Privacy Policy
Bennetts Proactive Accountants Limited
This Privacy Policy applies to Bennetts Proactive Accountants Limited [NZBN 9429040983103] and all of our Trustee Companies (we, us or our). We respect your right to privacy and understand that protecting your personal information is important. We comply with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (Privacy Act) when handling personal information.
What does this Privacy Policy cover?
1 Collection and use of personal information
1.1 Personal information we collect
Personal information means information about an identifiable individual (a natural person). The types of personal information we may collect about you include:
Contact details (e.g. names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and job titles)
Your age and/or date of birth
Professional details (e.g. job and career history and educational background)
Family details
Financial information (e.g. tax, payroll, investment interests, superannuation, assets, bank details and insolvency records)
Identification documents (e.g. Passport, Driver Licence, Firearms Licence, bank issued cards, government issued cards such as SuperGold Cards and Kiwi Access Cards and IRD Number) and other information that may be required to verify your identity
Details of products and services we have provided to you and/or that you have enquired about, and our response to you
Your browser session and geo-location data, device and network information, statistics on page views and sessions, acquisition sources, search queries and/or browsing behavior
Information about your access and use of our Services, including through the use of Internet cookies, your communications with our online Services, the type of browser you are using, the type of operating system you are using and the domain name of your Internet service provider
Additional personal information that you provide to us, directly or indirectly, through your use of our Services, associated applications and/or accounts from which you permit us to collect information
Any other personal information requested by us and/or provided by you or a third party
1.2 How we collect personal information
Directly:
We obtain personal information directly from individuals in a variety of ways, including from individuals who provide us with their business cards, subscribe to our newsletters, contact us via our website, request our assistance via email or telephone, attend meetings with our staff, attend events we host, attend training seminars we run, visit our offices or for recruitment purposes. We may also obtain personal information directly when, for example, we are establishing a business relationship, performing professional services through a contract, or through our hosted software applications.
Indirectly:
In some instances, we may obtain your personal information indirectly from a variety of sources, including publicly available sources, our clients, recruitment and third-parties:
Public sources - Personal information may be obtained from public registers, government agency publications, news articles, sanctions lists, internet searches and social media sites
Our clients - Our clients may engage us to perform professional services which involves sharing personal information they control as part of that engagement. Our services may also include processing personal information under our clients’ control on our hosted software applications, which may be governed by different privacy terms, policies and notices
Service providers and other third parties - We may obtain personal information from our service providers such as recruitment and credit reference agencies and other third parties such as previous employees, previous employers, law enforcement agencies, banks, other financial institutions and screening providers who assist us with our legal obligations to conduct anti-money laundering, sanctions screening and regulatory checks
Personal information about others - Where you provide personal information to us about other people (such as your customers, directors, officers, shareholders, beneficial owners or employees), you must ensure that you have a lawful basis to make such disclosure
1.3 Why we need personal information
We aspire to be transparent when we collect, hold and process personal information and tell you why we need it, which typically includes the following primary purposes:
Providing professional advice and delivering reports related to our tax, advisory, assurance and other professional services. Our services may include reviewing client files for quality assurance purposes, which may involve processing personal information for the relevant client
To enable you to access and use our associated applications
Promoting our professional services, products and capabilities to existing and prospective clients
Sending invitations and providing access to guests attending meetings with our staff, events we host and training seminars we run, as well as attending interviews in relation to recruitment
Security, quality and risk management activities – We have security measures in place to protect our information and information systems and our client’s information (including personal information), which involves detecting, investigating and resolving security threats. This may include:
Monitoring the services provided to clients for risk and quality purposes, which may involve processing personal information stored on the relevant client file
Carrying out conflict and risk searches to ensure there are no issues that would prevent us from working with a particular client (such as sanctions, criminal convictions, conduct or other reputational issues)
General management, internal record keeping and reporting activities, such as invoicing and account management
For analytics, market research and business development, including to operate and improve our Services, associated applications;
In relation to the employment of our personnel, providing internal services to our staff and seeking qualified candidates
Complying with any requirements of law, regulation or a professional body of which we are a member
Compiling health and safety data (directly or indirectly) following an incident or accident. Indirect data can take many forms including an incident report, first aider report and witness Statements
Collecting health data to assess, monitor and control spread of infectious diseases and to provide a safe environment for our employees, clients and suppliers
For other purposes related to our business as required or authorised by law
2 Disclosure of personal information to third parties
The information you provide to us may be shared with third-parties to the extent necessary to carry out our professional and business needs, to complete your requests, where we are required to disclose that information by law or for safety reasons, with your consent or as otherwise stated in this Privacy Statement.
