James Milne
Chartered Accountants

James Milne & Co trading as James Milne Chartered Accountants are a firm of Chartered Accountants with offices in Aberdeen, Inverurie and Banchory.

The Firm is regulated by The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) and is registered with the Information Commissioners Office (Registration No Z6610976).

James Milne Chartered Accountants is committed to protecting your personal information. We will only use your personal information to deliver the services you have requested from us and to meet our legal responsibilities.

This Privacy Statement contains important information about what personal details we collect; what we do with that information; who we may share it with and why; and your choices and rights when it comes to personal information we hold about you.

How we collect information about you

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

What type of information do we collect about you

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

Where we collect personal information from

Most of the personal information we collect about you is provided by you, from a variety of sources including:
New Client Information Form.
Phone conversations with us.
E-mails or letters you send to us.
Meetings with any of our partners or staff.
Tax Information request schedule.
On-line services via our website.
We may also collect personal information from other sources including:
Previous Accountants or Advisors.
Business Directories and other commercially or publicly available sources e.g. your own website.

How we use your personal information

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

Contact you by post, e-mail 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/or detect crime, fraud or corruption.

Who has access to your personal information

The Partners and staff of the Firm will have access to your personal information.
Partners and staff have a duty of confidentiality under the ICAS Code of Ethics, which the Firm is required to comply with.
We will not sell or rent your personal information to third parties.
We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Third Party Service Providers

We will not release your personal information to third parties unless you have requested that we do so, or we have obtained your prior consent 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.

In order to maintain our IT systems, access to those systems on which your information is stored may require to be granted to our external IT Support providers. We will have a contract in place that requires them to keep your personal information secure and not use it for their own purposes.

Security precautions in place to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information
Once we receive your personal information, we make our best effort to ensure its security within our systems. Where we have given, or where you have chosen, a password which enables you to access personal information, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Your personal information will usually be processed in our offices in the UK. However, to allow us to operate efficient digital processes we may sometimes need to store information, e.g. online back ups, on servers located outside the UK, but within the European Economic Area (EEA) or countries that the European Commission have approved as providing an adequate level of protection for personal information.

How long we keep your personal information

Where we have ceased to act for you we are required by legislation, other regulatory requirements and our insurers to retain your personal information. The period of retention required varies with the applicable legislation but is typically five or six years. To ensure compliance with all such requirements it is our policy to retain all personal information for a period of seven years after we cease to act for you.

Your choices

We may occasionally contact you by post, email or telephone 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 using the ‘Contact Information’ shown 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. If any of your personal information changes please advise us and we will amend our records.
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.
We are using that information with your consent and you have withdrawn your consent – see Withdrawing Consent to using your information below.
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.

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.
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 don’t 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.
Automated processing – If we use your personal information on an automated basis to make decisions which significantly affect you, you have the right to ask that the decision be reviewed by an individual to whom you may make representations and contest the decision.
Withdrawing consent to using 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 using the details shown in the ‘Contact Information’ section below if you wish to exercise any of these rights.

Changes to our Privacy Statement

We keep this Privacy Statement under regular review and will place any updates on our website.
Paper copies of this Privacy Statement may also be obtained on request by contacting the person shown in the ‘Contact Information’ below.

Contact Information

Our nominated Data Controller is Graham Bridgeford and you can contact him on gbridgeford@jamesmilne.co.uk or by calling 01224 584458 or by writing to:-
James Milne Chartered Accountants
5 Bon Accord Square
Aberdeen
AB11 6XZ

Complaints

We seek to resolve directly all complaints about how we handle your personal information but you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office, whose contact details are as follows:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone – 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745
Website – https://ico.org.uk/concerns

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