Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd Privacy Policy

Changes to UK data privacy law came into effect on 25 May 2018 under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which give individuals additional rights about the way their personal information is collected and used.

It is one of our fundamental responsibilities as an investment and wealth management business to ensure that we protect the information provided to us by you, our clients and prospective clients.

About This Document

This privacy notice explains how Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd (“we”, “our”, “us”) collects, uses and shares your personal data, and your rights in relation to the personal data we hold. This privacy notice concerns our processing of personal data for past, prospective and present clients of Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd(“you”, “your”).

Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd (a UK registered company, registered in England with company number 15096036) is the data controller of your personal data and is subject to the Data Protection Act 1998 (“DPA”) and the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”). Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd is an appointed representative of Vision Independent Planning Limited.

How do we gather and use your personal information?

We collect your personal information in a number of ways. This begins with any interactions we have with you for example:

when you communicate with us over the phone, mail and email;
from information you provide to us when you interact with us for example when you contact us about our services;
when you ask us to provide services to you and subsequently provide us with the necessary information;
where you provide us with personal data relating to others (e.g. your family members), we understand that you either have their consent or are entitled to provide this information to us for subsequent use;
in the other ways you interact with us during your time with us, for some of the reasons set out below.

How do we share and store your personal data?

We collect the following types of personal data about you:

your name, and contact information such as address, email address and telephone number;
your date of birth, national insurance number (or other tax identification number) and due diligence information;
financial information (to establish what type of service you require)
We may also collect special categories of personal data, including more sensitive personal data, such as information concerning your health and medical conditions (“sensitive personal data”).

Legitimate Interests

We may also process your personal data because it is necessary for our or a third party’s (this is a person or organisation external to Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd) legitimate interests. Our “legitimate interests” include our commercial interests in operating our business Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd in a client focused, efficient and sustainable manner, in accordance with all applicable legal and regulatory requirements. In this respect, we may use your personal data for the following:

to monitor and evaluate the performance and effectiveness of our services, including by training our staff or monitoring their performance, and for the monitoring of communications, as set out in the section below;
outsourcing selected ‘back office’ functions to third parties (for example, vendors of hosted software solutions or cloud storage providers) for the purposes of efficient, fast and secure access to information across Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd;
to seek advice on our rights and obligations, such as where we require our own legal advice;
as part of a reorganisation, sale or negotiations for sale of all or part of our business;
to follow up with you after you request information to see if we can provide any further assistance and for more general marketing purposes, including in order to keep you informed (by letter, telephone, email and other electronic means) of services from us at Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd which may be of interest to you. If you do not wish to receive such information, please let us know now or at any time in the future, and your details will be removed from our mailing list(s).
We will not provide your personal data (or sensitive personal data) to organisations other than members of Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd to use for their own marketing purposes without your consent.

Compliance

We may also process your personal data for our compliance with our legal obligations. In this respect, we may use your personal data for the following:

to confirm your identity and carry out background checks for anti-money laundering and ‘know your client’ purposes (including as part of our Appointed Representative checks to prevent fraud and other crimes);
Any use of your personal information by such agencies will be subject to those agencies’ own privacy policies and terms of use, unless they are acting only on our behalf when processing your personal information;
to fulfil our obligations under any reporting agreement entered into with any tax authority or revenue service(s) from time to time, including but not limited to HMRC and the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as is necessary for compliance with our legal obligations;
in order to assist with investigations (including criminal investigations) carried out by the police and other competent authorities
to meet our other compliance and regulatory obligations, including in order to comply with any requirement of any applicable statute, regulation, regulatory rule and good practice, whether originating from the UK or elsewhere (including, but not limited to, the United States of America).

Other Purposes

We may also process your personal data where:

it is necessary to protect your or another person’s vital interests
it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims (for example, to protect and defend our rights or property, and/or the rights or property of our clients, or of third parties, including where applicable relying on recordings or monitored observations from communications with you)
we have your specific or, where necessary, explicit consent to do so.

