This is the Client Privacy Notice of Ecological Survey & Assessment Limited (ECOSA Limited), Companies House no. 06129868, registered at 3 - 4 Eastwood Court, Broadwater Road, Romsey, Hampshire SO51 8JJ. ECOSA Limited are registered as data controllers with the Information Commissioner for the United Kingdom.
When you use our services, you trust us with your personal information. This Privacy Notice is meant to help you understand what personal data we collect, why we collect it, what we do with it, how we keep your personal data safe, and your individual rights over your personal data.
We are strongly committed towards the privacy of sensitive information, acting transparently and meeting our obligations in respect of data protection. Whenever you provide personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this Privacy Notice, relevant legislation and best practice.
We hope the following sections will answer any questions you have but if not, please do get in touch with us.
We may collect personal information about you in a variety of ways, such as through telephone conversations, email correspondence or via the website for operational use. Please see our Privacy and Cookies Policy for details pertaining to personal data collected via our website.
We may collect and process the following information while working with our clients:
ECOSA does not collect or process special categories of personal data i.e. particularly sensitive information about its clients at any point, such as ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religious and/or political beliefs.
ECOSA needs to process personal data to communicate with potential clients, or to enter into a contract with its clients as part of formal instruction to proceed with our services, and to meet our obligations under this contract to deliver those services. For example, we may need to provide you with an appropriate fee proposal and our Terms and Conditions; contact you about the progress of your project and make suitable recommendations; or use your data for accounting purposes.
In some cases, the Company needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations, such as to comply with health and safety laws. In other cases, the Company has a legitimate interest in processing client data before, during and after the end of the contracting relationship.
Processing client data allows the Company to:
Where the Company relies on legitimate interests as a reason for processing data, it has considered whether or not those interests are overridden by the rights and freedoms of clients and has concluded that they are not.
For ECOSA to deliver its services to you, you are required to enter into a contract with us. You have some obligations under your contractual agreement with ECOSA to provide us with certain data.
You are required to provide relevant and accurate contact details for us to enter into a contract with you, as well as invoicing details for operational use. If you do not provide this information, this will hinder the Company’s ability to administer any rights and obligations arising as a result of the Company/client relationship.
It is in your best interests to provide all relevant information pertaining to the project which is likely to affect the proposed development works and the project outcome. Failing to provide this data may mean that we are unable to fulfil our contractual obligations to you.
Where personal data is required for specific operational purposes, such as in support of an application for a Natural England European Protected Species Mitigation (EPSM) licence where a named licensee is required, we will request your consent.
We disclose client data for the purposes of operational use with ECOSA employees, including the Directors, the Company Manager, the assigned project manager, the technical and administration teams and the Finance Officer (for invoicing and/or debt collection purposes).
If necessary, the Company will share your data with third parties such as solicitors and Courts for the purposes of debt collection, or with third parties that process data on our behalf, such as for the purposes of end of year accounting.
We will never sell your details to a third party or transfer your data to countries outside the European Economic Area.
ECOSA takes the security of your data very seriously. The Company has internal policies and controls in place to ensure as is reasonably practicable that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed to irrelevant third parties, and that your data is only accessed and used by ECOSA employees in the performance of their duties. Electronic client data is stored securely via a secure server and password protected systems. Hardcopy information is locked away when not in operational use. Data is subject to restricted access as appropriate.
Where the Company engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf in the course of its business operations, such parties do so on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate measures to ensure the security of data held.
ECOSA will hold your personal data for the duration of your contract with us. The period for which your data is held after the end of the contract is six years from the last action of the contract. Six years is considered an adequate time period to store client data related to past projects given the long-term nature of planning applications (the majority of planning applications need to be implemented within three years) and the monitoring requirements of Natural England European Protected Species (EPS) Licences (this can be up to ten years depending of the value and status of the protected species supported by the site).
As a data subject, you have rights over your personal data collected by us.
You can:
We can provide details of personal data we hold about you on receipt of a written request, verification of your identity and payment of a fee of £10.00 (by cheque or BACS transfer only).
If you would like to exercise any of the above rights, please put your request in writing via email to admin@ecosa.co.uk or write to us at:
Ecological Survey & Assessment Limited (ECOSA), Ten Hogs House, Manor Farm Offices, Flexford Road, North Baddesley, Hampshire SO52 9DF
If you believe that the Company has failed to produce a satisfactory response and has not complied with your data protection rights, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner. For more advice and information you can visit https://ico.org.uk/concerns/.
We may modify our Client Privacy Notice from time to time at our sole discretion; if so, we will post a revised version on this webpage. We urge you to check this webpage regularly to obtain the most up to date copy. Modifications will be effective as soon as they are posted on this website.
If you have any comments or queries in connection with our Client Privacy Notice, please email admin@ecosa.co.uk or write to:
Ecological Survey & Assessment Limited (ECOSA), Ten Hogs House, Manor Farm Offices, Flexford Road, North Baddesley, Hampshire SO52 9DF
May 2018
