Privacy Policy
Effective Date: 01st November 2023
EMA Advocates is fully committed to protecting your privacy. This privacy notice sets out the types of personal information we collect, how we collect and process that data, who we share it with in relation to the services we provide you with and the rights and options that you have in this respect in accordance with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (the “GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act (Chapter 586 Laws of Malta).
Who Is Responsible For Your Personal Data?
EMA Advocates (“EMA” or “we”), a partnership with its office at 61, Msida Court, Msida Seafront, Msida, Malta, is responsible for your personal data. For the purposes of applicable data protection law (in particular, the GDPR and the Data Protection Act), your data will be controlled by EMA in communicating with you or providing services to you following your instructions.
Personal Data We Collect.
We may collect and process the following personal data from you:
• Identity and Contact Data, which may include your name, address, telephone number, educational or professional background, memberships, company information, and other related personal data necessary for the provision of our services;
• Financial Data which is deemed necessary for processing payments and fraud prevention, including credit/debit card numbers and other related billing information;
• Business Information, including information provided in the course of the contractual or client relationship between you or your organisation and EMA, or otherwise voluntarily provided by you or your organisation.
Information About Other People.
If you provide information to us about any person other than yourself, your employees, counterparties, your advisors or your suppliers, you must ensure that they understand how their information will be used, and that they have given their permission for you to disclose it to us and for you to allow us, and any of our outsourced service providers, to use it.
How Do We Collect Your Personal Data?
We only collect, use and store the information about you which you or others provide us with in a lawful manner. EMA may collect personal data:
- when you or your organisation offer to provide, or provides, services to us;
- when a new acccount is created on the Portal
- when you request a new technical inspection
- when you order new SVA Reports
- when you correspond with us by telephone, email or other electronic means, or in writing, or when you provide other information directly to us, including in conversation with our consultants and staff;
- when you or your organisation browse, complete a form or make an enquiry or otherwise interact on our website or other online platforms;
- when you attend our seminars or other events or sign up to receive personal data from us, including training;
- by making enquiries from your organisation or from third party sources such as government agencies, credit reporting agencies, information service providers or from publicly available records.
- When you attempt financial transactions on our portal
Where we need to collect personal data to fulfil a legal obligation or in order to process your instructions or to perform a contract we have with you, your failure to provide personal data when requested may result in our not being able to fulfil your instructions or perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you. In this case, we may have to cancel our engagement or contract you have with us.
Data Protection Collector, Processor, and Storage
Your data shall be collected, processed, and stored by the Used Vehicles Importers Association, in accordance with all the applicable European Union data protection laws to ensure the confidentiality and security of your information.
How Will We Use Your Personal Data?
We use your personal data only for the following purposes:
• To fulfil a contract, or take steps linked to a contract, with you or your organisation. This includes:
- to register you as a user on the UVIA-EMA Portal
- and to process payments, billing and collection.
• As required by UVIA to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, in particular:
- to administer and manage our relationship with you, including accounting, and auditing.;
- to carry out background checks, where necessary;
- to analyse and improve our services and communications and to monitor compliance with our policies and standards;
- to manage access to our premises and for security purposes;
- to protect the security of our communications and other systems and to prevent and detect security threats, fraud or other criminal or malicious activities;
- for insurance purposes;
- to communicate with you to keep you up-to-date on the latest developments, announcements, and other information about our services and solutions (including briefings, newsletters and other information), events and initiatives; to send you details of client surveys, marketing campaigns, market analysis, or other promotional activities; and
- to collect information about your preferences to personalise and improve the quality of our communications with you.
Kindly note that we will only provide you with marketing related information when we have a previous contractual relationship or a business relationship with you and provided you do not opt-out to receive those communications. You have the opportunity to opt-out at any time as explained in this Privacy Notice.
For purposes required by law, including maintaining records, compliance checks or screening and recording (e.g. anti-money laundering, financial and credit checks, fraud and crime prevention and detection, trade sanctions and embargo laws), this can include automated checks of personal data you provide about your identity against relevant databases and contacting you to confirm your identity, or making records of our communications with you for compliance purposes.
Disclosure Of Your Personal Data.
We may share your personal data, in the following circumstances:
- with third parties including service providers we retain in connection with the advisory and corporate services, such as lawyers, consultants or experts and other specialists such as law firms for obtaining specialist or foreign legal advice, translators, couriers, or others as required;
- on a confidential basis with third parties for the purposes of collecting your feedback on the firm’s service provision, to help us measure our performance and to improve and promote our services;
- with companies providing services for money laundering and terrorist financing checks, credit risk reduction and other fraud and crime prevention purposes and companies providing similar services, including financial institutions, credit reference agencies and regulatory bodies with whom such personal data is shared; with courts, law enforcement authorities, regulators, government officials or attorneys or other parties where it is reasonably necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal claim, or for the purposes of a confidential alternative dispute resolution process;
- with service providers who we engage within or outside of EMA.
