Privacy Notice

Obsidian Fund Services Limited Privacy Notice

Obsidian Fund Services Limited (“Obsidian”) is a company incorporated in Guernsey with limited liability (registered no. 68574, registered office: Suite 8 , Upper House, 16-20 Smith Street, St Peter Port, Guernsey GY1 2JQ ) and is licensed by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission in respect of investment business pursuant to the Protection of Investors (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2020 (as amended). For further details of Obsidian please see our website, www.obsidian.co.uk

Obsidian is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect and look after your personal data and tells you about your privacy rights and options.

It is important that you read this Privacy Policy together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This Privacy Policy supplements any such privacy notices and is not intended to override them

1. Who is responsible for your personal data?
Obsidian is the controller of and responsible for your personal data.

2. What personal data do we collect?

We may collect the following personal data from you:

 

  • identity and contact information (including your name, job title, address, telephone number, mobile phone number, fax number and email address and, if you have one, your username and password for our website);
  • technical data (including internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access our website);
  • usage data (including information about how you use our website, products and services);
  • marketing and communications data (including your preferences in relation to receiving marketing materials from us and related parties and your communication preferences);
  • information collected from publicly available resources, integrity databases and credit agencies; and
  • details of your visits to our premises or telephone calls with members of our staff. 

This personal information may, from time to time, include personal data about your membership of a profession or trade association and details of any criminal record you may have.

 

In certain cases, we may also collect what is known as “Special Categories” of information. Our money laundering, sanctions, financial crime, and fraud prevention checks sometimes result in us obtaining information about actual or alleged criminal convictions and offences, as well as in respect of Politically Exposed Persons.

 

You are not obliged to provide us with your information where it is requested but we may be unable to provide certain products and services or proceed with our business relationship with you if you do not do so. Where this is the case, we will make you aware.

3. How is your personal data collected?

We primarily collect your Personal Data from the following sources:

 

1. from information which you or your authorised representative gives to us, including but not limited to:

 

  • Client agreements, applications, or other materials you submit to us during the course of your relationship with us;
  • your interactions with us, transactions and use of our services (including but not limited to the use of our website and email system);
  • your business dealings with us, including via email, telephone, or as stated in our contracts with you;
  • our online client platform; depending on the products or services you require, third parties (including for credit and money laundering checks, among other things); and
  • recording and monitoring tools that we use for compliance or security purposes (e.g. recording of telephone calls, monitoring emails, etc.).

 

2. Personal Data we receive from you or any third party sources which may include:

 

  • entities in which you or someone connected to you has an interest;
  • your legal and/or financial advisors;
  • other financial institutions who hold and process your Personal Data to satisfy their own regulatory requirements;
  • credit reference agencies and financial crime databases for the purposes of complying with our regulatory requirements; and
  • information collected via website (including cookies and IP addresses).

 

We may also collect and process your Personal Data in the course of dealing with advisors, regulators, official authorities, and service providers by whom you are employed or engaged or for whom you act.

4. How and for which purposes will we use your personal data?
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to do so. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

 

  • where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you or your organisation;
  • where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests; or
  • where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

 

In addition, the processing may be based on your consent where you have expressly given that to us.

We may use your personal data for the following purposes only (being permitted purposes):

 

  • managing and administering your or your organisation’s business relationship with Obsidian;
  • compliance with our legal and regulatory obligations (such as record keeping obligations), compliance screening or recording obligations;
  • analysing and improving our services and dealings with you or your organisation; • protecting the security and access to our premises, website IT and communication systems and other systems;
  • to comply with court orders and exercise and/or defend our legal rights; and
  • for any other purpose that is related to or ancillary to the above or for which your personal data has been provided to us.
  • communicating with you, including by sending you marketing communications regarding our products or services.

 

Where required, we will only send you marketing communications where you have opted-in and will provide you with the opportunity to opt-out at any time if you no longer wish to receive marketing communications from us.

 

We will only use your personal data 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.

