Last reviewed 1st February 2023

 

 

RIFT Ltd is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information, as part of our General Data Regulation (GDPR) obligations. This privacy notice for RIFT Ltd, describes how and why we might collect, store, use, and/or share ('process') your information when you use (”user”) our services. This relates to all activities concerning your relationship with RIFT Ltd and is not limited to the use of our website.

The Data Protection Legislation contains principles affecting not only personally identifiable information held on computers but also certain manual records containing personal data, for example associates, directors, employees, clients, or suppliers’ personnel files that form part of a structured filing system. 

The Data Protection Principles

There are seven data protection principles that are central to the Data Protection Legislation. In brief, the principles say that personal data must be:

  1. Processed fairly and lawfully and must not be processed unless certain conditions are met in relation to personal data and additional conditions are met in relation to sensitive personal data.  
  2. Obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes and must not be processed in any manner incompatible with those purposes.
  3. Adequate, relevant, and not excessive in relation to the purposes for which it is processed. The Company will review files on a regular basis to ensure they do not contain a backlog of out-of-date or irrelevant information and to check there is a sound business reason requiring information to continue to be held.
  4. Accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.  
  5. Not kept for longer than is necessary
  6. Appropriate technical and organisational measures must be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, data.  
  7. Have appropriate measures and records in place to be able to demonstrate compliance with the legislation.

The Data Controller

RIFT Ltd is the Data Controller for any personal data that you give us.

RIFT Ltd decides how and why personal data is processed - ensures that appropriate technical and operational measures are in place so that, by default, only personal data which are necessary for each specific purpose of the processing are processed. This applies to the amount of personal data collected, the extent of their processing, the period of their storage and their accessibility. Through these measures, the controller ensures that, by default, personal data are not made widely accessible without permission.

Our full details are:

RIFT Tax Refunds
The Cobalt Building
1600 Eureka Park,
Lower Pemberton,
Ashford,
Kent,
England,
TN25 4BF.

Telephone: 01233 628648
Email: info@riftrefunds.co.uk 

The Data Protection Officer {DPO} is responsible for ensuring that appropriate Privacy Notices exist and are appropriately published to enable all data subjects to be aware of these notices and their contents before data is collected. All content will be in plain language.

Our nominated representative for the purpose of the regulations is Alison Soltani-Davies.

The information we collect and when

We only collect information that we know we will genuinely use and in accordance with the Data Protection Legislation. This includes, but not limited to:

  • information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website (including your IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit and number of page views);
  • information relating to any transactions carried out between you and us on or in relation to this website, including information relating to the supply of our services;
  • information that you provide to us for the purpose of registering with us (including name, address, telephone number and any financial information);
  • information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our website services, email notifications and/or newsletters);
  • information required to complete our services that we will request directly from you, including your personal circumstances and information about your financial products and services; and
  • any other information that you choose to send to us

All personal data we hold is processed by our staff in the UK or Varna (Bulgaria).

How we use your information

  • To contact you, following your enquiry.
  • To reply to any questions, suggestions, issues or complaints you have contacted us about.
  • Make available our services to you.
  • Take payment from you or give you a refund.
  • For statistical analysis and to get feedback from you. For example, occasionally we may invite you to review a service you’ve used from us. 
  • To power our security measures and services so you can safely access our website.
  • Help us understand more about you as a customer, the services you use, so we can serve you better.
  • Contact you about services from us.
  • To improve customer service and support your needs more efficiently.

Lawful basis

We are required by law to always have a permitted reason or justification (called a “lawful basis”) for processing your personal data. There are six such permitted lawful bases for processing personal data.

The lawful basis for processing your data is based on your specific consent, performance of a contract, compliance with a legal obligation or our legitimate interest that we will have stated at the point the information was initially provided. 

Please note that where our processing of your personal data is either: 

  • necessary for us to comply with a legal obligation; or 
  • necessary for us to take steps, at your request, to potentially enter into a contract with you, or to perform it,

and you choose not to provide the relevant personal data to us, we may not be able to enter into or continue our contract with you.

