Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

This is our privacy policy. It tells you how we collect, and process data received from you on our website and mobile app. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

If you have any comments on this privacy policy, please email them to [email protected].

2. Who We Are

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, we are required to provide you with certain information about how we process your personal data as a data controller:

• Our site address is dns House 382 Kenton Road, Harrow, Middlesex, HA3 8DP
• Our company name is dns accountants Ltd
• Our registered address is dns House 382 Kenton Road, Harrow, Middlesex, HA3 8DP
• Our Data Protection Officer is Gary Zouvani, and they can be contacted at [email protected].

3. What we may collect

We may collect and process the following data about you:

• Information you put into forms or surveys on our site at any time
• A record of any correspondence between us
• Details of transactions you carry out through our site
• Details of your visits to our site and the resources you use
• Technical data such as IP address and browsing information when using our website
• Compliance information required for anti-money laundering and regulatory obligations

Under GDPR we will ensure that your personal data is processed lawfully, fairly, and transparently, without adversely affecting your rights. We will only process your personal data if at least one of the following basis applies:

1. You have given consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more specific purposes;
2. Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or in order to take steps at the request of you prior to entering into a contract;
3. Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject;
4. Processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of you or of another natural person;
5. Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller; and/or
6. Processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party such as our credit card payment processing, except where such interests are overridden by the fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child.

4. Cookies

All cookies used by and on our website are used in accordance with current UK data protection legislation, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).

The site uses cookies or similar technology to collect information about your access to the site. Cookies are pieces of information that include a unique reference code that a website transfers to your device to store and sometimes track information about you.

A few of the cookies we use last only for the duration of your web session and expire when you close your browser. Other cookies are used to remember you when you return to the site and will last for longer.

All cookies used on our site are set by us.

Most computer and some mobile web browsers automatically accept cookies but, if you prefer, you can change your browser to prevent that or to notify you each time a cookie is set. You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser. Please note however, that by blocking or deleting cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the site.

Our cookies will be used for:

Essential session management

• Creating a specific log-in session for a user of the site in order that the site remembers that a user is logged in and that their page requests are delivered in an effective, secure and consistent manner;
• Recognising when a user of the site has visited before allowing us to identify the number of unique users we receive to the site and make sure we have enough capacity for the number of users that we get;
• Recognising if a visitor to the site is registered with us in any way;
• We may also log information from your computer including the existence of cookies, your IP address and information about your browser program in order to allow us to diagnose problems, administer and track your usage of our site.

Functionality

• Customising elements of the promotional layout and/or content of the pages of the site.

Performance and measurement

• Collecting statistical information about how our users use the site so that we can improve the site and learn which parts are most popular to users.

5. How we use what we collect

We use information about you to:

• Present site content effectively to you.
• Provide information, products and services that you request, or (with your consent) which we think may interest you.
• Carry out our contracts with you.
• Allow you to use our interactive services if you want to.
• Tell you our charges.
• Tell you about other goods and services that might interest you. We will also let other people do this, and we (or they) may contact you.
• Use approved AI tools to support our services, subject to human review and data-protection controls.

If you are already our customer, we will only contact you electronically about things similar to what was previously sold to you.

If you are a new customer, you will only be contacted if you agree to it.

If you don't want to be contacted for marketing purposes, please email [email protected].

Please note: If you don’t want us to use your personal data for any of the other reasons set out in this section 5, you can let us know at any time by contacting us at [email protected], and we will delete your data from our systems. However, you acknowledge this will limit our ability to provide the best possible products and services to you.

In some cases, the collection of personal data may be a statutory or contractual requirement, and we will be limited in the products and services we can provide you if you don’t provide your personal data in these cases.

6. Where we store your data

Some of our service providers and their subprocessors may process personal data outside the United Kingdom. Where this occurs, we will ensure that the transfer is made in accordance with applicable data-protection law and is protected by an adequacy regulation, approved contractual safeguards or another lawful transfer mechanism, together with appropriate technical and organisational measures.

Payment will be encrypted. If we give you a password, you must keep it confidential. Please don't share it. Although we try to provide protection, we cannot guarantee complete security for your data, and you take the risk that any sending of that data turns out to be not secure despite our efforts.

