Toppings - Forensic Accountants Thinking Beyond Numbers

Introduction

This Privacy Policy ("Policy") applies to all information that we hold about you. In this Policy references to "we" "us" "our" "group" mean Topping Partnership Limited, a limited company registered in England and Wales under company number 04143025. We are committed to protecting your privacy and complying with the Data Protection Act 2018 (as amended by the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 which merge the previous requirements of the Data Protection Act with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679)), and any subsequent data protection laws applicable within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (“Data Protection Legislation”). We ask that you read this Policy before providing us with any Personal Information.

We are processors of data provided to us by our clients for the purposes of assisting them in validating insurance claims. In other situations, we are controllers of your personal information as defined within the Data Protection Legislation.

This Policy describes how we handle your personal information which is collected from you, our clients, and via our websites. We are registered with the Information Commissioners Office ("ICO") and can be found on the Data Protection Public Register via https://ico.org.uk/esdwebpages/search.

Our registration number is Z7267364.

This Policy should be brought to the attention of other parties who have an interest in our services who have given their consent to you to act on their behalf.

Policy amendments

From time to time, it may be necessary for us to change this Policy, so we suggest that you check here periodically.

If, at some time in the future, we wish to use your personal data in ways other than those set out in this Policy, then we will notify you about this and if required by law, we will seek your permission to do so.

IP addresses and cookies

IP addresses are a unique string of numbers that identify your computer when it connects to the internet. Cookies are small files of information that your computer downloads when it visits a website. If you do not want us to use cookies in your browser, you may configure your browser to prevent this. However, if you do so, you may not be able to use certain features on our website.

How we collect your Personal Information

We will collect your personal information in a number of ways, mainly from information provided to us by our clients, or from what you tell us yourself but also from other organisations and people who share your information with us as part of the provision of our service. This may include written information from forms you have completed, notes from conversations via telephone calls, emails, and details provided via our websites.

How we use your Personal Information

The personal information we collect will depend on the service we are providing. Our main aim in gathering your personal information is to provide you and our clients against whom you may be making a legal claim with a customised service.

The type of personal information that will collect about you may include:

contact details such as your name, postal address, email address and contact telephone numbers;
date of birth;
national insurance number;
occupation;
details of previous claims; and
financial information such as bank statements, payslips, trading accounts, accounting books and records, tax returns, etc.

In addition, we may collect sensitive personal information (now known as ‘special category data’), this may include:

health information;
gender;
details of County Court Judgements and bankruptcies

We may collect the following via our websites: Name, postal address, phone number, occupation, IP address, other contact information, online identifier, interest you have in relation to our services or our practice areas, any information that you may volunteer by completing and submitting forms on our websites and details of your visits to and usage of our website.

We may use your personal information:

to provide our clients with claims validation services;
to assist you in the valuation and presentation of your claim to a defendant;
to communicate with you;
for security purposes and to establish your identity;
where we have a legitimate interest in doing so, such as the protection of our business, for the detection and prevention of fraud and financial crime, or for the establishment and exercise of the defence of a legal claim; and
to deal with complaints made by you relating to our services or websites

We will rely on the following legal bases for processing your personal and special category information:

Legitimate Interest:

"Legitimate Interest" mean our interest in conducting and managing our business. We will rely on our legitimate interest in collecting and using your personal information for the reasons set out below:

to correspond with you, notify you of events or changes to our service or otherwise to fulfil your requests and respond to your queries and requests for information;
to correspond with our clients on whose instructions we process your data or to whom we are providing claims validation services in respect of a legal claim being made by you against them or their insured;
for our business purposes such as data analysis, audits, to help us better understand our customers and improve our customer engagement in developing new products, enhancing, improving or modifying our websites, identifying usage trends, and operating and expanding our business activities or for staff training purposes.
in the context of claims we are handling on behalf of an insurer against whom you have made a legal claim, for the purposes of establishing and exercising the defence of a legal claim; and
for the prevention and detection of fraud and financial crime.

Legal Reasons:

To meet any applicable legal or regulatory obligations
To meet compliance requirements with our regulators
To comply with law enforcement agencies.