In respect of our legitimate interests, we have a legitimate interest in keeping you updated about any further services offered by us which may be of interest to you both during and after the conclusion of your contract with us, including communication of any developments that may have an impact on your original service (e.g. a change in the law that will make additional services available to you). We will use the details you have provided to contact you including by telephone, email and post. If you do not wish for us to contact you in this manner, or by a specific method, you will be able to unsubscribe at any time to one or all contact methods and this option will be easy for you to complete.

We also have a legitimate interest in using your data to help us to review our services and obtain analytics in respect of our customer base.

We may also be required to use your data due to a legal requirement which is placed upon us; this includes our regulatory requirements such as financial record keeping, staff training and monitoring, in addition to complaint handling. In these circumstances, we may be required to keep your data by law. We will always inform you if this is the case.

Special category personal data (including criminal data) 

We are required by law to treat certain categories of personal data with even more care than usual. This includes information about your health, any disabilities you may have and your criminal convictions (spent or unspent). These are called sensitive or special categories of personal data and an additional condition set out in the Data Protection Legislation is required to process them.

The additional condition(s) we rely upon for processing special category personal data are either that the processing is undertaken by us and is not shared outside RIFT Ltd or your explicit consent.

Who we might share your information with

To allow us to provide our services to you, the following third parties provide critical functions to our business and will process your personal information as directed by us and in accordance with strict data security arrangements:

  • Our Advertising: We use third party digital advertising services who provide analytical information about our advertising to help us improve this in the future. In any event, the data held by analytics firms is on an anonymised basis meaning they cannot identify you;
  • We may use third party service providers to help us operate our business and the Site or administer activities on our behalf, such as sending out newsletters or surveys.
  • Post and Printing: we use an outsourced print-house who manages our printing; we transfer customer data via SFTP.
  • Government departments, such as HMRC, who we liaise with on your behalf and for AML audits.
  • Our Regulators: we may be required to provide your data to our Regulators, who include the Legal Ombudsman Service and the Information Commissioner’s Office; and
  • Our Professional Services: we use professional legal consultancy to help us fulfil our obligations.

We may also share your personal data with other organisations in the following circumstances:

  • If the law or a public authority says we must share the personal data.
  • If we transfer, purchase, reorganise, merge or sell any part of our business or the business of a third party, and we disclose or transfer your personal data to the prospective seller, buyer or other third party involved in a business transfer, reorganisation or merger arrangement (and their advisors);
  • If we need to share personal data to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (this includes providing personal data to others for the purposes of preventing fraud and reducing credit risk); or
  • From time to time, employ the services of other parties for dealing with certain processes necessary for the operation of the Website. However, all the information we share will be collected and anonymised, so neither you nor any of your devices can be identified from it.

We may also share your personal data with third parties, as directed by you.

We will not sell, assign, disclose or rent your personal data to any other external organisation or individual except for where the law requires us to disclose it, or where it is necessary to disclose the information to comply with a regulatory or legal process. We have carefully selected our third parties due to their commitment to keeping your data safe, and all data is processed within the European Union and subject to the same legislation. If you request for us to stop processing your data, we will also communicate this to the relevant third parties if they are processing this on our behalf. If you have any concerns about the above third parties, please let us know and we can provide advice and support to help you manage your data preferences.

How we keep you updated on our products and services

We will send you relevant offers and news about our services in several ways including by email, but only if you have previously consented to receive these marketing communications. When you register with us, we will ask if you would like to receive marketing communications, and you can change your marketing choices online, over the phone or in writing at any time. 

If you wish to amend your marketing preferences, you can do so by contacting us on the details at the bottom of this policy.

Your rights over your information

Rights to access your personal information
Under the Data Protection Legislation, data subjects have the right to receive a copy of the personal data that the Company holds about them, subject to certain conditions. Including:

  • To be told by the Company whether and for what purpose personal data about them is being processed.  
  • To be given a description of the personal data concerned and the recipients to whom it is or may be disclosed.
  • To have communicated in an intelligible form the personal data concerned, and any information available to the Company as to the source of the data. 

If you wish to access a copy of any personal data being held about you, you may submit a request for this by contacting RIFT Ltd on the details provided below. This is sometimes termed ‘Subject Access Request’. If we agree that we are obliged to provide personal information to you (or someone else on your behalf where you consent for us to do so), we will provide it to you or them free of charge and aim to do so within 30 days from when your identity has been confirmed (subject to applicable exemptions).

