• Statement for Privacy and Protection of Personal Data

Last updated April 2022

CPA Law1 is dedicated to protecting the confidentiality and privacy of information entrusted to it and complies with Personal Data Protection legislation as currently in force. Please review this Statement for Protections of Personal Data (hereby "Statement") to learn more about what kind of information we may collect about you through this website and how we use that information. CPA Law also collects personal data in the course of providing professional services (see below for further details).

As part of this fundamental obligation, CPA Law is committed to the appropriate protection and use of personal information/data (sometimes referred to as "personally identifiable information" or "PII") that it collects either online, or by the professional services it offers, or by its communications/cooperation by any third party. Generally, our intent is to collect and keep only the personal information that is provided voluntarily by online visitors so that we can offer information and/or services to those individuals or offer information about employment opportunities. 

Please review this Statement to learn more about how we collect, store, use, share and protect the information/personal data that we obtain.

[1] “CPA Law”, “We”, “our” and “us”, refers to Papacostopoulos and Associates Firm, Law Firm.

Papacostopoulos and Associates Law Firm, independent Greek law firm, independent member of KPMG Tax and Legal Services network. 

KPMG International Limited  and its related entities do not provide services to clients. Services are provided solely by member firms of the KPMG global organization of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International Limited, a private English company limited by guarantee, in their respective geographic areas. All rights reserved.

"KPMG" refers to the global organisation or to one or more of the member firms of KPMG Internatioanl Limited ("KPMG International"), each of which is a separate legal entity.

  1. Collection and use of personal information

1.1 What information we collect

We obtain personal information about you if you choose to provide it — for example, to contact mailboxes or to register for certain services. In some cases, you may have previously provided your PII to CPA Law (if, for example, you are a former employee). If you choose to register or login to a CPA Law web site using a third party single sign-in service that authenticates your identity and connects your social media login information (e.g., LinkedIn, Google, or Twitter) with CPA Law, we will collect any information or content needed for the registration or log-in that you have permitted the social media provider to share with us, such as your name and email address. Other information we collect may depend on the privacy settings you have set with your social media provider, so please review the privacy statement or policy of the applicable service.

By registering and/or submitting personal information to CPA Law, you are also agreeing to the use of this information in accordance with this Statement. Your personal information is not used for other purposes, unless we obtain your permission, or unless otherwise required or permitted by law or professional standards. For example, if you register to a CPA Law web site and provide information about your preferences we will use this information to personalize your user experience. Where you register or login using a third party single user sign-in we may also recognize you as the same user across any different devices you use and personalize your user experience. If you send us a resume or curriculum vitae (CV) to apply online for a position with CPA Law, we will use the information that you provide to match you with available CPA Law job opportunities.

In some cases where you have registered for certain services we may store your email address temporarily until we receive confirmation of the information you provided via an email (i.e. where we send an email to the email address provided as part of your registration to confirm a subscription request).

1.2 The legal grounds we have to use your personal information

CPA Law generally collects only the personal information necessary to fulfill your request. Where additional, optional information is sought, you will be notified of this at the point of collection.

The law of Greece and the EU legislation allows us to process personal information, so long as we have a ground under the law to do so. It also requires us to inform you about the purpose and the legal grounds of the process. As a result, when we process your personal information, we will rely on one of the following legal processing conditions:  

  • Performance of a contract: this is when the processing of your personal information is necessary in order to perform our obligations under a contract; 
  • Legal obligation: this is when we are required to process your personal information in order to comply with a legal obligation, such as keeping records for tax purposes or providing information to a public body or law enforcement agency; 
  • Legitimate interests: we may process information about you where it is in our legitimate interest in running a lawful business to do so in order to ensure the continuance of that business, so long as it doesn’t outweigh your interests; or
  • Your consent: we may occasionally ask for your specific permission to process some of your personal information, and we will only process your personal information in this way if you agree to us doing so.  You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting CPA Law at dataprivacy@cpalaw.gr.

