Privacy Policy

Fundsmith Emerging Equiries Trust plc. and its investment manager, Fundsmith LLP ("we", "our", "us" or "Fundsmith"), are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This policy sets out the basis on which any information from which an individual can be identified ("personal data") and which we collect or otherwise obtain will be processed by Fundsmith. Please read the following policy carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

Whilst we endeavour to give information regarding our data protection practices directly to all individuals whose personal data we hold, we do from time to time acquire personal data in an indirect or incidental way. Therefore, one of the purposes of the policy is to provide privacy information to such individuals with whom we do not have a direct relationship.

We may hold your personal data because:

we obtain it directly from you, as described further in Section 1 of this policy;
we obtained it from a third party, as described further in Section 2 of this policy;
of our use of cookies on our website, www.feetplc.co.uk (the "Website"), as described further in Section 9 of this policy; or
it is publicly available.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Legislation (being: (i) the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation; (ii) the Data Protection Act 2018; and (iii) all other legislation relating to the processing of personal data and/or privacy that is applicable to Fundsmith), Fundsmith LLP and and Fundsmith Emerging Equities Trust plc each of 33 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0PW, United Kingdom are independent data controllers of your personal data.

By visiting and/or accessing services on our Website, or by otherwise engaging with Fundsmith, you acknowledge that we may collect, use and transfer your personal data as set out in this privacy policy.

1. PERSONAL DATA THAT WE COLLECT FROM YOU

When you visit or otherwise use the Website, we may collect and process the following personal data about you:

details of your visit to the Website, including traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, as well as information regarding the resources and sections of the Website that you access;
personal data that you provide when registering to use the "MyShares" section of the Website, including your name, date of birth, postal address, email address and account number; and
personal data that you provide when otherwise contacting us via the Website.

We may also collect personal data about you when you interact or otherwise engage with Fundsmith via any of the following means:

when you contact us, whether via telephone, email, in writing or otherwise, you may provide us with your name, date of birth, postal address and/or email address. Where you contact us via telephone, please also note that the call may be recorded (and this recording retained) in connection with the fulfilment of our regulatory obligations;
when electing to receive (or not receive) marketing communications from Fundsmith, details of your communication preferences will be retained by us; and
should you visit our offices, we will collect information such as details of the times at which you access the premises and any special access requirements you may have. In addition, Fundsmith operates (and/or our landlords/building managers may operate), to the extent permissible by applicable law, CCTV in our offices, common spaces, entrances and parking areas for the purposes of crime prevention, security and other business-related needs and we therefore may collect images of you when you visit such locations. Where this is relevant, we will display appropriate notices in the relevant locations.

The above categories of information may, on occasion, include special category data, being personal data which relates to matters such as an individual's health, racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs or sexual orientation. We may also be required, in connection with the fulfilment of our legal and/or regulatory obligations, to collect information regarding criminal offences or alleged criminal offences that have been committed by you.

2. INFORMATION THAT WE RECEIVE FROM OTHER SOURCES

From time to time, we may receive personal data from third parties, including in the circumstances outlined below:

if you are engaged by one of our suppliers or an organisation which otherwise has a business relationship with Fundsmith, we may receive details such as your name and contact details; and
if you are a beneficiary of a trust, assets of which have been invested in Fundsmith products, we may receive certain personal data about you. This may include your name, date of birth and postal address. If you are over the age of 18, we may also receive certain information that is required to verify your identity (as described further below).

As noted above in Section 1 of this policy with respect to personal data that we collect directly from you, the personal data that we receive from third-party sources may from time to time include special category data.

3. USE OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We may use your personal data to:

provide you with services that you have requested we perform, or otherwise carry out our obligations arising from any contract(s) you have entered into with Fundsmith;
carry out any required verification checks, and to comply with our other legal, regulatory and reporting obligations;
carry out our internal business affairs;
send business or marketing communications which we think may be of interest to you or which you have otherwise indicated a preference to receive (each of which shall contain a mechanism via which you may unsubscribe from receiving any such further communications);
ensure that the content of the Website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your device, and to perform statistical analysis in respect of your use of the Website; and
manage access to and ensure the security of our business premises.

