Terms and Conditions / Privacy Policy

How we use your data

Who are we?

We are Banks Long & Co

If you have any questions about this Policy, or about how we look after your data generally, please contact William Wall on 01522 544515 or enquiries@bankslong.com

Introduction

Banks Long & Co (‘we’ or ‘us’ etc), is a ‘data controller’. This means that, under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we may control and process your personal data and, in certain circumstances, special categories of data (previously known as sensitive data).

We take privacy very seriously. We are committed to keeping your data secure and processing it fairly and lawfully. We ask that you read this policy very carefully because it contains important information about how we process your personal data. 

This policy is aimed at our clients, service users, staff and any other third parties interacting with us.

Personal data we may collect about you

We may obtain personal data about you (such as, but not limited to, name, contact details, financial and pay details, identity documents, previous address information, current and previous landlord information, character and work references, employment information/history and criminal convictions) whenever you complete a form for us, whether online or in person.

We may also collect information about you when our staff speak to you about our services.

In addition, we may monitor your use of our website through the use of cookies and similar tracking devices. For example, we may monitor how many times you visit, which pages you go to, traffic data, location data and the originating domain name of a user's internet service provider. This information helps us to build a profile of our users. Some (but not all) of this data will be aggregated or statistical, which means that we will not be able to identify you individually. Please see further the section on 'Use of cookies' below.

We may also receive information about you from other sources (such as relatives, character references, employment references, previous landlords, referral agencies, commissioning bodies, strategic partners or your solicitors or accountants) which we will add to the information which we already hold about you.

How we use your personal data

We may use your data for one or more of the following purposes:

• As part of delivering our services to you
• Where we consider it necessary to be in your vital interests
• Where we are legally required to do so, such as because of a contractual obligation owed to a third party, such as a commissioning body
• For the purposes of assessing your application for services
• Administration
• Direct marketing, where you have specifically consented
• Fraud prevention and detection
• Taking and processing payments 
• To notify you of any changes to our website or to our services which may affect you
• Improving our services

Marketing and opting out

We will not contact you for the purposes of direct marketing unless you have asked us to do so. However, if you have asked us to do so and later your change your mind, you can opt-out at any time with no hassle. To do this, just let us know. See further 'Your rights' below for details about how to contact us. 

Who has access to your personal information?

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.

We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf: We may pass your information to our third-party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf. However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. 

Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties for them to use for their own direct marketing purposes, unless you have requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.

We may transfer your personal information to a third party as part of a sale of some or all of our business and assets to any third party or as part of any business restructuring or reorganisation, or if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our supporters and customers. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.

Keeping your data secure

We will use technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal data, for example:

Access to our systems is controlled by password and username which are unique to the user;

• We store your electronic personal data on secure servers;
• We store your paper records in locked cabinets;
• We train our staff in good records management;

Non-sensitive details (your contact details and preferences for example) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. 

Information about other individuals

If you give us information on behalf of someone else, you confirm that the other person has appointed you to act on his/her behalf and has agreed that you can:

• Give consent on his/her behalf to the processing of his or her personal data
• Receive on his/her behalf any data protection notices

How long do we keep your data for?

As a general rule, we will not keep your data for any longer than is necessary to complete tasks or provide you with services. We have a separate policy setting out retention periods for specific types of data. You can ask to see this policy by writing to us, using the contact details under the “Your Rights” section below. You also have the right to ask us to delete your data (sometimes known as ‘the right to be forgotten’.)

Cookies

Our website may use “cookies”. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are used widely to make websites work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the proprietors of the website. Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org .

We may use third-party web analytics services on our Sites, such as those of Google Analytics. These service providers help us analyse how visitors use our website. The information obtained (including IP addresses and other information collected by automated means) will be disclosed to or collected directly by these service providers. To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Eddisons incorporating Banks Long & Co may include links to third-party websites and applications, such as social media sites. We do not control these third-party sites, and we encourage you to read the Privacy Statement of every site you visit. Our websites may include plugins from social networks or other third parties. An example of a plugin is the Facebook “Like” button. Where legally permitted, these plugins may communicate with and send information to the party that provided the plugin, even if you do not click on the plugin. This information may include your IP address, information about your browser and device, and the address of the web page you are visiting on our site. Loading, using or clicking the plugins may also place, read and transmit cookies. These cookies may contain a unique identifier the social network or third-party assigns to you. The loading, functionality and your use of the plugins are governed by the Privacy Statement and terms of the party that provided the plugin.

We use information we collect to provide our professional services and marketing tailored to your interests, including the services offered by other companies with the Eddisons group as well as Eddisons parent company group Begbies Traynor Group plc for example to:

• Send you email and/or postal messages or otherwise contact you with information regarding our services, including property marketing
• Answer your queries or questions
• Create and manage your account
• Process payments
• Protect against or identify possible fraudulent transactions

If you consider that we have processed personal data in violation of applicable law, please contact us by email at dataprotection@eddisons.com. If you consider that we have processed personal data in violation of applicable law and failed to remedy such violation to your reasonable satisfaction, you may also lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority (e.g. the Information Commissioner in the UK).

Your rights

You have various rights under the GDPR, including the right to:

• request access to, deletion of or correction of, your personal data;
• request your personal data be transferred to another person; and
• complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

To exercise any of your rights concerning your information, please send an email to the following address:

enquiries@bankslong.com

Or write to us at the following postal address:

Banks Long & Co
26 Westgate
Lincoln
LN1 3BD

We may ask you to provide us with proof or your identity. Please do not be offended; this may occur even if we know you. It is a requirement of the GDPR in some cases.

For details of how to contact the ICO, see their website https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/

COMPLAINTS

For details of our complaints handling procedure, please click here.

Review

This Policy was last reviewed on 15th June 2023.

We may change this privacy policy from time to time. You should check this policy occasionally to ensure you are aware of the most recent version which will apply each time you access our website.