This privacy policy explains what information we collect about you and how, and how we use it.
What information do we collect and how?
We collect personal information from and about you in four ways:
Information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website. The information that we collect includes information about your browser, your IP address, your general location as determined from your IP address and provided by your browser, any site from which you have come, and the links followed when leaving our site (‘Analytics Data‘).
This ‘general’ type of information about you is collected through Google Analytics. This data is collected to help us understand how effective our marketing activity is. It is not used to contact you.
2. When we register you on our CRM/email circulation system/database to receive our newsletters and/or circularisations of the services we or our partners may provide and / or and when you connect with me – Paul Brindley – via social media sites including Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, etc. You may also be added to our CRM/email circulation system/database and be contacted as a consequence of our efforts to identify people in the UK who might be interested in using our services. You may also be added because we have your consent.
3. Where we have under data protection law a ‘legitimate interest’ in maintaining a level of data on you. This can be obtained in one of 6 legal ways, the ones we rely on are:
By obtaining your consent
For the commencement or performance of work with or for you
Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation – as an insolvency practitioner, we have a number of duties under the law to work with personal data
Where we have a legitimate interest. This might be where we have identified you as a person who would ordinarily be expected to be interested in the services we or our partners provide, in these instances we have a legitimate interest in obtaining and retaining data on you.
Where you supply us with your data, such as your name, email address and telephone number, using our Insolvency Bot, that information will be automatically stored on our Bot provider’s secure GCP/AWS servers in the USA. We may then use this data to contact you, in which event it will then be stored on our own server.
The information that we collect in 2. will include basic information such as your name; your position in your company/firm, your company’s /firm’s name, telephone number, web address and business address details; your email addresses (including your private email address and private telephone number if they appear on your social network profiles or if you give them to us – we would prefer not to have these, please consider deleting them from your social media sites); the nature of your business (‘Data Type A’) and any other details asked for and which you provide such as your business strategy (Data Type B).
We may monitor if you receive our emails and whether you open them or not and may contact you accordingly. We record electronically the information you give us and gain in other ways and add to it publicly available data we obtain on the financial strength and strategies of your company / firm from places like your company’s/firm’s website(s), Companies House, credit rating agencies and Social Media. We will then use Data Type A and Data Type B to liaise with you about the services we might be able to provide to or for you.
The information that we may collect in 3. will vary depending on the circumstances, but will include all the data listed above but could also include a good amount of additional personal data where we perform work with or for you or we under a legal obligation to perform compliance or other work as insolvency practitioners. For example, if we are to advise you, a director of a company seeking our advice as to your options for dealing with your company’s financial problems, we could need and be given a good amount of personal data on you, your employees, suppliers and others you deal with, both at the advisory stage and later on during any formal insolvency process. If you are an employee of a company that seeks advice or formal insolvency support from us, we may be provided with personal data such as from the payroll.
Disclosure of your data to third parties
We use a variety of internet based mailing systems to send out our circulars/newsletters of services. To do this sometimes we have to load your name and email address onto a third party mailing system.
Other than these instances, your Data Type A and data Type B information will not be disclosed to any third party. You can however give your consent to such disclosure.
We may however disclose aggregate statistics about our site visitors, clients and sales in order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers and other reputable third parties and for other lawful purposes, but these statistics will include no personally identifying information.
We may be required to disclose to parties by law, such as the government departments of HMRC and the Insolvency Service, or to others in order to carry our our insolvency services properly in accordance with insolvency law and practice.
