BK Group Privacy Notice
November 2024
BK Group understands that your privacy is important. Therefore, we respect and protect your right to privacy and will process your personal data in accordance with the provisions of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other applicable privacy laws.
The GDPR and any other applicable privacy laws apply to this Privacy Notice and anything not specifically mentioned in this notice shall be governed by the GDPR and any other applicable privacy laws.
This Privacy Notice explains how we may use, process and store your personal data.
We collect personal information that is required to enable us to provide a broad range of services for corporate governance, including administration, corporate and trust, middle office services, reporting and tax services to our clients and related parties. The kinds of personal information and special information that we may collect include:
- contact details, such as name, address, email address and telephone numbers;
- date and place of birth;
- nationality;
- gender;
- occupation/employment details;
- marital status;
- copies of identity documents (passport, national ID cart, driver’s license, employee identification numbers);
- source of wealth or funds;
- utility bill, bank statement and bank account information;
- tax residency;
- taxation details (including tax file number);
- investment information;
- details of directorship;
- other financial details such as credit history records, and
- client political associations and criminal records, where they are revealed by client screening procedures.
BK Group obtains and processes personal data in different ways.
Personal data provided to BK Group directly;
We collect personal data directly from (prospective) clients, business partners and intermediaries for the purposes of entering into a contract or a service agreement and/or to meet certain legal requirements.
Personal data obtained from third parties;
We also collect and process personal data from publicly accessible sources such as internet, social networks, World-Check or commercial registers. Furthermore we may receive personal data from third parties as part of the service we provide to you or in connection with legal requirements that are applicable to us.
We only collect, hold, use and discloses personal information for purposes related to our functions or activities, including for the purposes of:
- Processing subscription/capital contribution, transfer, redemption/withdrawal and conversion documentation on behalf of our clients;
- Processing payments in respect of subscriptions/capital contributions and redemptions of shares/withdrawals of capital and any dividends or distributions declared by or on behalf of our clients;
- Maintenance of registers of the holders of our clients;
- Providing you with information or assistance that you request from us;
- Conducting verifications, monitoring and reporting in accordance with anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing laws;
- Providing our clients with the services requested, including administration, corporate and trust, middle office services and reporting and tax services amongst others;
- Notifying you or our clients about changes to our services;
- Monitoring and improving the quality of our services;
- Quality assurance and training purposes;
- Complying with our legal and regulatory requirements.
BK Group may disclose or transfer personal data collected by BK Group to our group companies insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes of our service offering or for bona fide compliance purposes as well as on the legal basis as set out in this Privacy Notice.
Except as described in this paragraph, BK Group will not disclose, transfer or sell your personal data to any third party unless you have consented to this.
BK Group may disclose or transfer personal data to subcontractors for the purpose of the proper performance of the services we provide to our clients. It may, for example, disclose or transfer such personal data to third party service providers who provide administrative, computer, payment, data processing, debt collecting or other services. We enter into data processing agreements with such subcontractors to ensure that they process your data, on our behalf, with the same level of security and confidentiality as applied by BK Group. BK Group may furthermore disclose or transfer personal data when we received your consent to do so
In addition BK Group may disclose or transfer personal data to protect our rights or those of our clients and/or to prevent fraud. BK Group can also be obliged to disclose or transfer personal data to competent authorities in order to comply with our legal and/or regulatory obligations.
This list of possible disclosures is not intended to be exhaustive and there may be other legitimate purposes for holding, disclosing or otherwise processing your personal information. Where the law so requires, you will be notified of any additional purposes and where required your consent will be sought.
There are different legal bases that we rely on to use your personal information, namely:
- Performance of a contract – the use of your personal information may be necessary to perform the contract that you have with us so that we can provide the services and products that you have engaged us to provide to you.
- Consent – We will rely on your consent to use cookie data and geolocation data (if applicable) and your personal information for marketing purposes. You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at the address at the end of this Privacy Policy.
- Compliance with legal obligations – The use of your personal information may be necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations such as those set out under anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing laws;
- Legitimate interests – We may use your Personal Information for our legitimate interests to improve our products and services, quality assurance, training and for administrative purposes.
