Introduction

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice informs you how we look after your personal data supplied to us and tells you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy notice

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how your personal data is collected and processed by us when providing services to you (i.e. where you are a client), discussing providing services to you (i.e. where you are a prospective client) or administering a Small Self-Administered Scheme (or “SSAS”) of which you are a member but where you are not a client.

Controller

The Boolers family is made up of different legal entities, namely a partnership known as David Booler & Co (trading as “Boolers”), two limited companies (David Booler SIPP Trustees Limited and David Booler Trustees Limited) and various Appointed Representative (AR) companies in which Boolers owns a 50% stake and for which Boolers provides all financial advice. The AR companies will only be applicable where you have been referred to us by one of the accountancy firms with whom we partner.

This privacy notice is issued on behalf of all of the entities in the Boolers family so when we mention “Boolers”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice, we are referring to the relevant entity in the Boolers family responsible for processing your data. In practice Boolers will take primary responsibility for all such processing and all enquiries relating to data processing should therefore be directed to Boolers.

We have appointed a compliance manager whose role includes oversight of all matters relating to the protection of your personal data and dealing with 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 our compliance manager using the contact details below.

Contact details

Postal address: The Compliance Manager, Boolers, 9 Grove Court, Grove Park, Enderby, Leicester LE19 1SA.
Email address: ahodges@boolers.co.uk

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.

Informing us of changes

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.

2. 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 as set out below:

We may 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. 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.

Some of the information we collect about you may be considered “special category” data under the General Data Protection Regulation (special categories of data are those that include 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).

In your case, this information is likely to be limited to health information and sexual orientation (indirectly where you disclose details of your partner or spouse). We can process this data only with your consent though we may not be able to provide services to you if you do not consent (for example, some insurance providers may require such information in order to provide policies). We treat all such information with the strictest confidence.

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 services to you. In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have taken out or we may have to terminate our professional relationship but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3. How is your personal data collected?

Your personal data is collected directly from you, either in face-to-face meetings or through you completing a questionnaire or other form. Where you are not our client but are instead a member of a SSAS then we may receive your personal data directly from the associated employer of the SSAS.

4. 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 as follows:

Where you are a prospective client, to start our engagement process with you.
To allow us to provide you with holistic financial advice (which we cannot effectively do without an understanding of your financial and personal situation).
To allow us to satisfy our requirement to verify the identity of clients and SSAS members
To administer financial services products for you, including SSAS and SIPPs (Self-Invested Personal Pensions).
Where you are a SSAS member, to allow us to act as administrator and/or trustee of the relevant SSAS and to act as adviser to the SSAS members.
To provide fund management services to you (including execution only)
To purchase products for you, including lifetime annuities and life cover.
To comply with legal obligations.
To contact you about the products and services you have purchased or that we administer for you.
To carry out marketing to you (but always subject to the legal restrictions on electronic and telephone marketing and to your right to object to further marketing).
To notify you of updates to this privacy notice.
The legal bases on which we will rely for our processing are that the activities are either necessary to provide services to you, necessary for our legitimate interests or are necessary to comply with a legal obligation. In addition, where we process any special categories of personal data, or obtain your data via social media for the purpose of ongoing contact or marketing, we will rely on your explicit consent for us to do so.
In this privacy notice, “legitimate interest” means our interest in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service. 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).

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 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.

5. Disclosures of your personal data

Where you are only a prospective client, we will not share your information with any third parties without your consent.

Where you are a client or SSAS member, we may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in paragraph 4 above:

HM Revenue & Customs (name, address, data of birth, passport number, nationality, tax code, bank details, pension details).
Insurance companies (name, date of birth, gender, salary, level of cover, health information, plan information, employment details, medical history, medication, business information, details of financial assets and liabilities, power of attorney documents).
Other professionals appointed by you (details of plans held by you and the values and any other information you authorise us to disclose from time to time).
Executors of your Will following your death (details of plans held by you and the values).
Investment platform providers (name, date of birth, address, photographic ID, trust documentation, power of attorney documents).
Banks (name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number, nationality).
Property managers (name, plan information, property address, tenant details).
Your employer (name, date of birth, plan details).
Family members (only such information as you authorise us to share with them).
Where you are a client or SSAS member, we may also share your personal data with the parties set out below:
Our printers (name and address only, for the purposes of posting our newsletters to you).
Our webview provider (SIPP bank account number, balance and transaction information, only for the purpose of making your banking information available via the webview section of our website)
Our website design firm (name and contact details, where these details are provided via our website enquiry page)
Our professional indemnity insurer (we are required to provide client and product information when we make a claim or for the purposes of obtaining cover).
Our compliance consultants (who review a random selection of our client files from time to time).
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.

In addition, your personal data may be hosted or shared using third-party infrastructure providers, data sites or systems, and external IT contractors and suppliers may have access to your personal data in the process of providing services to us.

We may also share data with third parties for the purpose of verifying your identity or to detect and avoid fraud or other criminal activity. To obtain further information please visit the following website:-

https://www.callcredit.co.uk/legal-information/bureau-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 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.

6. International transfers

We do not send personal data to third parties outside the UK or the European Economic Area (EEA).
Where you reside outside the UK/EEA and we need to send information to you we will send it via a secure portal.

7. 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. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties 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.

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.

8. 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, regulatory 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.

Where you are only a prospective client, we will keep your personal data for 6 months after our last contact with you. We keep it for this period in case you decide to instruct us.
Where you are a client or SSAS member, we keep personal data for as long as the contract is in existence and thereafter for 7 years, with two exceptions:

(a) In pension transfer cases, we are required to comply with the Financial Conduct Authority’s record keeping and reporting requirements. Their current instructions are to keep records of pension transfers indefinitely.
(b) If you are a SIPP or SSAS member, we may retain data for as long as the scheme’s trustees consider necessary to ensure that the trustees are able to pay the benefits due to scheme members and respond to future queries regarding the benefits of current or former scheme members.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see below for further information.
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.

9. Information about your dependants

Where you are a client or SIPP member, we will collect, use, store and transfer the names, dates of birth, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and genders of your dependants. This is so that we and any relevant trustees and insurance companies can determine to whom benefits should be paid in the event of your death. We will also provide to such persons any information relating to your own affairs that you authorise from time to time.
We will share such information with insurance companies and investment platform providers (limited to name, date of birth, gender and address).

We keep all such data for as long as we are providing services to you or your associated employer and thereafter for 7 years.

It is not practicable for us to send a privacy notice to all dependants of our clients and SSAS members (and it may well breach our obligations of confidence to you if we do send out such a notice). You are therefore required to ensure you have the permission of your dependants for their information to be passed to us.

10. Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data, as set out below.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out below, please contact us using the contact details at the start of this privacy notice. We may not have to comply with your request but we would explain why if we believe we are entitled to refuse.
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. 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 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: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) 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 (d) 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. Where our systems allow, we will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to information which is processed by automated means. We do not currently hold client information in a form that is readily portable and it is unlikely we would be able (or required) to comply with such a request.

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.

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.