Restructuring and Insolvency - Personal Clients Privacy Notice

In this section, the term "Debtor" refers to an individual who is subject to an Insolvency or restructuring regime (each referred to as an "Insolvency").

Insolvency Practitioners and FRP's roles in Insolvency Proceedings

Definitions under Data Privacy Laws:

  • A controller is an individual or legal person who decides how and why personal data is processed.  A controller is in control and is responsible for the collection, keeping and use of personal data.
  • A processor is an individual or legal person (other than an employee of a controller) which processes personal data on behalf of a controller.

The data controller for personal data processed by the Debtor prior to the Insolvency is the Debtor.  Upon appointment, the Insolvency Practitioners act in the capacity of agents of the Debtor in fulfilling the role of managing the Debtor's affairs, business and property and so the Debtor continues to be the controller for personal data collected and processed in this context. The Insolvency Practitioner will typically be the Data Controller in respect of the personal data they process to comply with their own legal and regulatory requirements as Insolvency Practitioners.

FRP may act as a data processor on behalf of the Insolvency Practitioner or the Debtor as appropriate in relation to the engagement.

What we collect

We collect personal data about our Personal Insolvency clients which is necessary to effectively deploy our services as agreed with our clients.

The types of data we collect, and process can vary, it may include:

  • Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses;
  • Date of birth;
  • Gender;
  • Marital status, co-habitees/co-occupants and dependents;
  • National Insurance number;
  • Occupation;
  • Accounting information (where self-employed or a higher rate tax payer)
  • Bank account details, payroll records and tax status information;
  • Location of employment or workplace;
  • Salary/wage details;
  • Housing benefit, Social Security or Tax Credit information;
  • Student loans or grants
  • Pension arrangements and benefits;
  • Savings accounts and plans
  • Shareholdings
  • Life assurance policies
  • Insurance policies;
  • Details of any vehicle you own or use and the associated running costs;
  • Details of any other valuable property (assets) that you own or have an interest in;
  • Account numbers and amounts you owed to your creditors;
  • Details of your regular monthly expenditure, including to whom it is paid;
  • Photo ID produced to confirm your identity;
  • Leases and tenancy agreements;
  • Property ownership information;
  • Directorships information;
  • Any explanation you provide for the reasons for your debt problems (where appropriate);

In limited circumstances, we may also collect, store and use "special categories" of more sensitive personal information. Please see "Special Categories (sensitive) Personal Data" for more details.

We collect data;

  • Directly when you initially contact us and through the advisory process
  • Indirectly through subsequent interactions with you, from a third party acting on your instructions, or from other third parties (including publicly available information)
  • From time to time, we may collect additional personal information in the course of our investigation. These investigations may involve contacting third parties that are known or suspected to have had business or financial dealings with you, where we consider that the information they may provide could assist us to properly administer the Debtor's estate
  • From a number of other sources in a formal Insolvency process, such as the Official Receiver (in England), Accountant in Bankruptcy (in Scotland), and in all cases from the creditors, debtors and employees of the Client, and/or other stakeholders in the process that make such information available to us in the course of administering the Debtor's estate

How we use your personal data and legal basis for processing

We process your personal data for various purposes including (but not limited to):

Purpose Legal basis
  • To enable us to contact and meet with you to gather or provide information
  • To provide you with initial advice and recommendations about a possible debt solution;
  • To perform other tasks as necessary to provide our services
 We have a legitimate interest in using your information for these purposes, as it helps us to manage our relationship with you.  We have carried out a Legitimate Interests Assessment (LIA) whereby we have weighed your interests and the risks posed to you against our own interests and consider that they are proportionate and appropriate.
  • To fulfil any contractual obligations we have to you
 We do this to comply with our contractual obligations.
  • To perform Anti Money Laundering (AML) assessments

The processing is necessary for compliance with our obligation under the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulation 2017.

Any personal data received as part of our AML process from a personal client will be processed only for the purposes of preventing money laundering and terrorist financing, unless:

  • Use of the data is permitted by or under and enactment other than the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017; or
  • FRP has obtained the express consent of the data subject to the proposed use of the data.
  • To administer, support, improve and develop our services generally
  • To enforce our legal rights
 We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data in this way, as it helps us to run our business and to safeguard our rights as a business.
  • To comply with any requirement of law, regulation or a professional body of which we are a member

We do this to comply with our legal, regulatory and professional obligations. Where we do not have a legal obligation, we have a legitimate interest in processing personal data necessary to meet our regulatory or professional obligations.
  • To fulfil the legal obligations placed upon an Insolvency Office Holder in managing the affairs of the Debtor;
 We do this to comply with our legal obligations under the Insolvency Act 1986.

We may also use personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be less common:

  • when it is necessary to protect your interests, if you are identified as being subject to a vulnerability;
  • when it is necessary to protect someone else's interests (for instance, if you have or have been alleged to have acted in a violent or abusive manner toward our staff); or
  • when it is necessary in the public interest or for official purposes as an Insolvency   Office Holder (such as in connection with any bankruptcy offences that have or are alleged to have been committed)

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may take steps to compel you to provide it in Court and/or to acquire the information we need to properly administer your affairs from third parties.

Special Categories (sensitive) Personal Data

Some categories of personal data are considered by law to be particularly sensitive and are therefore classed as "special categories" of personal data. These relate to a person's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or similar beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health conditions, sexual life, sexual orientation, biometric or genetic data. This type of data is afforded additional protection.

