Privacy Notice

Your personal data – what is it?

Personal data relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information alone or in conjunction with any other information in the data controller’s possession or likely to come into such possession. The processing of personal data is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) and some other UK legislation.

Who are we?

Almond Tree Strategic Consulting Ltd (ATSC) is the data controller. This means we decides how your personal data is processed and for what purposes. ATSC is a private company limited by shares incorporated and registered in England and Wales with company number 6354235 and our registered office is 1 Friar Street, Reading, RG1 1DA.  Where contracts with clients require, ATSC acts as data processor and complies with the same regulations in such cases.

What information do we collect about you?

When you do business with us, become a client of our company, register for or attend any events or subscribe to our blog or other publications we collect some or all of the following personal information from you:

• Your name

• Your postal address, email address and telephone number

• Any information relevant to the services may be providing to you.

How do we process your personal data?

ATSC takes your privacy very seriously complies with its obligations under the “GDPR” by keeping personal data up to date; by storing and destroying it securely; by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; by protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and by ensuring that appropriate organisational and technical measures are in place to protect personal data.

We use personal data for the following purposes:

• To enable us to provide you with consultancy, information or other services that you have asked us to provide.

• To maintain our own accounts and records.

• To manage our employees and associates.

• To inform you, with your consent (see below), about our products and services or information that is likely be relevant to you or your organisation, such as funding opportunities or changes in good practice, regulation or the law.

Our website, cookies and other information-gathering technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies.  Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard Internet log information and visitor behaviour information. These cookies allow us to distinguish you from other users of the website which helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For more information on which cookies we use and how we use them, see our Cookie Policy.

When you visit our website, we use Google Analytics and Squarespace to collect standard internet log and visitor behaviour information, e.g. to understand the number of visitors to the site. This information is only processed in ways that do not identify anyone. We do not attempt, and do not allow Google or Squarespace to attempt, to find out the identity of anyone visiting our site.

Our website contains links to other websites. This Privacy Notice applies only ATSC’s website so when you access links to other websites you should read their own privacy notices/policies.

What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?

• Where personal data is collected in the course of fulfilling our contractual and legal obligations to you or when you have asked us to provide services to you, only necessary data is collected, and it is securely stored and access restricted only to staff who need it.  This data is processed to fulfil our contractual obligations to you, to comply with other legal obligations or in our and your legitimate interests (e.g. to provide you with information and services requested by, or promised to you, to ensure continuity of services and manage repeat business effectively and/or to defend any legal claims). The other considerations set out elsewhere in this policy also apply.

• Explicit consent of the data subject so that we can keep you informed about information that is likely be relevant to you or your organisation, including new information available from us (such as blog posts) and other information about our products and services.  You can withdraw your consent at any time by emailing julian@almondtreeconsulting.co.uk. 

• Processing of personal data relating to employees and associates of ATSC is necessary for carrying out obligations under employment, health and safety, social security or social protection law, or a collective agreement. It is processed to fulfil our contractual obligations and legal obligations only.

Sharing your personal data

We will only share your data with third parties outside ATSC with your explicit consent, unless we are legally or contractually required to do so, or:

• for the purposes of securely storing the data, for example on cloud-based servers managed by third party providers (such as Apple, Dropbox, Google, Microsoft, MailChimp etc.) 

• in connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings;

• in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk);

• to any person who we reasonably believe may apply to a court or other competent authority for disclosure of that personal information where, in our reasonable opinion, such court or authority would be reasonably likely to order disclosure of that personal information.

The information you provide will not be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

How long do we keep your personal data?

We keep data in accordance with the GDPR and only for as long as is necessary (for example to keep you informed about information that is likely be relevant to you or your organisation including new information available from us and other information about our products and services or to comply with the record keeping requirements of HMRC or other regulators). in general we will retain data for 2 years after our last contact with the data subject.  We may retain some data for longer periods for reasons of continuity of service delivery,  to ensure availability of relevant information about repeat clients, to defend legal claims or protection or legal rights or where we are contractually or legally required to do so.  For further information on our detailed retention policies please email julian@almondtreeconsulting.co.uk.

Your rights and your personal data

Unless subject to an exemption under the GDPR, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

• The right to request a copy of the personal data ATSC holds about you.

• The right to request that ATSC corrects any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date.

• The right to request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary or required for ATSC to retain such data.  This right does not apply where we have a legal obligation to retain your data.

• The right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time (if we are processing on the basis of your consent).

• The right to request that we provide you with your personal data and where possible, to transmit that data directly to another data controller, (known as the right to data portability) .  This right only applies where we are processing your personal data based on consent or for the performance of a contract with you and in either case we are processing the data by automated means.

• The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing.

• The right to object to the processing of personal data.  This right only applies where we are processing your personal data based on legitimate interests.

• The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office.

Further processing

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Privacy Statement, then we will publish a new notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions. Where and whenever necessary, we will seek your prior consent to the new processing.

Contact Details

To exercise all relevant rights, queries of complaints please in the first instance contact our Director, Julian Lomas on julian@almondtreeconsulting.co.uk 

You can contact the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 123 1113 or via email https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/ or at the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire. SK9 5AF.