Privacy Policy

At SM Advice Limited we must process personal data to enable us to provide and receive services, and in doing so, we are responsible for that personal data.

We understand that your privacy is important to you, and we are committed to protecting your personal information.

Within our Privacy Notice you’ll find details of:

How we use your personal information.
The choices you have.
How we keep your personal information secure.
How you can access, and update, information held about you.
How to object to certain uses of personal information.

If you have any queries or concerns regarding this Privacy Notice, please contact our us via support@smadvice.co.uk.

The Controller

SM Advice Limited is the Controller of the personal data held in connection with:

Existing clients.
Prospective future clients.
Suppliers of services to SM Advice Limited.

All personal information will be held in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Regardless of whether you become a client or supplier, when we process your personal information, we will consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights under data protection and any other relevant law.

When do we collect personal information?

We collect your personal information when you:

Visit our website.
Submit a form via the website.
Reach out to book a meeting using our bookings link.
Sign up to use our services.
Approach SM Advice Limited as a potential service provider.
Contact us by any means with questions about our services.
Ask one of our team to send you information about our services.
Participate in surveys or provide feedback.
Are a supplier of ours.

What information do we collect?

The information we collect may be provided voluntarily by you or someone on your behalf, or it may be collected automatically (website / e-mail booking link).

For clients and prospective future clients, we collect:

At prospect stage (prior to becoming a client), this could be names and contact details (typically phone number or e-mail address).
At the point of becoming a client, contact information which includes, telephone numbers, email address, billing address.
Financial details, i.e. we collect payment information for settlement of invoices. Payment will then be collected via a secure payment processing method.
Social Media platform details.
Any information that you choose to provide freely.
Information when you access our website (i.e. Cookies, see further information below).

We may also collect:

Information about the teams and people you work with, including designated contacts and representatives within your organisation.
For the purposes of ongoing support, when you contact our representatives, you may be asked to provide your contact details, a summary of your enquiry and other relevant information.
Transactional information about payments to and from you, and details of the services we have provided to you.
Communications information, which includes your preference for receiving marketing information, and how you would prefer us to contact you.
Usage data, i.e. how you access and use our services.
Information you provide that may belong to a 3rd party that you are contracted too but is required for the service.

For existing suppliers of services to SM Advice Limited, we collect:

Contact details for you and your employees, which includes names, work address, email address and telephone numbers.
Your bank account details to enable you to provide the relevant services as a company supplier and to be paid for those services.
Information about you, directly from publicly available sources, including your company website and social media accounts.
Any information that you or your staff choose to provide.
Information when you access our website (i.e. Cookies)
Information when you access our website (i.e. Cookies, see further information below).

Special Categories of Data

We do not pro-actively collect any Special Categories of Data about you.

Using your personal data

If you are a client or prospective client, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

To perform a contract, we are about to enter, or have already entered, with you.
To provide the services you have requested from us.
To correctly invoice you for the for the services you have used.
To recover money that is owed to us.
To send you tailored communications based on your interactions with us, including requests for assistance.
To understand your needs and develop the services we provide, we may store information about how people use our services, including surveys and feedback.
To notify you about changes to our service.
As you move through our client onboarding process, we will send you communications to assist you in registering and accessing our services.
To respond to comments or complaints.
With your consent, for a specific purpose not listed above, for example we may publish testimonials to promote our services.

If you are a supplier or prospective supplier, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

If you contact us to offer your services.
To ensure that our agreed terms of contract may be carried out efficiently and effectively.
As required by law, regulatory bodies, tax or audit purposes.
To ensure you can provide the relevant services as a company supplier and be paid for those services.

Visitors to our website

When you visit our website www.smadvice.co.uk, we use a third-party service, GoDaddy to collect standard information, which allows us to know how many people have been on our site and which pages have been viewed.
All data for this is stored anonymously, so you can’t be identified from a visit. We do not make, and do not allow GoDaddy to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.

Sharing your personal data

We may share your personal data with contractors, sub-contractors and other persons, who help us to provide services.
As a controller of personal data, we may share your personal information with our legal and other professional advisors, or as required by law.

Third-party providers

To enable us to operate our business we work with third-party service providers, for our website, social media management, IT services e.g. backup, storage, telephone services, accounting, insurances and payment processing.
Use of such services may require them to access or use information about you.
SM Advice Limited will only use providers that have secure systems in place to protect your personal data.
Our services may include links that direct you to other websites or services whose privacy practices may differ from ours.
Your use of, and any information you submit to any third-party sites is governed by their privacy policies, not this one.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and act in accordance with the law.

If you are a client or prospective client, we may share your personal information with:

Stripe
GoCardless
Xero
GoDaddy
Hootsuite Media Inc
Kingsbridge Group Limited

Information from third parties

From time to time, we may receive personal information about you from third-party sources, but only where we have checked that these third parties have your consent or are otherwise legally permitted or required to disclose your personal information to us.

If you provide information on behalf of someone else, you must have their permission to do so and have told them how we will use their personal data.

Our communications with you

If you are a client who decides to leave us, we may also ask you for feedback, as your opinion is important to us.

If you do agree to be contacted, we may use your contact information to let you know about different aspects of our service, that may be of interest to you.

