Welcome to Bidwells LLP's privacy notice
Introduction
Bidwells respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information. This privacy notice will let you know how we look after your personal information generally as well as when you visit our website and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
You can download a pdf version of the policy here.
This privacy notice aims to give you information on how Bidwells LLP collects and processes your personal data. It is intended to cover all of your rights and information required under data laws including the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the UK Data Protection Act 2018. We may need to update the information from time to time.
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.
Who are we?
Bidwells LLP is the Data Controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as "Bidwells" "we", "us" or "our" in this privacy notice).
What data do we collect about you?
The table below explains what we use (process) your personal data for and our reasons for doing so:
Who do we share your personal data with?
Your personal data may be accessed by and shared with all members of the Bidwells group of companies ( Copewell Ltd and Creative Places LLP) who are all committed to complying with the terms of this privacy notice.
We may need to share your details with others in order to perform our services to you. For example, we may need to deal with professional advisers, agents, brokers, lenders, credit reference agencies, tenants’ vetting companies, electronic search providers, maintenance contractors and other parties on your behalf and in connection with our services, depending on the nature of the services you would like us to deliver.
A number of third party service providers are engaged by Bidwells to assist in the operation of our business and the running and maintenance of our systems e.g. website suppliers, case management system providers etc.
When we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal data that is necessary to deliver the service. We ensure we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own purposes.
We may share your personal data with prospective buyers of our business under our legitimate interest to ensure our business can be continued by the buyer.
We may release your personal data to third parties beyond the above only if we are required to do so by law (e.g. by a court order), in connection with the prevention of fraud or other crime or to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
How do we protect the personal data you provide to us?
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instruction and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.
Where your personal data is held
We use your personal information under the legitimate interest basis for using and processing. Legitimate Interest may be used as a basis for processing when we have a business or commercial reason to process your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.
Recording of calls is necessary to protect the interests of you, our staff or both.
You may request that your call isn't recorded. In this situation, you'll normally be advised to contact us either in writing or by email.
When we use and process your personal information for our legitimate interest, we will consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights under data protection and any other relevant laws. Our legitimate business interests do not automatically override your interests – we will not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your valid consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
The table below explains what we use (process) your personal information for and our reasons for doing so:
We do not collect, use or process special category personal information, such as racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, genetic and biometric data, data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation.
Who do we share your personal information with?
Your data may be accessed by and shared with all members of the Bidwells group of companies who are all committed to complying with the terms of this privacy notice.
We may need to share your details with others in order to perform our services to you. For example, we may need to deal with professional advisers, agents, brokers, lenders, credit reference agencies, tenants’ vetting companies, electronic search providers, maintenance contractors and other parties on your behalf and in connection with our services, depending on the nature of the services you would like us to deliver.
A number of third party service providers are engaged by Bidwells to assist in the operation of our business and the running and maintenance of our systems e.g. website suppliers, case management system providers etc. All third party service providers are subject to a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) in order that we may independently assess their information security processes. When we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service. We ensure we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own purposes.
We may share aggregated data with service providers who provide us with reports on industry trends and other information to assist us in supplying our services to our clients.
We may release your information to third parties beyond the above only if we are required to do so by law (e.g. by a court order), in connection with the prevention of fraud or other crime or to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
How your personal information is collected?
We collect most of this personal information directly from you — in person, by telephone, text or email and/or via our website. However, we may on rare occasions also collect information from publicly accessible sources, e.g. Companies House or HM Land Registry.
We may also collect information from other publicly accessible sources such as:
- directly from a third party, e.g.:
- sanctions screening providers;
- credit reference agencies;
- customer due diligence providers;
- from cookies on our website — for more information on our use of cookies, please see our cookies policy
How can you opt out of direct marketing?
You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by:
- following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you
- contacting us at any time at the details or below or via gdprinfo@bidwells.co.uk
- amending your preferences via our Preference Centre here
- telephoning us as described above.
Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of the provision of our services or other transactions with us.
How do we protect the personal information you provide to us?
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.
Where your personal information is held?
Personal data may be held at our offices and those of our third-party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see above: ‘Who do we share your personal information with?’).
We store your personal data on our servers and third-party servers which are based both in the UK and outside of the UK.
When working with third parties we may need to transfer your personal data outside of the UK and / or EU.
Whenever we transfer your personal data outside of the UK and the EU, we ensure it receives additional protection as required by law. To keep this policy as short and easy to understand as possible, we haven’t set out the specific circumstances when each of these protection measures are used. You can contact us at gdprinfo@bidwells.co.uk for more detail on this.
How long will you keep my personal data?
We will not keep your personal data in a form that allows you to be identified for any longer than is reasonably necessary for achieving the permitted purposes. This means that personal data will be destroyed or erased from our systems or anonymised when it has reached the applicable retention period.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
By law we have to keep certain basic information about our clients for at least fifteen years after they cease being clients.
What happens to your personal data on a change of control of our business?
In the event of a business change in control resulting from, for example, a sale to, or merger with, another entity, we may transfer your personal data to the new party in control. The recipient of the personal data will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
Your rights
You have various rights under data protections laws, which you can exercise free of charge. Please keep in mind that privacy law is complicated, and these rights will not always be available to you all of the time.
For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the GDPR.
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:
Email, call or write to us using the contact details below; and
- let us have enough information to identify you (we may need to have proof of your identity); and
- let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.
How to complain
We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you may raise about our use of your personal data.
The GDPR also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The supervisory authority in the UK is the ICO who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns or telephone: 0303 123 1113.
We may change this privacy policy from time to time —when we do, we will inform you via email and/or by updating the version of the privacy policy on our website at www.bidwells.co.uk
How to contact us
Please contact us by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you.
Our contact details are shown below:
Bidwell House, Trumpington Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. CB2 9LD
01223 841841
UPDATED: May 2023