CPA Law only collects "sensitive" personal information when the relevant individuals voluntarily provide us with this information in order to serve their own interest or where such information is required or permitted to be collected by law or professional standards. Sensitive information includes personal information regarding a person's race, ethnicity, political beliefs, trade union membership, religious or similar beliefs, physical or mental health, sexual life or criminal record. You are kindly requested not to provide sensitive information to CPA Law, unless we have to serve your own interest following your request and provided you hereby consent to CPA Law's use of that information for its legitimate purposes and consent to the transfer and storage of such information to and in CPA Law databases. If you have any questions about whether the provision of sensitive information to CPA Law is, or may be, necessary or appropriate for particular purposes, please contact dataprivacy@cpalaw.gr.   

1.3 Automatic collection of personal information

In some instances, CPA Law and its service providers uses cookies, web beacons and other technologies to automatically collect certain types of information when you visit us online, as well as through emails that we may exchange. The collection of this information allows us to customize your online experience, improve the performance, usability and effectiveness of CPA Law's online presence, and to measure the effectiveness of our marketing activities.

1.3.1 IP addresses

An IP address is a number assigned to your computer whenever you access the internet. It allows computers and servers to recognize and communicate with one another. IP addresses from which visitors appear to originate may be recorded for IT security and system diagnostic purposes. This information may also be used in aggregate form to conduct web site trend and performance analysis.

1.3.2 Cookies

Cookies may be placed on your computer or internet-enabled device whenever you visit us online. This allows the site to remember your computer or device and serves a number of purposes.

On some of our web sites, a notification banner will appear requiring your consent to collect cookies. If you do not provide consent, your computer or internet-enabled device will not be tracked for marketing-related activities. A secondary type of cookie referred to as "user-input" cookies may still be required for necessary functionality. Such cookies will not be blocked through the use of this notification banner. Your selection will be saved in a cookie and is valid for a period of 90 days. If you wish to revoke your selection, you may do so by clearing your browser's cookies.

Although most browsers automatically accept cookies, you can choose whether or not to accept cookies via your browser's settings (often found in your browser's Tools or Preferences menu). You may also delete cookies from your device at any time. However, please be aware that if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to fully experience some of our web sites' features.

Further information about managing cookies can be found in your browser's help file or through sites such as www.allaboutcookies.org.

Below is a list of the types of cookies used on our web sites:

Purpose

Description

Type & Expiry

Performance (i.e., User's Browser)

 

Our web sites are built using common internet platforms. These have built-in cookies which help compatibility issues (e.g., to identify your browser type) and improve performance (e.g., quicker loading of content).

 

Session

Deleted upon closing the browser

 

Security (e.g. Asp .NET) Cookies

 

If you register for access to a restricted area, our cookies ensure that your device is logged for the duration of your visit. You will need your username and password to access the restricted areas. 

 

Session

Deleted upon closing the browser

 

Site Preferences

 

Our cookies may also remember your site preferences (e.g., language) or seek to enhance your experience (e.g., by personalizing a greeting or content). This will apply to areas where you have registered specifically for access or create an account. 

 

Session

Deleted upon closing the browser

Analytical 

 

We use several third party analytics tools to help us understand how site visitors use our web site. This allows us to improve the quality and content on cpalaw.gr for our visitors. The aggregated statistical data cover items such as total visits or page views, and referrers to our web sites. For further details on our use of Google Analytics, see below.

 

Persistent

will deleted automatically after two years if you no longer visit cpalaw.gr

 

Site visitor feedback

 

We use a third party survey tool to invite a percentage of visitors to provide their feedback. Cookies are used to prevent visitors from being invited multiple times.

The first cookie (1) is set if the visitor is not invited to participate in the survey, and is used to ensure visitors are not invited after their first page view.

The second cookie (2) is set if the visitor is invited to participate in the survey, and is used to ensure the visitor is not invited again to participate for a period of 90 days.

 

Session

Deleted upon closing the browser

Persistent

Deleted automatically after 90 days or presenting survey invite.

 

Social sharing

 

We use third party social media widgets or buttons to provide you with additional functionality to share content from our web pages to social media websites and email. Use of these widgets or buttons may place a cookie on your device to make their service easier to use, ensure your interaction is displayed on our  webpages (e.g. the social share count cache is updated) and log information about your activities across the Internet and on our web sites. We encourage you to review each provider's privacy information before using any such service. For further details on our use of social media widgets and applications, see below.

