There are, of course, things you need to know if we’re going to be working together. As lovers of simplicity and transparency, we’ve done our best to keep them simple but there’s a lot to read and your time is precious. where you see the  symbol, it indicates a section that contains particularly important information. Please make sure you read those sections before we begin working together.

Definitions and terms

In this document (and on this website), ‘we’, ‘me’, ‘we’, ‘our’ and ‘my’ mean Wiseman Data Privacy (hereafter ‘WDP’), while ‘You’ and ‘your’ mean the organisation engaging WDP’s services. ‘Services’ or ‘Work’ refer to the work you’re engaging us to do: data protection and privacy advice, guidance, expertise or documentation of any nature and in any format. Similarly, the terms ‘advice’, ‘guidance’, ‘support’, ‘work’, ‘products’ and ‘packages’ refer to the services offered or provided by Wiseman Data Privacy. ‘The current legal and regulatory framework’, ‘data privacy law’, ‘data protection and privacy law’, ‘applicable laws’ and any other reference to law and regulation means the data protection and privacy law and regulation that applies in the UK and Europe, including applicable secondary and related legislation and regulation. References to approval or confirmation ‘in writing’, means either via e-mail or in writing. This document was last updated in August 2021.

Wiseman Data Privacy: who we are, what we offer and who can use our services.

Wiseman Data Privacy is a trading name of Louise Wiseman Limited, registered office 3 Charnwood Street, Derby. Wiseman Data Privacy exists to provide independent data protection and privacy services. Our sister company, The Privacy Guru, offers affordable data privacy services tailored to the needs of artists, creatives, sole traders, very small businesses, independent charities and not-for-profit groups. If your business falls into one of these categories, please have a look at www.theprivacyguru.co.uk as it may be more suited to your needs.

Businesses outside the UK

Wiseman Data Privacy is UK-based and so offers services primarily to businesses in he UK, but we are also happy to work with businesses based elsewhere in the world (within or outside Europe). As you would expect, all travel or accommodation costs will be payable by the client. If applicable, we will discuss and agree budgets or limits when we start working together.

Pricing, discounts and promotions, additional costs

Pricing will be agreed before we being working together so you are clear about the work to be done and how much it will cost. If we agree to additional work as we go along, we will ensure you know the cost beforehand. we may offer other promotions, special offers or discounts, and we reserve the right to introduce, change or withdraw these at any time with no notice but will honour discounts already agreed in writing. we may change Wiseman Data Privacy’s pricing structure at any time with no notice, but will honour prices agreed in writing on work that is already confirmed or in progress. Where we need to incur additional costs such as mileage, accommodation or parking , we will make you aware before we book it or agree to undertake a journey. In the case of accommodation or airfare, you may prefer to book it for us using your chosen provider or any corporate rates or discounts. If we make the booking myself, we will be mindful of cost and observe any reasonable limits/budgets you have given.  Advice and Services Once you’ve engaged our services, we agree to provide you with the data protection and privacy expertise, guidance and support as detailed in the relevant product page on this website (if you’re choosing from the À la carte menu) and/or as agreed between us, and based on the information you give us about your business, its operations and its needs, and in line with the current legal and regulatory framework. Details of the work to be provided and any timescales agreed will be confirmed via e-mail before work begins. You agree to pay all amounts due for the work you have requested, as well as other agreed items such as, where applicable, mileage. You agree to be open and honest with us about your business, its operations and its needs so that we can give you the most appropriate advice and support. we are not liable for loss or damage of any kind that results from your failure to give us complete or accurate information about your business Laws and regulations change, and case law develops over time. The guidance we provide is valid when given and for the reasonably foreseeable future and will always take account of any upcoming changes of which we can reasonably be expected to be aware, but it may not remain valid if law, regulation or your business changes significantly. Unless you have signed up to an ongoing subscription package, it is your responsibility to seek further data privacy advice in the event of any future significant changes in law, regulation, your business or your industry to ensure you remain compliant. Before any work begins, we will re-confirm in writing (usually by e-mail) exactly what you can expect us to do, any documentation you can expect to receive, the agreed price and details of other items such as mileage that are to be billed separately. Once you have indicated your agreement, whether orally or in writing (usually by e-mail) you are liable to pay the amounts stated, so please ensure you raise any queries or concerns promptly before work begins. If we agree to add any additional work or items once work is underway, we will confirm the details and the price in writing beforehand. Where you have engaged us to provide an in-depth review of your business, we will provide recommendations ordered by risk and priority, but it is ultimately your decision whether to act upon them, in which order and when. we cannot be held responsible if your failure to act leads directly or indirectly to loss or damage.

 À la carte Menu

Before engaging WDP for any services from the À la carte menu, please ensure you understand what is and is not included in the package you have selected. This is shown on the relevant product pages of this website. Before any work begins, we will re-confirm in writing exactly what you can expect us to do, any documentation you can expect to receive, the agreed price and details of other items such as mileage that are to be billed separately. Once you have indicated your agreement, whether orally or in writing you are liable to pay the amounts stated, so please ensure you raise any queries or concerns promptly before work begins. If we agree to add any additional work or items once work is underway, we will confirm the details and the price in writing beforehand. If you purchase a specific ‘package’ or service from us, we will provide only that agreed package. At our discretion, we may (without charge) make suggestions or offer opinion or advice on other data privacy issues unrelated to that specific package, but this is additional to the package or service you have purchased. we cannot be held liable for failure to provide advice and guidance on any issue not related to and included in the specific service you have purchased.

