Privacy Policy
Introduction
BDO is an international network of independent public accounting, tax and advisory firms (the ‘BDO network’), which perform professional services under the name of BDO (the ‘BDO Firms”). BDO International Limited is a UK company limited by guarantee. It is the governing entity of the BDO network. Brussels Worldwide Services BV (‘BWS’), a limited liability company incorporated in Belgium, coordinates service provision within the BDO network and is the data controller under this privacy policy (‘Privacy Policy’).
Each of BDO International Limited, BWS and the BDO Firms is a separate legal entity and has no liability for another such entity's acts or omissions. Nothing in the arrangements or rules of the BDO network shall constitute or imply an agency relationship or a partnership between BDO International Limited, BWS and/or the BDO Firms.
Neither BDO International Limited nor any other central entities of the BDO network provide services to clients. Services are provided solely by the BDO Firms in their respective geographic areas.
This Privacy Policy applies only to the BDO.global website (the ‘Website’) and not to the various separate websites as per each location where BDO is present, listed under ‘Locations’ in the Website menu.
Please note that the other country or specific websites linked through BDO.global are provided by the applicable BDO Firms or related entities managing them and are not the responsibility of BDO International Limited or BWS. Such websites, as well as other websites that may be linked to this Website, are not governed by this Privacy Policy. We encourage visitors to review each of these other websites’ privacy statements before disclosing any personal information to them.
What personal information do you collect when I visit BDO.global?
We do not require registration for access to BDO.global, but if you participate in any of the activities or services offered by BDO.global, we will collect the personal information that we need in order to provide you with those services. Failure to provide the information that we require in order to complete the registration may prevent or delay the provision of any services to you.
The categories of information that we collect from you are:
• Contact details, such as your name, job title, email address, country location and employer's name
• Information that you give us relating to the services we provide, such as details of your requests, queries or complaints
When you visit this Web site, we may collect technical information such as your IP (Internet Protocol) address, details of the pages you visit on BDO.global, other pages you visit on the world wide web and which browser you used to view BDO.global.
This Web site collects standard internet log and technical data to measure and improve the effectiveness of the site, to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer this Web site, to see where Web site traffic is coming from and to identify our users. We may also collect other information via BDO.global, such as Web site usage activity and preferences, also known as demographic or profile data. In this connection we use ‘cookies to collect this information. For more information see our Cookie Policy here.
When do you collect personal information through BDO.global?
We collect personal information from you in the following circumstances:
- When you subscribe to any of our Insights / newsletters
- When you subscribe to any of our blogs
- When you register to attend an event
- When you enter a discussion forum
- When you contact us to request further information.
We collect the minimum amount of information to enable us to deal with your request or to provide a service to you. We will indicate where the provision of information is voluntary or compulsory. We would normally only request additional information to enable us to provide the most appropriate response to your request.
How do you use my personal information?
We use your personal information to:
- Identify you and create a profile for you when you register with us to use our services or to request information from us
- Verify your identity when you contact us
- Communicate with you with respect to the services and information that we provide
- Meet our contractual obligations to you under the terms and conditions of the BDO.Global Terms of Use
- Deal with your enquiries and requests
- Comply with the legal obligations to which we are subject and cooperate with regulators and law enforcement bodies
- Contact you with marketing information in relation to services offered by us (unless you have opted out of receiving marketing communications, or we are otherwise prevented by law from doing so)
- Personalise the marketing messages that we send to you to make them more relevant and interesting by analysing details of the services and information that you are receiving
- Exercise our legal rights where it is necessary to do so, for example to detect violations of law
We must have a legal basis to process your personal information. In most cases the legal basis will be one of the following:
- To provide services to you pursuant to the BDO.Global Terms of Use
- To meet our legitimate interests, for example to understand how you use our services and our Web site and to help us to derive knowledge that helps us to develop new services. When we process your personal information to meet our legitimate interests, we put in place robust safeguards to ensure that your privacy is protected and to ensure that our legitimate interests are not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. For more information about the balancing test that we carry out to process your personal information to meet our legitimate interests, please contact us via the details below
- We may obtain your consent to collect and use certain types of personal information where we are required to do so by law (for example, in relation to our direct marketing activities or our use of cookies and tracking technologies). If we ask for your consent to process your personal information, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us via this form and/or by changing you cookie consent here.
You have certain rights regarding your personal information, subject to local law. These include the right to: request access to the personal information that we may process on BDO.global; update or correct your details; restrict our use of your personal information; object to our use of your personal information; receive your personal information in a usable electronic format and transmit it to a third party; request that your personal details are deleted from our systems.
You may exercise these rights by contacting us here. We will treat all such requests in accordance with applicable local law.
If you would like to opt out of receiving promotional or marketing communications from us in the future, you may let us know by completing the contact form on our site, stating the e-mail address you wish to have removed from our mailing list. However, your option not to receive promotional and marketing e-mail shall not preclude us from corresponding with you, by e-mail or otherwise, regarding your existing relationship with us.
Will you provide my information to a third party?
We may contract with other companies or individuals to deal with your enquiry or to otherwise operate this Web site or our business activities (e.g .to run marketing campaigns, host our databases, support email and messaging services and analyse information). We may give such companies access to your personal information in connection with those purposes on our behalf. We may also share your personal information with other BDO Firms within the BDO network (e.g. for the purposes of customer insights or service optimisation or provision), provided that this is consistent with the basis on which we have collected your personal information.
From time to time, we may disclose personal information in response to a court order, subpoena, government investigation, or as otherwise required or permitted by law.
We do not provide information to third parties for their own marketing purposes and we do not undertake mailings for third parties.
We may, as a result of a sale, merger, consolidation, change in control, transfer of assets, reorganisation or liquidation of our company (a ‘Reorganisation event’) transfer, sell or assign your personal information to third parties involved in the reorganisation event.
How long do you keep my information?
We will keep your personal information for as long as we have a relationship with you. Once our relationship with you has come to an end, we will retain your personal information for a period of time that enables us to: maintain our business records for analysis and/or audit purposes; comply with record retention requirements under the law; defend or bring any legal claims; deal with any complaints
We will delete your personal information when it is no longer required for these purposes. If there is any information that we are unable, for technical reasons, to delete entirely from our systems, we will put in place appropriate measures to prevent any further processing or use of the data.
We have implemented generally accepted standards of technology and operational security to protect personal information from loss, misuse, alteration, unauthorised access or destruction. We require all employees and principals to keep personal information confidential and only authorised personnel have access to this information.
In order to provide services to you via BDO.global, we may need to transfer your personal information outside the EEA to countries that may not provide a level of protection of personal information that may be regarded as equivalent to that afforded under the European data protection legislation. Whenever your personal information is transferred internationally, we will take appropriate steps to ensure its security and confidentiality in accordance with applicable data protection law. For more information as to how we protect your personal information please contact us via this form
We may modify or update this Privacy Policy from time to time. You will be able to see when we last updated the Privacy Policy by the revision date it includes. Changes and additions to this Privacy Policy are effective from the date on which they are posted.
Contact
If you have any concerns about the way in which we handle your personal information, you can contact a data protection authority in the country in the European Union in which you reside, work, or where the subject matter of your complaint arose.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy you can contact us.
Lat updated: 02 July 2024