Last Updated: May 2018

 

Purpose of this Privacy Policy

This notice describes how we collect and use personal data about you, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and any other national implementing laws, regulations and secondary legislation, as amended or updated from time to time, in Cyprus (“Data Protection Legislation”).

Your privacy is important to us, and we are committed to protecting and safeguarding your data privacy rights.

Please read the following carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

Key topics:

1.     About us

2.     To whom this privacy notice applies to

3.     Basic Definitions

4.     What personal data we collect

5.     When and how we collect your personal data

6.     How we use your personal data

7.     Change of purpose

8.     Data Retention

9.     Who will process your data

10.  Transferring Personal Data outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

11.  Data Protection

12.  Your rights to access, correction, erasure and restriction to your personal data

13.  Right to withdraw consent

14.  Changes to the Privacy Policy

15.  How to contact us

16.  Where to make a complaint

 

1.   About us

1.1.      VGDA Accountants Limited (“VGDA”, "we", “us”, “our” and “ours”) is an audit, tax and advisory firm. We are registered in Cyprus as a limited liability company with registration number HE331205 and our registered office is at 25th Martiou 35 (Kennedy Ave. 32), 2nd floor, 1087 Nicosia, Cyprus.

1.2.      If we use the term "our Company", we refer to VGDA. The term "our online services" refers to our website (www.vgda.com.cy), our pages on third party social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ and any other websites or apps we own or run from time to time. The term "our services" refers to our office services and online services. If you use any of our services, we will refer to you using the terms "customer", "you", "your", "yours" in this policy.

1.3.      For the purpose of the GDPR and this notice, we are the ‘data controllers’. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal data about you. We are required under the GDPR to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

1.4.      We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer. Our Compliance Officer is our Data Protection Point of Contact and is responsible for assisting with enquiries in relation to this privacy notice or our treatment of your personal data. Should you wish to contact our Data Protection Point of Contact you can do so using the contact details noted at Section 16, below.

 

2.   To whom this privacy statement applies to

2.1.      This privacy statement applies to all prospective, existing or prior customers of VGDA.

2.2.      You can find how we will collect, handle, store and protect personal information about you when:

• providing services to you,
• you use “our Website”, or,
• we perform any other activities that form part of the operation of our business.

2.3.      We may refer to information that identify or may identify you or that may otherwise relate to you as “personal data” or “personal information”. We may also sometimes collectively refer to collecting, handling, using, protecting and storing your personal information as “processing” such personal information.

2.4.      When we refer to “our Website” or “this Website” in this policy, we mean the specific webpage http://vgda.com.cy.

 

3.   Basic Definitions

3.1.      For the purposes of this Policy the following definitions are used:

“Data Protection Officer (DPO)” means a person, who shall be responsible for monitoring the application of GDPR and other applicable law relating to the protection of data subjects with regard to the processing of personal data and who shall exercise the functions assigned to her/him by this Policy and other applicable law, and provides advice to the management of VGDA regarding protection of personal data.

“Personal data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;

“Processing” means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organization, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction;

“Restriction of processing” means the marking of stored personal data with the aim of limiting their processing in the future;

“Profiling” means any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyse or predict aspects concerning that natural person’s performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behaviour, location or movements;

“Pseudonymisation” means the processing of personal data in such a manner that the personal data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is subject to technical and organisational measures to ensure that the personal data are not attributed to an identified or identifiable natural person;

“Filing system” means any structured set of personal data which are accessible according to specific criteria, whether centralised, decentralised or dispersed on a functional or geographical basis;

“Controller” means the natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data;

“Processor” means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which processes personal data on behalf of the controller;

“Recipient” means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or another body, to which the personal data are disclosed, whether a third party or not;

“Third party” means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or body other than the data subject, controller, processor and persons who, under the direct authority of the controller or processor, are authorized to process personal data;

“Consent” of the data subject means any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her;

“Personal data breach” means a breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure of, or access to, personal data transmitted, stored or otherwise processed.

 

4.   What personal data we collect

4.1.      CLIENT DATA: If you are a prospective or existing customer, we need to collect and use information about you, or individuals at your organisation, mainly individuals involved in the management and control of the legal entity we expect to or have contracted with.

