APIARY LIFE PRIVACY NOTICE

Last revised: February 29, 2024

1. THE PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT 

Apiary Life is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your relationship with us, in accordance with the relevant data protection rules. It applies to clients, interested parties and visitors to our premises. 

References to “clients” will include employees of clients throughout this document.

Apiary Life is a "data controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice. 

Apiary Life is a life crisis support firm that provides a technology platform and associated consulting and administrative services to people dealing with particular life changes, challenges and transitions. The registered office for this organization is ℅ Mathey and Stern, 32 1ST ST. BROOKLYN, NY 11231. 

This notice applies to all clients (including prospective clients), interested parties and visitors. It does not form part of any contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time. A copy also appears on our website (http://www.apiary.life) and should be drawn to the attention of any person for whom it may be relevant. It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information. 

2. DATA PROTECTION PRINCIPLES 

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be: (a) used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way. (b) collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes. (c) relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes. (d) accurate and kept up to date. (e) kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about. (f) kept securely.

3. THE KIND OF INFORMATION WE HOLD ABOUT YOU 

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data). 

There are “special categories of personal data” which require a higher level of protection.

We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you: Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses, date of birth, gender, marital status and dependents, family information, bank account details, employment, pension and tax information, information from identification documents and any other personal information provided to us by our clients directly. This is not an exhaustive list.

It may also be necessary for us to collect, store and use “special categories of personal data”, dependent on your circumstances such as: information about your race or ethnicity, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, trade union membership, information about your health including any medical conditions, genetic information and biometric data, and information about criminal convictions and offences. This is not an exhaustive list.

When clients create an account on the Apiary Life App, we will always obtain the following information: 

Name, and electronic contact details (such as email address)

When we are advising clients, we will also obtain information relating to the matter in which our advice or administrative support services are sought. 

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The need for us to obtain additional personal data will be determined by the reason we have been instructed in relation to a particular matter. 

4. HOW PERSONAL INFORMATION IS COLLECTED 

We typically collect personal information about our clients directly from them when taking instructions. We also collect information from and about third parties in connection with those instructions. We collect personal information during the course of acting for our clients and managing our business generally. 

In particular, we may collect information: (a) from publicly accessible sources (b) directly from a third party such as: bank or building society, financial institution or advisor, consultant and other professionals(s) you may engage in relation to a matter; your employer, professional body or pension administrators; doctors, medical and occupational health professionals (c) via our website including the Apiary Life App (for more information, please see the cookies policy on our website). (d) via our information technology (IT) systems such as: case management, document management and time recording systems; or automated monitoring of technical systems, such as our computer networks and connections, communications systems, email and instant messaging systems. 

5. HOW WE WILL USE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU 

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances: (a) where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you; or (b) where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare: (a) where we need to protect your interests (or someone else's interests). (b) where it is needed in the public interest; or (c) where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

Situations in which we will use your personal information 

Some or all of the categories of information above are required primarily to allow us to meet our contractual and legal obligations.  In some cases we may use your personal information to pursue the legitimate interests of our own or third parties, such as business or commercial interests, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.  Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

Finally, with consent, we use personal information to send marketing information we think our clients and contacts might be interested in. This may include newsletters and bulletins. 

If you do not provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to meet our contractual and legal obligations we have entered into with you. 

Change of Purpose 

We will only use your personal information for the purposes (or reasonably compatible purposes) for which we collected it. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law. 

6. HOW WE USE SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF DATA

“Special categories of personal data” require higher levels of protection.  We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information.  We may process special categories of information in the following circumstances: (a) in limited circumstances, and not generally, with your explicit written consent; and (b) where we need to carry out our legal obligations and in line with our data protection policy.

Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

Do we need your consent?

We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal data in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific legal rights.

7. HOW WE USE INFORMATION ABOUT CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS

We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so or where we have obtained your explicit consent to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations, provided we do so in line with our data protection policy.

Less commonly, we may use information relating to criminal convictions where it is necessary in relation to legal claims, where it is necessary to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the particular circumstances and where we are legally able to do so. We may be notified of such information directly by you or by other people. We will use information about criminal convictions and offences in the following ways:  

• to inform the way in which we act for our clients;  
• to assist us in deciding whether to act or continue to act; and  
• to comply with our professional or statutory obligations.  

8. DATA SHARING 

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third party service providers. We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We may transfer your personal information outside of the country in which we operate our professional relationship.  If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

Why might you share my personal information with third parties? 

We may share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to manage or market our business or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so. 

Which third party service providers process my personal information? 

Our third-party service providers change from time-to-time and we can let you have details of parties who are processing your data at any given time upon request. 

We routinely share personal data with: (a) professional advisers who we instruct on your behalf or refer you to (such as lawyers, medical professionals, accountants, tax advisors or other experts); (b) other third parties where necessary to carry out instructions (such as government organizations or financial institutions); (c) our insurers and brokers or bank; (d) external service suppliers, representatives and agents that we use to make our business more efficient, (such as marketing agencies or IT support companies). 

The following data sub-processors are utilized by Apiary Life during the course of normal business, and have been thoroughly reviewed to ensure their information security policies, standards, and guidelines meet or exceed Apiary Life's own safeguarding standards:

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How secure is my information with third party service providers? 

All of our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions. 

What about other third parties? 

We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business, or if it is required for legitimate business activities (or similar).  

We may also need to share some personal information with other third parties, such as potential buyers of some or all of our business or during a restructuring or if it is required for legitimate business activities (or similar). Usually, information will be anonymized but this may not always be possible. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.

9. DATA SECURITY 

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorized way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so. 

10. DATA RETENTION 

How long will you use my information for? 

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. 

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements. In some circumstances we may anonymize your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. 

For the purposes of providing client services, we will retain personal data belonging to clients in physical and electronic form for a maximum period of 5 years or as agreed in correspondence. Thereafter, it will be destroyed/deleted save for some basic information, which will usually include our client's name and address and a brief description of the matter we were contacted about. We will not, of course, destroy any items which belong to a client and which we have been asked to return or deposit in safe custody. We will in any event retain information for regulatory and professional reasons, including the need for us to be able to: (a) respond to any questions, complaints or claims; (b) check for any conflict of interest or confidentiality issues which might arise; emonstrate that we treated people fairly; Keep records required by the law or our regulators. 

If you would like us to send you marketing information, we will keep your contact details on our marketing list until you tell us that you no longer wish to receive this. 

11. RIGHTS OF ACCESS, CORRECTION, ERASURE, AND RESTRICTION 

Your duty to inform us of changes 

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your relationship with us. 

Your rights in connection with personal information 

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to: 

Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it. 

Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected. 

Request the erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to stop processing personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground.

Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it. 

Request the transfer of your personal information to another party. 

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact our Chief Executive Officer in writing. 

No fee usually required 

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances. 

What we may need from you 

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. 

12. RIGHT TO WITHDRAW CONSENT 

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact our Data Protection Officer (whose details are provided below) or any member manager at the company. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law. 

13. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE 

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