Unsubscribing and deleting
If at any time you are unhappy with how we use your information under 1. or 2. above, how or how often we contact you, or just simply do not want to hear from us anymore, say because your circumstances have changed, just send an email to paul@vaisolutions.co.uk with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject box or telephone us on 01902 672323 and talk to Paul, and we will delete you from our records. Alternatively, when we send out email messages which includes an option to unsubscribe, just click on the appropriate link. If you do , we will maintain a minimum amount of information on our database so that we try to avoid the situation whereby we add you back on to our circulation lists sometime in the future as a result of our list building efforts. If you would like us to destroy the information we hold about you, please let us know by emailing paul@valsolutions.co.uk with the word ‘DELETE MY INFORMATION in the subject box. Please also note that if you ask us to delete your information, we may in our subsequent lead generation efforts contact you afresh – this is unavoidable if we don’t have any information that you have unsubscribed previously.
However, we are holding your personal data under 3. above, that is to say we have a legitimate business interest, there might be a limit on what we can delete in response to a delete request from you – we must retain documents such as copy invoices, employee and payroll records, details of receipts and payments and supporting information for tax and other legal reasons for periods that vary depending on the nature of our relationship or yours with the insolvent/our client and the requirements of the law.
Other policies/terms you may be interested in
Sale of the business
If our business is sold or integrated with another business your details may be disclosed to our advisers and any prospective purchasers and their advisers and will be passed on to the new owners of the business.
Cookies
Cookies are text files stored on your computer, and accessible only to the websites which create them.
Our website may from time to time use cookies and log files for statistical analysis, to understand user behaviour, to administer the site, to tailor the information presented to a user based on their preferences, and to improve user experience. Any information gathered by our use of cookies is compiled on an aggregate, anonymous basis.
Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, however you may delete, or disable cookies by following the instructions at http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/. Please note that you may not be able to take full advantage of a website if you disable cookies. Our website uses cookies to keep you logged in, so disabling cookies may impair your experience of the service. Further information about cookies can be found on the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s website www.allaboutcookies.org.
Social Media
If you share our content through social media, for example by liking us on Facebook, following or tweeting about us on Twitter, or giving us a ‘+1’ via Google Plus, those social networks will record that you have done so and may set a cookie for this purpose.
In some cases, where a page on our website includes content from a social network, such as a Twitter feed, or Facebook comments box, those services may set a cookie even where you do not click a button. As is the case for all cookies, we cannot access those set by social networks, just as those social networks cannot access cookies we set ourselves.
Log Files
Our systems automatically gather some anonymous information about visitors, including IP addresses, browser type, language, and the times and dates of webpage visits. The data collected does not include personally identifiable information and is used, as described above, for statistical analysis, to understand user behaviour, and to administer the site.
Google Analytics
Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). The information generated by the cookie about your use of our website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of our website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. Further information about Google’s privacy policy may be obtained from http://www.google.com/privacy.html.
Security
The internet is not a secure medium. However, we take reasonable technical and organizational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information.
We have put in place various security procedures as set out in this policy. For example, our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorised personnel have access to user information. We use secure server software (SSL) to encrypt financial information you input before it is sent to us, and our database is hosted in a secure data centre. Whilst we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of data will not occur, we use our best efforts to prevent this.
Changes
We may make changes to this privacy policy from time to time. If we change our privacy policy we will post the changes on this page. Continued use of the service will signify that you agree to any such changes.
Your acceptance of this privacy policy
If you do not agree to this privacy policy, please do not use our site and please unsubscribe as described above.
By using our site, you consent to the collection and use of information by us. Owing to the global nature of the internet infrastructure, the information you provide may be transferred in transit to countries outside the European Economic Area that do not have similar protections in place regarding your data and its use as set out in this policy. However, we have taken the steps outlined above to try to improve the security of your information and minimise the data transferred. By submitting your information and continuing to receive our circulars you consent to these transfers.
How to contact us
We welcome your views about our website and our privacy policy. If you would like to contact us with any queries or comments, please send an e-mail to paul@vaisolutions.co.uk. You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the data protection legislation. If you would like a copy of the information held on you or if you have any questions relating to this Privacy Policy or how we use the personal information we have about you, please write to VAi Solutions Limited, Alpha House, Tipton Street, Sedgley, West Midlands, DY3 1HE or email paul@vaisolutions.co.uk.