The responsible collection and use of personal data
Your confidence in our website, our security and how we conduct business is really important to us. The following information is intended to explain the lengths we go to in order to protect your information and why.
Terms and conditions
1 – Introduction
Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance (formerly IFC Group) is part of Kiwa UK Group (“IFC”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) constituting International Fire Consultants Ltd (IFC) and IFC Certification Ltd (IFCC) is strongly committed to protecting personal data. This privacy statement describes why and how we collect and use personal data and provides information about individuals’ rights. It applies to personal data provided to us, both by individuals themselves or by others. We may use personal data provided to us for any of the purposes described in this privacy statement or as otherwise stated at the point of collection.
Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable living person. IFC Group processes personal data for numerous purposes, and the means of collection, lawful basis of processing, use, disclosure, and retention periods for each purpose may differ.
When collecting and using personal data, our policy is to be transparent about why and how we process personal data.
2 – What data do we collect
As a B2B operation we only require basic personal data from individuals working for or with client companies. This is limited to name, title, address, contact number, contact email, company. In circumstances where upon invoice, personal financial details are provided by you to us, we will also store these details.
We will use any data associated with your record, for example the type of service you received, any reasons for wanting that service, the value of the service and the success of that service, for internal processing (business analysis) and improving of our service offers.
3 – Security – how do we protect your data
4 – The legal basis
Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance is predominantly a Business-to-business (B2B) operation. In order to operate its business model Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance needs to collect and store data of employees and affiliates of its business partners and clients. Its legal basis for collecting and processing this data is:
4.1. Consent: Under certain circumstances, we may collect and process your data with your consent. Consent options will be made clear and for what purpose we are collecting and processing that data, for example, by opting-in to receive fire safety insights and newsletters.
4.2. Contractual obligations: Due to the nature and importance of Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance’s work in life safety, we require personal data from individuals and companies to achieve contractual obligations and regulatory compliance. For example, we require a formal contact name and address to provide work quotations, communication, invoices and reports.
4.3. Legal compliance: If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data. For example, we can pass on details of people involved in fraud or other criminal activity affecting the Group to law enforcement.
4.4. Legitimate interest: we will often require your basic data to enable operations critical to our business, in following our quality management system, and to allow us to send limited communications relevant to your interests with us. Personal data processed under the legal basis of legitimate business interests will not materially impact your rights, freedoms or interests.
5 – Why do we process personal data?
As a responsible business operating to the UKAS accredited ISO 9001 Quality Management System model, we require certain limited personal data from employees of our client businesses to enable us to:
- Perform our services
- Meet our accredited service requirements
- Effectively control QMS documentation
- Meet relevant statutory requirements relating to our services
- Request feedback that enables us to better improve our services
Data we use to make internal analysis, such as KPIs, financial forecasting, is only associated with company accounts as opposed to personal data files.
6 – When and how we process personal data
We may collect personal data when:
- You visit any of our websites
- You contact anyone within Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance
- You engage with us on social media
- You freely provide your information to us at events, exhibitions, training, networking or any other event type
- You enter your details into a prize draw hosted by Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance
- You provide feedback, complete Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance forms or any other document request for the purposes of improvement of services by any Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance company
- You have given third party permission to share personal data about you
- You allow publicly available sources to share your data, and where your data is made publicly accessible by law
- When you visit our sites where CCTV recordings will store visuals of you. Such imagery is not stored with any other identifying data.
We will only share personal data with selected parties when we are legally permitted to do so, for example with partner firms requiring such information during construction projects. When we share data with others, we put contractual arrangements and security mechanisms in place to protect the data and to comply with our data protection, confidentiality and security standards.
7 – Locations of processing
We are part of a global network of companies and in common with other professional service providers, we use third parties located in other countries to help us run our business. As a result, personal data may be transferred outside the countries where we and our clients are located. This includes countries in the European Union (“EU”) governed by the EU GDPR, and to countries that do not have laws that provide specific protection for personal data. We have taken steps to ensure all personal data is provided with adequate protection and that all transfers of personal data outside the UK are done lawfully. Where we transfer personal data outside of the UK to a country not determined by the UK or European Commission as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data, the transfers will be under an agreement which covers the UK requirements for the transfer of personal data outside the UK, such as the European Commission approved standard contractual clauses. The European Commission approved standard contractual clauses are available https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/international-dimension-data-protection/standard-contractual-clauses-scc_en.
