Effective: March 28, 2021
Thanks for visiting Nissen and Associates at www.bellinghamtax.com. Our mission is to create a web based experience that makes it easier for us to work together. Our Privacy Policy is used to describe how we collect, use, and handle your personal information when you use our websites, software, and services (“Services”).
What & Why
We collect and use the following information to provide, improve, and protect our Services:
Account information. We collect the information you provide to us when you opt-in to our client newsletter or request an appointment. (This includes your name, email address, phone number, and physical address). Some of our Services let you access your accounts and your information via other service providers.
Your Stuff. Our Services, including our secure client portal, are designed so you can easily store your files, documents, messages, and so on (“Your Stuff”). Our secure portal enables collaboration with others, and working across multiple devices. To make that possible, we store, process, and transmit Your Stuff as well as information related to it. This “related information” includes your profile information, size of the file, time it was uploaded, additional collaborators, and usage activity. Our Services provide you with different options for sharing Your Stuff.
Contacts. You may choose to give us access to your contacts (for example, information about your spouse or other company staff). If you do, we’ll store those contacts on our servers for you to use.
Usage information. We collect information related to how you use the Services. This would include actions you take in your account (like sharing, viewing, and moving files or folders). We use this information to improve our Services, develop new services and features, and protect our users.
Device information. We also collect information from and about the devices you use to access the Services. This includes information like your IP address, the type of browser and device you use, the web page you visited before coming to our sites, and identifiers associated with your devices. Your devices (depending on their settings) may also transmit location information to the Services.
Cookies and other technologies. We use technologies like cookies to provide, improve, protect, and promote our Services. Cookies help us with things like remembering your username for your next visit and understanding how you are interacting with our Services. and improving them based on that information. You can set your browser to not accept cookies, but this may limit your ability to use the Services.
Marketing. We give users the option to use some of our Services free of charge. These free Services are made possible by the fact that some users upgrade to one of our paid Services. If you register for our free Services, like our newsletter, we will occasionally send you information about taxes and accounting. Users who receive these marketing materials can opt out at any time. If you do not want to receive marketing materials from us, simply click the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email.
We sometimes contact people who do not have an account. For recipients in the EU, we or a third party will obtain consent before contacting you. If you receive an email and no longer wish to be contacted by us, you can unsubscribe and remove yourself from our contact list by the message itself.
Bases for processing your data. We collect and use the personal data described above in order to provide you with our Services. We also collect and use personal data for our legitimate business needs. To the extent we process your personal data for other purposes, we will ask for your consent in advance or require that our partners obtain such consent.
With Whom
We may share information as discussed below, but we won’t sell it to advertisers or other third parties.
Others working for and with Us. We use certain trusted third parties (for example, providers of customer support, and IT services) to help us provide, improve, protect, and promote our Services. These third parties will access your information only to perform tasks on our behalf in compliance with this Privacy Policy, and we’ll remain responsible for their handling of your information per our instructions. For a list of trusted third parties that we use to process your personal information, please see our third-party vendors below.
Law & Order and the Public Interest. We may disclose your information to third parties if we determine that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or appropriate government request; (b) protect any person from death or serious bodily injury; (c) prevent fraud or abuse of our platform or our users; (d) protect our rights, property, safety, or interest; or (e) perform a task carried out in the public interest.
Stewardship of your data is critical to us and a responsibility that we embrace. We believe that your data should receive the same legal protections regardless of whether it’s stored on our Services or on your home computer’s hard drive. We’ll abide by Government Request Policies when receiving, scrutinizing, and responding to government requests (including national security requests) for your data:
- Be transparent,
- Protect all users
- Fight blanket requests, and
- Provide trusted services.
How
Security. We deploy automated technologies to detect abusive behavior and content that may harm our Services, you, or other users. We also continue to work on features to keep your information safe in addition to things like blocking repeated login attempts, encryption of files at rest, and alerts when new devices and apps are linked to your account.
User Controls. You can access, amend, download, and delete your personal information by logging into your account.
Retention. When you sign up for an account with us, we’ll retain information you store on our Services for as long as your account is in existence or as long as we need it to provide you the Services. If you delete your account, we will initiate deletion of this information after 30 days. But please note: (1) there might be some latency in deleting this information from our servers and back-up storage; and (2) we may retain this information if necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.
Where
Around the world. To provide you with the Services, we may store, process, and transmit information in the United States and locations around the world—including those outside your country. Information may also be stored locally on the devices you use to access the Services.
EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield. When transferring data from the European Union, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland, We rely upon a variety of legal mechanisms, including contracts with our customers and affiliates. We comply with the EU-U.S. and Swiss–U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information transferred from the European Union, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland to the United States.
We are subject to oversight by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. JAMS is the US-based independent organization responsible for reviewing and resolving complaints about our Privacy Shield compliance—free of charge to you. We ask that you first submit any such complaints directly to us via privacy [@] scottnissen.com. If you aren’t satisfied with our response, please contact JAMS at https://www.jamsadr.com/eu-us-privacy-shield. In the event your concern still isn’t addressed by JAMS, you may be entitled to a binding arbitration under Privacy Shield and its principles.
Changes
Your information may be transferred if we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of the business.
We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will list the revised date when that occurs. If a revision meaningfully reduces your rights, we will notify you.
Your Right to Control and Access Your Information
You have control over your personal information and how it is collected, used, and shared. For example, you have a right to:
- Erase or delete all or some of Your Stuff in your portal account.
- Change or correct personal data. You can manage your account and the content contained in it through your portal account settings. Also, this is where you can edit your personal data.
- Access and take your data. You can download a copy of Your Stuff in a machine readable format by visiting the portal.
Contact
Your personal information is controlled by BellinghamTax.com. Have questions or concerns about us, our Services, and privacy? Contact us at privacy [@] BellinghamTax.com. If we can’t answer your question, you have the right to contact your local data protection supervisory authority
Third Party Vendors
- Google Analytics
- ClientWhys
- Drake Software