We would ask for proof of identity and sufficient information about your interactions with us that we can locate your personal information.

If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us as set out below.

Right to Correction of Your Personal Information
If any of the personal information we hold about you is incomplete, inaccurate or out of date, you may ask us to correct or complete it, as applicable.
If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us as set out below.

Right to Object to or Restrict Our Processing of Your Data
You have the right to object to us processing of your personal information, subject to certain conditions. This right applies where the processing of your personal data is necessary for our legitimate interests. You can ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.

You can also object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes.
If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us as set out below.

Right to Erasure of Your Personal Information
Subject to certain conditions, you are entitled to have your personal data erased (also known as the “right to be forgotten”), e.g., where your personal data is no longer needed for the purposes, it was collected for, or where the relevant processing is unlawful.

Right to withdrawal of consent
Where our processing of your personal data is based on your consent you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

For more information about your privacy rights
​The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) regulates data protection and privacy matters in the UK. They make a lot of information accessible to consumers on their website and they ensure that the registered details of all data controllers such as us are available publicly. You can access them here https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public.

You can make a complaint to the ICO at any time about the way we use your information. However, we hope that you would consider raising any issue or complaint you have with us first. Your satisfaction is extremely important to us, and we will always do our very best to solve any problems you may have.

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Complaints Team who will investigate your concerns.

RIFT Complaints Team
RIFT Tax Refunds
The Cobalt Building
1600 Eureka Park,
Lower Pemberton,
Ashford,
Kent,
England,
TN25 4BF.

Telephone: 01233628648
Email: customercare@riftgroup.com

If you are dissatisfied with our response you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745
Fax: 01625 524 510

How long we keep your information for

We retain a record of your personal information whilst we are providing you with our services and then, after we stop providing you with services, for as long as is necessary in connection with both our and your legal rights and obligations. This may mean that we keep some types of personal data for longer than others. We will always retain your personal information in accordance with the Data Protection Legislation and never retain your information for longer than is necessary. 

Different categories of data will be retained for different periods of time, depending on legal, operational and financial requirements.  

If you have asked that we do not use your details for marketing purposes, we may still need to keep them to ensure our systems reflect your preferences.

We will generally keep records of any transactions you enter into on this website for a minimum of six years from the end of the relationship. This is so that we can respond to any complaints or disputes that arise in that period. Otherwise we will keep the information where appropriate for legitimate business needs or as required to comply with the law.

Giving your reviews and sharing your thoughts

You may be able to share information through social networks like Facebook and Twitter. For example, when you ‘like’, ‘share’ or review our Services. When doing this, your personal information may be visible to the providers of those social networks and/or their other users. Please remember it is your responsibility to set appropriate privacy settings on your social network accounts, so you are comfortable with how your information is used and shared on them.

Security

Data security is of great importance to RIFT Ltd and to protect your data we have put in place suitable physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure your collected data.  

We take security measures to protect your information including:

  • Implementing access controls to our information technology
  • We use appropriate procedures and technical security measures (including strict encryption) to safeguard your information across all our computer systems, website and workstations. 
  • Data stored on memory sticks, portable hard drives or other removable storage media are kept in locked filing cabinets when not in use. 
  • Data held on computers is also stored confidentially by means of password protection, encryption or coding and again only approved associates, directors, employees, clients or suppliers have access to that data.  The Company has cloud back-up procedures to ensure that data on computers cannot be accidentally lost or destroyed.

Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share this password with anyone.

Information about our use of cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and allows us to improve our site.  Cookies are small packets of information stored by your web browser when you visit certain websites, including our website. Cookies are generally used by websites to improve your user experience by enabling that website to ‘remember’ you, either strictly for the duration of your visit (using a “Session” cookie which is erased when you close your browser) or for repeat visits (using a “Permanent” cookie).

Cookies set by RIFT Ltd are called "first-party cookies". Cookies set by parties other than RIFT Ltd are called "third-party cookies." Third-party cookies enable features or functionality provided by third parties in connection with the Platform, for example, advertising, interactive content, and analytics. The parties that set these third-party cookies can recognise your device both when it visits the website in question and also when it visits certain other websites. We do not use cookies to store any personally identifiable information about you. 

