Introduction

Welcome to CC Fund Services (Malta) Limited’s Privacy Notice (the “Notice”).

CC Fund Services (Malta) Limited. (C 45733) of Ewropa Business Centre, Triq Dun Karm, Birkirkara, BKR 9034, Malta (“CCFS”; “we”; “us”; “our” “the Company”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information or, as otherwise termed, your “personal data”.

The Company is a recognised Fund Administrator by the Malta Financial Services Authority (“MFSA”) under Recognition No REC/ 45733, and a member of the Malta Asset Servicing Association (“MASA”). This Notice relates to all personal data that you provide to CCFS in the context of your use of this website and to the Company’s use of data/information gathered.

It is important that you read this Notice together with any other policy which 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 Notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

We are committed to protecting our client’s privacy and we will not collect any personal information about you unless you provide it voluntarily or unless we have a legitimate interest to do so. This policy describes and explains how information is collected and processed by the Company. This information helps us improve our service to existing and potential clients.

Any personal information you communicate to us is kept within our own records in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and as required by the GDPR (as defined below).

Important information

 

Purpose of this Privacy Policy

We process your personal data in an appropriate and lawful manner, in accordance with the Data Protection Act (Chapter 586 of the Laws of Malta) (the “Act”), as may be amended or replaced from time to time, and the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) ( “GDPR” or the “Regulation”).

In that respect, “personal data” means data relating to a living individual who can be identified from the information (data) we hold and/or possess. This includes, but is not limited to, your name and surname (including maiden surname where applicable), address, date of birth, nationality, gender, civil status, tax status, spouse’s name, identity card number & passport number, contact details (including mobile and home phone number and personal email address), bank account details as well as online identifiers, and/or your company name, registration address, incorporation date, legal ownership structure, any corporate documents, etc.

The term ‘personal information’, where and when used in this Notice, shall be taken to have the same meaning as personal data.

This Notice aims to give information on how the Company collects and processes your personal data in the scenarios outlined above namely, through the processes outlined above, including any data that you/your Company may provide to us, or which we may receive about you/your Company. It is imperative that the personal data we hold about you/your Company is accurate and current at all times. Otherwise, this will impair our ability to provide you with our Services which you have requested (amongst other potential and salient issues). Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

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

The Company does not sell your personal data and will only collect information that is of legitimate interest. CCFS pledges that it will maintain fairness and transparency at all times with regards to how it collects and retains your data. Information may be shared between other third parties, including service providers in the rendering of our services to you. These third parties have been carefully scrutinized to assess that they use appropriate security measures to protect the confidentiality and security of Personal Information.

Controller

CCFS (as defined above) is the controller of your personal information and responsible for it.

Contact details

Our full contact details are as follows:

  • Full name of legal entity: CC Fund Services (Malta) Limited (C45733);
  • Email address: [email protected];
  • Postal address: Level 0, Ewropa Business Centre, Triq Dun Karm, Birkirkara, BKR9034, Malta;
  • Telephone number: +356 25 688 688.

Complaints

You have the right to lodge a complaint at any time with a competent supervisory authority on data protection matters (for example, with the supervisory authority in your place of habitual residence). In the case of Malta, this would be the Office of the Information and Data Protection Commissioner (https://idpc.org.mt/en/Pages/Home.aspx). We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to deal with your concerns before you approach that supervisory authority, so please contact us in the first instance.

Third-party links

The 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/your Company. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy notices, statements or policies.

We encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

Personal Data

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified (as stated above).

CCFS will collect information about you/your Company where this is required in connection with a service. We are required to collect “know your client” documentation and information as detailed in our Forms, such as for example, the Subscription Forms, Risk Profile Questionnaires, On-Boarding Questionnaires, etc, for the provision of our services and this includes certain information as detailed below. In the course of our business relationship, we may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you/your Company which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data:includes first name, maiden name (where applicable), last name, address, company name,  title, nationality, date of birth, gender, identity document type and identity document number, tax domicile, employment status, employer and occupation, corporate documentation, etc;
  • Contact Information:includes your residential address/registered address, email addres, contact number (telephone and/or mobile), website (where applicable);
  • AML and Risk Data:for example, copies of I.D. card or passport, proof of residence, source of wealth, criminal records checks, etc;
  • Technical Data:includes IP address, device type, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and other technology on the devices you use to access the Site as the case may be;
  • Usage Data:includes information about how you use the Site.

We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your usage data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific feature of the Site. However, if we combine or connect aggregated data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

CCFS does not intentionally collect any particularly sensitive categories of personal data about you/your Company (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data).

Where we need to collect personal data about you/your Company:

  1. By law; or
  2. Under the terms of, or in connection with, the contract that we have with you/your Company (as outlined above); or
  3. As part of our legitimate business interests to verify the identity of our applicants and/or clients, mitigate against risks (such as potential or suspected fraud) and in particular, to assess your on-boarding with us (as subject to our internal client acceptance criteria and policies);

And you either fail to provide that data when requested, or else provide insufficient or unsatisfactory data, we may not be able to perform or conclude the contract that we have with you/your Company or which we are otherwise trying to enter into with you/your Company nor provide you/your Company with a service.

How your Personal Data is collected

CCFS collects personal data/information, mainly, in the following ways:

  • Prior to on-boarding and during on-going monitoring;
  1. When you/your Company submit AML and risk data;
  2. During the performance of services to our clients;

We may also collect personal data/information in our direct communication with you/your Company:

  • If you contact us with a query;
  • When you report any issues;
  • Provide us with feedback; and
  • Submit an additional AML and risk data documentation.

