PRIVACY NOTICE
Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to set out to you how the Agency RE will collect, use, hold and share any information we obtain in the course of our business dealings with you. The Agency RE takes its responsibilities seriously regarding the information gathered and have set out in this policy how we may gather, collect, share and use information.
In the event that there is any conflict between the terms of they privacy policy and any other document in relation to data protection then the terms of this Privacy Notice shall prevail.
Introduction
- Who we are
- What personal information is covered in this privacy notice
3. Personal information we collect and why
4. How we collect your personal information
5. How we use your personal information
6. Who we share your personal information with
7. How we keep your personal information secure
8. How long we keep your personal information for
9. Overseas transfers of your personal information
10. Your rights in relation to your personal information
11. How to contact us
1. Who we are
The Agency is registered in the Cayman Islands as JMR Realty (Cayman) LTD, trading as The Agency RE ( “The Agency”).
On this site, the phrases “the Agency”, “us”, “we” or “our” will mean those businesses, brands, representative offices, branches and if applicable, applicable third parties which trade under the Agency RE brand on behalf of and in respect of whom this Privacy Notice is made.
The Agency is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Our use of your personal information is governed by this Privacy Notice.
Any reference to “you” or “your” refers to anyone whose personal information we process that or who is relevant to your dealings with us, which may include those close to you.
If there are any changes to the way in which your personal information is used, this Privacy Notice will be updated. If we make substantial changes to our Privacy Notice we will endeavour to inform you directly about these changes.
2. What personal information is covered in this privacy notice
Personal data – this is any information that tells us something about you. This could include information such as name, contact details, date of birth, bank account details, your location or any information about your needs or circumstances which would allow us to identify you.
Special Category data – this is information which is classified as “sensitive” under data protection legislation. Examples of which include; health data, religion or sexual orientation. There are also restrictions on when we can collect and use criminal conviction data which will be set out to you, should this be requested. This special category data requires us to have specific reason(s) under the Data Protection Act (2021 Revision) to collect, store and process. The instances in which we may have this information are limited, but may for instance include where there is a mortgage application for the purchase of a property.
The Agency RE acts as the ‘data controller’ for the personal information that it collects and uses about you in accordance with the Data Protection Law applicable in the Cayman Islands from time to time. In all cases, we will treat your personal information as confidential and use it in accordance with applicable data protection legislation and your personal information will only be shared with others in accordance with this Privacy Notice.
3. Personal information we collect and why
We will collect your full name and necessary contact details (such as phone number(s), email address and address) from you whenever you engage with us.
Depending on the service we provide you (or on your behalf) we may also collect additional personal information as detailed below;
3.1 If you are buying or selling a property through us; [or if you are enquiring about or applying for a mortgage product or service].
i. Personal information we may collect
*Your name, postal address, phone number, email address and details of your requirements
*Previous names, mother’s maiden name, previous addresses, health and family history, information about your status and dependents.
*Your marital status, gender, date of birth, nationality, residency status and tax status (where applicable).
*Employment details, bank details and credit history.
*Your bank account details and/or payment card information.
*Proof that you have sufficient funds to support any offer that you may wish to make to buy a property .
*Financial information, for example, a copy of bank statement(s) or an agreement in principle from your mortgage provider.
*Proof of identity checks may require (but are not limited to), passport, driving licence, marriage certificates and address documents.
*Evidence of the source of funds you will be using to buy a property.
*Bank Statements, Mortgage Statement, Proof of deposit, Payslips, Accounts, tax returns (where applicable), ID and proof of address.
*Details of your mortgage arrangements, confirmation of how long you have owned the Moving dates, utility meter serial number and meter readings at a property.
*Details of the source of monies invested in the property.
*Information obtained about how you use The Agency’s website, the pages visited and the browser or device used to access the website.
*Evidence that you have the right to sell a property.
*Details relating to your property including photographs, floor plans, home reports, property description and survey results.
*Information that is in the public domain and is readily available that we reasonably deem relevant, such as Court Judgments.
*We may also need to collect information on other individuals who have an interest in the property who are not considered to be our customers but are involved in or affected by a proposed property transaction.
ii. Why we collect personal information
*To provide the services required for all realty services.
*To apply or inquire about services related to mortgage products required.
*To offer alternative properties related to your search criteria.
*To carry out referencing and credit checks and the results of those checks.
*To enable you to create and manage any accounts or associated authentication criteria (such as ID logins and passwords) you may have.