 

Persistent

will be deleted automatically after two years if you no longer visit cpalaw.gr

 

Other third party tools and widgets may be used on our individual web pages to provide additional functionality. Use of these tools or widgets may place a cookie on your device to make their service easier to use, and ensure your interaction is displayed on our webpages properly.

Cookies by themselves do not tell us your email address or otherwise identify you personally. In our analytical reports, we may obtain other identifiers including IP addresses, but this is for the purpose of identifying the number of unique visitors to our web sites and geographic origin of visitor trends, and not to identify individual visitors.

By navigating on our web sites or entering your login details to access areas reserved for registered users, you agree that we can place these cookies on your computer or internet enabled device.

1.3.3 Google Analytics

CPA Law uses Google Analytics. More information about how Google Analytics is used by CPA Law can be found here: http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/privacy.html

To provide website visitors with more choice on how their data is collected by Google Analytics, Google have developed the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to indicate that information about the website visit should not be sent to Google Analytics. The Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on does not prevent information from being sent to the website itself or to other web analytics services.

1.3.4 Web beacons

A web beacon is a small image file on a web page that can be used to collect certain information from your computer, such as an IP address, the time the content was viewed, a browser type, and the existence of cookies previously set by the same server. CPA Law only uses web beacons in accordance with applicable laws.

CPA Law or its service providers may use web beacons to track the effectiveness of third party web sites that provide us with recruiting or marketing services or to gather aggregate visitor statistics and manage cookies.

You have the option to render some web beacons unusable by rejecting their associated cookies. The web beacon may still record an anonymous visit from your IP address but cookie information will not be recorded.

1.3.5 Location-based tools

CPA Law may collect and use the geographical location of your computer or mobile device. This location data is collected for the purpose of providing you with information regarding services which we believe may be of interest to you based on your geographic location, and to improve our location-based products and services.

1.4 Social media widgets and applications

CPA Law web site may include functionality to enable sharing via third party social media applications, such as the Facebook Like button and Twitter widget. These social media applications may collect and use information regarding your use of CPA Law web sites (see details on 'Social Sharing' cookies above). Any personal information that you provide via such social media applications may be collected and used by other members of that social media application and such interactions are governed by the privacy policies of the companies that provide the application. We do not have control over, or responsibility for, those companies or their use of your information.

In addition, CPA Law web sites may host blogs, forums, crowd-sourcing and other applications or services (collectively "social media features"). The purpose of social media features is to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and content. Any personal information that you provide on any CPA Law social media feature may be shared with other users of that social media feature (unless otherwise stated at the point of collection), over whom we may have limited or no control.

Publication of personal data of third parties (pictures etc.) through CPA Law sites is illegal, unless the prior consent of the data subjects has been obtained.  

1.5 Children

CPA Law understands the importance of protecting children's privacy, especially in an online environment. In particular, our sites are not intentionally designed for or directed at children under the age of 13. It is our policy never to knowingly collect or maintain information about anyone under the age of 13.

Sharing and transfer of personal information

We do not share personal information with unaffiliated third parties, except as necessary for our legitimate professional and business needs, to carry out your requests, and/or as required or permitted by law or professional standards. This would include: 

  • Our service providers: CPA Law work with reputable partners, service providers or agencies so they can process your personal information on our behalf. CPA Law will only transfer personal information to them when they meet our strict standards on the processing of data and security. We only share personal information that allows them to provide their services.  
  • If we are reorganized or sold to another organization: CPA Law may also disclose personal information in connection with the sale, assignment, or other transfer of the business of the site to which the data relates;
  • Courts, tribunals, law enforcement or regulatory bodies: CPA Law may disclose personal information in order to respond to requests of courts, tribunals, government or law enforcement agencies or where it is necessary or prudent to comply with applicable laws, court or tribunal orders or rules, or government regulations. 
  • Audits: disclosures of personal information may also be needed for data privacy or security audits and/or to investigate or respond to a complaint or security threat.