BK Group may disclose or transfer personal data to other companies of the BK group that are located in countries that are outside the European Economic Area in connection with the above purposes.
The personal data BK Group processes is stored by BK Group on our servers, and/ or on the servers of the cloud-based database management services BK Group engages.
If disclosure or transfer of personal data is being done in a country that does not ensure an adequate level of protection of your personal data, BK Group will make sure additional safeguards will be put in place.
BK Group will process and store the relevant personal data for the duration of our services or for the duration of the business relationship. BK Group may also store the data for as long as it is necessary or required in order to fulfill legal, contractual or statutory obligations and, or for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims, and in general where it has a legitimate interest for doing so.
You have the following rights:
Access to your information
You have the right to access the personal information that BK Group holds about you at any time.
Data portability
You may ask BK Group to provide you with a copy of the personal information that BK Group holds about you.
Correction of your personal information
You have the right to ask BK Group to update and correct any out-of-date or incorrect personal information that we would hold about you.
Deletion of your personal information (the right to be forgotten)
You have the right to ask BK Group to delete your personal information, to the extent that BK Group has no legal and/or regulatory obligations to keep such personal information.
Restriction of processing of your personal information
You have the right to ask BK Group to restrict the processing of your personal information in case:
- You contested the accuracy of the personal information held by BK Group;
- The processing is unlawful but you objected to the deletion of the personal data and requests the restriction of the use instead;
- BK Group no longer needs the personal data for the purposes of the processing, but you require them for legal reasons;
- You objected to processing and BK Group is investigating whether there are legitimate grounds to override your objection
Automatic decision making
BK Group generally does not make decisions by purely automatic means, but if we do, you have the right to object.
Object
You have the right to object at any time to the processing of your personal data for any direct marketing (and related profiling) by BK Group. If you wish to exercise any of the above rights, you can contact BK Group using the below contact details.
Please note that BK Group is the controller of personal data collected through the BK Group website (the “Website”).
BK Group collects personally-identifiable information on certain areas of the Website when users register, request publications or other information, sign up for conferences and events, apply for jobs, and participate in user posting areas, such as bulletin boards, discussion forums, and surveys. The personally-identifiable information collected may consist of information that you provide, such as names, mailing addresses, e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and, for recruiting purposes, any other personally-identifiable information on your resume.
The Website also uses cookies to identify you and your interests and to track usage of the website. Cookies are small pieces of text stored on your computer that help us know which browser you are using and where you have been on the Website and on websites to which you may link in order to use some of our features. By accepting our cookie, you will be permitted access to certain pages of the Website without having to log in each time you visit. A user who does not accept the cookie from the Website may not be able to access certain areas of the Website. BK Group also logs IP addresses, or the location of computers on the Internet, to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer the Website. If you prefer not to accept a cookie, you can set your web browser to warn you before accepting cookies, or you can refuse all cookies by turning them off in your web browser.
BK Group is committed to ensuring the security of your personal data. BK Group takes appropriate commercially reasonable technical, physical and organizational measures to prevent unauthorized or unlawful processing of your personal data or accidental loss or destruction of your personal data. BK Group will ensure a level of security suitable to the identified risks and pursuant to applicable Data Protection Laws and, where the Processing concerns personal data of EU residents, shall take measures required pursuant to article 32 GDPR.
Employees of BK Group are trained to handle personal data securely and with utmost respect and they will treat your personal data strictly confidential. Staff members shall be authorized to access personal data only to the extent necessary to serve the applicable legitimate purposes for which the data are processed by BK Group and to perform their job.
BK Group will not divulge client information to a third party unless we have received explicit client authorization or we are required to do so by law.
BK Group may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. We advise you to periodically review this Privacy Notice to be informed of how BK Group is protecting your privacy.
You may make a complaint about an alleged breach by us of applicable Privacy Laws in relation to our handling of your personal information. Your complaint should be in writing and addressed to our Compliance department. Alternatively, you have a right to complain to your local data protection authority (if one exists in your country).
For questions about our Privacy Policy, to exercise your rights regarding your personal information held by us or to make an enquiry, please contact our office in Amsterdam.