Examples of this might include:
Third party service providers for the purpose of enabling them to provide their services to us, including (without limitation) IT service providers, data storage, web-hosting and server providers, debt collectors, couriers, maintenance or problem-solving providers, marketing or advertising providers, professional advisors, recruitment service providers and payment systems operators
Our employees, contractors and/or related entities
Courts, tribunals and regulatory authorities, in the event you fail to pay for goods or services we have provided to you
Courts, tribunals, regulatory authorities and law enforcement officers, as required or authorised by law, in connection with any actual or prospective legal proceedings, or in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights
Sharing with health government bodies and external service providers to assess, monitor and control the spread of infectious diseases
Any other third parties as required or authorised by law
Overseas disclosure:
For the purposes above, we may transfer your personal information to parties located outside of New Zealand which may not have an equivalent level of data protection laws as those in New Zealand. Before disclosing any personal information to an overseas recipient, we will comply with Information Privacy Principle 12 and only disclose the information if you have authorised the disclosure after we expressly informed you that the overseas recipient may not be required to protect the personal information in a way that, overall, provides comparable safeguards to those in the Privacy Act, or we believe the overseas recipient is subject to the Privacy Act, or we believe that the overseas recipient is subject to privacy laws that, overall, provide comparable safeguards to those in the Privacy Act, or we believe that the overseas recipient is a participant in a prescribed binding scheme, or we believe that the overseas recipient is subject to privacy laws in a prescribed country or we otherwise believe that the overseas recipient is required to protect your personal information in a way that, overall, provides comparable safeguards to those in the Privacy Act (for example pursuant to a data transfer agreement entered into between us and the overseas recipient).
3 Your rights and controlling your personal information
Your choice:
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. If you provide personal information to us, you understand we will collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You do not have to provide personal information to us, however, if you do not, it may affect our ability to fulfil any of the above purposes, including providing professional services to you, responding to your requests, paying your invoices or processing your application for employment.
Information from Third Parties:
If we receive personal information about you from a third party, we will protect it as set out in this Privacy Policy. If you are a third party providing personal information about somebody else, you represent and warrant that you have such person’s consent to provide the personal information to us.
Unsubscribe:
We may collect, hold and use personal information about individuals to market our services, including by email. If you opt-in for particular services or communications, such as our quarterly newsletters, you can unsubscribe at any time by contacting us on the details below.
Access and Correction:
Subject to certain grounds for refusal set out in the Privacy Act, you may request access to, and correction of, the personal information that we hold about you. Please contact us using the details below. We will deal with your request in accordance with the Privacy Act.
Retention:
We retain personal information to provide our services, stay in contact with you and to comply with applicable laws, regulations and professional obligations that we are subject to. We retain personal information for as long as is necessary for the processing purposes for which the information was collected, and any other permissible, related purpose. The criteria we use to determine the retention periods also include:
• Whether there are contractual or legal obligations that exist that require us to retain the personal information for a period of time
• Whether you have interacted with us recently
• Whether any applicable law, statute, regulation or professional standard allows for a specific retention period
Complaints:
If you wish to make a complaint, please contact us using the details below and provide us with full details of the complaint. We will promptly investigate your complaint and respond to you, in writing, setting out the outcome of our investigation and the steps we will take in response to your complaint.
4 Storage and Security
We are committed to ensuring that the personal information we collect is secure. We have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures, to safeguard and secure personal information and protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.
While we are committed to security, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that is transmitted to or by us over the Internet. The transmission and exchange of information is carried out at your own risk.
Cookies:
We may use cookies on our website from time to time. Cookies are text files placed in your computer's browser to store your preferences. Cookies, by themselves, do not tell us your email address or other personally identifiable information. However, they do recognise you when you return to our website and allow third parties, such as Google and Facebook, to cause our advertisements to appear on your social media and online media feeds as part of our retargeting campaigns. If and when you choose to provide us with your personal information via our website, this information may be linked to the data stored in the cookie.
You can block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our website.
Please click here for more information on our Website Terms of Use
Links to Other Websites:
Our website may contain links to other websites. We do not have any control over those websites and we are not responsible for the protection and privacy of any personal information which you provide whilst visiting those websites. Those websites are not governed by this Privacy Policy.
Children:
Bennetts Proactive understands the importance of protecting children's privacy, especially in an online environment.
Our website is not intentionally designed for or directed at children under the age of 16. It is our policy never to knowingly collect or maintain information about anyone under the age of 16, except as part of an engagement to provide professional services.
5 Amendments
We may, at any time and at our discretion, vary this Privacy Policy by publishing the amended Privacy Policy on our website. We recommend you check our website regularly to ensure you are aware of our current Privacy Policy.
6 How to Contact Us
If you have a query about this privacy statement or the privacy of your information, or if you would like to enforce your privacy rights, please contact us as follows:
Bennetts Proactive Accountants Limited
PO Box 32
Te Puke 3153
Email: admin@bennettsproactive.co.nz