Privacy and Cookies Policy

It’s Mental: Privacy and Cookies Policy (this “Policy”)

Introduction

We are It’s Mental is a company address in England. This Policy is our privacy and cookies policy. In this Policy, we refer to It’s Mental as “we”, “us” and “our”.

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This Policy sets out how we look after your personal data and tells you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

We may update this Policy from time to time. If we do, we will post a new version on our Website www.itsmental.co.uk (the “Website”). You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes. We may also notify you of changes to the Policy by email if you have asked us to keep in touch with you by email.

This Policy was most recently updated on 28/04/2020.

1. Background

Why do we have this Policy?

This Policy is intended to tell you how we collect and process your personal data. This includes any data you may provide to us through the Website when you contact us in any way, such as when you submit an enquiry, or when you sign up to receive a newsletter or other communications from us.

You should read this Policy with any other privacy notice that we may give to you from time to time when we are collecting or processing personal data about you. Those privacy notices will ensure you are aware of how and why we are using your personal data, such as when you agree to be our client so that we can provide legal services to you. This Policy supplements the other privacy notices; it is not intended to override them.

We are a data controller

Stephen Clarke is the data controller for any personal data that you provide through the Website. We are responsible for your personal data.

We have appointed a data protection director, who is responsible for data protection compliance within our business, and for overseeing questions in relation to this Policy. If you have any questions about this Policy, or if you would like to exercise your legal rights under paragraph 12 below, please contact the data privacy officer using the details set out below:

Name of data privacy director: Stephen Clarke

Email address: [email protected]

Postal address: Woodview Estates, Sharatts Path, Charnock Richard, Lancashire, England, PR7 3QP

Making sure the information we hold about you is correct

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please get in touch if you think the personal data we hold about you needs to be updated during your relationship with us.

Third party information and links on the Website

The Website sometimes includes links to websites, plug-ins and applications owned or controlled by third parties. If you click on those links or enable those connections, third parties may be able to collect or share data about you, and they are not within are control. We are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave the Website, you should read the privacy notice of every other website or application that you visit.

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 which we have grouped together follows:

• Identity Data includes a Username that the user creates.
• Contact Data includes email address and the users Town, City and/or Country
• Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access the Website.
• Usage Data includes information about how you use the Website.
• Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences.

We 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. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. 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 Policy.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you through the Website (this includes 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). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

If you fail to provide personal data where we need to collect personal data by law, or to provide you with information about our services, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to provide you with certain information to you, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

Children Age 16 and Under: Our services are not directed at children under the age of 16 and does not knowingly collect personal information from children.  We also recognise the special obligation to protect personally identifiable information obtained from children aged 16 and under. AS SUCH, IF YOU ARE 16 YEARS OLD OR YOUNGER, THE COMPANY REQUESTS THAT YOU NOT SUBMIT ANY PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION TO THE SITE OR TO THE COMPANY. If the Company discovers that a child age 16 or younger has signed up on the Site or provided us with personally identifiable information, we will delete that child’s identifiable information from our records.

3. How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

• Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Communication Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us (whether yourself or via your agent or through the Website). This includes personal data you provide when you:
• request information from us; · contact us for any reason; ·       request communications to be sent to you; or ·       give us feedback.
• Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with the Website, we may automatically collect Technical and Usage Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. Please see paragraph 6 below for more information on our use of cookies.
• Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:
• Technical Data from the following parties:

(a)            analytics providers such as Google based outside the EU; (b)            search information providers .

• Contact Data from providers of technical services.
• Identity and Contact Data from publicly available sources (such as Companies House) based inside the EU.

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 in the following circumstances:

• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
• Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

See paragraph 13 to find out more about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data.

We do usually rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data.. If, for any reason, we do rely on consent to process your personal data, you have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

The table below explains the ways in which we process your personal data, and the legal bases we rely on to do so. Where necessary, we have also identified our legitimate interests.

We may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you would like more details about the specific legal ground on which we are relying to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

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 you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

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. Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising:

Communications of interest

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Communications and Usage Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or received services from us, and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Third-party marketing

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.

Opting out

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of instructing us in respect of legal services, or other transactions.

6. Cookies

The Website may use cookies. Cookies are tiny text files which identify your computer to our server as a unique user when you visit certain pages on the website and they are stored by your Internet browser on your computer's hard drive. Cookies can be used to recognise your Internet Protocol address, saving you time while you are on the Website.

We only use cookies for your convenience in using the Website and not for obtaining or using any other information about you (for example targeted advertising). Your browser can be set to not accept cookies, but this would restrict your use of the Website.

Please note that we collect data from the Website about use of the Website using a web analysis tool which uses cookies that are (able to be) used to generate pseudonyms for a user’s profile. This means that use cookies (which may be stored on your computer after you leave the Website) can store information about your visit.

The Website uses the following cookies:

Google Analytics allows us to recognise and count the number of visitors to the Website and to see how visitors move around the Website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way the Website works, for example by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

7. Recruitment

We are the data controller for any information you give to us during a job enquiry or application process that you commence through the Website or otherwise.

We will only collect the information that we need for recruitment purposes as part of the job application process, such as your name, address, email address, phone number, employment history, salary history and referees (together, “Recruitment Data”). We will retain Recruitment Data for as long as is necessary, and in any event for no longer than three months after your initial application if you are not successful in your application, and, if we employ you, for the duration of your employment with us and for a period after your employment ends, in accordance with our internal policies of which you will be informed if you join us.

We will use Recruitment Data only for the purpose of dealing with your enquiry or application, or to fulfil our legal and/or regulatory obligations. This might include contacting you to keep your application moving, and assessing your suitability for the particular role we have available.

We will not share Recruitment Data with any third parties for marketing purposes, and we will not transfer it outside of the European Economic Area.

You do not have to provide personal data to us when we ask for it, but it may impact your application if you do not give us all of the information we need to assess your suitability for the role we have available.

If we make you a conditional offer of employment, we will ask you for further information, such as proof of your qualifications and identity, and information about your health. If we then make you a final offer of employment, we will ask you for details of your bank account (so we can pay your salary), emergency contact details, and details of any pension scheme of which you are a member.

8. Disclosures of your personal data

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above.

• Internal Third Parties as set out in paragraph 13 below.
• External Third Parties as set out in paragraph 13 below.
• 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 Policy.

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 our 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.

9. 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 and access this data. 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.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to the Website; any such transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your personal information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

International Data Transfers: Our site and various information we collect are operated on servers located in various jurisdictions, including the United States. When you access or use the Site and/or our services, personal information about you may be transferred outside the country in which you are situated to these other locations. Our policy ensures that such personal information is protected to the same standard when processed by any Company entity or office around the world. We also ensure that appropriate contracts containing standard data protection clauses approved by the European Commission to protect that information and the rights of individuals are in place with any and all third-party service providers we may use such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

10. How long we use your 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, 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.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available in our retention policy which you can request from us by contacting us.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see paragraph 12 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.

11. Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data:

• 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. 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 automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• 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.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

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.

Your right to make a complaint to the ICO

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.

12. Glossary

LAWFUL BASIS

Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. 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). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

THIRD PARTIES

Internal Third Parties

Other companies in our corporate group acting as joint controllers or processors and who are based the UK and provide IT and system administration services and undertake leadership reporting, including security advisors.

External Third Parties

• Service providers acting as processors based in the UK and US who provide IT and system administration services.
• Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the UK who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
• HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.