Privacy Policy

Introduction

Walker Kontos respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

1.    Important information and who we are.

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how Walker Kontos handles your personal data which we collect from you (whether via our website, email, in person or over the phone) or personal data which we may have obtained from you from a third party and the purposes for which we process your personal data.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing policy 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 personal data. This privacy policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

 

Contact details

 If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our privacy practices, please contact us by sending an email to: walkerkontos@walkerkontos.com or by writing to:

Walker Kontos

Hakika house,

Bishops Road,

P.O. Box 60680 – 00200

Nairobi, Kenya.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

2.    The data we collect about you.

Personal data, means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. Identifiable natural person means a person who can be identified directly or indirectly, by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social or social identity.

 We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  •  Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.

  •  Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.

  •  Identification and other background verification data such as a copy of passports or utility bills or evidence of beneficial ownership or the source of funds to comply with client due diligence/”know your client”/anti-money laundering laws and collected as part of our client acceptance and ongoing monitoring procedures;

  • Financial Data includes details about payments from you and billing preferences (including to whom to issue our invoice to).

  • Technical Data includes 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 this website.

  • Usage Data includes information about how you use our website and services.

  • Recruitment related data such as your curriculum vitae, your education and employment history, details of professional memberships and other information relevant to potential recruitment to Walker Kontos;

  • Data that you may provide to us in course of registering for and attending events or meetings, including access and dietary requirements; and

  • Any other personal data relating to you that you may provide.

 3.    How we use your personal data.

 We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. 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.

  • 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.

  • Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

  • Where you have consented to our use of your personal data for one or more specified purposes.

 We may use your personal data in the following ways. We have also identified the lawful grounds for each purpose:

  •  To provide our legal and other services to you and to fulfil our obligations – to administer and perform our services, including to carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between you and us.

 Legal grounds: contract performance, legitimate interests (to enable us to perform our obligations and provide our services to you), consent.

  • To fulfil our legal, regulatory, or risk management obligations – to comply with our legal obligations (performing client due diligence/”know your client”, anti-money laundering, anti-bribery, sanctions or conducting conflict checks); for the prevention of fraud and/or other relevant background checks as may be required by applicable law and regulation and best practice at any given time (if false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified or suspected, details may be passed to the relevant authorities and may be recorded by us or by them); to enforce our legal rights, to comply with our legal or regulatory reporting obligations and/or to protect the rights of third parties;

 Legal grounds: legal obligations, legal claims, legitimate interests (to co-operate with law enforcement and regulatory authorities, to ensure that you fall within our acceptable risk profile and to assist with the prevention of crime and fraud).

  • For marketing and development purposes – to provide you with details of our services and legal updates. We will provide an option to unsubscribe or opt-out of further communication on any electronic communication sent to you or you may opt out by contacting us.

 Legal grounds: legitimate interests, consent.

  •  To manage our relationship with you – this includes notifying you about changes to the relevant laws or this Privacy Policy.

 Legal grounds: legitimate interests (to ensure we can notify you about changes to the relevant laws or this Privacy Policy.

  •  To deliver relevant website content and to ensure content is relevant – to respond to enquiries from visitors to our websites and to ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your device;

 Legal grounds: legitimate interests (to allow us to provide you with the content on the website), consent, contract performance.

  •  To use data analytics to improve our website, services, customer relationships and experiences – this includes using personal data to understand how to improve our services, features and your experience.

 Legal grounds: necessary for our legitimate interests (to define the services we offer, to keep our website updated and relevant and to inform our marketing strategy).

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data.

 

Opting out

 You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

 Where you opt out of receiving these messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of providing a service.

 

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly.

 

Change of purpose

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. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that 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.

 

4.    Disclosures of your personal data.

We may share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out above.

  • Our professional advisors (e.g financial, IT service providers, business or other advisors), bankers and auditors;

  • Our insurers and insurance brokers;

  • Third-party service providers, to whom we outsource certain functions such as information and document management, office support, technology and IT services, (we have agreements in place with these service providers to protect the confidentiality and security of information (including personal data) shared with them);

  • Other third-party external advisors or experts engaged in the course of the services we provide to our clients and with their prior consent, such as technology service providers such as which provide for document review/storage platforms.

We require all third-parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We may also process your personal data to comply with our regulatory requirements or in the course of dialogue with our regulators as applicable, which may include disclosing your personal data to government, regulatory or law enforcement agencies in connection with enquiries, proceedings or investigations by such parties anywhere in the world or where compelled to do so. Where permitted, or unless to do so would prejudice the prevention or detection of a crime, we will direct any such request to you or notify you before responding.

 

5.    International transfers

 Walker Kontos is based in Kenya. However, in the course of providing our services, we will likely need to transfer personal data out of Kenya for processing.

 Whenever we transfer your personal data out of Kenya, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

  • We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data.

  • Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in Kenya which give personal data the same protection it has in Kenya.

 Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of Kenya.

 

6.    Data security

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. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have 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.

 

7.    Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

 Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are [available in our retention policy] which you can request from us by contacting us.

 

8.    Your legal rights

 Under certain circumstances, you have the following rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data:

  • Request access to your personal data. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

  • Request correction of false or misleading data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any false or misleading data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

  • Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to erase or destroy personal data where the personal data is no longer necessary for the purpose which it was collected. You also have the right to ask us to erase your personal data where you have withdrawn your consent for purposes of retaining the personal data, where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data 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.

  • Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:

 o   If you want us to establish the data's accuracy.

 o   Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.

 o   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.

 o   You have objected to our use of your personal data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

  • Data portability where a data subject would like to receive personal data concerning them in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. the data subject also has the right to transmit the said personal data to another data controller or data processor without any hindrance.

  • Automated decision-making and profiling where a decision is based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning or significantly affects the data subject, a data subject has the right not to be subject to such decision.

  • Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdrew your consent.

  • Lodge a complaint with the Data Commissioner. A data subject who is aggrieved by a decision of any person under the Data Protection Act, 2019 may lodge a complaint with the Data Commissioner in accordance with the Data Protection Act, 2019.

While it is our policy to respect the rights of individuals, please be aware that your exercise of these rights is subject to certain exemptions to safeguard the public interest (e.g. the prevention or detection of crime), our interests (e.g. the maintenance of legal privilege) and some of these rights may be limited (for example the right to withdraw consent) where we are required or permitted by law to continue processing your personal data to defend our legal rights or meet our legal and regulatory obligations.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

 If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at walkerkontos@walkerkontos.com.

 

9.    Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes.

We keep our Privacy Policy under regular review to ensure compliance with the applicable laws and regulatory requirements.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 15th December 2023.