Privacy Policy

1. Purpose Of This Notice

This notice explains how we collect and use personal data about you in accordance with the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 as well as any other applicable national laws, regulations and secondary legislation in the United Kingdom. Please read this notice carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal data and how we treat it.

Aequalis Accounting Ltd is an AAT licensed accountancy firm. We are registered in England and Wales as a limited company under company number 11824161. Our registered office is Vantage House, 6-7 Claydons Lane, Rayleigh, Essex, SS6 7UP. For the purposes of the Data Protection Legislation and this notice we are the data controller. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal data about you. We are required under the Data Protection Legislation to inform you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer. Our Data Protection Officer is our data protection point of contact and is responsible for assisting with any enquiries regarding this privacy notice or our treatment of your personal data. Should you wish to contact our Data Protection Officer you may do so using the contact details provided in paragraph 12.

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 any contact we have had with you in relation to the provision or proposed provision of our services; details of any services you have received from us; our correspondence and communications with you; information regarding any complaints or enquiries you make to us; information from research, surveys and marketing activities; and information we receive from other sources such as publicly available information, information provided by your employer or our clients or from our member network firms.

5. How We Use The Personal Data We Hold About You

We may process your personal data for purposes necessary to perform our contract with you, your employer or our clients and to comply with our legal obligations. This may include processing your personal data where you are an employee, subcontractor, supplier or customer of our client.

We may also process your personal data for our own legitimate interests provided that those interests do not override your own interests, rights and freedoms which require the protection of your personal data. This includes processing for marketing, business development, statistical and management purposes.

In some circumstances we may process your personal data for additional purposes with your consent. In these limited circumstances where your consent is required you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing. 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.

We use your personal data for the following purposes. We may use your personal data to carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between you, your employer or our clients and us which will normally relate to the provision of our services; to carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between our clients and us where you may be a subcontractor, supplier or customer of our client; to provide you with information related to our services and our events and activities that you have requested or that we feel may interest you provided you have consented to be contacted for such purposes; to seek your thoughts and opinions on the services we provide; and to notify you about any changes to our services.

In some circumstances we may anonymise or pseudonymise your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you. In that case we may use it without further notice.

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 when we are legally required or permitted to do so in accordance with this notice.

We will only retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it is collected. When deciding on an appropriate retention period we consider the requirements of our business and the services provided, any statutory or legal obligations, the purposes for which the personal data was originally collected, the lawful grounds on which we based our processing, the types and amount of personal data collected, and whether the purpose of the processing could reasonably be fulfilled by other means.

Where we need to use your personal data for a reason other than the purpose for which it was collected, we will only use your personal data where that reason is compatible with the original purpose. Should it be necessary to use your personal data for a new purpose we will notify you and explain the legal basis that allows us to do so before starting any new processing.

6. Data Sharing

We will share your personal data with third parties where we are required by law, where it is necessary to administer our relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

Third parties include service providers and other entities within our group or the members of our firm’s network. These third parties may provide IT and cloud services, professional advisory services, administration services, marketing services and banking services. All our third-party service providers are required to take commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect your personal data. We only permit these service providers to process your personal data for the specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We may also share your personal data with other third parties in the context of a potential sale or restructuring of our business or where it is necessary to comply with a regulator or the law.

7. Transferring Personal Data Outside The United Kingdom

We will not transfer the personal data we collect about you outside the United Kingdom unless an adequate level of protection is ensured in accordance with applicable law.

8. Data Security

We have implemented commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised manner, or altered or disclosed. In addition, we restrict access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who need to know the information to carry out their duties. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and are bound by a duty of confidentiality.

9. Your Rights To Access, Correct, Erase And Restrict

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Should your personal data change please notify us of any changes using the contact details provided below.

Under certain circumstances you have the right to request access to your personal data. This means that you can receive details of the personal data we hold about you and verify that we are processing it lawfully. You also have the right to request correction of any personal data that we hold about you and to request the erasure of your personal data if there is no good reason for us to continue processing it. You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data where we rely on a legitimate interest or when we process your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In addition, you have the right to request that the processing of your personal data is restricted. This means you can ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data for example if you wish us to establish its accuracy or the reason for its processing.

You may also request that your personal data is transferred to you or to another data controller if the processing is based on your consent and carried out by automated means where this is technically feasible. You will not be required to pay a fee to access your personal data or to exercise any of these rights. However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in such circumstances. We may need to ask for specific information from you to confirm your identity and ensure that your personal data is disclosed only to you.

10. Right To Withdraw Consent

In the limited circumstances where you have given your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data for a specific purpose such as receiving direct marketing from us you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent please contact our data protection point of contact using the details provided in paragraph 12.

Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your personal data for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

11. Changes To This Notice

Any changes we make to this privacy notice in the future will be updated on our website at www.aequalis.tax. This privacy notice was last updated on 01 January 2025.

12. Contact Us

If you have any questions regarding this notice or wish to discuss how we process your personal data, please contact our data protection point of contact Victoria Ramsay by email at hello@aequalis.tax or by telephone on 01268 219 330.

You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office the United Kingdom supervisory authority for data protection issues at any time. The Information Commissioners Office can be contacted at the following address:

Information Commissioners Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Telephone 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545 745

Website https://ico.org.uk/concerns