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2. How do we collect and use your data?

Website visitors

When you visit our website, we collect a limited amount of information about our website users for analytical purposes. This (anonymous) data helps us to improve your experience with our website and manage our services. We refer to our cookie policy for more information.

If you fill in our contact form on the website, we ask for information such as your name, telephone number and e-mail address. Depending on the nature of your question, we may contact you and request additional information. We collect this information based on your consent.

Clients / Suppliers

If you are a client or supplier or a potential client or supplier, of goods and services we will collect and process information about individuals in your organization. This processing is necessary for the performance of our contract or in order to take the necessary steps prior to entering into a contract. In addition, the information may be necessary for complying with a legal obligation.

We may enter the individual’s name and business email address in to our database as a designated corporate point of contact for that organization, together with the individual’s other business contact data.

Usually the only personal information we process about a corporate contact is the individual’s name for the purposes of contacting the organization in relation to our services (for e.g. authorizing time sheets) or the supplier as a recipient of the supplier’s goods and services.

The source of a corporate point of contact may be the individuals themselves, or their name and business details may be provided to us by an existing business contact. We may also obtain these details from websites, social media and other sources. Based on our legitimate interest, we may send business to business marketing to corporate points of contact. An individual corporate point of contact can ask us at any time to stop sending business marketing emails to their business email address by contacting: info@horizonaudits.eu

3. Whom do we share your data with?

To the extent necessary or appropriate, we may disclose your personal information to external 3rd parties in the following circumstances:

  • to companies and individuals we employ or partner with to perform business functions and services on our behalf. Examples of service providers include: freelance consultants who support us in providing client services; data storage facilities (in the cloud); hosting web servers; legal, accounting, audit and other professional services.
  • to government agencies including: police and other law enforcement agencies; regulatory and supervisory authorities; credit reference agencies and 3rd parties performing sanctions and terrorism checks.
  • to comply with applicable laws, the service of legal process, or if we reasonably believe that such action is necessary to: (a) comply with the law requiring such disclosure; (b) protect the rights or property of Horizon Audits; (c) prevent a crime, protect national security or for fraud detection or prevention; or (d) protect the personal safety of individuals using our website or members of the public.
  • to 3rd parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, we will let you know.
  • to IT consultants carrying out testing and development work on our IT systems and service providers who we may appoint as data processors

Where applicable, we will impose appropriate contractual, security, confidentiality and other obligations on to 3rd party service providers and processors we have appointed, based on the nature of the services they provide to us. We will only permit them to process your personal information in accordance with the law and our instructions. We do not allow them to use your personal information for their own purposes and when our relationship ends we will ensure your personal information is securely returned or destroyed (or anonymized so that you no longer can be identified).

Some of these 3rd parties are also controllers responsible for processing your personal information for their purposes, for example, the local tax authority is a controller for tax purposes. We may not be able to impose obligations or restrictions on these controllers in connection with how they process your personal information.

We normally do not share any personal information with third parties located outside the EEA. If this would be the case, we will take the necessary measures to protect your data.

4. How long do we keep your personal data?

Horizon Audits will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes that we collected it for. This means we will keep your personal information throughout the period of your relationship with us and whilst we are providing you with our services. After the end of our relationship, your data will be stored up to 2 years after the final contact.

We are required by law to keep basic information about our independent contractors, suppliers and clients (including contracts, evidence of identity, financial and transaction data) for up to 10 years from when our relationship ends, for legal, compliance and tax purposes.

Your personal data will in any case be stored in compliance with the law and the limitation periods that oblige us to store your personal data for a longer period, e.g. to defend ourselves against any legal actions.

Where there is no retention period stated in law, we determine the appropriate retention period for personal information by considering the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of the data, the purposes for which we process it and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

5. What are your rights and how can you exercise them?

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have the following rights:

  • Right of access to your personal information at any time. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Right to rectification of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate Personal information we hold about you corrected, although we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us. 
  • Right to erasure / deletion / removal of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where we do not have a valid reason to continue to process it. Please note that we may not always be able to comply with your request for erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
  • Right to object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a 3rd party) when you feel the processing impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
  • Right to restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal information in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to process it.
  • Right to data portability / request the transfer of your personal information to you or to a 3rd party. We will assist you with this transfer to a 3rd party either by transferring your personal information for you or by providing you with a copy in a machine-readable format. Please Note: this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the personal information to perform a contract with you.
  • Right to withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on your consent to process your personal information. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

You can exercise the above legal rights by sending a written request by e-mail to info@horizonaudits.eu

We will respond to your request as soon as possible, and in any case within one month of receiving your request. Depending on the complexity of the requests and the number of requests, this period can be extended by another two months. In that case we will inform you.

You can exercise your rights free of charge unless your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, in particular due to its repetitive nature. In such a case, we have the right and choice to charge you a reasonable fee (taking into account the administrative costs of providing the requested information and the costs associated with taking the requested measures or to refuse to act on your request).

Complaints in case of violation of the applicable data protection regulations can be addressed to the Belgian Data Protection Authority at the address contact@apd-gba.be

6. Automated decision making

Horizon Audits does not use any form of automated decision making with your personal information.

7. Feedback and complaints

In case you have any questions or concerns regarding the processing of your personal data, or you wish to exercise your rights, please contact us:

  • Via e-mail: info@horizonaudits.eu
  • By post: Horizon Audits BV, Vaartstraat 1, 2910 Essen, Belgium

In case you are not satisfied with the way we handled your request and/or you consider that the processing of your personal data by Horizon Audits infringes the data protection regulations, you have the right to lodge a complaint at any time to the Belgian Data Protection Authority (DPA) (https://www.dataprotectionauthority.be).

We would however highly appreciate the opportunity to discuss any concerns you might have with us prior to contacting the supervisory authority.

Thank you!

Privacy Statement

At Horizon Audits, we care about your privacy. This privacy notice describes how we may use, process, store and disclose personal information that we may collect about you, including if you complete the contact form on this website. We aim to provide you with comprehensive information about what data we collect from you, why we do this, how we protect your data and how you can exercise your privacy rights.

1. Who is the controller of your data?

Horizon Audits BV, hereafter “Horizon Audits” with its registered office in Vaartstraat 1, 2910 Essen, Belgium and company number 0708.952.511 is the controller of your data collected via this website or via the services we provide.

If you have any questions, concerns or complaints regarding this privacy notice or the processing of your personal data or you wish to submit a request to exercise your rights as set out in article 5, you can contact us:

  • Via e-mail: info@horizonaudits.eu
  • By post: Horizon Audits BV, Vaartstraat 1, 2910 Essen, Belgium