If things go wrong…

Before any work begins, we’ll confirm the work to be carried out and appropriate pricing and timescales to give clear expectations on both sides. If work is ongoing, we will keep you informed and let you know of any problems that arise at our end. we would ask the same of you, and if there’s anything you’re unhappy with, don’t understand, or anything that affects your ability to pay please let us know as soon as possible so that we can sort things out quickly and agreeably. If for any reason we become unable to complete the agreed work, we will inform you immediately and refund any money paid to that date. we accept no liability for any amount greater than the amount you have paid to us for the services we have provided, unless we are found to have acted negligently or recklessly in providing those services. In any case, our total liability will be limited to £250,000.

Meetings, Phone calls and additional costs

It’s always nice to be able to meet clients face-to-face but at the same time we appreciate that all businesses need to be mindful of costs. At the time of writing, we have the added consideration of Covid-19 restrictions. We will hold most meetings online (via Zoom, Teams or similar) but will discuss at the outset whether face to face meetings or site visits are necessary. If they are, we will charge you mileage at the current HMRC rate. If overnight accommodation is necessary, it will be payable by the client. Although we reserve the right to do so, we will not normally charge mileage for an initial visit if you’re within 15 miles of our Midlands base, (which is between Derby and Nottingham). If we visit you and you are unable to provide free parking on site, we may require you to pay our parking costs.

Timescales

We’ll agree timescales for the completion of work during our initial chat/meeting. If we are then unable to complete the work within the agreed time, we will let you know as soon as we know and confirm a new completion date. For À la carte services, if you have paid extra to ‘upgrade’ to a quick turnaround and we are then unable to meet that timescale, we will refund or deduct the additional ‘upgrade’ fee you have paid.

 Documents created for you

After our initial discussion, we’ll re-confirm the work to be carried out and the documentation or written guidance you can expect to receive. For À la carte services, this will be as listed in the product descriptions on this website plus any additional items we have agreed. Policies and other documents will be in Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint as applicable, and sent via e-mail. Where we provide you with a public-facing privacy policy/notice or other copy for use on your website, it is your responsibility to arrange for it to be uploaded onto the site. we will usually ask you for any branding, ‘house style’ or other guidelines before starting work on internal- or public-facing documents and will comply with them as far as possible, but it is your responsibility to ensure that the finished documents meet all your company’s branding, compliance or other requirements and to obtain any necessary approvals.

Rights to use the documentation provided

Copyright to all documentation produced belongs to Louise Wiseman Limited, but you have an ongoing right to use them for the business and purposes for which they have been designed or created. You must not, without our express permission (and crediting us as the author), share them with any other business or organisation, use them for any other purpose or modify them (except where they are designed to be updated with your own business information). If we take photographs for use on your website or for internal or external publication, you must credit us as the photographer. Please note that all advice and guidance we give is applicable only to your business and based on the circumstances and details we have discussed. What is right for your business may not be right for another. Please do not share the guidance, advice or documentation we provide unless you have our prior consent.

‘Round of revision’

Some packages include one ‘round of revision’. One round means we send you the documents, you review them and highlight any changes you wish us to make and we make those changes. Please make sure you review all documents carefully to avoid the need for additional rounds of revision are charged at £20 each. Unless we have agreed otherwise, you are responsible for ensuring that the documents are reviewed by all relevant internal stakeholders.

Subscriptions

If you purchase a DPO in a Box subscription package, we will provide the services detailed in the product description (and re-confirmed after our initial meeting/discussion). All calls/meetings included in the package must be carried out within the year of the subscription and cannot be carried over to the next year unless by prior agreement with us. Your subscription will continue until it is cancelled in writing (usually by email) by you or us. If we intend to cancel your subscription, we will give you at least one month’s notice. Please give us one month’s notice if you intend to cancel your subscription. If you pay quarterly, on cancellation you will forfeit the payment already made for the current quarter. we will provide you with any documentation or other work due in that quarter. If you pay annually, we will refund the unused portion of your subscription fee (pro-rated by the number of months remaining) minus a reasonable charge for work already carried out, and provide you with any work or documents that are in progress at the time of cancellation.

Subscription, DPO Mentoring and emergency support packages

The purchase of a DPO in a Box subscription, PrivacyMentors or emergency support package does not amount to or imply any employment relationship between us. If you ask us to act on your behalf, for example when dealing with a regulator, we will make it clear to the other party or parties that we are an independent advisor acting on your behalf and not employed by you or otherwise linked with you or your company.

 Hourly rate

Where work is undertaken at an hourly rate, anything less than one hour will be rounded up and charged as one full hour. After the first hour, anything over 30 minutes will be rounded up to a full hour.