In addition, CPA Law may transfer certain personal information outside of the EEA to outside companies working with us or on our behalf for the purposes described in this Privacy Statement. CPA Law may also store personal information outside of the EEA. If we do this your personal information will continue to be protected by means of contracts we have in place with those organisations outside the EEA, which are in a form approved by the European Commission. By providing personal information on online, visitors are consenting to this transfer and/or storage of their personal information across borders.

CPA Law will not transfer the personal information you provide to any third parties for their own direct marketing use.

Choices

In general, you are not required to submit any PII to CPA Law online, but we may require you to provide certain PII in order for you to receive additional information about our services and events. CPA Law may also ask for your permission for certain uses of your PII, and you can agree to or decline those uses. If you opt-in for particular services or communications, such as an e-newsletter, you will be able to unsubscribe at any time by following the instructions included in each communication. If you decide to unsubscribe from a service or communication, we will try to remove your information promptly, although we may require some time and/or information before we can process your request.

As described in "Cookies" above, if you wish to prevent cookies from tracking you as you navigate our sites, you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. Note, however, that some portions of our sites may not work properly if you elect to refuse cookies.

Your rights

If you have submitted personal information to CPA Law, you have the following rights:

  • Right to be informed, right to access and correction/erasure: you have the right to be informed and have access to that data. This is sometimes called a ‘Subject Access Request’. If we agree that we are obliged to provide personal information to you, we will provide it to you free of charge. Before providing personal information to you, we may ask for proof of identity and sufficient information about your interactions with us that we can locate your personal information. If the information we hold about you is incorrect, you may ask us to correct any inaccuracies in the personal information or delete it, which we will do unless legislative provision does not permit us. 
  • Object or restrict to processing: you have the right to object to us processing your personal information if we are not entitled to use it any more, to have your information deleted if we are keeping it too long or have its processing restricted in certain circumstances.

You can make a request or exercise these rights by contacting CPA Law at dataprivacy@cpalaw.gr and we will make all reasonable and practical efforts to comply with your request, so long as it is consistent with applicable law and professional standards. 

Data security, Data Breaches, storage, retention period and integrity

CPA Law has reasonable security policies and procedures in place to protect personal information from unauthorized loss, misuse, alteration, or destruction. Despite CPA Law's best efforts, however, security cannot be absolutely guaranteed against all threats. In the event of a loss or breach of personal data information we have dedicated incident response team and a response process in order to recover as soon as possible from the breach and mitigate the possible adverse effects and comply with our legal obligations.  Access to your personal information is limited to those who have a need to know. Those individuals who have access to the data are required to maintain the confidentiality of such information.

We also make reasonable efforts to retain personal information only for so long as the information is necessary for the purpose for which they were collected or to comply with an individual's request or until that person asks that the information be deleted [and, in any case, no longer than 10 years, unless we will continue to maintain them because of a requirement of law].

Links to other sites

Please be aware that CPA Law web site may contain links to other sites, including sites maintained by KPMG member firms that are not governed by this Privacy Statement but by other privacy statements that may differ somewhat. We encourage users to review the privacy policy of each Web site visited before disclosing any personal information.

By registering on any CPA Law web site and then navigating to another KPMG web site while still logged in, you agree to the use of your personal information in accordance with the privacy statement of the KPMG web site you are visiting.

Provision of professional services

CPA Law receives personal information in the course of providing professional services – ordinarily when we provide services to private individuals, employers, businesses with personal customers, and public sector clients with constituents. Our engagement letters and terms of business govern our relationship with clients, including what we may do with personal data that is provided to us. CPA Law provides many different types of services and its role may not always be visible to the individuals who are data subjects. However, CPA Law complies with its obligations under the Greek and EU legislation for the protection of personal data as in force and applicable regulatory guidance which relates to our handling of personal data. 

Changes to this statement

CPA Law may update this Statement from time to time to reflect the current privacy developments. When we make changes to this Statement, we will revise the "updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to periodically review this Statement to be informed about how CPA Law is protecting your information.

Contacting Us

If you have questions, comments or complaints about our handling or protection of your personal data or you wish to change your personal data or to exercise any and all your rights as a data subject, please contact us at dataprivacy@cpalaw.gr.

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