*To provide customer surveys.
*To perform ‘know your client’, anti-money laundering, ant fraud and counter terrorist financing requirements and as may otherwise be required by law.
*To support mortgage and/or insurance applications.
* For processing payments and transactions including: accounting, authorisation, clearing, chargebacks, auditing, billing, reconciliation, collection, credit checks and related dispute resolution activities.
3.3 To deliver our service to you when you engage us to sell a property on your behalf. We need to obtain client ID verification checks in order to sell a property. Information gathered may include IP address, browser type, operating system, URL information in order to improve our services provided to customers through insight and to improve communication and marketing preferences.
We may, during the course of your relationship with us, request additional information from you which is relevant to the provision of specific services.
3.4 We do not offer any products or services to children and our services and our web site are not designed for use by children. In certain circumstances (for example a tenant or mortgage application) we may need to collect the name and date of birth of children from tenant or mortgage applicants, and share this with the selected mortgage provider. However, please note that unless covered by specific enquiry (for example, for mortgage purposes), we do not knowingly collect information about children.
[3.3 Any telephone calls either to or from our branches may be recorded for training, monitoring, compliance and security purposes.]
4. How we collect your personal information
*Direct interactions – personal information you disclose when you fill in forms, surveys, or correspond with us by post, phone, email, live chat, web, social or otherwise; or through portals when you enquire about any of our services.
*Indirect interactions – personal information you disclose to third parties such as, but not limited to, a mortgage broker, professional advisor or another branch or business of the Agency or which is available through publicly available sources or registers such as Land Registry, Companies Registry, Government or Police Databases, your employer, next of kin of delegated authorities.
*Additional information about Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) and Sanctioned Individuals is provided by a third party provider that interrogates national and international public domain sources and matches the data to the client subject to an AML check. The purpose is to comply with Anti Money Laundering requirements.
5. How we use your personal information
We will process the information only as permitted by law. We may use the information we gather in order to provide you with products and services and answer any questions you may have.
Under data protection legislation we are only permitted to use your personal information if we have a legal basis for doing so. We rely on the following legal bases to process and use your information:
• Performance of a contract – this is where the collection and processing of your personal information is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract.
• Legal obligation – this is where the collection and processing of your personal information is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation, for example verification of identity and fraud prevention.
- Consent – where we process personal information under consent we will seek your clear and unambiguous consent before processing your data for example to send and/or receive marketing information from The Agency.
- Legitimate interest – some personal information is processed by The Agency as part of its legitimate interests which include network and information security, web analytics, updating customer details, sales and other core services. The Agency may also rely on legitimate interest to process personal information related to direct marketing, web analytics, sales, lettings and other services that we feel may be of interest to you.
Where we may process special categories of personal information and criminal conviction information we do so under additional lawful bases of the Data Protection legislation. These may include, but are not limited to:
• Where you have provided explicit consent.
• Where processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defence of legal claims.
6. Who we share your personal information with
6.1 Personal data we share within the Agency
We may share your information within our group companies of the Agency, where necessary, for the provision of agreed services. [The Agency Group of companies includes all subsidiaries, [including the companies listed on our website]].
6.2 Sharing with third parties
We will share personal information with our regulators, governmental or quasi-governmental organisations, law enforcement authorities and with courts, tribunals and arbitrators as may be required from time to time in order to comply with our regulatory and legal obligations.
Where we engage third party service providers to provide products and services (such as mortgages, house and contents and family protection insurances) or other business services and operations on our behalf, we provide them with only the personal information they need to perform the service we request. This includes IT systems providers and IT contractors as well as third party referencing or screening agencies for the purposes of the prevention and detection of crime and anti money laundering. We contractually require them to securely protect information to the same standards as we are required to keep this information, and not to use it for any other purpose.
Indicatively – but not limited to – we may disclose your information to the third parties listed below for the purposes listed:
*Third party vendor, buyer, house builder, other realtors and parties involved in the sale and purchase
Why we share it:
To support a sale progression:
Share memorandum of sale with each party,
Exchanging data within the chain.
Provide a list of viewers.
To support your enquiry or purchase of property or related products or services.
Where an Agency RE employee may be on site with a developer and data may be shared.
Approved contractors and suppliers including energy suppliers where required.
To install for sale boards.
To produce marketing information for the sale of the property.
To provide conveyancing or legal services.