There are a number of situations where we might possess special categories of data about you:

  • In limited circumstances, special category data may be provided by you where it impacts on your financial position and is relevant to ensure appropriate advice is given and subsequent disclosure made.  Depending on the insolvency procedure we may not need your consent to have or use this information, where it is relevant to the performance of our functions as an Insolvency Practitioner. Where your consent is required, you will be provided with full details of the information that is sought and the reason it is needed, so that you can carefully consider whether to consent. It is not a condition of us providing you with restructuring advice or insolvency services that you agree to any request for consent. You have the right to withdraw any given consent at any time, upon which we will no longer process the information for the purpose originally agreed to, unless there is another legitimate basis for doing so in law
  • We may possess special category information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or proceeding relating to your debt problems. Depending upon the nature of the information we receive, we may not need your consent to have this information.
  • When such information is needed in the public interest, such as where you lack the mental capacity to deal with your financial affairs and/or where a lasting power of attorney has been provided to another person in respect of your affairs, we do not require your consent to have this information

Information about criminal convictions

We envisage that we may hold information about criminal convictions where these are relevant to the causes of your debt problems or the performance of the functions of an Office Holder. If it becomes necessary to do so, we will only use this information where we have a legal basis for processing the information. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out the role and function of an Insolvency Office Holder.

We may also use information relating to criminal convictions where:

  • it is necessary in relation to legal claims
  • it is necessary to protect your vital interests (or someone else's vital interests) and you are not capable of giving consent
  • you have already made the information public, or the information is otherwise in the public domain

We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the role of a restructuring advisor or Insolvency Office Holders. Relevant convictions would typically be those relating to theft, fraud or dishonesty, money laundering or terrorist financing.

Sharing and disclosing your personal data

We do not share or disclose any of your personal data without your consent, other than for the purposes specified in this notice or where there is a legal requirement. When we share data with others, we ensure contractual arrangements and security mechanisms are in place to protect the data and to comply with our data protection, confidentiality and security standards.

Your personal data may be shared with:

  • Third parties involved in Insolvency proceedings, including but not limited to the courts, Official Receiver, Accountant in Bankruptcy, creditors, and other third parties involved
  • Third party organisations that provide identification checking services
  • Third party organisations that provide applications/functionality, data processing or IT services to us
  • Our trade associations, professional bodies and business associates e.g. agents, auditors, solicitors, accountants etc.

Occasionally, we may also need to disclose your personal data in the following circumstances:

  • Based on our legitimate interests, to third parties if we choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.
  • To law enforcement officials, law courts and government and regulatory authorities: (a) if we believe disclosure is required by any applicable law, regulation or legal process; or (b) to protect and defend our rights, or the rights or safety of third parties, including to defend against legal claims based on our legitimate interests.
  • In exceptional circumstances, to third parties to protect your vital interests if you fell ill or suffered an injury at one of our events or on our premises.

How long we keep your data

We only ever retain personal data for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, and we have strict review and retention policies in place to meet these obligations. We keep personal data in accordance with our internal retention policies, which are determined in accordance with our regulatory obligations and good practice.

We retain records collected and created in Formal Insolvency matters for 7 years after the conclusion of the case administration and the officeholder's discharge of appointment.

Your Rights

Please read this section in addition to the main rights section.

Your rights in relation to the personal data that we process will depend upon the lawful basis or bases upon which we are holding it.  This will vary depending upon where the information has come from (yourself or a third party, such as the Official Receiver or Accountant in Bankruptcy in an Insolvency situation) and the nature of our relationship with you. Personal data may be held for more than one lawful basis. Details of the basis or bases we believe we have for processing your data can be found in the relevant sections of our Privacy Notice.

  • Prospective Clients: If we have provided you with advice about restructuring options, you will have a number of rights available to you, which may include access, restriction or transfer and to a lesser degree, erasure.
  • Insolvency Act Clients: Where we are formally appointed to administer the affairs of a Debtor (in sequestration, bankruptcy, trust deed or individual voluntary arrangement), there are certain periods that the law requires us to maintain information about your case. Where we are formally appointed to administer the affairs of a Debtor, we are unlikely to be able to agree to a request to erase, restrict or transfer your information, but will explain this to you in further detail should such a request be made.
    • Erasure and Rectification:  Upon commencement of a formal Insolvency, where that information will form part of the legal records of the case and we will be required to retain it, we would be unable to erase or rectify any information though we will make a record where you consider it to be inaccurate.   We will always be grateful to receive updates to contact information etc. but will not be able to amend or erase historic information that is part of the formal record of an Insolvency case, such as your address at the time of the Insolvency or the amounts you stated that you owed to your creditors.
    • Portability: This right only applies to information that you have provided (so would not apply to information supplied to us by the Official Receiver, Accountant in Bankruptcy, or the people you owe money to in an Insolvency situation.) It does not apply to formal Insolvency cases, where our lawful basis for processing is "legal obligation".
    • Restriction of processing: In the case of a formal Insolvency appointment, we are unlikely to be able to restrict or erase any data that forms part of the formal record of the Insolvency case, though any such request will be considered upon its merits and a full explanation will be provided to you in response to your request.
    • Automated decision-making: The amounts you may be asked to pay each month from your income towards the repayment of your debts may be calculated using tools which assess the level of surplus income available for debt repayment once your allowable expenditure has been deducted. These tools do permit an element of human intervention, although the initial calculation is an automated one.Different tools are used depending on whether you live in Scotland and England, different tools may be used for different types of debt solution. If you would like further information about the tools used to calculate any contribution you may have to make, please contact us at data.privacy@frpadvisory.com.
  • Legal Claims: Where legal claims are involved, we may not be able to provide you with access to all the information we hold, as some of it will be subject to legal professional privilege.