RGA is committed to respecting your privacy and protecting your personal information.
See below for our full data protection and privacy statement.
Data Protection, Privacy Statement and GDPR
Generally
The General Data Protection Regulations replace the Data Protection Act 1998 on the 25th May 2018. GDPR gives people more control over how organisations use their data and consequently imposes a burden on all organisations who control and process data.
In the course of our duties we will collect / amass and use your personal contact details and other details about the ownership of the project. We will also collect information regarding the site of this project and take record photographs which will be issued to authorised parties involved in the construction and checking of the works. However, we do not hold your personal financial details, except for any information which may be shown on our bank statements, etc., when you make payments to us.
We wish to clarify that most ‘personal’ data / information we hold on you / your business(es) / project(s) you are / have been in business / liaison with us on, is principally in regard to those works / general enquiry / advice given and or to allow communication with the identified design team members and other appointed person(s), business(es) or public body(ies) such as Building Control, etc. where upon we apply the principles of good practice for the handling and dissemination of such ‘personal’ data.
By ‘personal’ data we refer to your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) which may consist of your name in full or part; may be a personal / private non-business named email address, a mobile or other contact telephone number, a business / personal postal address etc and may be same for a spouse / partner / colleague who by association with the works, has / was copied into the various exchanges along-the-way which may have been included / circulated / printed / saved electronically in our project record information and even archived for future reference where deemed necessary for business / insurance purposes.
During our normal course of business we are aware and sensitive to the dissemination of a person’s personal data / information and, if having received this through others either directly or indirectly involved with the works, a line of enquiry or by such other association / publicly available register this information has come on to our system(s)s / on a communication or imparted verbally to us; then we can only presume that such freedom of use of that information has been granted and accepted by you / the person(s) to which it relates and so similarly granted to the source / issuer / holder previously. Any overtly non-standard means of us having received such personal data / information will be brought to your attention where this becomes apparent so that you may deal with the matter as you see fit.
We hereby openly advise that due to the nature of our business, the duration of some projects and the longstanding relationship we may have with many clients on various projects, whether proceeded with or placed on abeyance, such information may be put into our archive for future referral and so, any information request to divulge records held back beyond January 2017 could take time to collate and so the proportionality and sensitivity of such information as was then freely available / used / disseminated and distributed without question, may be questioned if still freely available from other sources.
With certain clients / projects we are required to sign confidentiality agreements and such PII is kept specific and separate in our systems to further protect against uncontrolled access / use / distribution other than between identified parties and within our business.
We will comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and in continuing to do business with us, you accept that we will hold personal data in accordance with GDPR and as required for our own professional insurance archive compliance.
SER Certification Process
On most construction projects in Jersey where a Building Permit is required, the States of Jersey Planning and Environment Department will require a Certification of Design (Building Structures) to be registered through their appointed certification body Structural Engineers Registration Ltd – more commonly known as the SER Certification process. Both Jersey and Scotland operate such a process.
In undertaking this requirement in Jersey, Ross-Gower Associates are to input client and project data into the SER on-line database to generate a certificate for submission to Building Control for their records. Whilst SER Ltd is governed by the UK data protection law, should you wish to review their privacy / data protection policy and terms and conditions then please use this link.
By not entering the necessary and required information on to the SER Ltd database, it may not then be possible to generate the SER certificate and so the project may not be able to proceed further without this. Please advise if this appears to be a concern.
Health and Safety Inspectorate (HSI) Project Notification Process
As part of the requirements under the Management in Construction (Jersey) Regulations 2016, if Ross-Gower Associates are appointed to act as a client’s Health and Safety Project Co-ordinator (HSPC) on a major project, we are required to input client business / private contact information into the States of Jersey HSI Project Notification database so that they are duly notified as to the project details, its duration, its Principal Contractor, sub-contractors and the design team members such that the HSI can administer their role in overseeing construction projects for due compliance as they see fit.
Should you wish to review the HSI privacy / data protection policy and terms and conditions then please use this link and refer to the tabs at the bottom of the page.
There is also a requirement for the notified information to then be printed and displayed on the site office notice board to indicate the project particulars should there be a requirement to make reference to the project team and those responsible for health and safety.
Whilst such notification information can be ‘tailored back’ so as not to include PII, there is a minimum requirement to have a person / a company / a body named as The Client with an address and post code. Please make us aware if you wish to re-register a project in an alternative company name as oppose to any personalised name.
In engaging Ross-Gower Associates as your structural / civil engineer designer, engaging our SER services and or the HSPC service, we are duty bound to provide such information as is required in order to fulfil the States of Jersey requirements to comply with the Law.