Personal data held by us may be temporarily accessed by the following under controlled conditions:
7.1. Other Kiwa Companies
We may share personal data with other Kiwa companies where necessary for administrative purposes and to provide professional services to our clients (e.g. when providing services involving advice from Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance Companies in different territories). Our business contacts are visible to and used by Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance users from other Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance companies.
7.2. Third party organisations that provide business critical applications/functionality, data processing or IT services to us
We employ third parties to support us in providing standard business operations and in support of our services, including the provision of managing our internal IT systems. For example, providers of information technology infrastructure, server based software service providers, website hosting and management, security and storage services. The servers powering and facilitating that infrastructure are securely located, and any third parties requiring access to our infrastructure where personal data is located are bound by GDPR and Data Protection Agreements.
7.3. Third party organisations that otherwise assist us in providing goods, services or information.
7.4. Auditors and other professional advisers.
7.5. Law enforcement or other government and regulatory agencies or to other third parties as required by, and in accordance with, applicable law or regulation.
8 – Changes to this privacy statement
We recognise that transparency is an ongoing responsibility so we will keep this privacy statement under regular review.
This privacy statement was updated on 2nd July 2022.
9 – Data controller and contact information
The data controller is Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance with its registration address at Kiwa House, Malvern View Business Park, Stella Way, Bishops Cleeve, Cheltenham, GL52 7DQ United Kingdom and any other IFC Group companies that is a contracting party for the purposes of providing or receiving services.
If you have any questions about this privacy statement or how and why we process personal data, please contact us at:
Data Protection Officer/Compliance Director
Ground Floor, Suite A, Building 2
Bear Brook Office Park
Walton Street
Aylesbury
Buckinghamshire
HP21 7GQ
United Kingdom
Email: uk.ifccinfo@kiwa.com
Phone: +44 (0) 1844 275500
10 – Individuals’ rights and how to exercise them
Individuals have certain rights over their personal data and data controllers are responsible for fulfilling these rights.
10.1. Access to personal data. You have a right of access to personal data held by us as a data controller. This right may be exercised by emailing us at uk.ifccinfo@kiwa.com. We will aim to respond to any requests for information promptly, and in any event within the legally required time limits (currently 40 days).
10.2. Amendment of personal data. To update personal data submitted to us, you may email us at uk.firesafety@kiwa.com or, where appropriate, contact us via the relevant website registration page or by amending the personal details held on relevant applications with which you registered. When practically possible, once we are informed that any personal data processed by us is no longer accurate, we will make corrections (where appropriate) based on your updated information.
10.3. Withdrawal of consent. Where we process personal data based on consent, individuals have a right to withdraw consent at any time. To withdraw consent to our processing of your personal data please email us at uk.firesafety@kiwa.com or, to stop receiving an email from an Kiwa Fire Safety Compliance marketing list, please click on the unsubscribe link in the relevant email received from us.
10.4. Other data subject rights. This privacy statement is intended to provide information about what personal data we collect about you and how it is used. As well as rights of access and amendment referred to above, individuals may have other rights in relation to the personal data we hold, such as a right to erasure/deletion, to restrict or object to our processing of personal data and the right to data portability. Some of these rights will only be available from 25 May 2018.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please send an email to uk.firesafety@kiwa.com
In cases where we are processing your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you can ask us to stop for reasons connected to your individual situation. We must then do so unless we believe we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue processing your personal data – for example to allow us to deliver our services compliantly with legislation.
11 – Complaints
We hope that you won’t ever need to, but if you do want to complain about our use of personal data, please send an email with the details of your complaint to permissions@ifcgroup.com. As a responsible company we will look into and respond to any complaints we receive.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) (the UK data protection regulator). For further information on your rights and how to complain to the ICO, please refer to the ICO website (https://ico.org.uk/concerns).
