Privacy Policy

  1. Introduction
    1. We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of visitors to our website (https://www.ir35shield.co.uk) and users of our IR35 Shield services, including IR35 Shield for Business and IR35 Shield for Contractors.
    2. This policy applies where we are acting as a data controller with respect to the personal data of our website visitors and IR35 Shield service users; in other words, where we determine the purposes and means of the processing of that personal data. It does not apply where we are acting as a data processor with respect to personal data. For information about the circumstances in which we act as a data processor, see Section 11.
    3. In this policy, "we", "us" and "our" refer to IR35 Shield Limited. For more information about us, see Sections 13 and 14.
  2. How we use your personal data
    1. In this Section 2 we have set out:
      1. the general categories of personal data that we may process;
      2. in the case of personal data that we did not obtain directly from you, the source and specific categories of that data;
      3. the purposes for which we may process personal data; and
      4. the legal bases of the processing.
    2. We may process data about your use of our website and our IR35 Shield services ("usage data"). The usage data may include your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths, as well as information about the timing, frequency and pattern of your service use. The source of the usage data is our analytics tracking system. This usage data may be processed for the purposes of analysing the use of the website and services. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely monitoring and improving our website and services.
    3. We may process your website account and IR35 Shield service user account data, along with information about you stored in our customer relationship management system ("account data"). The account data may include your name and contact information. The source of the account data is you or your employer. The account data may be processed for the purposes of operating our website, providing our services (including providing services to relevant IR35 Shield for Business customers), ensuring the security of our website and services, maintaining back-ups of our databases and communicating with you. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper administration of our website and business.
    4. We may process your personal data that are provided or generated in the course of the use of our IR35 Shield services, including data provided or generated in the course of the use of our Monitored Engagements service ("assessment data"). The assessment data may include IR35 assessment inputs and personal data contained in Status Determination Statements. The source of the assessment data is you or your employer, or the IR35 Shield for Business customer that requests you complete the assessment. The assessment data may be processed for the purposes of operating our website, providing our services (including providing services to relevant IR35 Shield for Business customers), ensuring the security of our website and services, maintaining back-ups of our databases, producing analysis reports that do not include personal data and communicating with you. In addition, Status Determination Statements may be stored by us for the purpose of retaining evidence of the contents thereof: see Section 6 for more information about the storage of assessment data. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper administration of our website and business and the protection of our business from legal risks.
    5. We may process information relating to transactions, including purchases of our services, that you enter into with us and/or through our website ("transaction data"). The transaction data may include your contact details, your card details and the transaction details. The source of the transaction data is you and/or our payment services provider. The transaction data may be processed for the purpose of supplying the services and keeping proper records of transactions. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper administration of our website and business.
    6. We may process information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our email newsletters and other marketing communications ("marketing data"). The marketing data may be processed for the purposes of sending you the relevant marketing communications. The legal basis for this processing is consent.
    7. We may process information contained in or relating to any communication that you send to us, including enquiries that you make through our website and support-related queries, as well as communications that we send to you ("communication data"). The communication data may include the communication content and metadata associated with the communication. Our website will generate the metadata associated with communications made using the website contact forms. The communication data may be processed for the purposes of communicating with you (including in relation to our services, our certified partner programme and our introducer programme), supporting your use of our services, improving our services and record-keeping. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely communications with our website visitors and service users and the proper administration of our website and business.
    8. We may process any of your personal data identified in this policy where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the protection and assertion of our legal rights, your legal rights and the legal rights of others.
    9. We may process any of your personal data identified in this policy where necessary for the purposes of obtaining or maintaining insurance coverage (including our dedicated insurance coverage for eligible contractors), handling insurance claims, managing risks, or obtaining professional advice. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper provision of our services and the protection of our business against risks.
    10. In addition to the specific purposes for which we may process your personal data set out in this Section 2, we may also process any of your personal data where such processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.
  3. Automated decision-making
    1. We may use your personal data for the purposes of automated decision-making in relation to the generation of IR35 Status Determination Statements and the allocation of scores or ratings representing our algorithm's assessment of:
      1. whether particular factors point to a contract being either inside IR35 or outside IR35; and
      2. the likelihood that a contract as a whole will fall either inside IR35 or outside IR35.