We primarily process your personal data as described above for the purpose of pursuing our legitimate business interests. In some instances, we may rely on having obtained your express consent to the relevant processing – where this is the case, you will be made aware and will be provided with the opportunity to withdraw your consent to the processing, should you wish to do so. We may also process your personal data where this is necessary for the performance of a contract to which Fundsmith is a party.

4. SHARING YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Where it is necessary to provide our services to you or for our internal business purposes, we may share your personal data with certain third parties who reasonably require such data in order to perform a function for you or to provide a service to us. For example:

where you have provided us with details of your financial or investment adviser, your personal data may be shared with that adviser. You should notify us as soon as possible if you no longer wish for your personal data to be shared with your adviser or of any change in your adviser;
we may disclose your personal data to any member of our group or other related entities to the extent that such sharing is necessary for us to provide you with the services that you have requested;
in the case of suppliers to Fundsmith, providers of (among other things) administration and IT-related products and services; and
if we undergo a group reorganisation or are sold to a third party, your personal data may be transferred to that reorganised entity or third party and used for the purposes above.

In addition, it may be necessary for us to disclose your personal data if we are under a duty to do so in order to comply with any legal or regulatory obligation to which we are subject (such as anti-money laundering or tax disclosure obligations), enforce any agreement we have with you or a related third party, or protect the rights, property or safety of Fundsmith, its employees or other personnel. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud and crime prevention and credit risk reduction.

You acknowledge that the third parties described above may receive and process your personal data. Fundsmith asks all third parties to treat your personal data securely and in accordance with Data Protection Legislation, and will take reasonable steps to enforce this. We will never sell your personal data to third parties.

5. STORAGE, RETENTION AND TRANSFER OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA OUTSIDE OF THE UK

We take steps to protect your personal data from unauthorised access and against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction and damage. We will only keep your personal data for as long as we reasonably require and, in any event, only for as long as Data Protection Legislation and our internal procedures allow.

In processing your personal data, it will sometimes be necessary for us to transfer your personal data to a destination outside the United Kingdom to staff who work for us or for one of our overseas advisers or services providers. This includes staff engaged in, among other things, the provision of support services. In such circumstances we will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your personal data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy and Data Protection Legislation. This means that we will only transfer your personal data to third parties that (a) are located in countries that have been confirmed by the UK Government to provide adequate protection to personal data; or (b) have agreed (by way of a written contract or some other form of data transfer mechanism approved by the UK Government) to provide all protections to your personal data as are required by Data Protection Legislation. We may also transfer your personal data where we have your express consent to do so.

6. LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

Our Website may, from time to time, contain links to third party websites, such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that you will be leaving our Website and accessing the other website, the collection of personal data via which will be carried out in accordance with its own privacy policy.

We do not accept any responsibility or liability for these websites or their related policies and you should therefore review these policies before you submit any personal data via these websites.

7. YOUR RIGHTS

Pursuant to Data Protection Legislation, subject to certain exemptions, you have various rights in relation to the personal data that we hold about you, as follows:

you have the right to see the personal data that we hold about you and to withdraw any consent you may have given us to hold and use that personal data;
you have the right to ask us to make any changes which may be necessary to ensure that any information we hold about you is accurate and up to date;
you have the right to request that we erase your personal data (or any part thereof); a request which we will comply with unless we have a lawful reason to retain the information; and
in some cases, you have the right to request that we transfer your personal data to a specified third party.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights described us, please contact us via the details set out in Section 10 of this policy.

8. CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

Fundsmith may amend this privacy policy at any time without notice. By continuing to use the Website, communicate with us, or otherwise provide us with your personal data, you agree to the updated privacy policy. If you do not agree to any changes that we make to this policy, you should not use or access (or continue to use or access) the Website and/or our services. Any changes to our privacy policy will be posted on the Website and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail.

9. COOKIE POLICY

For information regarding the ways in which our Website makes use of cookies, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

10. CONTACT US

Should you have any questions or comments regarding this privacy policy, or if you otherwise wish to exercise any of your rights as described above in Section 7 of this policy, please contact us via one of the following methods:

via email at feet@fundsmith.co.uk;
via phoning our customer services team on 020 3551 6337; or
via post to Fundsmith LLP, 33 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0PW.

Alternatively, you have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (the supervisory body in the UK that is responsible for the enforcement of data protection legislation), the details of which may be found here.