We use the following cookies: 

  • Strictly necessary cookies.These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services. 
  • Analytical/performance cookies.They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. 
  • Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region). 
  • Targeting/Marketing cookies.These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose. 
  • Third-Party Cookies. We work with analytics service providers, advertising partners, and advertising networks that may have access to your device information but does not enable them to collect your name, contact details or other personal information unless you choose to provide this information.

How can I control cookies

You can amend or "opt out" of the collection of any information through cookies or other tracking technology by actively managing the settings on your browser or mobile device. Please note that turning off or deleting cookies will not prevent device identification and related data collection from occurring. If you choose to reject cookies, your access to some functionality and areas of our website may be restricted. As the means by which you can refuse cookies through your web browser controls vary from browser-to-browser, you should visit your browser's or mobile device's technical information for instructions on how to delete and disable cookies, and other tracking/recording tools.

How often will you update this Cookie Policy?

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to the cookies we use or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons. Please therefore re-visit this Cookie Policy regularly to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies.

Third party websites

Users may find advertising or other content on our Site that links to the sites and services of our partners and other third parties. We do not control the content or links that appear on these sites and are not responsible for the practices employed by websites linked to or from our Site. In addition, these sites or services, including their content and links, may be constantly changing. These sites and services may have their own privacy policies and customer service policies. Browsing and interaction on any other website, including websites which have a link to our Site, is subject to that website's own terms and policies.

Advertising

Adverts appearing on our site may be delivered to Users by advertising partners, who may set cookies. These cookies allow the ad server to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement to compile non personal identification information about you or others who use your computer. This information allows ad networks to, among other things, deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. This privacy policy does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

No warranties

This Website is provided “as is,” with all faults, and RIFT Ltd express no representations or warranties, of any kind related to this Website or the materials contained on this Website. Also, nothing contained on this Website shall be interpreted as advising you.

Limitation of liability

In no event shall RIFT Ltd, nor any of its officers, directors and employees, shall be held liable for anything arising out of or in any way connected with your use of this Website whether such liability is under contract.  RIFT Ltd, including its officers, directors and employees shall not be held liable for any indirect, consequential or special liability arising out of or in any way related to your use of this Website.

Indemnification

You hereby indemnify to the fullest extent RIFT Ltd from and against any and/or all liabilities, costs, demands, causes of action, damages and expenses arising in any way related to your breach of any of the provisions of these Terms.

Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid under any applicable law, such provisions shall be deleted without affecting the remaining provisions herein.

Variation of Terms

RIFT Ltd is permitted to revise these Terms at any time as it sees fit, and by using this Website you are expected to review these Terms on a regular basis.

When we do, we will revise the updated date at the bottom of this page. We encourage Users to frequently check this page for any changes to stay informed about how we are helping to protect the personal information we collect. You acknowledge and agree that it is your responsibility to review this privacy policy periodically and become aware of modifications.

Assignment

RIFT Ltd is allowed to assign, transfer, and subcontract its rights and/or obligations under these Terms without any notification. However, you are not allowed to assign, transfer, or subcontract any of your rights and/or obligations under these Terms.

Entire Agreement

These Terms constitute the entire agreement between RIFT Ltd and you in relation to your use of this Website, and supersede all prior agreements and understandings.

By using this Site, you signify your acceptance of this policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our Site. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of changes to this policy will be deemed your acceptance of those changes.

Governing Law & Jurisdiction

These Terms will be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of England and Wales, and you submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales for the resolution of any disputes.

  • If the law or a public authority says we must share the personal data;
  • If we need to share personal data in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (this includes providing personal data to others for the purposes of preventing fraud and reducing credit risk); or
  • From time to time, employ the services of other parties for dealing with certain processes necessary for the operation of the Website. However, all the information we share will be collected and anonymised, so neither you nor any of your devices can be identified from it.

How to contact us 

If you would like to exercise one of your rights as set out above, or you have a question or a complaint about this policy, the way your personal information is processed, please contact us by one of the following means:
​
By email: info@riftrefunds.co.uk
By post: ​RIFT Tax Refunds, 1600 Eureka Park, Lower Pemberton, Ashford, Kent, TN25 4BF

If you have any concerns about the way that we handle your personal data, you have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office by one of the following means:

Online: https://www.ico.org.uk/
By post: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire
SK9 5AF