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Equal Assurance is committed to maintaining the privacy of the individuals with whom we work, or come in contact with during our work. We are committed to continued compliance with international principles for privacy, and enforce our policies, procedures and compliance with our practices and partners as applicable.
This Policy has been prepared to explain to clients the key principles that affect their privacy, and to prompt them to advise us, if they wish to be treated differently than as presented below.
Why do we collect personal information?
We may need to collect personal information about clients to understand and meet their needs, to conduct our activities, and meet statutory and regulatory obligations.
What kind of personal information do we collect?
During the provision of our services we may need to record the following personal information:
- Individual official and preferred names, titles, awards, private and business address details, telephone and facsimile contact details both private and business, e-mail addresses, date of birth, gender.
- Individuals qualifications, education and academic history, work experience and skills, occupation, employer information, insurance details, areas of practice, areas of interest, details of disciplinary action.
- Individuals membership of technical societies, colleges, registers and interest groups.
- Financial details including credit card numbers, bank account information, financial status.
- Audit, review and evaluation records created when a person applies for services.
- Curriculum Vitae (CVs), degrees, letter of references, police records, bankruptcy records, legal records about individuals or the companies they are or were associated with.
- Other information and documents that may be of relevance to our activities.
How we collect your personal information
We collect personal information direct from you. For example, information may be collected direct from you when you deal with us personally, in face-to-face meetings, over the telephone, send correspondence, or visit the web site. Information is collected from you when you apply for or are provided with our audit, assurance and certification services. There may also be occasions when a third party provides information about you, such as when we do a reference check or when a complaint is made against you.
How we use your personal information
We will use personal information we collect for the primary purpose for which it is collected and for such other secondary purposes that are related to the primary purpose and are reasonably expected, or for which consent has been given. We may use your personal information for purposes related or ancillary to the main reason we collect it, such as:
- Internal accounting and administration.
- Regulatory reporting and compliance.
- Helping us to identify and inform you about other services that may be of benefit to you.
In the event of a complaint against you we use personal information provided to us to investigate the complaint.
Disclosure of your personal information
We may disclose personal information, including sensitive information, held about an individual to a review committee/ board/council or panel established as part of our professional services to assess an application, file, appeal, document or disciplinary action. We may contract out some of our functions and activities. We may also provide names and addresses to a mailing house to mail information to you. In these situations, we prohibit the third parties from using personal information about you except for the specific purpose for which we supply it. We make certain registers and lists publicly available, such as our certified client list. We treat all personal information held about you as confidential. This applies except where disclosure of your personal information is compelled by law, in the public interest, or with your consent. In the event of a complaint, disclosure of personal information is restricted. We do not sell, or provide our databases, mailing lists or other list to any third party not involved in our processes.
Accuracy of your personal information
If we have accurate personal information about you, it enables us to provide you with the best possible service. We take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date whenever we collect or use it. If you find that current personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date please contact us immediately.
Access to your personal information
On written request, we provide you with information about you which is readily accessible and which may lawfully be provided. Your request to provide information will be dealt with in a reasonable time and we may charge you an administration fee for retrieving and sending the information to you.
Security of your personal information
We protect any personal information that we hold about you from misuse and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. Our people, practices and partners are responsible for handling personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Your personal information may be stored as electronic data, or in our software or systems. We maintain security over our electronic data stores. We also maintain computer and network security. If we no longer require your personal information, we will take reasonable steps to destroy it or permanently de-identify or reduce access to the personal information.
Cookies and Analytics
As part of the functioning of the Equal Assurance website and the Qdos web app, we collect some information from your browser to assist in the functioning of these web pages. Additionally, some anonymised data is captured by Google Analytics to help us improve our services. Continued usage of these websites constitutes acceptance of these terms.
Who to raise your concerns with
If you believe that the privacy of your personal information has been compromised, you are entitled to complain. If you have a complaint or concerns please raise them by visiting the “contact us” page on this website. Your written complaint must include a return email address, so we can get back to you.
Your consent
If you have not already done so, please tell us if you do not wish us to disclose your personnel details in the manner and to the extent outlined in this Policy.