Your Privacy Matters

We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal information. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are subject to the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation 679/2016, which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom)

Obligations under the UK GDPR vary depending on whether we are a Controller, Joint Controller or Processor.

We are responsible as a Processor of personal information for the purposes of those laws above.

Our instructing Client shall be regarded as the Controller of the information. We do not accept that we are Joint Controller under any circumstance as the position of Controller and Processor is one of fact.

We are a Processor because:

• We are following instructions from someone else regarding the processing of personal data, i.e. 'the instructing Client'
• We are given basic details which constitute personal data by our instructing client and are told what data to collect i.e. a new address at which legal documents can be served or contact can be made
• We do not decide to collect personal data from individuals on the above basis that we are instructed by another who has made that decision
• We do not decide what personal data should be collected fro individuals. Our instructing client instructs us to obtain an address connected to the individual
• We do not decide the lawful basis for processing. See our guidance and disclaimer here
• We do not decide what purpose or purposes the data will be used for, but the instructing Client warrants to us that they will be using the information for debt collection purposes
• We do not decide whether to disclose the data, or to whom and once it is returned to the instructing Client it is no longer in our control
• We do not decide how long the instructing Client will retain the data
• We may make some decisions on how data is processed (our confidential trace methods) but implement those decisions under a contract with our instructing Client
• We are not interested in the end result of processing

Key Information

tracedebtors.co.uk is a domain name owned and operated by Bradshaw Pearson Limited.

Our registered office is situate at 38 London Road, Wickford, Essex SS12 0AN. This is where we can receive legal notices.

Our Company Number is 11789563. We are registered in England and Wales.

We do not have a specified Data Protection Officer, but you may write to us at our registered office or trading address if you have any concerns regarding data protection. You do not need to specify or mark the envelope 'data protection' as the obligation is on us to recognise a request or complaint, however, it will help us if you do mark the envelope clearly with 'Data Protection' as this will ensure that it gets to where it needs to be quicker.

Subject Access Requests

We are not obligated to respond to a Subject Access Request as we are Processors. Should you make a Subject Access Request to us, we will confirm receipt of the matter but pass this back to the Data Controller to deal with.

We do this because we have obligations as a Processor under Data Protection legislation which includes, but is not limited to notifying the Controller, i.e. the instructing Client immediately if any of their instruction would lead to a breach of the UK GDPR or local data protection rules.

Our instructions are only ever to trace an individual for debt related purposes. We do not trace individuals for any other purpose. The debt must be lawfully due and owing, and our instructing Client warrants to us that this is the case when placing the instruction.

Personal Information we collect

We collect information on both debtors that we trace, and on our Clients.

We collect information for the following purposes:

Debtors

• To locate an address for service of legal documents and/or an address through which a Creditor may may contact

Instructing Clients

• We collect information to enable us to report and invoice our Instructing Client

What information do we collect

Debtors

• Full Names and any Aliases / Previous Names
• Dates of Birth to assist in verification that we have the right person
• Current and Previous and / or Associated addresses
• Sometimes we may process information about associated people in order to locate a debtor but such information shall not be passed to the instructing client, nor will it be retained. We do not specifically seek out this information, but it is usually included in the information
• Telephone Numbers
• Email Addresses

Instructing Clients

• Full Names
• Companies to which they are associated which they may either own, part own or be an employee or authorised person of
• Addresses which may include workplace or home addresses
• Telephone Numbers
• Email Addresses
• Internet Protocol addresses

We do not process special category data.

Sources of Information

Consented. We are not obligated to inform you of the sources we use as these are considered to be confidential commercial information

Records and destruction of data

We keep records of the cases we undertake and store these electronically in a safe environment on servers located in the United Kingdom with appropriate safeguards.

We retain data for a period of six year and six months. This is because this meets the statute of limitations and allows a six month grace period for the purposes of any issued action on the last day as protective proceedings or proceedings generally otherwise.

This helps us keep records for the purposes of any Court action - we are tracing debtors for legally owed debts and some of these will likely end up in Court either immediately or in the future. We also keep them for our own record keeping when it comes to accounting and ensuring our liability insurers and legal advisors will have appropriate information to deal with any claims against us.

Objection to Processing

Article 21 of the UK GDPR gives individuals the right to object to the processing of their personal data at any time. This effectively allows individuals to stop or prevent you from processing their personal data. Other than for direct marking purposes, there is no absolute right. For non direct marking purposes the right to object only applies in certain circumstances. Whether it applies depends on the purposes for processing and your lawful basis for processing. As we process personal data to a limited scope, it is unlikely that we will agree to cease processing your data unless you can provide compelling reasons for us to do so, with evidence to back up any allegations. If you cannot, our instructing Clients lawful basis and purposes will likely prevail.

Keeping Your Personal Information Secure

We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.

How to Complain

Please see Data Protection Complaints

Changes to this Privacy Policy

This privacy notice was published on 28 January 2021.

We may change this privacy notice from time to time. When we do, we will publish the new privacy notice here, and you are therefore encouraged to check this page if you regularly use our site.