4.2.      The personal information we hold about you may include the following:

• Basic information: your personal details such as your full name, place and date of birth, nationality, position within the legal entity, contact details, contact details of your emergency contact, permanent address, tax residency information, citizenship; information regarding your status and any dependents or close associates which may be defined as Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs as defined by the Money Laundering Regulation in force).
• Educational profile: background information on you including your educational background, Education details and Employment history.
• Economic profiling: information regarding your economic profile such as financial data including your annual employment income and any other income; your total wealth and source of wealth; expected income from new establishments you have entered into; evidentiary documents to support the above information such as employment contracts; payslips; tax returns; audited financial statements of other ventures you manage or have a share in; loan agreements; inheritance documents or other as appropriate.
• Know-Your-Client documents: Copies of your passport, national identification card, birth certificate, recent utility bills.
• Background checks: Results of background checks performed on you through online search tools or databases we have subscribed with in order to confirm whether you are a PEP or closely related to a PEP; whether you are included in any blacklists or sanctions lists; whether you have any criminal records; results from any credit reference agency search performed.
• Professional references: we obtain from third parties who personally know you such as your bankers or legal advisors or others and further to consent requested from you to obtain such reference letters in order to confirm your identity and permanent address and as part of our due diligence procedures.
• Communications: details of contact we have had with you in relation to the provision, or the proposed provision, of our services; details of any services you have received from us; our correspondence and communications with you, including email correspondence with you; information about any complaints and enquiries you make to us in the ordinary course of business with you; information from research, surveys, and marketing activities; information we receive from other sources, such as publicly available information, information provided by your employer OR our clients.
• Website Customers: We collect a limited amount of data from our Website visitors which we use to help us to improve your experience when using our website and to help us manage the services we provide. This includes information such as how you use our website, the frequency with which you access our website, and the times that our website is most popular.

 

5.   When and how we collect your personal data

5.1.      We obtain personal data about you, for example, when:

• you request a proposal from us in respect of the services we provide (prospective clients);
• we contact you in order to perform client retention procedures and in an attempt to update/validate the personal data we hold on you (existing clients);
• you OR your employer OR our client engages us to provide our services and also during the provision of those services;
• you contact us by email, telephone, post or social media; for example, when you have a query about our services; or
• from third parties and/or publicly available resources; for example, from your employer or from the Registrar of Companies when performing a company search
• you visit our website for example to see details about our team and the services that we provide.

5.2.      The information we collect in the above circumstances is in its majority collected directly from you and through direct correspondence we will have with you. In some cases, we will obtain information from third parties such as reference letters we request from professional intermediaries who are associated with you. We may also receive information from software databases (e.g. Worldcheck, Worldcompliance) or from public sources (e.g. Registrar of Companies).

5.3.      Regarding website users, we collect your data automatically via cookies when you visit our website, in line with cookie settings in your browser.

 

6.   How we use your personal data

6.1.      We will only process your personal data when the Data Protection Legislation allows us to.  Please note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data.

6.2.      Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

a)  Where we need to perform the contract we have entered with you or in order to take certain steps prior to entering into a contract with you.

We may process your personal data for purposes necessary in order to:

• carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between you OR your employer OR our clients and us (which will most usually be for the provision of our services);
• carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between our clients and us (which will most usually be for the provision of our services) where you may be a subcontractor, supplier or customer of our client;

Because we provide a wide range of services to our clients, the way we use personal data in relation to our services also varies. For example, we might use personal data:

• about a client’s employees to help those employees manage their tax affairs when working overseas,
• when we provide accounting, auditing or risk advisory services to our corporate clients,
• when we provide financial advisory services to clients,
• about a client to help him/her complete and submit a tax return,
• about a client’s employee in order to obtain required client identification and due diligence information (e.g. from beneficial owners of the company or from directors and management),
• in order to exchange emails with respect to the services being provided, e.g. to request and receive relevant information and deliver our respective services.

b)  Where we need to comply with a legal obligation

We are required to comply with certain legal and regulatory obligations, as well as certain industry standards, which may involve the processing of personal data. We may, for example, need to carry out identity verifications through our “know-your-client” procedures, set-up anti-money laundering controls and comply with our tax reporting obligations. We may also need to provide information to a public body or law enforcement agency when we are so required, e.g. MOKAS (Unit for Combating Money Laundering in Cyprus) or ICPAC (supervisory authority for regulating the audit and accounting profession in Cyprus).

c)  Where we have appropriate legitimate interests to use your personal data

In some cases, we may process your personal data to pursue business interests of our own or of third parties, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override such interests. This includes processing for marketing, business development, statistical and management purposes.  More specifically, we process your personal data:

