller, where processing is based on consent or contract and carried out by automated means.
To exercise any of these rights, please email Catherine Stork at catherine@bctaccountants.co.uk. You will not usually have to pay a fee, although we may charge a reasonable fee, or refuse to comply, if a request is clearly unfounded or excessive. We may need to confirm your identity before acting on a request.
10. Withdrawing consent
Where we rely on your consent to process your personal data, you can withdraw that consent at any time by emailing catherine@bctaccountants.co.uk. Once we receive your withdrawal, we will stop processing your data for that purpose unless we have another lawful basis for doing so.
11. Cookies
When you visit our website we use cookies — small files placed on your device — to help the site function and to understand how visitors use it. Non-essential cookies (such as analytics and any marketing cookies) are only set where you have given your consent through our cookie banner, and you can change or withdraw your cookie preferences at any time.
Cookies help us see, for example, how many people use the site, which pages they visit, the type of device they use, and how they arrived (such as via search, social media or directly). We use analytics tools (for example, Google Analytics) to help improve our website. Some cookies may be set by third parties such as Google, or by social media platforms if you interact with their content; please refer to their own privacy policies for details.
You can also control cookies through your browser settings, although blocking some cookies may affect how the website works. From time to time we may use remarketing (for example, via Google Ads), which means you may see our ads after visiting our site.
12. Changes to this notice
Any changes we make to this notice in future will be published on our website at www.bctaccountants.co.uk. Please check back from time to time.
13. Contact us and your right to complain
If you have any questions about this notice, or would like to discuss how we handle your personal data, please contact Catherine Stork at catherine@bctaccountants.co.uk or on 01423 431889.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection, at any time:
● Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
● Telephone: 0303 123 1113
● Website: https://ico.org.uk/concerns