Additionally, as you interact with us through the Site, we may keep technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. Your data may also be collected from publicly available sources such as company registration databases, court databases or general online searches.

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/your Company in respect of a contract of service.
  • 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. Therefore the Company may use and process your personal data where it is necessary for us to follow our legitimate interests as a business for the below reasons for example:
  1. For the detection and prevention of fraud and other criminal activities;
  2. To verify the accuracy of data that we hold about you/your Company and create a better knowledge of you as a client;
  3. For security purposes in order for us to take steps to protect your information against any damage or loss, theft or unauthorised access;
  4. To comply with a request from you/your Company in connection with the exercise of your rights.
  • Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation. In connection with this we may collect information about any criminal activity. We may use, store and share your information where we are under a legal obligation to do so. This may include use of your information:
  1. To verify your identity (including electronic checks or screening); and
  2. In connection with any legal obligation on us to report any fraud or other criminal activity.

Disclosures of your personal data

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

  • Public authorities, meaning the Commission of Inland Revenue, regulators, law enforcement agencies and other authorities who require reporting of processing activities, or may request information from us, in terms of applicable law and in certain circumstances;
  • Our subsidiaries, associates and agents where necessary to facilitate your relationship with us;
  • Identity and verification agencies;
  • Other parties in a commercial relationship with the Company to enable us to fulfil a service to you;

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law (including applicable data protection and privacy law). We do not allow our third-party business partners or 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. Furthermore, these third parties access and process your data on the basis of strict confidentiality and subject to the appropriate security measures and safeguards.

We may also disclose your data if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data to comply with any legal obligation, judgment or under an order from a court, tribunal or authority.

We may also disclose your data to enforce our contractual terms with you/your Company, or to protect our rights, property or safety, that of our partners or other users. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection.

International transfers

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”), except as may be required to provide you/your Company with services that you request from us (i.e. contractual performance).

Should we need to transfer your personal data outside of the EEA, we will ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that 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 by the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries;
  • In the absence of an adequacy decision, we will use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe. For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries.

Data Security

The Company takes the protection of your personal data as well as our system security very seriously. Any personal information which is collected, recorded or used by us will have appropriate safeguards applied in line with our data protection responsibilities. In this regard 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.

Data Retention

We consider our relationship with you/your Company to be an ongoing and continuous client business relationship, until such time that either we or you/your Company terminate it in accordance with our terms and conditions.

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for (i.e. the ongoing service provision) and, thereafter, for the purpose of satisfying any legal, accounting, tax and reporting requirements and obligations to which we may be subject and/or to the extent that we may also need to retain your personal data to be able to assert, exercise or defend possible future legal claims against or otherwise involving you/your Company.

In some circumstances, you/your Company can ask us to delete your data. (Kindly vide “Request erasure” below for further information).

Your rights

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

  1. Right of access to personal information: you have the right to receive a copy of the information that we hold about you/your Company. In this regard, you may send an email to [email protected], requesting information as to the personal data which we process.
  2. Right of rectification of Personal Information: you have a right to ask us to correct data that we hold about you/your Company where it is inaccurate or incomplete. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you/your Company corrected and/or updated, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us. As mentioned, it is in your interest to keep us informed of any changes or updates to your personal data which occur during the course of your business relationship with us.
  3. Right to erasure of Personal Information: in certain circumstances you can ask for the data we hold about you/your Company to be erased from our records. Hence this enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where:
  • there is no good reason for us continuing to process it;
  • you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing;
  • we may have processed your information unlawfully; or
  • we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law.

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. In particular, notwithstanding a request for erasure, we may continue to retain your personal data where necessary for:

  • compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation to which we are subject; or
  • the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
  1. Right to restriction of processing of Personal Information: you/your Company have the right to request that we suspend our use of your Personal Information in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
  • if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy;
  • where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
  • 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
  • you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
  1. Right to data portability: you/your Company can obtain your Personal Information in a format which enables you to transfer that Personal Information to another organization. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
  2. Right to object to processing of Personal Information: you/your Company have the right to object to our use of your Personal Information in certain circumstances.
  3. Right to object to automated processing, including profiling: you/your Company also have the right not to be subject to the legal effects of automated processing or profiling in certain circumstances.
  4. Right to complain to the relevant data protection authority: should you/your Company think that we have processed your Personal Information in a manner that is not in accordance with data protection law, you can make a complaint to the Office of the Information and Data Protection Commissioner.
  5. Right to withdraw consent at any time: where we are relying on consent to process your personal data (which will not generally be the case). This will not however affect the lawfulness of any processing which we carried out before you/your Company withdrew your consent.

 

If you/your Company wishes to exercise these rights, please contact us using the details below. You will not normally have to pay a fee to exercise your data subject rights. However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in the above circumstances. We may need to request specific information from you/your Company to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other data subject 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/your Company to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response. We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

 

Conclusion

This Privacy Policy was last updated on the 23 October 2023. We review this Privacy Policy regularly and reserve the right to make changes at any time. If there are any changes to this policy, we will replace this page with an updated version. It is therefore in your own interest to check the “Privacy Policy” page any time you access our web site so as to be aware of any changes which may occur from time to time.

If you have any questions regarding this Notice, or if you would like to send us your comments, please contact us on [email protected] .