Monitoring of Communications

As a matter of course, Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd monitors the use of company communications equipment by its employees and other staff. This means that when you speak to us by telephone, your calls may be monitored. In the same way, the content of email communications may be monitored for the following purposes:

for training purposes, allowing us to improve the quality of our communications;
as evidence of your instructions and to ensure that we are providing a high-quality service to you;
in pursuit of our legal obligations or in compliance with regulatory rules or requirements;
for the establishment, exercise or defence of disputes or legal claims (where relevant);
for preventing or detecting crime (including fraud).

Disclosure of Your Information (When it may be shared with others)

In addition to sharing your personal data with other members of Sherwood Independent Financial Planning Ltd, we may also disclose your personal data:

to any other organisations that we may engage to perform, or assist in the performance of, our services or to advise us, provided that they will only be given access to your personal data (including your sensitive personal data, where applicable) to perform such assistance, services or advice and not for other purposes. We shall endeavour to ensure that any such organisation undertakes to adopt appropriate security measures in respect of your personal data;
to counterparties where disclosure is reasonably necessary for the purpose of effecting transactions in connection with our Client Agreement or Terms of Business or any other contractual document or of establishing a dealing relationship with a view to such transactions;
where we have your permission to reveal the information;
to any ‘connected person’ as set out in our Client Agreement or Terms of Business or any other contractual document, unless you expressly instruct us in writing to do otherwise;
if you are a joint client, to the other client named in any relevant Client Agreement or Terms of Business or any other contractual document;
as part of a reorganisation, sale or negotiations for sale of all or part of our business (subject to appropriate security and confidentiality measures);
in circumstances in which we are required or authorised by law (including, but not limited to, data protection legislation), court order, regulatory or governmental authorities to disclose your personal data;
where you are a beneficiary or policyholder in respect of a portfolio, fund or account which is legally owned by a third-party provider, to such third-party provider.

Transferring Your Information Outside of Europe

We do not operate globally, and therefore your personal data will not be transmitted to and processed outside of the UK in countries that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK.

How Long Your Information Is Kept

We will retain your personal data for as long as we are providing you with the services referred to in any relevant Client Agreement, Terms of Business or any other contractual document, and for as long as permitted or required for legal, regulatory, fraud prevention and our legitimate business purposes after the closure of your account, if the relationship between you and us has terminated, or if your application for a particular service or services is declined or abandoned.

Your Rights

You have the following rights:

to obtain access to, and copies of, the personal data that we hold about you;
to require that we cease processing your personal data if the processing is causing you damage or distress;
to require us not to send you marketing communications.
to require us to correct the personal data we hold about you if it is incorrect;
to require us to erase your personal data;
to require us to restrict our data processing activities (and, where our processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent, without affecting the lawfulness of our processing based on consent before its withdrawal);
to receive from us the personal data we hold about you which you have provided to us, in a reasonable format specified by you, including for the purpose of you transmitting that personal data to another data controller;
to require us to comply with your objection, to any of our particular processing activities where you feel this has a disproportionate impact on your rights.
Please note that the above rights are not absolute, and we may be entitled to refuse requests where exceptions apply.

If you have given your consent and you wish to withdraw it, please contact myself using the contact details set out below. Please note that where our processing of your personal data relies on your consent and where you then withdraw that consent, we may not be able to provide all or some aspects of our services to you and/or it may affect the provision of those services.

If you are not satisfied with how we are processing your personal data, you can raise a concern with the Information Commissioner. You can also find out more about your rights under data protection legislation from the Information Commissioner’s Office website available at: www.ico.org.uk.

Contact Us

If you have any questions you would like to raise about how we process your Personal Data, you can contact myself by writing to our registered office.

07815 062 068
Sherwood, Sladd Lane, Wolverley, Worcestershire, DY11 5TE