Privacy Policy

Howarths Accountants Ltd takes the protection of your privacy very seriously.  We will only use your personal information to deliver the services you have requested from us, and to meet our legal responsibilities.

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you engage us to deliver our services and when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about our services or using our contact forms.

What type of information do we collect from you?

The personal information we collect from you will vary depending on which services you engage us to deliver.  The personal information we collect might include your name, address, telephone number, email address, your Unique Tax Reference (UTR) number, your National Insurance number, bank account details, your IP address, which pages you may have visited on our website and when you accessed them.

How is your information used?

In general terms, and depending on which services you engage us to deliver, as part of providing our agreed services we may use your information to:

• Contact you by post, email or telephone
• Verify your identity where this is required
• Understand your needs and how they may be met
• Maintain our records in accordance with applicable legal and regulatory obligations
• Process financial transactions
• Prevent and detect crime, fraud or corruption

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.

Who has access to your information?

• We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.
• We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.
• Any staff with access to your information have a duty of confidentiality under the ethical standards that this firm is required to follow.

Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf

We may pass your information to our third-party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf, for example to process payroll or basic bookkeeping.  However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own purposes.

Please be assured that we will not release your information to third parties unless you have requested that we do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention and detection of crime, fraud or corruption.

How you can access and update your information

Keeping your information up to date and accurate is important to us.  We commit to regularly review and correct where necessary, the information that we hold about you.  If any of your information changes, please email or write to us, or call us using the ‘Contact information’ noted below.

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information Howarths Accountants Ltd holds about you.

Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information

Whilst we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.

Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have given, or where you have chosen, a password which enables you to access information, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential.  We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Your data will usually be processed in our office in the UK.  However, to allow us to operate efficient digital processes, we sometimes need to store information in servers located outside the UK, but within the European Economic Area (EEA).  We take the security of your data seriously and so all our systems have appropriate security in place that complies with all applicable legislative and regulatory requirements.

Your choices

We may occasionally contact you by email with details of any changes in legal and regulatory requirements or other developments that may be relevant to your affairs and, where applicable, how we may assist you further.  If you do not wish to receive such information from us, please let us know by contacting us as indicated under ‘Contact information’ below.

Your rights

Access to your information:

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information about you that we hold.

Correcting your information:

We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date and you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.

Deletion of your information: You have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you where:

• You consider that we no longer require the information for the purposes for which it was obtained
• You have validly objected to our use of your personal information – see ‘Objecting to how we may use your information’ below
• Our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations
• We are using your information with your consent and you have withdrawn your consent – see ‘withdrawing consent to use your information’ below.

Restricting how we may use your information:

In some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information.  This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information about you that we hold or assessing the validity of any objection you have made to our use of your information.  The right might also apply where there is no longer a basis for using your personal information, but you do not want us to delete the data. Where this right is validly exercised, we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.

Objecting to how we may use your information:

Where we use your personal information to perform tasks carried out in the public interest then, if you ask us to, we will stop using that personal information unless there are overriding legitimate grounds to continue.  You have the right at any time to require us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

Withdrawing consent to use your information:

Where we use your personal information with your consent you may withdraw that consent at any time and we will stop using your personal information for the purpose(s) for which consent was given. Please contact us in any of the ways set out in ‘Contact information’ below if you wish to exercise any of these rights.

Changes to our privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and will place any updates on www.howarths.co/privacy-policy.  This privacy notice was last updated on 20th September 2023.

Contact information

Email: info@howarths.co