We only keep your personal data for as long as we need to in order to use it as described above in section 5, and/or for as long as we have your permission to keep it. In any event, we will conduct regular reviews to ascertain whether we need to keep your personal data. Your personal data will be deleted if we no longer need it.

7. Disclosing your information

We are allowed to disclose your information in the following cases:

• If we want to sell our business, or our company, we can disclose it to the potential buyer.
• We can disclose it to other businesses in our group.
• We can disclose it if we have a legal obligation to do so, or in order to protect other people's property, safety or rights.
• We can exchange information with others to protect against fraud or credit risks.

We may contract with third parties to supply services to you on our behalf. These may include payment processing, search engine facilities, advertising and marketing. In some cases, the third parties may require access to some or all of your data. These are the third parties that may have access to your information:

• Nomisma Solutions Ltd (Accounting Software)
• Zoho Corporation Pvt. Ltd (Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software)
• AgentFlow AI GmbH (Synthflow) / Voiceflow, Inc. / Retell AI Inc (Voice AI Agents)
• OpenAI, L.L.C. (ChatGPT) (Generative AI Assistant)
• Anthropic, PBC (Claude) (Generative AI Assistant)
• Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft 365: Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive)
• Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft 365 Copilot) (Generative AI assistant)
• Receipt Bank Limited trading as “Dext” (Automatic Data Processing)
• Outbooks Ltd (Bookkeeping & Accounting Outsource Services)
• GoCardless Ltd (Direct bank payment processing)
• Trustpilot Ltd (client review platform)
• Shire Credit Controllers Ltd (Debt Recovery Agents)
• dns accountants (Pinksalt) Ltd (dns group company)

Use of artificial intelligence

Our use. We may use secure, approved business or enterprise artificial intelligence tools, including ChatGPT provided by OpenAI, Claude provided by Anthropic and Microsoft 365 Copilot provided by Microsoft, to assist in delivering our services, including research, analysis, drafting, summarisation and document preparation.

Where personal data is processed using these services, the tools are subject to contractual, confidentiality, privacy and security controls. Data submitted through our approved accounts is not permitted to be used to train publicly available or general artificial intelligence models unless we expressly choose to permit this.

We take reasonable steps to minimise the personal data submitted to artificial intelligence services and, where appropriate, remove or obscure information that directly identifies an individual. Access is restricted to authorised personnel and staff must not use personal or unapproved artificial intelligence accounts to process client or other confidential information.

Artificial intelligence-generated material is used only as an assistive tool. All work is subject to appropriate human review before being provided to you. Subject to the terms of our engagement, we remain responsible for our advice and deliverables. We do not rely solely on artificial intelligence to make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects concerning an individual.

Your use. Our advice and deliverables are confidential and provided for the agreed purpose. You should not upload them to publicly available artificial intelligence tools that may retain, share or use the material for model training, as this may result in a loss of confidentiality. If information or documents provided to us were materially produced using artificial intelligence, please tell us, as we may need to verify them before relying on them.

Responsibility. Subject to the terms of our engagement and applicable law, we are not responsible for losses arising from your use of artificial intelligence tools on our advice or deliverables, or from inaccuracies in artificial intelligence-produced information provided to us where its use has not been disclosed.

Information may be processed or stored in the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area or other territories in which the relevant provider or its approved subprocessors operate. Where personal data is transferred internationally, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are used in accordance with applicable data-protection law.

We retain information processed through artificial intelligence services only for as long as reasonably necessary for the relevant purpose, subject to our retention requirements and the settings and contractual terms applying to the relevant service.

We may contact you via email to invite you to review any services and/or products you received from us [in order to collect your feedback and improve our services and products] (the “Purpose”). We use an external company, Trustpilot Ltd, to collect your feedback which means that we will share your name, email address and reference number with Trustpilot for the Purpose. If you want to read more about how Trustpilot process your data, you can find their Privacy Policy here.

We may also use such reviews in other promotional materials and media for our advertising and promotional purposes.

Where any of your data is required for such a purpose, we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your data will be handled safely, securely, and in accordance with your rights, our obligations, and the obligations of the third party under GDPR and the law.

