Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is for the web address: www.alanbec.com

Alan Bec T/A Balance Consulting understands that your privacy is important to you and that you care about how your personal data is used. We respect and value the privacy of everyone who visits this website (www.alanbec.com) and will only collect and use personal data in ways that are described here and in a way that is consistent with our obligations and your rights under the law.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully and ensure that you understand it. Your acceptance of this Privacy Policy is deemed to occur upon your first use of Our Site. If you do not accept and agree with this Privacy Policy, you must stop using Our Site immediately.

1.  Definitions and Interpretation

In this Policy, the following terms shall have the following meanings: 

  • “Account” means an account required to access and/or use certain areas and features of Our Site;
  • “Cookie” means a small text file placed on your computer or device by Our Site when you visit certain parts of our site and/or use certain features. Details of the Cookies used by our site are set out in Part 14 below; and
  • “Cookie Law” means the relevant parts of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003;

2.  Information About Us

Our site is owned and operated by Alan Bec T/A Balance Consulting. Registered address: 2nd Floor, 5 High St, Westbury on Trym, Bristol, BS9 3BY

Data Protection Officer: Email address: dataprotectionofficer@alanbec.com

Telephone number: 07949 058 945

3.  What Does This Policy Cover?

This Privacy Policy applies only to your use of our site. Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.) such as www.YouTube to view A’lans TEDx Talk. Embedded content from other websites behaves exactly as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

4.  What is Personal Data?

Personal data is defined by the General Data Protection Regulation (EU Regulation 2016/679) (the “GDPR”) as ‘any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified in particular by reference to an identifier’.

Personal data is, in simpler terms, any information about you that enables you to be identified. Personal data covers obvious information, such as your name and contact details, but it also covers less obvious information, such as identification numbers, electronic location data, and other online identifiers.

5.  What Are My Rights?

Under the GDPR, you have the following rights, which we will always work to uphold:

  1. The right to be informed about our collection and use of your personal data. This Privacy Policy should tell you everything you need to know, but you can always contact us to find out more or to ask any questions using the details in Part 15.
  2. The right to access the personal data we hold about you. Part 13 will tell you how to do this.
  3. The right to have your personal data rectified if any of your personal data held by us is inaccurate or incomplete. Please contact us using the details in Part 15 to find out more.
  4. The right to be forgotten, i.e. the right to ask us to delete or otherwise dispose of any of your personal data that we have. Please contact us using the details in Part 15 to find out more.
  5. The right to restrict (i.e. prevent) the processing of your personal data.
  6. The right to object to us using your personal data for a particular purpose or purposes.
  7. The right to data portability. This means that if you have provided personal data to us directly, we are using it with your consent or for the performance of a contract and that data is processed using automated means, and you can ask us for a copy of that personal data to re-use with another service or business in many cases.
  8. Rights relating to automated decision-making and profiling. We do not use your personal data in this way.

For more information about our use of your personal data or exercising your rights as outlined above, please contact us using the details provided in Part 15.

Further information about your rights can be obtained from the Information Commissioner’s Office or your local Citizens Advice Bureau.

If you have any cause for complaint about our use of your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

6.  What Data Do We Collect?

Depending upon your use of our site, we may collect some or all of the following personal and non-personal data (please also see Part 14 on our use of Cookies and similar technologies)

  • Name; 
  • Date of birth;
  • Gender;
  • Address;
  • Email address;
  • Telephone number;
  • Business name;
  • Job title;
  • Profession;
  • Payment information
  • IP address;
  • Web browser type and version;
  • Operating system;
  • A list of URLs you visit, starting with a referring site and then your activity on our site.

7.  How Do You Use My Personal Data?

Under the GDPR, we must always have a lawful basis for using personal data. This may be because the data is necessary for our performance of a contract with you, because you have consented to our use of your personal data, or because it is in our legitimate business interests to use it. Your personal data will be used for the following purposes:

  • Providing and managing your Account;
  • Providing and managing your access to our site;
  • Personalising and tailoring your experience on our site;
  • Supplying our products and services to you. Your personal details are required in order for us to enter into a contract with you.
  • Personalising and tailoring our products and services for you.
  • Communicating with you. This may include responding to emails or calls from you.
  • Supplying you with information by email and/or post you have opted-in to. For example: You may unsubscribe from the Mailchimp list if we use it or opt-out at any time by sending an email to dataprotectionofficer@alanbec.com
  • Analysing your use of our site and gathering feedback enables us to improve our site and your user experience continually.

With your permission and/or where permitted by law, we may also use your personal data for marketing purposes, which may include contacting you by email, telephone, text message, and post with information, news, and offers on our products and services. You will not be sent any unlawful marketing or spam. If you are an existing customer, we will contact you by phone, e-mail or SMS with information about the services which were the subject of a previous sale to you. You have the right to withdraw consent at any time.

We will always work to fully protect your rights and comply with our obligations under the GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, and you will always have the opportunity to opt-out.

8.  How Long Will You Keep My Personal Data?

We will not keep your personal data for any longer than is necessary. Your personal data will therefore be kept for the following periods (or, where there is no fixed period, the following factors will be used to determine how long it is kept):

Any data that is not required for legal reasons, e.g. HMRC, etc., is only retained while we share an:

Ongoing service obligation either to provide you with support or to remind you to renew your service. If your account remains open and we do not receive any contact from you for 18 months, your account will be closed and your data deleted.

