Privacy Policy
Arcadia Trust Group respects your privacy rights and is committed to protecting personal data. This privacy policy will inform you as to how we look after personal data when you deal with us, receive our services, or visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from). It also tells you about the privacy rights and how the law protects individuals.
The Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA 2018”) and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) impose certain legal obligations in connection with the processing of personal data.
Arcadia Trust Group is a data controller within the meaning of the GDPR and we process personal data. The firm’s contact details are as follows: Arcadia Trust Group. 12-13 Bowdens Farm, Hambridge, Somerset. TA10 0BP. Our Data Privacy Manager is Steven Howells who can be contacted at s.howells@arcadiatrustgroup.com.
We may amend this privacy notice from time to time. This version was updated on 10/12/2024.
What information we may collect
• Name and job title.
• Contact information including email addresses and telephone numbers.
• Demographic information such as postcode, preferences, and interests. Other information relevant to customer surveys and/or offers.
• We use Thirdfort – SRA would require certified copies of any ID documents or they provide us the originals, which we certify.
We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:
• Internal record keeping.
• To enable us to supply professional services to you as our client.
• To fulfil our obligations under relevant laws in force from time to time (e.g. the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (“MLR 2017”)).
• To comply with professional obligations to which we are subject by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority as required.
• To use in the investigation and/or defence of potential complaints, disciplinary proceedings, and legal proceedings.
• To enable us to invoice you for our services and investigate/address any attendant fee disputes that may have arisen.
• To contact you about other services we provide which may be of interest to you if you have consented to us doing so.
• We may periodically send promotional emails about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided.
• From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by email, phone, or post. We may use the information to customise the website according to your interests.
Security
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.
We may share your personal data with:
• HMRC
• Land Registry
• Office of the Public Guardian
• Any third parties with whom you require or permit us to correspond
• Subcontractors
• An alternate appointed by us in the event of incapacity or death
• Tax insurance providers
• Professional indemnity insurers
• Our professional bodies and/or the Office of Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervisors (OPBAS) in relation to practice assurance and/or the requirements of MLR 2017 (or any similar legislation)
If the law allows or requires us to do so, we may share your personal data with:
• The police and law enforcement agencies
• Courts and Tribunals
• The Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”)
We may need to share your personal data with the third parties identified above in order to comply with our legal obligations, including our legal obligations to you. If you ask us not to share your personal data with such third parties, we may need to cease to act.
The legal bases for our intended processing of personal data
Our intended processing of personal data has the following legal bases:
• At the time you instructed us to act, you gave consent to our processing your personal data for the purposes listed.
• The processing is necessary for the performance of our contract with you.
• The processing is necessary for compliance with legal obligations to which we are subject (e.g. MLR 2017).
• The processing is necessary for the purposes of the following legitimate interests which we pursue.
It is a requirement of our contract with you that you provide us with the personal data that we request. If you do not provide the information that we request, we may not be able to provide professional services to you. If this is the case, we will not be able to commence acting or will need to cease to act.
Transfers of personal data outside the EU
Your personal data will be processed in the UK only.
Retention of personal data
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
By law we have to keep basic information about our clients (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after our business relationship ends for tax purposes.
Regulation 40 of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 requires that we retain records and information obtained to complete due diligence for a period of five years after the end of our business relationship.
We are also required under our contract with you to keep Advice Data so that we, and our professional indemnity insurers, may refer to it in the event that you bring a claim against us. We will therefore retain such information for seven years from the date of the closure of your matter.
Longer retention periods may apply to specific types of work as follows (all retention periods run from the date of the closure of your matter).
• Advice where our client lacks capacity will be retained for 100 years;
• Wills, Lasting Powers of Attorney, Codicils, Trusts, Personal Tax planning for 100 years.
• We will also retain any important original documents or unique electronic copies for the duration of our business relationship.
In some circumstances you can request erasure of your personal data. Please see below for further information.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
You are responsible for retaining information that we send to you and this will be supplied in the form agreed between us.
Where we act as a data processor as defined in DPA 2018, we will delete or return all personal data to the data controller as agreed with the controller at the termination of the contract.
Requesting personal data we hold about you (subject access requests)
You have a right to request access to your personal data that we hold. Such requests are known as ‘subject access requests’ (“SARs”).
Please provide all SARs in writing marked for the attention Cheryl Farnham.
To help us provide the information you want and deal with your request more quickly, you should include enough details to enable us to verify your identity and locate the relevant information. For example, you should tell us:
• Your date of birth
• Previous or other name(s) you have used
• Your previous addresses in the past five years
• Personal reference number(s) that we may have given you, for example your national insurance number, your tax reference number, or your VAT registration number
• What type of information you want to know
If you do not have a national insurance number, you must send a copy of:
• The back page of your passport or a copy of your driving licence and;
• A recent utility bill
DPA 2018 requires that we comply with a SAR promptly and in any event within one month of receipt. There are, however, some circumstances in which the law allows us to refuse to provide access to personal data in response to a SAR (e.g. if you have previously made a similar request and there has been little or no change to the data since we complied with the original request).
We will not charge you for dealing with a SAR.
You can ask someone else to request information on your behalf – for example, a friend, relative or solicitor. We must have your authority to respond to a SAR made on your behalf. You can provide such authority by signing a letter which states that you authorise the person concerned to write to us for information about you, and/or receive our reply.
Where you are a data controller and we act for you as a data processor, we will assist you with SARs on the same basis as is set out above.
Putting Things Right (The right to rectification)
You have a right to obtain the rectification of any inaccurate personal data concerning you that we hold. You also have a right to have any incomplete personal data that we hold about you completed. Should you become aware that any personal data that we hold about you is inaccurate and/or incomplete, please inform us immediately so we can correct and/or complete it.
Deleting your records (The right to erasure)
In certain circumstances you have a right to have the personal data that we hold about you erased. Further information is available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk). If you would like your personal data to be erased, please inform us immediately and we will consider your request. In certain circumstances we have the right to refuse to comply with a request for erasure. If applicable, we will supply you with the reasons for refusing your request.
The right to restrict processing and the right to object
In certain circumstances you have the right to ‘block’ or suppress the processing of personal data or to object to the processing of that information. Further information is available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk). Please inform us immediately if you want us to cease to process your information or you object to processing so that we can consider what action, if any, is appropriate.
Obtaining and reusing personal data (the right to data portability)
In certain circumstances you have the right to be provided with the personal data that we hold about you in a machine-readable format, e.g. so that the data can easily be provided to a new professional adviser. Further information is available on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk).
The right to data portability only applies:
• To personal data an individual has provided to a controller;
• Where the processing is based on the individual’s consent or for the performance of a contract; and
• When processing is carried out by automated means
We will respond to any data portability requests made to us without undue delay and within one month. We may extend the period by a further two months where the request is complex or a number of requests are received, however, we will inform you within one month of the receipt of the request and explain why the extension is necessary.
Withdrawal of consent
Where you have consented to our processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Please inform us immediately if you wish to withdraw your consent.
Please note:
• The withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of earlier processing
• If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to continue to provide services to you
• Even if you withdraw your consent, it may remain lawful for us to process your data on another legal basis (e.g. because we have a legal obligation to continue to process your data)
Automated decision-making
We do not intend to use automated decision-making in relation to your personal data.
Complaints
If you have requested details of the information we hold about you and you are not happy with our response, or you think we have not complied with the GDPR or DPA 2018 in some other way, you can complain to us. Please send any complaints to Catherine Murton at Arcadia Legal, 12-13 Bowdens Farm, Hambridge, Somerset. TA10 0BP.
If you are not happy with our response, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the ICO (www.ico.org.uk).