We provide the complete commercial debt recovery service; from outsourced early arrears collections through to expert litigation, all handled in-house by a multi-award-winning law firm.

 

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It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

We know that this privacy notice contains some technical and legal terms. In order to help you understand this notice, some of these terms are explained in the glossary at the end.

Important information and who we are

Controller

Flint Bishop is the controller and is responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “Flint Bishop”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice).

We have appointed a data protection officer who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the data protection officer using the details set out below.

Contact details

Our full details are:

Full name of legal entity: Flint Bishop LLP
Name of Data Protection Officer: Becky Barham
Email address: compliance@flintbishop.co.uk
Postal address: Pinnacle Building, 2 Prospect Place, Pride Park, Derby, DE24 8HG

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes

This version was last updated on 14 April 2023 and historic versions can be obtained by contacting us.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications.

Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

The data we collect about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  1. Identity data is information about your identity and includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
  2. Contact data is information we need in order to contact you and includes billing address, delivery address, email addresses and telephone numbers.
  3. Financial data is information we need in order to make payments to or take payments from you and includes bank account and payment card details.
  4. Transaction data is the details of payments to and from you and other details of services you have purchased from us.
  5. Technical data is information which we automatically capture when you visit our website and includes your internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
  6. Profile data includes your purchases, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
  7. Usage data is information about how you use our website and services.
  8. Marketing and communications data is your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.
  9. Recorded data is the audio and/or visual recordings made from telephone calls, video conferencing and/or CCTV recordings.

We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated data may be derived from your personal data, but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your usage data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect aggregated data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

Special categories of personal data

We do not collect any special categories of personal data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data) unless the information is needed for us to provide our services to you. This is also true for any information about criminal convictions and offences.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to provide you with our services. In this case, we may have to cancel our retainer with you, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you, including through:

Direct interactions

You may give us your identity, contact and financial data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise.

This includes personal data you provide when you:

  • request information on our services;
  • engage us to provide services;
  • request marketing to be sent to you;
  • give us some feedback;
  • make an application for employment with us; or
  • respond to (or participate in) prize draws or competitions operated/administered by us.

Automated technologies or interactions

As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive technical data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookies policy for further details.

Third parties or publicly-available sources

We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:

  • Technical Data from the following parties:
    • analytics providers such as Google (based outside the EU);
    • advertising networks; and
    • search information providers.
  • Contact, financial and transaction data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services;
  • Identity and contact data from:
    • data brokers or aggregators such as Creditsafe (based inside the EU);
    • publicly available sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Register (based inside the EU); and
    • our clients

How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

  • Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
  • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
  • Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

Please see below to find out more about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending direct marketing communications to you via email or text message if you are an Individual.

You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us at marketing@flintbishop.co.uk.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of the ways that we most commonly use your personal data and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Please note, we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground, we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Purpose/ActivityType of dataLawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest
To register you as a new client. 1. Identity.
2. Contact.
Performance of a contract with you.
To deliver services to you, including:
1. Providing you and/or our clients with our advice.
2. Managing payments, fees and charges.
3. Collecting and recovering money owed to us and/or our clients.
1. Identity.
2. Contact.
3. Financial.
4. Transaction.
5. Marketing and communications.
1. Performance of a contract with you.
2. Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us and/or our clients).
To deal with your application for employment with us. 1. Identity.
2. Contact.
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to administer our recruitment process).
To manage our relationship with you which will include:
1. Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy.
2. Asking you to leave a review or take a survey.
1. Identity.
2. Contact.
3. Profile.
4. Marketing and communications.
1. Performance of a contract with you.
2. Necessary to comply with a legal obligation.
3. Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study if our clients are happy with our services).
To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data). 1. Identity.
2. Contact.
3. Technical.
1. Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise).
2. Necessary to comply with a legal obligation.
1. To protect and secure our buildings/assets and the well-being of staff, clients, and visitors.
2. For training and monitoring purposes.
1. Identity
2. Contact
3. Financial
4. Transaction
5. Recorded
1. Necessary for our legitimate business interests (to protect our business)
2. Necessary for our legitimate business interests (to provide you and/or our clients with our advice)
3. Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences. 1. Technical.
2. Usage.
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy).
To make suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you. 1. Identity.
2. Contact.
3. Technical.
4. Usage.
5. Profile.
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our services and grow our business).
To operate/administer a prize draw or competition that you respond to or participate in1. Identity.
2. Contact.
3. Technical.
4. Profile.
5. Usage.
6. Marketing and communications.
1. Performance of a contract with you (formed under acceptance of any of our prize draw or competition terms and conditions, or through any other basis).
2. Necessary for our legitimate business interests (to develop our services and to grow our business).

Marketing communications

We may use your identity, contact, technical, usage and profile data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased services from us and, (if that marketing is done by email or text and you are an individual) if you have opted-in. You will not receive marketing from us if you have opted out of receiving that marketing.

Third-party marketing

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside Flint Bishop for marketing purposes.

Opting out

You can ask us, or third parties, to stop sending you marketing messages by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of services provided to you or other transactions.

Cookies and location tracking

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies or to alert you when websites set or access cookies or request to access your location. If you disable or refuse cookies or refuse location tracking, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies and location tracking we use, please read our cookies policy.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

Disclosures of your personal data

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in section four:

  • External third parties as set out in the glossary.
  • Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

International transfers

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA) unless we are required to engage third parties outside the EEA in connection with providing our services to you or if you are based outside the EEA.

If we engage third parties outside of the EEA and transfer your personal data to them, we will take measures to ensure that your data is handled with the appropriate care.

Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. This includes policies and procedures which are compliant with our ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

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 our regulatory obligations, the requirements of our insurers, 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, whether we can achieve those purposes through other means and the applicable legal requirements.

In some circumstances, you can ask us to delete your data (see “Request erasure” section below for further information and/or email our Data Protection Officer at compliance@flintbishop.co.uk.)

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.

Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. These rights are:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a ‘data subject access request’)

This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you

This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

Request erasure of your personal data

This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Please note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons, which will be notified to you if applicable, at the time of your request.

Object to the processing of your personal data

You can object to the processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Request restriction of processing of your personal data

This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:

  1. if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy;
  2. where our use of the data is unlawful, but you do not want us to erase it;
  3. where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
  4. you have objected to our use of your data, but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party

We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Please note, this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent

You can withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Glossary

Individual

You are considered to be an ‘individual’ if you are a private client or if you act as a sole trader or a partner in a limited company.  This will not affect how we handle your personal data other than in relation to direct marketing.

Lawful basis

Legitimate interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data 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 can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us

Performance of contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

Third parties

External third parties

  • Service providers acting as processors based in the United Kingdom or in the EEA (European Economic Area) who provide IT and system administration services.
  • Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the United Kingdom who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
  • HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
  • Experts such as barristers, tax advisors or insurance specialists.

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