 Payment terms

Payment for all services is due immediately on completion of the work. The work is complete when we have carried out all agreed actions, provided you with the final version of all agreed documentation and, where applicable, we have held any wrap-up meeting/call. we will issue an invoice for the outstanding amount along with the final documentation. In the event that we are unable to schedule or hold the wrap-up call/meeting within seven days of completion of the rest of the work, all amounts will become due at that point even though the meeting has not yet been held. After that point, we will cease reminding you about the wrap-up meeting, and it will be your responsibility to provide suitable dates and times if you still require it but you will not be entitled to the refund of any money if the wrap-up meeting/call does not go ahead. For all items priced at more than £1500 you will be required to provide a non-refundable deposit of £350 before we begin work (due immediately after our initial discussion), with the balance due once the work is complete. If you change your mind once work has begun, you will forfeit your deposit and any work underway will cease immediately. Where a substantial programme of work over a long period of time has been agreed, you may be required to pay in periodic instalments (for example, monthly or quarterly). We will confirm this when we begin working together. Payment must be made by bank transfer. If you wish to pay by any other method, there will be an additional charge to cover banking costs incurred. Subscriptions may be paid annually in advance by bank transfer or quarterly by standing order. Pay-as-you-go mentoring sessions of less than two hours that are held face to face may be paid in cash, if you prefer.

 Non-payment

If you fail to pay for work completed, we will issue two reminders. If you still do not pay, we will take the necessary action to recover all monies owing and any costs incurred in doing so, and will share your details with any organisations necessary in order to do so. If you have taken out a DPO in a Box subscription paying quarterly (or agreed to pay in monthly or quarterly instalments for any other service) and you fail to pay, we will issue one reminder by phone or email, after which we will cease all work and the subscription or work will be considered terminated. No further advice or documents will be provided to you, including any that were in progress at the time you ceased payment. It’s extremely unlikely that we will, but we reserve the right to refuse to work with or take on work for any person or organisation at any point and for any reason. Speaking Engagements If you book us to speak at an event, you will be required to pay a non-refundable deposit of £75 at the time of booking. we understand that plans change and emergencies happen, but in the event that either party needs to cancel we agree to give each other as much notice as possible. If you cancel with less than 7 days’ notice, you will forfeit your deposit. If circumstances beyond our control mean that we need to cancel less than 7 days before the event, we will refund your £75 deposit in full. Privacy Made to Measure: Deposit If you opt for our Privacy Made to Measure service, we charge a fee of £75 to prepare our initial proposal and quotation, which is deducted from the cost of any work carried out in the following six months. As we hope you’ve noticed, WDP is built on fairness and transparency and that works both ways. We’re a small business, so offering free quotations simply isn’t feasible or realistic for us if it doesn’t lead to work; it takes time and thought to put together a fair and realistic quotation and, in some cases, may involve travelling to meet you. We know that you may be shopping around and obtaining a number of quotations, and we believe that’s the right thing for you to do, but at the same time we need to cover our costs. We think £75 is a fair amount to charge to cover our costs without putting our service out of reach of potential clients, large or small.

Access to your systems and premises

If, for any reason, you need to give us access to your systems or premises, we will abide by any applicable policies and procedures, but it is your responsibility to obtain any necessary approvals or security passes and to provide us with access to the relevant policies and procedures. If we are to be spending a significant amount of time on your premises, we are very happy to complete any reasonable internal training that is required to comply with the requirements of your business, although the time it takes will be chargeable at our current hourly rate. If we are working with you for a long period of time, and you wish to provide us with access (including remote access) to your systems, any licencing or set-up costs must be borne by you. If we are accessing your systems from our own equipment, you are responsible for providing us with appropriate security and anti-virus protection and keeping it up to date, and you also accept responsibility for any damage to our computer equipment that occurs as a result of installing your systems/connecting to your network. In such situations, you may prefer to provide us with a dedicated laptop for the duration of the work. If you do, we will keep it secure , use it only for accessing your systems and networks and return it to you once the work is complete. You will be responsible for ensuring that the hardware and software you provide complies with your organisation’s IT and Security policies.

 Reasonable usage

we aim to have a friendly, straightforward working relationship with all our clients and want them to feel they can approach us with queries and questions, and this relies on fair play on both sides. WDP À la carte packages and services include ‘reasonable’ phone or e-mail queries. It is difficult to be precise, but ‘reasonable’ means what we consider to be normal and necessary in the circumstances, considering the amount you have paid/agreed to pay, the circumstances and the level and type of service we are providing to you. If we consider your usage of our service not to be reasonable, we will tell you so and may at our discretion charge an additional fee, refuse to answer further queries or ultimately terminate our relationship with immediate effect.

English law

For the avoidance of doubt, any agreement between us is governed by English law.

 Confidentiality

In order to provide you with the right advice and support, we need you to be open with us about your business, its circumstances and its needs. This might involve you telling us confidential or sensitive information about your business. We agree to keep confidential all information of any kind about you and your business before, during and after we work together. we will disclose such information only in the unlikely event of being compelled by law to do so (for example, in response to a warrant or court order). Please see our Privacy policy for full details of how we use personal information.