8. Your rights

You can ask us not to use your data for marketing by contacting us at any time at [email protected].

Under the GDPR, you have the right to:

• Request access to, deletion of or correction of your personal data held by us at no cost to you;
• Request that your personal data be transferred to another person (data portability);
• Be informed of what data processing is taking place;
• Restrict processing;
• To object to processing of your personal data; and
• Complain to a supervisory authority.

You also have rights with respect to automated decision-making and profiling as set out in section 11 below.

To enforce any of the foregoing rights or if you have any other questions about our site or this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected].

9. Links to other sites

Please note that our terms and conditions and our policies will not apply to other websites or mobile applications that you get via a link from our site or mobile application. We have no control over how your data is collected, stored or used by other websites or mobile applications and we advise you to check the privacy policies of any such websites and mobile applications before providing any data to them.

In respect mobile applications, where there are links to other sites, we send data to 3rd party sites with a secure encryption algorithm and data is returned in encrypted format from the 3rd party sites.

10. Changes

If we change our Privacy Policy, we will post the changes on this page and through mobile app notifications. If we decide to, we may also email you.

11. Automated Decision-Making and Profiling

We do not currently use artificial intelligence systems to make solely automated decisions about individuals that produce legal or similarly significant effects. Where artificial intelligence assists our work, an appropriately authorised person remains responsible for reviewing the relevant information and making the final decision.

• 11.1 In the event that we use personal data for the purposes of automated decision-making and those decisions have a legal (or similarly significant effect) on you, you have the right to challenge such decisions under GDPR, requesting human intervention, expressing their own point of view, and obtaining an explanation of the decision from us.
• 11.2 The right described in section 11.1 does not apply in the following circumstances:
  1. The decision is necessary for the entry into, or performance of, a contract between you and us;
  2. The decision is authorised by law; or
  3. You have given you explicit consent.
• 11.3 Where we use your personal data for profiling purposes, the following shall apply:
  1. Clear information explaining the profiling will be provided, including its significance and the likely consequences;
  2. Appropriate mathematical or statistical procedures will be used;
  3. Technical and organisational measures necessary to minimise the risk of errors and to enable such errors to be easily corrected shall be implemented; and
  4. All personal data processed for profiling purposes shall be secured in order to prevent discriminatory effects arising out of profiling.

12. Dispute Resolution

• 12.1 The Parties will use their best efforts to negotiate in good faith and settle any dispute that may arise out of or relate to this Privacy Policy or any breach of it.
• 12.2 If any such dispute cannot be settled amicably through ordinary negotiations between the parties, or either or both is or are unwilling to engage in this process, either party may propose to the other in writing that structured negotiations be entered into with the assistance of a fully accredited mediator before resorting to litigation.
• 12.3 If the parties are unable to agree upon a mediator, or if the mediator agreed upon is unable or unwilling to act and an alternative mediator cannot be agreed, any party may within 14 days of the date of knowledge of either event apply to LawBite to appoint a mediator under the LawBite Mediation Procedure.
• 12.4 Within 14 days of the appointment of the mediator (either by mutual agreement of the parties or by LawBite in accordance with their mediation procedure), the parties will meet with the mediator to agree the procedure to be adopted for the mediation, unless otherwise agreed between the parties and the mediator.
• 12.5 All negotiations connected with the relevant dispute(s) will be conducted in confidence and without prejudice to the rights of the parties in any further proceedings.
• 12.6 If the parties agree on a resolution of the dispute at mediation, the agreement shall be reduced to writing and, once signed by the duly authorised representatives of both parties, shall be final and binding on them.
• 12.7 If the parties fail to resolve the dispute(s) within 60 days (or such longer term as may be agreed between the parties) of the mediator being appointed, or if either party withdraws from the mediation procedure, then either party may exercise any right to seek a remedy through arbitration by an arbitrator to be appointed by LawBite under the Rules of the LawBite Arbitration Scheme.
• 12.8 Any dispute shall not affect the parties’ ongoing obligations under this Privacy Policy.

13. Right to Complain

If you have any concerns about how we handle your personal data, please contact us first so that we can try to resolve the issue.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection matters.

• Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
• Website: https://ico.org.uk
• Telephone: 0303 123 1113