Privacy Policy

At ProfessionalVA Ltd we are committed to protecting your privacy and security. This Policy will inform you of the steps we take to protect your privacy, what information we collect and how we use it now or may use it in the future via our website. In addition, it contains details about your rights to access/control personal data we hold about you, and information on data retention.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully – by accessing, browsing or utilising this website and associated sites, you confirm that you have read, understood and agree to this Policy in its entirety.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 1st Dec 2020, please check back regularly to keep informed of updates to this policy.

Controllers of Information

Any personal information provided to, or gathered by, our website is controlled by ProfessionalVA Ltd. Details of the current Data Protection Officer for ProfessionalVA Ltd can be obtained by emailing info@professionalva.co.uk.

What Information do we collect?

When you order goods and services over our website, or register your interest, we need to know certain details about you. Depending on the purpose of your activity, this may include:

name and title
date of birth
e-mail address
business/company name
contact telephone number(s)
credit or debit card number, expiry date
special category information such as gender, ethnicity, health

How do we use the Information collected?

We may process your data to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, such as preventing, investigating and detecting crime, fraud or anti-social behaviour and prosecuting offenders, which includes working with law enforcement agencies.

ProfessionalVA Ltd will not put any information about you on general release nor will it sell such information. Personal data will not be transferred outside of the European Economic Area.

Legitimate interests

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, we also process your data when it is in our legitimate interests to do this and when these interests are not overridden by your data protection rights. Our legitimate interests include:

ensuring the security and integrity of our services and in ensuring that our websites operate effectively;
promoting, marketing and advertising our products and services;
sending promotional communications which are relevant and tailored to individuals;
handling contacts, queries, complaints or disputes;
maintaining network and data security
processing is necessary because of a legal obligation that applies

Where we process your personal information in pursuit of our legitimate interests, you have the right to object to us using your personal information for the above purposes. If you wish to object to any of the processing, please contact us via info@professionalva.co.uk. If we agree and comply with your objection, this may affect our ability to undertake the tasks above for the benefit of you as a supporter.

Who we share your personal information with

We may share personal information with other organisations in the following circumstances:

if the law or a public authority says we must share the personal information;
if your personal information is included in any images or videos taken by us at any event, we may share this for promotional and/or journalistic purposes;
we may be required to share personal information with statutory or regulatory authorities and organisations to comply with statutory obligations. Such organisations include Health & Safety Executive, Disclosure Scotland, Police Scotland etc;
if we need to share personal information in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (this includes providing personal data to others for the purposes of preventing fraud and reducing credit risk);
if, when placing an order with us, false or inaccurate information is provided by you and fraud is identified or suspected, your details may be passed to fraud prevention agencies. Law enforcement agencies may access and use this information;
if we are required to transfer your personal information outwith the EU for the fulfilment of a transaction we will provide you with information regarding the safeguards that we have put in place with the recipient country to protect your personal information

How we protect/control your personal information

Your personal information is stored on our electronic filing system and our servers based in the UK and is accessed by our staff for the purposes set out above
We use computer safeguards such as firewalls and data encryption, and we enforce physical access controls to our buildings and files to keep this data safe. We only authorise access to those employees who need it to carry out their job responsibilities
We enforce physical, electronic and procedural safeguards in connection with the collection, storage and disclosure of personal data. We will ask for proof of identity before we share your personal data with you

However, whilst we take appropriate technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal data, please note that we cannot guarantee the security of any personal data that you transfer over the internet to us.

Other than as set out in this Privacy Policy, we will not disclose, sell or lease your personal information to any third party unless you have consented to this, or where we are required to do so by applicable law, by order of a court, by a government body or by a law enforcement agency.

How long we keep your personal information?

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.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data. 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 rights

You can exercise any of the following rights by writing to us at info@professionalva.co.uk.

Your rights in relation to your personal information are:

You have a right to request access to the personal information that we hold about you by making a ‘subject access request’;
If you believe that any of your personal information is inaccurate or incomplete, you have a right to request that we correct or complete your personal information;
You have a right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information for specific purposes;
If you wish us to delete your personal information, you may request that we do so
In certain circumstances, you have the right to request all personal data in a particular format for your re-use
In certain circumstances, you have the right to object to the Professional VA processing your personal data

If making a request to us, please include your name, email address, postal address, a copy of a utility bill showing your current address or other proof of address, and a copy of photo identification certified by a solicitor or bank. 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.