If you are an individual in the European Economic Area (EEA), we collect and process information about you, only where we have a lawful basis for doing so under applicable EU Laws.
We will normally collect information from you only (a) where we need the personal information to perform a contract with you (b) where the processing is in our Legitimate Interests and is not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms, or (c) where we have your consent to do so.
In some cases, we may have a legal obligation to collect personal information from you.
If we ask you to provide information to comply with a legal requirement, or to perform a contract with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not (as well as the possible consequences if you do not provide your personal information).

If you are a client or prospective client:

We do not normally rely on consent as a lawful basis for processing data other than in relation to sending you direct marketing communications. We will never send you marketing literature unless you have given us permission to do so.
Where we have obtained your personal information from various sources (including information from third parties) we may combine this information in certain circumstances to enhance our understanding of your needs and requirements in relation to our services.

Before processing your information, we would always carefully consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights.

If you are a client or prospective client:

We will process the personal information you have provided to:

Conduct and manage our business.
Predict and develop what services suit you, and the prices of those services.
Analyse our interactions with you to enhance, modify and improve our services.
Provide the most secure experience.

If you are a supplier:

We will process the personal information you have provided to:

Conduct and manage our business.
Analyse payment patterns and account activity, to build a picture of our use of your services.

We will only use your information for the purposes for which we collect it, unless we feel we need to use it for another purpose that is compatible with our original purpose. If we need to use your personal data for a different unrelated purpose, we will let you know and explain our lawful basis.

How long do we keep information for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose we collected it for, including any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.
We will retain your personal information where we have an ongoing legitimate business need, for example to provide the services you have requested, or to access the services you provide.
We will not retain your personal data for longer than necessary.
If you communicate by telephone, this information will be retained securely for a reasonable length of time.

If you are an existing client:

We will keep your personal data for as long as you access our services.
After you stop being a client with us, we will hold your personal information securely for a reasonable time and isolate it from further processing until deletion is possible.

If you are an existing supplier:

We will keep your personal data for as long as we access your services.
If we stop using your services, we will hold your personal information securely for a reasonable time and isolate it from further processing until deletion is possible.

How we keep your information safe

Any personal data that is provided to us is stored on our secure systems and/or those of the service providers hosting them on our behalf.
We are committed to ensuring all your personal information is secure, and have in place appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard your information.
We limit access of your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and sub-contractors, who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

How will we contact you?

We may contact you by post, telecommunication or email but we will not do this unless you have given us permission to do so.

Your rights

You have:

The right to be informed about the processing of your personal data.
The right to request access to your personal data and information about how we process it.
The right to have your personal data corrected if it is inaccurate.
The right to have your personal data erased, i.e. the right to be forgotten.
The right to restrict the processing of your personal data.
The right to move, copy or transfer your personal data.
The rightt to object to processing of your personal data.
The right to withdraw your consent at any time.

Your right to access your personal information.

This right enables you to see a copy of the personal data we hold about you, known as a ‘data subject access request’.
Please send your request to our Data Protection Officer, Sue McFarlane using the contact details shown later in this document.
No fee is required, provided that the request is not excessive or repetitive. In cases where we deem the request to be excessive, we may charge a reasonable fee.
We aim to respond to all legitimate requests within one month, if your request is complex, or you have made a number of requests, it may take us longer, but we will always keep you updated if this happens.

Your right to request correction.

We need to ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date, please tell us if any of your personal information changes during your relationship with us.
If we hold any incomplete or inaccurate information about you, you have the right to ask for this information to be corrected.

Your right to request erasure (right to be forgotten)

You have the right to request deletion or removal of personal data, where there is no good reason for us to continue to process it.
You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data, where you have exercised your right to object.
Please note that we may not always be able to comply with your request for specific legal reasons, which if relevant, will be notified to you at the time of your request.

Your right to request restriction of processing.

You can ask us to suspend processing of your data:

If you want us to check the accuracy of that data.
Where the use of your personal data is unlawful, but you do not want us to erase it.
Where you want us to hold the data, even when we no longer need it, because you wish to exercise or defend legal claims.
You have objected to our use of data, but we want to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

Your right to move, copy or transfer your personal data.

Your right to data portability applies when:

We process personal data that was provided by you.
The lawful basis for processing information is consent or for the performance of a contract; and
We carry out the processing by automated means.

Your right to data portability does not apply to paper files.

Should you exercise this right, the company will endeavour to provide any information in a way that is easy to move, copy or format.

Your right to object

Where we rely on Legitimate Interests for processing your personal data, you can object to the processing of your data if you feel it impacts your fundamental rights and freedoms.
In some instances, we may demonstrate that we have legitimate reason to process your information, which overrides your rights and freedoms.

Your right to withdraw consent.

If you have consented to our use of information about you for a specific purpose, you have the right to change your mind at any time.
The withdrawal of consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
If you are a client who withdraws consent, it may mean we are unable to provide services to you, if this happens, we will inform you at the time.
If you are a supplier who withdraws consent, it may mean we are unable to access your services, if this happens, we will inform you at the time.

Contacting the Regulator

If you feel that your personal information has not been handled correctly, or you are unhappy with our response to any requests you have made regarding use of your personal data, you have the right to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

You can contact them by calling 0303 123 1113 or go online to www.ico.org.uk/

We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time, in response to changing legal, technical or business developments. When we update our Privacy Notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make.

Privacy Policy

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