• To inform you about changes to our company and/or our services;
• To seek your thoughts and opinions on the services we provide (for internal business purposes);
• provide you with information related to our services and our events and activities that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, provided you have consented to be contacted for such purposes;
• to maintain our accounts and records;
• to enhance the security of our network and information systems;
• to identify, prevent and investigate fraud and other unlawful activities;
• to manage our infrastructure, business operations and comply with internal policies and procedures;
• for financial accounting, invoicing and risk analysis purposes;
• to defend, investigate or prosecute legal claims;
• in order to receive professional advice from our advisors including our lawyers, accountants and consultants.

d)  Where we want to communicate with you marketing material

We may also communicate with you via email to provide you with information you have agreed that we continue to provide you with. If you do not wish to receive alerts from us any more, you can inform us at any time by emailing us at administrator@vgda.com.cy. Such correspondence may be with you or other members of our company and our service providers or competent authorities. 

6.3.      To the extent that we process any sensitive personal data relating to you for any of the purposes outlined above, we will do so because either:

(i)   you have given us your explicit consent to process that data;

(ii)  the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims; or

(iii) you have made the data manifestly public.

6.4.      In some circumstances we may anonymise or pseudonymise the personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use it without further notice to you.

6.5.      If you refuse to provide us with certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you. Alternatively, we may be unable to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations.

6.6.      We may also process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in accordance with this notice, where we are legally required or permitted to do so.

 

7.     Change of purpose

7.1.      Where we need to use your personal data for another reason, other than for the purpose for which we collected it, we will only use your personal data where that reason is compatible with the original purpose.

7.2.      Should it be necessary to use your personal data for a new purpose, we will notify you and communicate the legal basis which allows us to do so before starting any new processing.

 

8.     Data Retention

8.1.      We will not retain your personal data for longer than is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which you provided that personal data, unless the Data Protection Legislation permits or requires that we retain it for longer. The retention period varies depending on the purpose of the processing.

8.2.      When assessing what retention period is appropriate for your personal data, we take into consideration:

• the requirements of our business and the services provided;
• any statutory or legal obligations;
• the purposes for which we originally collected the personal data;
• the lawful grounds on which we based our processing;
• the types of personal data we have collected;
• the amount and categories of your personal data; and
• whether the purpose of the processing could reasonably be fulfilled by other means.

8.3.      If we have not had meaningful contact with you (or, where appropriate, the company you are working for or with) for a period of 7 years, we will delete your personal data from our systems unless we believe in good faith that the Data Protection Legislation or other regulation requires us to preserve it (for example, because of our obligations to the Social Insurance and Tax Authorities or in connection with any anticipated litigation).

 

9.     Who will process your data

Sharing of your personal data within our company (internally)

9.1.      Note that your personal data will be processed by the internal staff of our company who have been specifically trained and authorised for this processing. In carrying out the processing, the data will not be transmitted between companies or with third parties unless in the cases explained further below.

Sharing of your personal data with Third parties (externally)

9.2.      We will share your personal data with third parties where we are required by law, where it is necessary to administer the relationship between us or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

9.3.      We would like to assure you that where your personal data is transmitted to third parties, such third parties have been carefully selected further to adequacy assessments performed in order to evaluate their compliance with GDPR.  These parties have been designated as data processors and carry out their activities according to the instructions given to them by us.

9.4.      All of our third-party service providers are required to take commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect your personal data. We only permit our third-party service providers to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

9.5.      The third parties in question belong to the following categories:  internet providers, our IT and cloud services; companies that carry out marketing activities on our behalf, including social media organisations; companies providing publishing and distribution services; companies that help us with technology services, administration services such as storing and combining data, banking services, and third parties offering professional advisory services.

9.6.      Under some circumstances we may be required to disclose or share your data without your consent, for example if we are required by the police, the courts or for other legal reasons. Your data may be transmitted to the police, judicial and administrative authorities, in accordance with the law, for the investigation and prosecution of crimes, the prevention of and protection from threats to public security, to allow us to ascertain, exercise or defend a right in court, as well as for other reasons related to the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. We may also transfer your personal data to a buyer or potential buyer in the event that our assets are acquired by another organisation. The purchaser will be required by law to use your personal data only as described in this Privacy Policy.

