Member privacy notice

ICAEW is the controller for the Personal Data collected from website visitors and individuals who download data via OneDrive unless this is stated otherwise. ICAEW is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) with registration number (Z5765897). In this privacy notice, references to ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’ mean ICAEW. You can contact ICAEW in a number of ways as follows:

• Email: dataprotection@icaew.com
• Post: The Data Protection Office, ICAEW, Metropolitan House, 321 Avebury Boulevard, Milton Keynes, MK9 2FZ UK
• Telephone: +44 (0)1908 248 250

Personal Data is any information which directly or indirectly identifies an individual, for example, your name, address, membership and/or member number, NI number, qualifications, date of birth, photos, videos or voice recordings.

Special categories of Personal Data are a set of Personal Data that we are required to look after even more carefully. Special categories of Personal Data include details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data. In limited circumstances, we collect special categories of Personal Data about you through the application process, for example, we may collect details of your health data to ensure that we can make reasonable adjustments for you.

There are also strict rules which govern when we can collect and use information about criminal convictions and offences.  We may need to collect and use this type of information about you for legal or regulatory purposes, for example where we are required to assess fitness for admission into membership.

We collect Personal Data about you when you give us Personal Data in direct interactions with us during your time as an ICAEW member, for example by completing the registration process, attending courses and webinars, or through correspondence in supporting you and resolving any enquiries. This includes:

Some of the Personal Data we process is mandatory, meaning that if you do not provide it to us, we will be unable to provide some or all member services to you.  We will let you know when this is the case.

Processing Personal Data from members allows us to administer and manage the process of registering as a member, studying and taking exams with us. In order to comply with Personal Data protection laws, we need a lawful basis (a reason) to process your Personal Data. We use the following lawful bases to obtain and use your Personal Data.

1. Performance of a Contract – We need to process your Personal Data to take steps at your request, prior to entering into a contract with you and for the performance of our contract with you as an ICAEW member.
2. Consent – Some Personal Data is processed because you have given your consent. Consent can be withdrawn at any time by either logging into your online member account and amending your preferences or by contacting us at dataprotection@icaew.com.
3. Legal or Regulatory Obligation – In some cases, we need to process Personal Data to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation which we are subject to.
4. Public Interest – Where processing the personal data is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority.
5. Legitimate Interest – Where processing the Personal Data is in our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) provided that your fundamental rights do not override such interests. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process Personal Data for our legitimate interests.

The table below describes the ways in which we use your Personal Data and the legal bases we rely on to do so. Where appropriate we have also set out our legitimate interests in processing your Personal Data.

Where the information we process is special category or sensitive data such as your health data, the additional bases for processing that we rely on are

1. Where you have provided ICAEW with your explicit consent to the processing
2. Where processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
3. Where processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest,

We keep Personal Data that we obtain about you during your time as an ICAEW member for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed. How long we keep your Personal Data will depend on how long you remain a member, the nature of the Personal Data concerned and the purposes for which it is processed.

No automated decision making is used in relation to members.

ICAEW may share your Personal Data with third-parties where we have a legal obligation, contract or other legitimate interest to do so. These services include, but are not limited to:

1. Payment providers;
2. Business system providers;
3. Website content and hosting providers, including analytics;
4. Building landlords and facilities management organisations (CCTV and access control systems);
5. We may share your Personal Data with member societies for event purposes or to allow such societies to communicate with you, where you have provided consent;
6. Criminal convictions: If you disclose a criminal conviction, this will be shared with ICAEW's internal professional conduct team and depending on the circumstances may also be shared with third parties such as regulators or other professional bodies;
7. Chartered Accountants Benevolent Association (caba) in order for caba to be able to provide services to you;
8. Regulators and other professional bodies as we are obligated to do so as a Regulatory Function for example, where a member moves jurisdiction and we are required to advise whether said member is fit and proper;
9. Third party content sponsors, in order to assist them in delivering an event that you have registered to attend or where they are providing content so that they can send you relevant information that may be of interest to you. If you have signed up using a personal email address, your information will only be shared with third party content sponsors for marketing purposes if you have provided your consent. All members can opt-out of their data being shared for marketing purposes at any time;
10. Third parties who may provide member benefits to you;
11. Credit reference agencies;
12. Your Employer –
    1. If you have an ICAEW Audit Qualification, to ensure that your employer is aware of your qualification. This helps employers to identify individuals who can act as approvers of students’ audit experience in order for them to apply for the ICAEW Audit Qualification;
    2. If your employer pays for your membership fees, to ensure that these are invoiced correctly;
    3. Where member personal data is shared to comply with Continuous Professional Development (CPD) regulations; and
13. We also occasionally work with external organisations to carry out market research about ICAEW or for topics of public interest. We may share your email address with these organisations so that they can contact you directly and carry out this research independently from ICAEW. We only use organisations that adhere to the Market Research Society code of practice.

Your Personal Data may be transferred to other third-party organisations in certain scenarios:

1. If we are discussing a merger or acquisition, Personal Data may be transferred to respective third parties under suitable terms as to confidentiality;
2. If we are reorganised or sold, Personal Data may be transferred to a buyer who can continue to provide services to you;
3. If we are required to by law, or under any regulatory code or practice we follow, or if we are asked by any public or regulatory authority, for example the Police, we may need to share your Personal Data; or
4. If we are investigating or defending any legal claims your Personal Data may be transferred as required in connection with defending such investigations and/or claims.

In some cases, we or our suppliers may need to process Personal Data outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and/or United Kingdom (UK). Where this is the case we will only share the minimal amount of Personal Data necessary for the purpose of processing and, where possible, we will share the Personal Data in an anonymised form.

Whenever we transfer your Personal Data out of the UK, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

1. we will only transfer your Personal Data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for Personal Data by the UK;
2. where we use certain processors, we may use specific contracts approved by the UK which give Personal Data the same protection it has within the UK. When we rely on this measure we will ensure that the third-party can comply with the provision of such contracts and we have confirmed that the country to which the Personal Data is transferred has adequate data protection laws in place to protect Personal Data.

Please contact us at dataprotection@icaew.com if you would like further information about the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your Personal Data.

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent Personal Data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your Personal Data to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your Personal Data will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

1. Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your Personal Data.
2. Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to rectify Personal Data you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete Personal Data you think is incomplete.
3. Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your Personal Data in certain circumstances.
4. Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your Personal Data in certain circumstances.
5. Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your Personal Data in certain circumstances.
6. Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the Personal Data you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
7. Rights related to automated decision making, including profiling -You have the right not to be subjected to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) which may significantly affect you. We do not make any employment decisions, solely using automated decision making technologies.

In most cases we will deal with your request as soon as possible and at the latest within one calendar month of the request. If we need to extend the time period for responding to your request, we will let you know within the one-month period. We do not charge a fee for any such requests, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

If you wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact our Data Protection Office via email using dataprotection@icaew.com

If you have any concerns about the Personal Data we use about you, you have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues, by contacting them at www.ico.org.uk. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please feel free to contact us in the first instance via email using dataprotection@icaew.com.