    2. This automated decision-making will involve the application of our IR35 assessment algorithm, which was built in conjunction with specialist legal experts. The algorithm is updated when necessary to incorporate the latest IR35 updates and case law. We liaise with the IR35 experts that review tribunal cases and incorporate their feedback into further refinements of our algorithm, enabling us to fine-tune and make more accurate determinations.
    3. The significance and possible consequences of this automated decision-making are as follows: if you are completing an IR35 assessment at the request of an IR35 Shield for Business customer, it may affect whether your company is engaged to provide services to that customer; similarly, if you provide a Status Determination Statement to any business, it may affect whether your company is engaged to provide services to that business.
  4. Providing your personal data to others
    1. We may disclose your personal data to our insurers and/or professional advisers insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes of obtaining or maintaining insurance coverage, managing risks, obtaining professional advice, or the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.
    2. Your personal data held in our website database will be stored on the servers of our hosting services providers, currently Amazon Web Services, Inc. In addition, personal data that you send to us or that we send to you or that we otherwise process in connection with support queries, will be stored on the servers of our support services infrastructure provider, currently Help Scout.
    3. If you complete an IR35 assessment at the request of an IR35 Shield for Business customer, your account data and the associated assessment data will be made available to that customer, who will act as an independent controller in relation to that data. If you choose to share your account data and/or assessment data with any person via our services or otherwise, that person will also act as an independent controller in relation to that data. You acknowledge that any person acting as an independent controller with respect to your account data and/or assessment data may share that data with others, usually in circumstances set out in their own privacy notices.
    4. Financial transactions relating to our website and services are handled by our payment services provider Stripe, Inc. We will share transaction data with our payment services providers only to the extent necessary for the purposes of processing your payments, refunding such payments and dealing with complaints and queries relating to such payments and refunds. You can find information about the payment services providers' privacy policies and practices at https://stripe.com/gb/privacy.
    5. In addition to the specific disclosures of personal data set out in this Section 4, we may disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person. We may also disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.
  5. International transfers of your personal data
    1. We will store and process your personal data in the United Kingdom.
    2. Our analytics services providers and payments services providers are international businesses with offices and facilities around the world, and they may transfer your personal data internationally in accordance with their own privacy policies, as detailed in Sections 4 and 13.1. We will ensure that all such transfers: (i) are to jurisdictions that offer adequate safeguards for personal data, or (ii) are protected by appropriate safeguards, such as the standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission.
  6. Retaining and deleting personal data
    1. This Section 6 sets out our data retention policies and procedures, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal data.
    2. Personal data that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.
    3. We will retain your personal data as follows:
      1. usage data will be retained for a maximum period of 36 months following the date of collection;
      2. in the ordinary course of events, account data and assessment data will be retained for a minimum period of 20 years following the date of closure of your account, and for a maximum period of 21 years following that date (this period reflects the period during which HMRC may investigate a contract, and may be changed to reflect changes in the law); if you request that we delete the account data and assessment data in accordance with the right of erasure, we will only do so if the relevant data is not being used to provide services to a Shield for Business customer; and in any case we will store an archive copy of any Status Determination Statement that is generated by means of our services for a minimum period of 6 years following the date of closure of your account, and for a maximum period of 7 years following that date; the purpose of this archive copy is to enable us to properly manage legal claims relating to our services;
      3. transaction data will be retained for a minimum period of 10 years following the date of the transaction, and for a maximum period of 11 years following that date;
      4. marketing data will be retained for a maximum period of 12 months following the date that date that we are instructed to cease marketing or the date of our last marketing communication to you (providing that we will retain marketing data insofar as necessary to fulfil any request you make for us to actively suppress marketing); and
      5. communication data will be retained for a minimum period of 6 years following the date of the communication in question, and for a maximum period of 7 years following that date.
    4. When data is deleted from our live database, the data will remain in our encrypted IR35 Shield database backups until those backups fall out of the 14-day retention window.
    5. Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section 6, we may retain your personal data where such retention is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.
  7. Security of personal data
    1. We will take appropriate technical and organisational precautions to secure your personal data and to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal data.
    2. We will store all your personal data on secure servers, personal computers and mobile devices, and in secure manual record-keeping systems.