 

10.  Transferring Personal Data outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

10.1.   The GDPR prohibits the transfer of personal information outside the European Economic Area ("EEA") unless specific requirements are met for the protection of that personal information.  We will only carry out such transfers where we are confident that the level of protection applied to your information will be similar as if it had remained within the EEA. For transfers to third parties, such as to our service providers, we rely on approved data transfer method/arrangements to ensure adequacy.  

 

11.  Data Protection

11.1.   We assure you that we will take every reasonable step to maintain appropriate measures and ensure the security, integrity and privacy of the information you have provided to us are adequately safeguarded.

11.2.   We have put in place commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. We also follow the security procedures that applicable privacy laws require. These cover the storing, using and releasing of any information you have provided.  Some examples of such security measures are listed below:

• We use computer safeguards such as passwords, anti-virus, firewalls and data encryption.
• We enforce physical access controls to our buildings and files to keep this data safe.
• We restrict access to our files based on permission rights which would only be granted to employees, contractors and other third parties who need access in order to carry out their job responsibilities. 
• We always ask for some kind of proof of identity before we can share your personal data with you.
• We provide USB devices to our employees which are protected with passwords and are fully encrypted.
• We have backups of all important data we hold on you on our servers and cloud and we have frequent technical maintenance checks of our server and backups as required.
• We have confidentiality clauses in all our contracts with employees, contractors and other third parties and provide them with adequate training and awareness regarding data confidentiality as this is considered to be a vital element of our business and our services.

11.3.   We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected or actual security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of such breach where we are legally required to do so.

11.4.    Links to other websites: Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

  

12.  Your rights to access, correction, erasure, and restriction

12.1.   Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Should your personal information change, please notify us of any changes of which we need to be made aware by contacting us, using the contact details listed in Section 16.

12.2.   Your rights in connection with personal data

The GDPR strongly encourages you to make use of the various rights given to you about the personal data we hold. These rights are listed further below for your consideration:

a)  Request to access

You have the right to request a copy of the data that we hold about you.

b)  Request to correction

You have the right to ask us to correct any inaccuracies in the personal data we hold about you and to stop us using your data until it has been corrected. We want to make sure that your personal data is accurate and up to date and we will be happy to correct or remove data you think is inaccurate.

c)  Right to restriction of processing of your personal data

This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal data about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.

d)  Right to object to processing

You have the right, at any time, to oppose our processing of your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest when there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this basis. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.  

e)  Right to erasure of your personal data

You have the right to request the deletion of your 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 exercised your right to object to processing (see above). After receiving and reviewing your request, if legitimate, it will be our responsibility to promptly cease processing and to delete your personal data.

Note that in some circumstances, deleting your data may limit the service we can continue to provide you with or our ability to fulfil our obligations arising from our contract with you.

f)   Rights to request transfer of your personal data

You have the right to request for the transfer of your personal data to you or another data controller if the processing is based on consent, carried out by automated means and if this is technically feasible.

g)  Right to complain

If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your personal data or any privacy query or request that you have raised with us, you have a right to complain to the Office of the Commissioner for the Protection of Personal Data in Cyprus.

If you would like to be directed to the Office of the Commissioner, please contact us.

 

You can exercise these rights at any time by emailing administrator@vgda.com.cy, or calling +357 22 300900.

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 for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

 

13.  Right to withdraw consent

In certain circumstances, we are required to obtain your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data in relation to certain activities (for example, in relation to direct marketing that you have indicated you would like to receive from us).

In such cases, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please email our Data Protection Point of Contact by using the contact details listed in Section 16. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your personal information (personal data) for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

 

14.  Changes to the Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy may undergo changes and additions from time to time. Where possible we will inform you of any changes, but please check the contents periodically. The date of issue is shown at the beginning of the notice.

 

15.  How to contact us

If you have any questions regarding this notice or if you would like to speak to us about the manner in which we process your personal data, please email our Data Protection Point of Contact. Mr. Antonis Antoniou, at aantoniou@vgda.com.cy or telephone on +357 22 300900. 

16.  Where to make a complaint

If you have a complaint regarding any aspect of your personal data or this privacy policy or if you believe that the processing of your personal data has been carried out unlawfully, please send an email to our Data Protection Point of Contact listed above. If you are still not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint, you may write to the Office of the Commissioner for the Protection of Personal Data at the following address:

1 Iasonos str., 1082 Nicosia
P.O.Box 23378, 1682 Nicosia
Tel: +357 22818456
Fax: +357 22304565
Email: commissionerdataprotection.gov.cy