Who we are

Acumen Business Services Ltd (‘we’ or ‘us’ or ‘our’ or ‘Acumen’) gather and process personal information in accordance with this privacy policy and in compliance with the relevant data protection regulation and law. This policy provides you with the necessary information regarding your rights and obligations, and explains how, why and when we collect and process your personal data.

Acumen Business Services Ltd’s registered office is at The Courtyard, 19 High Street, Pershore, Worcestershire WR10 1AA and we are a company registered in England and Wales under company number 3430083.

We are registered on the Information Commissioner’s Office Register of Data Controllers under registration number Z5314609, and act as a data controller and data processor for our clients.

Our appointed person for data protection issues is Beverley Osborne. We can be contacted via email at bosborne@acumen-bcp.co.uk or via post at The Courtyard, 19 High Street, Pershore, Worcestershire WR10 1AA.

Information that we collect

Acumen processes personal information to meet our legal, statutory and contractual obligations and to provide clients with our products and services. We hold only basic personal information about our clients and their employees, prospects and other business contacts, which does not include any special types of sensitive information. We will never collect any unnecessary personal data from you and we do not process your information in any way other than as specified in this notice.

The personal data that we may collect includes :

• Name;
• Job title;
• Business email address;
• Personal email address (if you use this for business purposes or as an employee or associate of Acumen);
• Work telephone number;
• Mobile telephone number;
• Home telephone number (if you use this for business purposes or as an employee or associate of Acumen);
• Skype address (or alternative video conferencing platforms);
• Work address;
• Home address (if you use this for business purposes or as an employee or associate of Acumen);
• Social media account name, e.g. LinkedIn or Twitter.

We collect information in the following ways :

• Online forms;
• Website enquiries;
• Website visitors;
• Incoming emails;
• Incoming business enquiries;
• Contracts with clients, suppliers, affiliates and employees;
• Pre and post-training/event questionnaires.

How we may use your personal data (legal basis for processing)

Acumen takes your privacy very seriously and will never disclosure, share or sell your data without your consent, unless required to do so by law. We only retain your data for as long as is necessary and for the purposes specified in this notice. Where you have consented to us providing you with promotional offers and marketing, you are free to withdraw consent at any time.

The purposes and reasons for processing personal data are detailed below :

• In the performance of a contract or to provide a service using your preferred contact details;
• On behalf of a client (who may be your employer) in the performance of a contract or to provide a service, e.g. the development and maintenance of a business continuity plan;
• To monitor and maintain the security of our IT systems, internal and external networks;
• As part of our legal obligation for business accounting and tax purposes;
• Where we consider you have a legitimate interest in hearing from us for marketing purposes.

Your rights

You have the right to access any of your personal information that Acumen processes and to request information about :

• What personal data we hold about you;
• The purposes of the processing;
• The categories of personal data concerned;
• The recipients to whom the personal data has/will be disclosed;
• How long we intend to store your personal data for;
• If we did not collect the data directly from you, information about the source.

If you believe that we hold any incomplete or inaccurate data about you, you have the right to ask us to correct and/or complete the information and we will strive to update/correct it as quickly as possible, unless there is a valid reason for not doing so, in which case you will be notified.

You also have the right to request erasure of your personal data or to restrict processing in accordance with data protection laws, as well as to object to any direct marketing from us and to be informed about any automated decision-making that we use.

If we receive a request from you to exercise any of the above rights, we may ask you to verify your identity before acting on the request. This is to ensure that your data is protected and kept secure.

Sharing and disclosing your personal information

We do not share or disclosure any of your personal information without your consent, other than for the purposes specified in this notice or where there is a legal requirement.

Acumen may use third-parties to provide contracted services or to manage our business functions, including accountants, professional advisers, associate consultants and providers of specialist software and services. All processors acting on our behalf only process your data in accordance with instructions from us and comply fully with this privacy notice, the data protection laws and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

Safeguarding measures

Acumen takes your privacy seriously and we take steps to protect and secure your personal data. We work hard to protect you and your information from unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or destruction and have several layers of security measures in place, including :

• Strong passwords for systems access;
• Firewalls;
• Antivirus systems;
• Regular security patches and system updates;
• Data backups;
• SSL;
• Data encryption;
• Data protection policies and procedures;
• Staff training.

Retention of data

Acumen retains personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use personal data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.

Cookies and other technologies

As is standard practice on many corporate websites, Acumen’s website uses ‘cookies’ and other technology to help us understand which parts of our websites are the most popular, where our visitors are going, and how long they spend there. We use cookies and other technologies to study traffic patterns on our website, to optimise as well as to study the effectiveness of our customer communications. If, however, you’d prefer us not to store cookies, please disable cookies on your browser.

As is true of most websites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and click-stream data.

We use this information, which does not identify individuals, to analyse trends, to administer the site, to track users’ movements around the site and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. Acumen will not use the information collected to market directly to that person.

Your rights

Acumen aims to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete, or limit the use of your personal data.

If you wish to be informed what personal data we hold about you and if you want it to be removed from our systems, please contact us.

In certain circumstances, you have the right to :

• Access and receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
• Rectify any personal data held about you that is inaccurate;
• Request the deletion of personal data held about you.

Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity before responding to such requests.

If you are not satisfied with the response or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) www.ico.org.uk