If you are required to send ID to comply with anti-money laundering regulations – AML Legislation, we are required to retain records for seven years after ceasing to provide the service. This data is GDPR Compliant and secure on a server in the UK. It is never shared or sold.

9.  How and Where Do You Store or Transfer My Personal Data?

We will only store or transfer your personal data within the European Economic Area (the “EEA”). The EEA consists of all EU member states plus Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. This means your personal data will be fully protected under the GDPR or to equivalent standards by law.

The security of your personal data is essential to us, and to protect your data, we take a number of important measures, including the following:

  • Data protection policy
  • Encryption
  • Share and access controls
  • Correct physical and technical security, backed up by robust policies and procedures
  • Ready to respond to any breach of security swiftly and effectively

10. Do You Share My Personal Data?

We do not share your Personal Data with third parties. In some limited circumstances, we may be legally required to share certain personal data, which might include yours, if we are involved in legal proceedings or complying with legal obligations, a court order, or the instructions of a government authority.

11. How Can I Control My Personal Data?

In addition to your rights under the GDPR in Part 5, when you submit personal data via our site, you may be given options to restrict our use of your personal data. In particular, we aim to give you strong controls on our use of your data for direct marketing purposes (including the ability to opt-out of receiving emails from us which you may do by unsubscribing using the links provided in our emails.

12. Can I Withhold Information?

You may access certain areas of our site without providing any personal data at all. However, to use all features and functions available on our site, you may be required to submit or allow for the collection of certain data.

You may restrict our use of Cookies. For more information, see Part 14 and our Cookie Policy.

13. How Can I Access My Personal Data?

If you want to know what personal data we have about you, you can ask us for details of that personal data and for a copy of it (where any such personal data is held). This is known as a “subject access request”.

All subject access requests should be made in writing and sent to the email or postal addresses shown in Part 15.

There is not normally any charge for a subject access request. If your request is ‘manifestly unfounded or excessive’ (for example, if you make repetitive requests), a fee may be charged to cover our administrative costs in responding.

We will respond to your subject access request within one month of receiving it. Normally, we aim to provide a complete response, including a copy of your personal data, within that time. In some cases, however, particularly if your request is more complex, more time may be required up to a maximum of three months from the date we receive your request. You will be kept fully informed of our progress.

14. How Do You Use Cookies?

Our site may place and access certain first-party Cookies on your computer or device. First-party Cookies are those placed directly by us and are used only by us. We use Cookies to facilitate and improve your experience of our site and to provide and improve our products and services. In addition, our site uses analytics services provided by Google, which also uses Cookies.

We do not use analytics currently, but we may use third-party Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service. For example, we may use Google Analytics in the future.

Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. You can opt-out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The add-on prevents the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, and dc.js) from sharing information with Google Analytics about visits activity.

For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy Terms web page: http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/

Cookie Policy

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are stored in your web browser that allows Balance Consulting or a third party to recognize you. Cookies can be used to collect, store and share bits of information about your activities across websites, including on Balance Consulting website.

Cookies might be used for the following purposes:

  • To enable certain functions
  • To provide analytics
  • To store your preferences

Balance Consulting uses both session cookies and persistent cookies.

A session cookie is used to identify a particular visit to our Website. These cookies expire after a short time or when you close your web browser after using our Website. We use these cookies to identify you during a single browsing session, such as when you log into our Website.

A persistent cookie will remain on your devices for a set period of time specified in the cookie. We use these cookies when we need to identify you over a longer period of time. For example, we would use a persistent cookie if you asked that we keep you signed in.

How do third parties use cookies on the Balance Consulting Website?

Third-party companies like analytics companies and ad networks generally use cookies to collect user information on an anonymous basis. They may use that information to build a profile of your activities on the Balance Consulting Website and other websites you’ve visited.

There are five categories of cookie use.

  1. Authentication;  Cookies that detect if you are currently logged into the site. 
  2. Performance & Analytics;  Cookies that identify any issues with the site, for example site performance issues, UX issues or site errors. These cookies also help us identify which type of device you are using, such as a mobile phone or laptop computer.
  3. Security;  Cookies that enable security features which help mitigate potential security problems, such as Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
  4. Advertising;  We do not advertise on our site, but we may use cookies that allow us to know how well our external advertising is performing, for example, whether you arrived at the site by clicking on an ad.
  5. Formation Progress;  Cookies that store your progress through our formation process, for example, the company name or the service you have picked.

If you don’t want certain types of cookies, you can change your browser’s settings to delete cookies that have been pre-set. To learn more about how to do this, visit the help pages of your browser.

Please note, however, that if you delete cookies or do not accept them, you might not be able to use all of the features we offer, you may not be able to store your preferences, and some of our pages might not display properly.

15. How Do I Contact You?

To contact us about anything to do with your personal data and data protection, including making a subject access request, please use the following details: 

For the attention of Alan Bec

Email address: dataprotectionofficer@alanbec.com

Telephone number: 07949 058 945

Postal Address: 2nd Floor, 5 High St, Westbury on Trym, Bristol, BS9 3BY.

16. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. This may be necessary, for example, if the law changes or if we change our business in a way that affects personal data protection.

Any changes will be immediately posted on our site, and you will be deemed to have accepted the terms of the Privacy Policy on your first use of our site following the alterations. We recommend that you check this page regularly to keep up-to-date.