European Economic Area and Switzerland – For Contacts and Potential Clients or Suppliers

ghSMART GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION (“GDPR”)

March 17, 2021

G. H. Smart & Company, LLC, ghSMART UK Limited, G. H. Smart GmbH, G. H. Smart & Company Pty Ltd and G. H. Smart & Company Canada, ULC (collectively “ghSMART”), is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This ghSMART GDPR Privacy Policy (“privacy notice”, “privacy statement”, or “notice”) describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your relationship with us, in accordance with GDPR. Our mailing addresses are included at the end of this notice.

It should be noted that our legal basis for processing is indicated below. 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.

For the purposes of the GDPR, ghSMART is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. As a data controller we are required under GDPR to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

Your data

In this section we outline the purposes for which we may process your data as permitted by applicable law. For each ‘purpose’ we also list the types of data we may process and our legal basis for the processing it.

I. For the Purpose of Marketing, Business Development or Distributing Publications

More specifically, we use your personal data described below for the following purposes, which are listed under our applicable legal basis for processing your data for that purpose:

To engage with potential clients where we may provide services and products (applying GDPR Art 6.1f – a legitimate interest)

  • Maintaining contact information for current and prospective clients;
  • Meeting arrangement/travel/scheduling;
  • Providing information about our products, services, research and events to prospective clients;
  • Creating a proposal or a proposed agreement to provide services.

To comply with record keeping obligations (applying GDPR Art 6.1c – compliance with a legal obligation)

  • To comply with record keeping obligations for external financial statement audits to substantiate our business transactions;
  • To comply with record keeping obligations for tax records to support our tax returns.

To comply with non-EU laws (applying GDPR Art 6.1f – a legitimate interest in complying with the laws that apply to our activities in all jurisdictions where we do business)

  • To comply with record keeping obligations for external financial statement audits to substantiate our business transactions;
  • To comply with record keeping obligations for tax records to support our tax returns.

Types of personal data that may be processed (please note that we do not process this data in all cases and that with regard to types of data we collect directly from you this list contains examples only):

  • Personal data allowing identification (title, surname, first name); contact information (street address, telephone and email address); professional contact information (employer name, location of employment, employment contact details of employer, main tasks and responsibilities);
  • Data including proposals or proposed client agreements;
  • Meeting arrangement/travel/scheduling details.

II. For the Purpose of Supplier Evaluation and Supplier Management

More specifically, we use your personal data described below for the following purposes, which are listed under our applicable legal basis for processing your data for that purpose:

To engage with potential suppliers that may provide services and products (applying GDPR Art 6.1f – a legitimate interest)

  • Maintaining contact information for current and prospective suppliers;
  • Meeting arrangement/travel/scheduling;
  • Providing information about our products, services and events to current and prospective suppliers;
  • Creating a proposal or a proposed agreement for supplier services.

Types of personal data that may be processed (please note that we do not process this data in all cases):

  • Personal data allowing identification (title, surname, first name); contact information (street address, telephone and email address); professional contact information (employer name, location of employment, employment contact details of employer, main tasks and responsibilities);
  • Data including proposals or proposed agreements;
  • Meeting arrangement/travel/scheduling details.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will 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.

Data sharing

Your data will be accessed by those individuals involved in the ghSMART service process(es) you are participating in. Within ghSMART this will include our internal consultants, the administrative staff, and the third parties disclosed in the next section. Please note administrative staff are performing functions such as contract administration, scheduling, document management, billing and expense management.

Transferring information outside of the EU and Switzerland

ghSMART may transfer the personal data we collect about you to countries outside the European Union and Switzerland where ghSMART has administrative service providers, client consultants and client leadership (e.g., the United States, Australia, Canada and the EU).

To provide adequate protection for the personal data we transfer to the United States, ghSMART participates in and is committed to comply with the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework, which is administered by the International Trade Administration (“ITA”) within the U.S. Department of Commerce (the, “Data Privacy Framework”).

In the event ghSMART transfers personal data received under the Data Privacy Framework to a third party acting on our behalf, ghSMART is responsible if the third party processes such personal data in a manner inconsistent with the Data Privacy Framework Principles, with certain exceptions.

Please be aware that ghSMART may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. You can access a copy of the Data Privacy Framework List at Data Privacy Framework. ghSMART commits to subject to the Data Privacy Framework Principles all personal data received in the United States from the EU and Switzerland in reliance on the Data Privacy Framework. As a participant in the Data Privacy Framework, ghSMART is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission.

ghSMART has designated JAMS (https://www.jamsadr.com/DPF-Dispute-Resolution ) to address complaints and provide appropriate recourse free of charge to data subjects. Under certain conditions, data subjects may have the option to invoke binding arbitration for certain claims. You can contact us at dataprotection@ghsmart.com if you have any questions about the above.

The period for which data is stored 

The information we collect during the ghSMART service process will form part of our records and as such will be retained as required by legal, accounting, reporting standards as reflected in the ghSMART corporate records retention policy applicable to our business. ghSMART may also be required to retain this information based on statute of limitations for specific countries, as well as government record retention requirements for tax purposes. ghSMART reviews the data to determine that the policy for data storage is in line with our stated purposes for which we may process your data. In some circumstances, we may anonymize your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may continue to use such information without further notice to you.

Data security

When we process your personal data, we will always apply the core principles of the GDPR to ensure it is:

  1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;
  2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;
  3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes;
  4. Accurate and kept up to date;
  5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about;
  6. Kept securely.

We have put in place appropriate security measures designed to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we have policies and procedures designed to 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.

Your rights

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 also 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 (also known as rectification) 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 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 delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below);
  • 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 (also known as portability) of your personal information to another party.

Your right to object

  • Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal information, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact dataprotection@ghsmart.com in writing.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority if you consider that the processing of your personal data infringes applicable law.

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.

Changes to this privacy notice

Any changes we make to our privacy notice in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy notice.

Contact details 

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact: dataprotection@ghsmart.com.

Mail address:

G. H. Smart & Company, LLC
203 North LaSalle Street
Suite 2100
Chicago, IL 60601
The United States of America

ghSMART UK Limited
Suite 2, First Floor
Templeback
10 Temple Back
Bristol, BS1 6FL
United Kingdom

G. H. Smart GmbH
Grosse Gallusstr. 16-18
60311 Frankfurt
Germany

G. H. Smart & Company Canada, ULC
885 West Georgia Street
Suite 1480
Vancouver
British Columbia
V6C 3E8
Canada