Substantial Public Interest

We may need to use personal information to carry out fraud, anti-money laundering checks;
In addition we will rely on the insurance derogation contained within schedule 1 part 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018 to process your special category data where we are acting as agent of an insurer to assist them in the validation of your legal claim against them.

Consent:

Where you have given your consent for a particular purpose and this has been recorded. Without your consent we may not be able to provide you with the services requested or you may not be able to benefit from some of our services.
Where a third party is involved we will need you to confirm that they have provided their consent for you to act on their behalf.

We will also use your information for the purposes of performing any contract for services that we have with you and in the performance of any contract for services for any client against whom you are bringing your legal claim.

The information we collect about you is used solely for the purposes outlined above. We will only use it for additional purposes if we have received your prior consent to do so.

Sharing of personal information

We will keep your information confidential at all times and only process it in accordance with this Policy, the Data Protection Legislation and other applicable UK legislation. However, in certain circumstances we will share your information with:

other members of our group of companies, and those companies which may join the group from time to time;
our employees for the purpose of providing our service to you/our clients and for exercising our legitimate interests;
insurers, their associated companies and agents for the purpose of providing them with claims validation services;
companies who provide a service to you as a direct result of our relationship;
our service suppliers, agents, and subcontractors;
anyone to whom we transfer our right, assets, liabilities and debts;
relatives or guardians (on your behalf where you are incapacitated or unable) or other people or organisations associated with you such as your legal representative;
if required, we will also share your information with regulatory authorities such as Information Commissioner’s office;

Please note that Insurers for whom we act may share your information with fraud prevention agencies. These agencies will assist our clients’ regulatory obligation to prevent fraud and financial crime.

Transfer of data outside of the European Economic Area

We do not currently transfer personal information about you outside of the European Economic Area but may wish to do so in the future. The data protection and other laws of those countries may not be as comprehensive as those in the UK and the European Economic Area, but we will take steps to ensure that your privacy rights are respected and that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Policy.

Technical safeguards

We will have in place safeguards through organisational and technical measures to ensure that your personal information is protected from unauthorised use or disclosure. We ensure that where your data is shared there are procedures and contractual arrangements in place to keep your data confidential.

Security of your personal data via the internet

The Internet is not a secure medium of communication and we cannot guarantee the security of any information transmitted via the Internet. However, once received we will take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse, alteration of, or unauthorised access to your personal data.

Monitoring

Please note that if you communicate with us electronically, including by e-mail, telephone or fax, this communication may be randomly monitored or recorded to protect the interests of our business and our customers. This includes maintaining high quality standards, crime detection and/or prevention and to ensure that our employees comply with legal obligations and our policies and procedures.

Data Retention

Data is retained for the period necessary in order to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Policy unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. In the absence of any legal or contractual requirement to retain your data for a specific period, we will retain your data for a period of six years following the settlement of your claim.

Your rights

Whenever we process data using your explicit consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent. Whenever we process data for our legitimate interests we make sure to consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative), and your rights under Data Protection Legislation. Our legitimate interests do not automatically override your interests and we will not use your information for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).

You have the right to object to this processing, and if you wish to do so please contact us using the details below, however, please bear in mind that if you object this may affect our ability to deal with your legal claim.

You also have the following rights under the Data Protection Legislation:

to request a copy of the personal information that we hold on you;
to request that we correct any information if it is found to be incorrect or out of date;
to request that your information is deleted if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date;
to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office, http://ico.org.uk/
Exercising any of the above rights may mean we cannot continue to deal with your claim.

Marketing

We do not use your data for marketing our products and services. We also will never sell your data to another party. We do reserve the right to send to you service related communications which are non- marketing where necessary.

Contacting us

If you have any questions, wish to exercise any of your rights detailed in this Policy or update your marketing preferences please contact our Information Manager:

Phone: 0161 886 5000
Email: info@toppings.co.uk
Post: Toppings, Incom House, Waterside, Trafford Park, Manchester, M17 1WD

If you have a complaint or concern about how we use your personal information, please contact us in the first instance and we will attempt to resolve the issue as soon as possible. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office at any time.