    3. We will encrypt the personal data that we store on our servers using a range of different encryption techniques.
    4. Data that is sent from your web browser to our web server, or from our web server to your web browser, will also be protected using encryption technology.
    5. For more information about the security measures we use to protection personal data, see our IR35 Shield: Data and Encryption Policies document.
    6. You should ensure that your password is not susceptible to being guessed, whether by a person or a computer program. You are responsible for keeping the password you use for accessing our website confidential and we will not ask you for your password (except when you log in to our website).
  8. Your rights
    1. In this Section 8, we have summarised the rights that you have under data protection law. Some of the rights are complex, and not all of the details have been included in our summaries. Accordingly, you should read the relevant laws and guidance from the regulatory authorities for a full explanation of these rights.
    2. Your principal rights under data protection law are:
      1. the right to access - you can ask for copies of your personal data;
      2. the right to rectification - you can ask us to rectify inaccurate personal data and to complete incomplete personal data;
      3. the right to erasure - you can ask us to erase your personal data;
      4. the right to restrict processing - you can ask use to restrict the processing of your personal data;
      5. the right to object to processing - you can object to the processing of your personal data;
      6. the right to data portability - you can ask that we transfer your personal data to another organisation or to you;
      7. the right to complain to a supervisory authority - you can complain about our processing of your personal data; and
      8. the right to withdraw consent - to the extent that the legal basis of our processing of your personal data is consent, you can withdraw that consent.
    3. You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we process your personal data and, where we do, access to the personal data, together with certain additional information. That additional information includes details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. The first copy will be provided free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee.
    4. You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you rectified and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete personal data about you completed.
    5. In some circumstances you have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay. Those circumstances include: the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed; you withdraw consent to consent-based processing; you object to the processing under certain rules of applicable data protection law; the processing is for direct marketing purposes; and the personal data have been unlawfully processed. However, there are exclusions of the right to erasure. The general exclusions include where processing is necessary: for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information; for compliance with a legal obligation; or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. See Section 6.3(b) for more information about our handling of erasure requests in relation to account data and assessment data.
    6. In some circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Those circumstances are: you contest the accuracy of the personal data; processing is unlawful but you oppose erasure; we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of our processing, but you require personal data for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; and you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data. However, we will only otherwise process it: with your consent; for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; for the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person; or for reasons of important public interest.
    7. You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your particular situation, but only to the extent that the legal basis for the processing is that the processing is necessary for: the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of any official authority vested in us; or the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party. If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
    8. You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including profiling for direct marketing purposes). If you make such an objection, we will cease to process your personal data for this purpose.
    9. To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is:
      1. consent; or
      2. that the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract,
      and such processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your personal data from us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. However, this right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.
    10. If you consider that our processing of your personal data infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority responsible for data protection.
    11. To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.
    12. You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by written notice to us.
  9. Third party websites
    1. Our website includes hyperlinks to, and details of, third party websites.
    2. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, the privacy policies and practices of third parties.
  10. Updating information
    1. Please let us know if the personal information that we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.
  11. Acting as a data processor
    1. In respect of some of the personal data that we handle, we do not act as a data controller; instead, we act as a data processor. Specifically, we act as a processor with respect to:
      1. user account information of users acting on behalf of an IR35 Shield for Business customer; and
      2. any other personal data that is expressly covered by a data processing agreement entered into between us, acting as data processor, and a relevant data controller.
    2. Insofar as we act as a data processor rather than a data controller, this policy shall not apply. Our legal obligations as a data processor are instead set out in the contract between us and the relevant data controller.
  12. Amendments
    1. We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.
    2. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes to this policy.
  13. Our details
    1. This website is owned and operated by IR35 Shield Limited.
    2. We are registered in England and Wales under registration number 11167162, and our registered office is at 67 Colney Lane, Norwich, United Kingdom, NR4 7RG.
    3. You can contact us:
      1. by post, to the postal address given above;
      2. using our website contact forms;
      3. by telephone, on the contact numbers published on our website; or
      4. by email, using the email addresses published on our website.
  14. Data protection registration
    1. We are registered as a data controller with the UK Information Commissioner's Office.
    2. Our data protection registration number is ZA543881.