To progress your enquiry or application for a mortgage.
To progress your enquiry or application for buildings and contents insurance.
To progress your enquiry or application for term insurance, critical illness cover and income protection.
To progress your enquiry or application for term insurance, critical illness cover and income protection.
Referencing Companies, Credit and Risk agencies.
To run automatic checks on your creditworthiness and to help prevent fraud and money laundering.
For fraud prevention, anti-money laundering checks and identity verification.
Matching personal data to publicly available sources, for example at the registry of land.
* To permit selected third parties to provide you with information about other goods and services that we feel may interest you (where consent has been given; legitimate interests).
*Solicitors and lawyers: To pursue a claim for breach of agreement and/or to assist us in recovering any monies which we are owed and overdue.
*Law enforcement bodies including the police and government authorities: To comply with court orders or legal obligations.
*Surveyors or Engineers: To undertake a structural or Homebuyers survey.
*The Ombudsman: Where determining a dispute.
*Land Registry Office: For conveyancing services.
6.3 Automated Decision Making
Some of the services provided by third parties may involve an automated decision, matching and/or credit scoring process. Any credit scoring methods used by third parties are regularly tested to ensure they remain fair, effective and unbiased.
7. How we keep your personal information secure
The security of your personal information is extremely important to us, and we therefore have measures in place to ensure it stays safe, is not damaged, destroyed or misused, and prevents unauthorised access. The measures include, but are not limited to:
• Client software systems – all systems have protections in place to protect against both unauthorised access, and other external factors that could cause damage to, your personal data. There are strict access requirements in place and access is restricted to those absolutely necessary.
• Hard copy paper files – stored in a secure facility with restricted physical access.
We provide data protection training to all employees and workers who need access to and process personal information.
Where – in line with this Privacy Notice – information is shared with third parties, similar security measures are used to ensure the protection of your information.
8. How long we keep your personal information for
We will keep your information for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy notice, and to fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations.
The time period may vary depending on type of service or product you have requested from us. In certain circumstances we have a statutory obligation to keep your personal information for a set period of time, for example, financial information (normally 6 years) for financial auditing purposes. Information is always retained in line with its purpose of processing and only for as long as necessary usually, information is kept for 6 years after last contact with you. However, the retention period may be extended dependent upon any legal or contractual obligations Countrywide may be required to comply with, as well as any overriding business legitimate interests.
9. Overseas transfers of your personal information
We are based within the Cayman Islands, however some of the third parties and agents that we work with may be based outside of the Cayman Islands, so processing of your personal information may involve a transfer of data outside of the Cayman Islands. Whenever we transfer your personal information outside of the Cayman Islands, we will always ensure it is protected by making sure we have safeguards in place. This might mean only transferring your personal information to a country that has been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection, or by using specific contractual protections.
You can contact us at [ ] for details of how we protect specific transfers of your data.
10. Your rights in relation to your personal information
• Your right of access – you have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. Exemptions within the legislation could mean that you may not receive all the information we process. If this is applicable an explanation will be provided to you within our response.
• Your right to rectification – you have the right to request that inaccurate information is rectified and incomplete information completed.
• Your right to erasure – you have the right to request your personal information be deleted by us in certain circumstances.
• Your right to restrict processing – you have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
• Your right to object to processing – you have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
• Your right to data portability – you have the right to request whether and to where we may have transferred your personal data.
• Rights related to automated decision making and profiling – you have the right not to be subjected to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) which may significantly affect you.
If you would like to make a request to exercise any of your individual rights described in this section, please email [. ] the brand/company and business relationship it is in relation to. Upon receipt of your request, The Agency will carry out a review and a response determining our decision will be provided to you within the recommended timescales.
11. How to contact us
Contact details
If you have any questions, comments or requests regarding any aspect of this Privacy Notice, how we handle your personal information, or a subject access request, please do not hesitate to contact us by sending an email to [. ].
If you have a complaint about the way in which your personal information has been processed, you have the right to contact the Ombudsman’s Office but we would suggest that you first complete our internal complaints procedure and we will try to address your concerns. Please contact [ ].
Complaints
If you have any complaints about the way we use your personal information, please contact your usual business contact.
This Privacy Policy was last updated on [. ] August 2023 and is prepared for JMR Realty (Cayman) LTD of Block 14BH, Parcel 20, Elgin Court, Elgin Avenue, George Town, Cayman Islands.