Information We Transfer.
We may transfer your personal data information to recipients in countries other than the original country of collection in course of providing you with our services. These countries may not have the same data protection laws as the country where the personal information was originally provided. If we transfer data to other countries, we will protect that personal data as described in this Privacy Policy, and such transfers will be governed by applicable law.
Countries to which we may share personal information may be located inside or outside the European Union. We only transfer personal information to these countries when it is necessary for the services we provide you, or it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, subject to safeguards that assure the protection of your personal information, such as legally binding and enforceable instrument between the bodies in question, binding internal company rules, European Commission Adequacy Decisions, European Commission approved standard contractual clauses.
Such data could also be transferred to third-party entities, applications, plug-ins and software companies as may be required in order to ultimately fulfil all the intended objectives as herewith contemplated.
Third Party Applications Used
- WordPress
- Stripe Payments
- Microsoft OneDrive
- BookingPress Plugin
- Integrately Automation
- PDFMonkey
Security Of Your Personal Data.
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.
We have also put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
Your Rights.
If any of the personal data that you have provided to us changes, or if you become aware we have any inaccurate personal data about you, please let us know by contacting our Data Protection Officer on sva@emaadvocates.com. EMA shall not be held responsible for any losses arising from any inaccurate, inauthentic, deficient or incomplete personal data that you provide to us.
In accordance with applicable legislation, you also have the right to:
- Request access to your personal data;
You have a right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. This right can only be exercised by you to the extent that it will not affect others.
- Request the erasure of your personal data;
You may request the erasure of your personal data where we no longer have a legitimate reason to continue using or retaining it. We will not be able to fulfil your request while you are still our client, as well as if we are under a legal obligation to retain this information, or where the retention of your information is necessary for us to defend ourselves in a legal dispute or to execute a legal title against you.
- Object to the processing of your data;
You may object to the collection, use and/or sharing of your personal data if we rely on our legitimate interests to do so and you feel that our processing of your data in such a manner impacts your fundamental rights and freedoms. However, in some cases, we may be able to demonstrate that we have a compelling legitimate ground to process your data which may override your rights and freedoms. You may submit your objections to processing of your personal data on the grounds of the above-mentioned legitimate company interests by contacting our Data Protection Officer.
- Request the restriction of the processing of your personal data;
You may ask us to temporarily suspend the processing of your personal data where:
(a) you want us to establish the accuracy of the data,
(b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not wish for us to delete it,
(c) where you need us to retain your data even when we no longer need it in order for you to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims, or
(d) where you have objected the use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
- Request the transfer of your personal data;
You may ask us to transfer certain data we process about you to you or others. This right only applies to data which you provided us with and consented us to use and which were necessary for us both to honour our mutual contractual obligations so long as such data is processed by us in an automated manner.
- Withdrawal of your consent to processing your personal data;
If you have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data, you have the right to fully or partly withdraw your consent. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose(s) to which you originally consented unless there is another legal ground for the processing.
To opt-out of receiving our marketing communications, please follow the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or contact sva@emaadvocates.com Withdrawing your consent with regard to the receipt of marketing materials will not affect the processing of your personal data for the provision of our services.
You may, at any time, exercise any of the above rights, by contacting our Data Protection Officer on sva@emaadvocates.com; for us to be able to action any of your requests made in accordance with your rights described above, we may need to request specific information about you to help us verify your identity.
- File a complaint with a supervisory authority;
We hope to be able to resolve any difficulties or complaints you may have by bringing them to the attention of our Data Protection Officer. However, should you consider at any time that we are handling your personal information in a manner that leaves you at a disadvantage, you may at any time file a complaint with Office of the Information and Data Protection Commissioner by email on idpc.info@idpc.org.mt, by ordinary mail at Information and Data Protection Commissioner, Level 2, Airways House, High Street, Sliema, SLM 1549, Malta or by calling (+356) 2328 7100.
How Long We Keep Your Personal Data For?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements and, where required for EMA to initiate or defend legal claims, until such a dispute is finally and effectively resolved.
If you want to learn more about our specific retention periods for your personal data established in our retention policy you may contact us at sva@emaadvocates.com. Upon expiry of the applicable retention period we will securely destroy your personal data in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
Changes To Our Privacy Notice.
This Privacy Notice may be amended from time to time. Any significant changes will be indicated on our website and/or by sending you a notification via your contact information. We encourage you to review our privacy notice whenever you use our services to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy.
Contact Details.
Should you have any questions or concerns about how your information is handled, please forward any inquiry you may have to our Data Protection Officer by email on sva@emaadvocates.com.