How We Handle Personal Data

How we manage data

We want to be clear about how we manage and protect data in our organisation.  This should put your mind at rest if you are a client or the subject of a search.

It is always our intention to act ethically in all of our work. If at any stage you wish to give us any feedback on matters of concern or indeed on how we can improve our work, we would be open to speaking to you.  We act to safeguard both our clients and subjects of searches.  Please speak to any member of our team.

We want to keep everybody safe

Protecting data is a part of safeguarding. It is also a legal requirement. We do not provide any service where we will directly supply you with a person’s address. Furthermore, we NEVER sell data.

We would like to reassure anyone working with us that we do not pass data directly to clients or subjects of our searches.  There are three different types of work that we undertake and below you will see exactly what we do in three different instances.

Tracing relatives and friends as well as searches where debt is NOT involved

All these search types include an intermediary service. This means we make all contact with the subject of our search. This allows us to safeguard clients and subjects. It allows us to provide emotional support to all parties. It ensures any data is passed with the consent of all parties.

We only put clients and subjects in touch through e mail or phone and we let them decide for themselves if they wish to disclose anything more.

Tracing where debt is involved

We will always ask our client if they have a legal contract in place. This dictates what data we can access and provide. We will only pass data to a nominated solicitor.  Nominated solicitors must confirm they are registered and that they will not pass on data to anyone who does not have a legal and legitimate reason to have it.  If they cannot do this, we will not pass data on.

If you are looking for an ex-tenant. We can only search if there is a contract in place and we must have a genuine copy of this before we can proceed.  Again, at the end of the process we will only supply data to a nominated solicitor who confirms they will use the data legally and legitimately.

In the event of a data breach

We are registered with the Data Commissioner, and we will report data breaches to them within 48 hours.  The Data Commissioner has an assessment tool on their website in which to assess any near miss data breaches.  We will always turn to this assessment tool first and produce a certificate as to whether or not there has been a breach.  If this breach relates to you, we will let you know and report this to the Data Commissioner.

Data Requests

We are happy to receive data requests, but we do not hold your data unless you are a client or the subject of a search. We will charge a fee to perform a data request in line with guidelines.

We hold data in line with data protection and GDPR laws.

Our team are trained in data protection.