Hitherbest is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses the personal data of its customers, suppliers and visitors and how it meets its data protection obligations.
This policy document sits alongside a number of other policies, operational procedures and guidance that clearly explain how the company meets its data protection obligations and provides direction to staff and relevant subcontractors regarding steps that they need to take to ensure compliance. These include:
- Privacy Notice (External)
- Data protection policy and privacy notice (Staff)
- Monitoring and Surveillance in the Workplace Policy
- CCTV Data Protection Impact Assessment
- Password Protection Policy
- Password Construction Guidelines
- Patch Management Procedure
Definitions
“Data subject” is any identified or identifiable living individual to whom personal data relates.
"Personal data" is any information that relates to an individual who can be identified from that information.
“Processing” is any use that is made of data, including collecting, storing, amending, disclosing or destroying it.
"Special categories of personal data" means information about an individual's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health, sex life or sexual orientation and biometric data.
Data protection principles
Hitherbest is committed to the principles of the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. These are:
- To process personal data lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner
- To collect personal data only for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes
- To only process personal data that is adequate, relevant and necessary for the purposes of the processing
- To keep accurate personal data and take all reasonable steps to ensure that inaccurate personal data is rectified or deleted without delay
- To keep personal data only for the period necessary for processing
- To adopt appropriate measures to make sure that personal data is secure and protected against unauthorised or unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction or damage
Hitherbest will inform all data subjects (customers, suppliers and visitors) of its reasons for processing their personal data, how it uses the data and the legal basis it relies on for processing in its privacy notices. It will not process the personal data of individuals for other reasons.
Hitherbest does not process any special category data for customers, suppliers and visitors with whom it comes into contact.
Individual rights
Customers, suppliers and visitors have the right to make a subject access request. If they do, Hitherbest will tell them:
- Whether or not their data is processed and if so why, the categories of personal data concerned and the source of the data if it is not collected from them personally
- To whom their data is or may be disclosed, including to recipients located outside the European Economic Area (EEA), and the safeguards that apply to such transfers
- For how long their personal data is stored (or how that period is decided)
- Their rights to rectification or erasure of data, or to restrict or object to processing
- Their right to complain to the Information Commissioner if they think the company has failed to comply with their data protection rights, and
- Whether or not the company carries out automated decision-making and the logic involved in any such decision-making.
Hitherbest will also provide them with a copy of the personal data undergoing processing. This will normally be in electronic form if the data subject has made a request electronically unless they agree otherwise.
If a data subject wants additional copies, Hitherbest will charge a fee, which will be based on the administrative cost to the company of providing these additional copies.
Subject Access Requests should be submitted to the Managing Director. In some cases, the company may need to ask for proof of identification before the request can be processed.
Hitherbest will normally respond to a subject access request within a period of one month from the date it is received. In some cases, such as where the company processes a large amount of the individual's data, it may respond within three months of the date the request is received. Hitherbest will write to the data subject within one month of receiving the original request to tell them if this is the case.
If a subject access request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, Hitherbest is not obliged to comply with it. Alternatively, the company can agree to respond but will charge a fee, which will be based on the administrative cost of responding to the request. A subject access request is likely to be manifestly unfounded or excessive where it repeats a request to which the company has already responded. If a data subject submits a request that is unfounded or excessive, the company will notify them that this is the case and whether or not it will respond to it.
Data subjects have a number of other rights in relation to their personal data. They can require Hitherbest to:
- Rectify inaccurate data
- Stop processing or erase data that is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing
- Stop processing or erase data if the data subject’s interests override the company's legitimate grounds for processing data (where the company relies on its legitimate interests as a reason for processing data)
- Stop processing or erase data if processing is unlawful, and
- Stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or if there is a dispute about whether or not the data subject's interests override the company's legitimate grounds for processing data.
To ask the company to take any of these steps, the data subject should contact the Managing Director.
Data security
Hitherbest takes the security of all of the personal data that it holds seriously. The company has controls in place to protect personal data against loss, accidental destruction, misuse or disclosure, and to ensure that data is not accessed, except by employees or trusted third parties with whom it has a contractual relationship in the proper performance of their duties.
Where Hitherbest uses third parties to process personal data on its behalf, such parties do so on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data.
Data Impact Assessments
Some of the processing that Hitherbest carries out may result in risks to the privacy of data subjects (for example, CCTV monitoring in the workplace). In these instances, the company will carry out a data protection impact assessment to determine the necessity and proportionality of processing. This will include considering the purposes for which the activity is carried out, the risks for individuals and the measures put in place to mitigate those risks.
Data breaches
If Hitherbest discovers that there has been a breach of personal data that poses a risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals, it will report it to the Information Commissioner within 72 hours of discovery. The company will record all data breaches regardless of their effect.
If the breach is likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals, it will tell affected individuals that there has been a breach and provide them with information about its likely consequences and the mitigation measures it has taken.
International data transfers
Hitherbest will not ordinarily transfer personal data to countries outside the EEA.
However, the Hitherbest website is hosted by Webflow which is based in the United States of America. Webflow is certified to the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (UK Extension) under Article 45 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which means that UK businesses can lawfully transfer personal data (e.g. IP addresses) to this organisation because it complies with relevant data protection requirements.
Responsibilities of data subjects
Data subjects with whom Hitherbest has a business relationship are asked to help the company to keep their personal data up to date. They should let the company know if data they have been asked to provide to the company changes, for example their contact or bank details (sole traders).