 

We will not use your personal data for taking any automated decision affecting you or creating profiles other than described above.

 

We may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

 

Please let us know if any of your Personal Data (including correspondence details) changes as soon as possible. Failure to provide accurate information or to update changed information may have a detrimental impact upon services. Failure to provide information where the same is required for anti-money laundering, pursuant to automatic exchange of information agreements, or other legal requirements means we may not, or may no longer, be able to accept you as a client.

5. With whom will we share your personal data?

We may share your personal data with the following parties and in the following circumstances:

 

  • other companies in the Obsidian group or other outsourced providers acting as processors, where required for the purposes of providing products or services to you or your organisation and for administrative, billing and other business purposes; 
  • organisations providing services for money laundering checks and other fraud and crime prevention purposes;
  • courts, law enforcement authorities, regulators or attorneys or other parties where it is reasonably necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a claim or for the purposes of a confidential alternative dispute resolution process;
  • third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets or to whom we may assign or novate any of our rights or obligations; 
  • third party service providers, to process personal data for one or more of the permitted purposes on our behalf and in accordance with our instructions – we will use appropriate safeguards as required by applicable law to ensure the integrity and security of your personal data when engaging such service providers.

 

We will otherwise only disclose your personal data when you direct us or give us permission to do so, when we are required by applicable law or regulation to do so, or as required to investigate actual or suspected criminal of fraudulent activities.

 

We will not share your personal data with any company Obsidian marketing purposes unless we first obtain your express opt-in consent.

6. International transfers of personal data

Like many international organisations, we may transfer your information to locations outside the European Economic Area (which for the purposes of this Privacy Notice includes the Bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey, the “EEA”).

 

Where we transfer your information outside of the EEA, however, we will ensure that the transfer is subject to appropriate safeguards in accordance with data protection laws. Often, these safeguards include contractual protections.

7. Keeping personal data secure

We will take appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep your personal data confidential and secure in accordance with our internal procedures covering the storage, disclosure of and access to personal data. Personal data may be kept on our IT systems, those of our contractors and service providers or in paper files.

8. For how long will we retain personal data?

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, regulatory accounting, or reporting requirements, or until you withdraw your consent (where applicable), and provided that in each case we are not legally required or otherwise permitted to continue storing such data.

9. Your rights

Under certain circumstances and subject to certain legal conditions, you have the right:

 

  • to request a copy of the personal data about you which we hold;
  • to have any inaccurate personal data corrected;
  • to request erasure of your personal data; and
  • to object to or restrict our processing of your personal data.

 

You may also make a complaint if you have a concern about our handling of your personal data.

 

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above or make a complaint, please send an email to enquiries@obsidian.co.uk. We may request specific information from you to confirm your identity, in order for us to comply with our security obligations and to prevent unauthorised disclosure of data. You will not usually have to pay a fee to access your personal data, but we reserve the right to charge you a reasonable administrative fee for (or we may refuse to comply with) any manifestly unfounded or excessive requests or any additional copies of the personal data you request from us.

 

We will respond to all legitimate requests in a timely manner. If you are not satisfied with our response, may take your complaint to the Guernsey Office of the Data Protection Authority, the Guernsey supervisory authority for data protection issues (https://odpa.gg) and/or a supervisory authority in the EU member state of your usual residence or place of work or of the place of the alleged breach.

10. Changes to this Privacy Policy and Updating Your Personal Data

This Privacy Policy was last updated in April 2024. We reserve the right to update and change this Privacy Policy from time to time in order to reflect any new legal requirements or any changes to the way in which we process your personal data, by publishing the updated Privacy Policy either on our website or in some other way. The changes will take effect as soon as they are published.

 

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data (including your email address) changes during your relationship with us or if you wish to cancel any request you have made of us, by sending an email to enquiries@obsidian.co.uk or your usual business contact. We will not be responsible for any losses arising from any inaccurate, inauthentic, deficient or incomplete personal data that you provide to us.