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. Subject to applicable law, we may limit or deny you access to personal information where providing such access is unreasonably burdensome or expensive under the circumstances.

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 several requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Any requests received by Professional VA will be considered under applicable data protection legislation. If you remain dissatisfied, you have a right to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk

Cookies

EU Cookie directive

From 26 May 2011 a new European Union directive requires us to gain the consent of our users to download cookies on to their machines. There are various methods we could use to gain users consent. For example, we could use pop-ups; prompting users to tick a box to confirm they give permission for us to download cookies on their machine.
Alternatively, we could use an online form that all users must complete before using the website. We consider both of these solutions as obtrusive. We want our users find information and services quickly. Therefore, we have taken the decision to promote how we use cookies on our website instead. This will enable users to make an informed decision whether they want to disable this feature.

What is a Cookie?

Information may be sent to your computer in the form of an Internet “cookie” to allow our servers to monitor your requirements. The cookie is stored on your computer. Our server may request that your computer return a cookie to it.
These return cookies do not contain any information supplied by you or any personally identifiable information about you. .
Such measures are necessary to allow Professional VA to measure the usability of the systems, which will help to continually improve user experience of our websites. Your browser software should however enable you to block cookies if you wish to. For more information about cookies, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

Performance Cookies

These cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how a website works.

Functionality Cookies

These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. For instance, a website may be able to provide you with local weather reports or traffic news by storing in a cookie the region in which you are currently located. These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

Google Analytics

ProfessionalVA Ltd uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google. Google Analytics collects first party cookies, which are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour. This information is sent to Google and is used to evaluate how our website is being used. This enables ProfessionalVA Ltd to compile statistical reports. A full list of cookies used by Google Analytics and explanations on how these work are available on the Google code website.
ProfessionalVA Ltd does not collect (nor allow any third party to collect) personally identifiable information of visitors to our site. We will not associate any data gathered with any personally identifying information. We will not link or seek to link an IP address with the identity of a computer user. In short, Google Analytics doesn’t identify who you are, but it does track your movements on our websites.

How to disable cookies

You can stop cookies being downloaded on to your computer by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. However please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website.
There is more information about cookies, including how to delete them on the website aboutcookies.org. You may also opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics.

Consent

By using our website, you consent to collection and use of any information you provide to us by Professional for the purposes described above. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page. We recommend you re-visit this page periodically to check for changes. We endeavour to take all reasonable steps to protect your personal data including the use of encryption technology but cannot guarantee the security of any data you disclose online. You accept the inherent security implications of sending information over the Internet and will not hold us responsible for any breach of security unless we have been negligent.

Use of the Site

The contents and materials on this Site and the software used to provide this Site are the property of, or are under licence to, professionalvaltd.co.uk. You acknowledge that you are only entitled use this Site for personal purposes.

Copyright

All materials and content appearing in the Site are copyright to professionalva.co.uk and are protected under copyright laws throughout the world. Save as is set out below, copying or reproduction of all or part of the materials or content appearing in the Site is prohibited.
Permission is granted:

(i) to download the materials and content contained on this Site to a single personal computer and to print a hard copy of such materials and content solely for personal, non-commercial use;

(ii) to copy extracts of texts from news articles that appear on the Site for non-commercial supply, in text format only, to individual third parties for their personal, non commercial use, but only if:

(a) you acknowledge the Site as the source of the extract;

(b) you inform the third party that these Terms and Conditions apply to him/her and that he/she must comply with them; and

(c) you reproduce the extracted material in complete and unmodified form and, if the supply by you of the extract is via the internet, that you do not frame the extract within your own website.

For the purposes of these Terms and Conditions, non-commercial supply or use shall mean that neither you nor any third party may charge for viewing any materials that have been downloaded or copied from this Site, and that neither you nor any third party can use any materials from this Site to attract others to buy goods or services.