Privacy Policy

Howarths Website Privacy Notice

Howarths HR and Employment Limited (Howarths) is committed to being transparent about how it collects, uses and stores your personal information. We are required under data protection legislation to tell you about the way in which we use your data and about your rights. We have tried to supplement the information we are legally required to give you with other information and assistance that we think would help you to understand how we manage your privacy rights.

Important Information and Who we are

This privacy notice applies to Howarths’ website: www.howarths-uk.com

Howarths is the controller responsible for your personal data. This means that we control how the data is used. When we refer in this privacy notice to ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘ our’ we are referring to Howarths. You will notice that throughout this notice we provide you with the contact for data protection matters: Charlotte Geesin, email charlotte@howarths-uk.com

Our contact details are contained elsewhere on this website but our full details are Howarths HR and Employment Law Limited, Newbury Court, Brooke Street, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, BD19 3RR.

Complaints and Concerns

You have the right to make a complaint or to address a concern at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). They are the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. We would however appreciate the chance to deal with you concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact Charlotte Geesin in the first instance at charlotte@howarths-uk.com

If you need to contact the ICO, more information can be obtained from ico.org.uk/concerns or by contacting the ICO on 0303 123 1113.

Third Party Links

Our website may include links to third party website, plug ins and applications. Clicking on such links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. If you leave our website to a third party link we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

The data we collect about you (and how we collect it)

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that individual can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data). We may collect, use and store different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity data including any names that you give us which might include usernames and might include titles which give an indication of marital status. In contacting us through this website you may choose to provide us with other identifiable information.
• Contact data which would include all methods of contact you give to us such as your email address, telephone numbers, home or work and/or work address.
• Transaction data which may include details about previous transactions or services which you have had with us, or services you are interested in accessing.
• Technical data our website may obtain your internet protocol (IP) address, your log in data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug in type and versions, operating systems and platform and other technology or the devices you use to access this website.
• Profile data depending on how you use our website facilities you may choose to volunteer information about your personal and/or work circumstances. Please be aware that you are responsible for deciding what information or profile information you are choosing to share with us.
• Usage data includes information about how you use our website.
• Marketing communications data we do not directly collect marketing and communications data through our website traffic but as a result of using our website you may link into our marketing tools in which you can indicate your preferences in terms of receiving marketing form us and your communication preferences.
• Aggregate data such as statistical demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated data may be derived from your personal data but it is not considered personal data in laws as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. We will aggregate your usage data to collect the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. We do not combine or connect aggregated data with your personal data so that it can never directly or indirectly identify you.

We do not collect any special categories of personal data about you intentionally. This would include 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.

However, by accessing our website you may choose to volunteer sufficient information to form an enquiry regarding our services and you may therefore choose to provide us with information with these special categories or personal data.

How we will use this data

We collect your personal data, through this website, in different ways:-

• Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies.
• Direct interactions. You may interact with us through the medium of this website by contacting us directly to ask us to make an enquiry about our service. In doing that you may well provide us with your identity, contact and profile 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 ways:

• To answer your enquiry with a view to discussing a proposed contract for services and therefore in contacting you by email or telephone
• Where appropriate, to comply with a legal obligation
• To provide you with newsletters or information as you request
• To process any application made by you for a position of employment with us

Marketing

You will have the opportunity in using this website to register marketing choices with us if you wish. If you do register details for email marketing you will be automatically subscribed to our database.

Whether and how we will share your personal data

Unless you become a client or an employee of Howarths we do not envisage making any disclosures of your personal data except where we are required to for legal and regulatory purposes.

If you submit an enquiry, a copy of your enquiry is received by our web developer who is engaged by us to develop the website’s infrastructure. This is only for server back ups for disaster recovery purposes. Our web developer’s privacy policy can be accessed here: Privacy Policy – Picture Smiths.

International Transfers

We do not transfer your personal data outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). Where analytical data is transferred outside of the EEA, such as via Google Analytics, it is on an anonymised basis.

Data Security

In order to prevent unauthorised access, maintain data accuracy and ensure the correct use of information, we have in place appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect.

Data Retention

We have specific data retention policies in relation to clients and employees. As a visitor to our website we will not retain any personal data about you unless you provide us with personal data in connection with an enquiry relating to our services. If you make an enquiry the information we collect about you is stored electronically on our database.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data we consider the nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harmful or unauthorised use or disclosure and the purposes for which we process your personal data as well as the reasons why we may need to access the data after your original enquiry.

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 ‘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 and to give you an opportunity to request corrective action if appropriate.
• Request corrective action this enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data that we hold about you corrected although we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances this enables you to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where there is no lawful reason for us continuing to process it or where, despite a lawful reason there is no good reason for us continuing to process it in light of your request. 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, where we may have processed your information unlawfully or, where we accept that we may have processed your information unlawfully. However, we may not always be able to comply with your request for erasure for specific legal reasons which we will notify to you, if applicable, at the time of the request.
• Object to processing of your personal data you can do this 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 data for direct marketing purposes. We operate on the basis of consent for direct marketing and we try to make it as easy as possible to withdraw consent at any stage. Where you object to processing of your personal data, in some cases we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate interests to process your personal data which overrides your rights and freedoms.
• Request restriction of processing your personal data this enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:

              -If you want us to establish the data’s accuracy
              -Where you believe our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it
              -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
              -You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it

• Request transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, the personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information that you initially provided us with consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you. We rarely use such automated information.
• Right to 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 because you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw you consent.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are sent to and stored on your computer, smartphone, or other device for accessing the internet whenever you visit a website. Cookies are widely used and for a variety of different reasons:

• To enable a website to work
• To allow a website to recognise the user and to enhance the user’s experience
• To provide analytical research data

This website uses cookies to improve your experience whilst you navigate through it. Out of these cookies, those which are categorised as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third party cookies that help us analyse and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies, but doing so may affect your browsing experience.

Why we use cookies, what cookies we use and how this may affect you

There are different types of cookies:

• Low intrusive cookies set by us on our website. These cookies help you navigate the site and we use these cookies
• Low intrusive analytical cookies. These can be set by a website or used by a separate company owned by the website to analyse how people are using the site. We use these types of cookies. They are allow us to monitor to number of visitors and see how visitors move around our site. This helps us to improve the way our website works.
• Session cookies. These are stored whilst you are browsing. They get deleted from your device when you close your browser depending upon what your browser is.
• Persistent cookies. These are cookies that are saved on your computer or device. They don’t get deleted when you close your browser. We use such cookies. They help us know where there has been more than one browsing session and they help you to remember your preferences for the next time you visit. You can disable these types of cookies through your website configuration settings.
• Advertising cookies. We may use these from time to time.
• There are also third party cookies used on some websites. We use third party cookies and these may store cookies on your machine for longer. You can opt out of a cookie being stored on your machine by adjusting your settings.

You can change your cookie preferences any time by clicking the ‘Manage Consent’ button at the footer of our website. This will let you revisit the cookie consent banner and change your preferences or withdraw your consent right away. In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. You can change the settings of your browser to block/delete the cookies. Visit https://allaboutcookies.org/how-to-manage-cookies to find out how for your browser.

The Do Not Track setting

Some internet browsers have a DNT setting which sends a signal to websites asking them not to track your browsing. This setting does work with Howarths’ website.

If you have any questions about our privacy notice please contact us.