Privacy, with clarity.

Last updated: 29 October 2026

This policy covers the FTO × HCB website, its service finder and initial enquiries. Sending an enquiry does not subscribe you to marketing. If you engage one of our teams for a service, you will receive the information relevant to that engagement.

Who is responsible?

French Tax Online and French Connections HCB act as joint controllers for the collection, allocation and handling of enquiries through FTO × HCB. These are:

• FRENCH TAX ONLINE, a French SASU, SIREN 879 610 137, registered in Marseille; 26 boulevard des Dames, 13002 Marseille, France. Contact: info@frenchtaxonline.com.
• HCB SERVICES LIMITED, trading as French Connections HCB, registered in England and Wales under company number 13809512; 39–40 St. James’s Place, London, SW1A 1NS, United Kingdom. Contact: info@frenchconnectionshcb.com.

For a single contact point, write to contact@ftoxhcb.com. You may also exercise your rights directly with either controller. The joint responsibility covers information, appropriate access, retention and the handling of your rights for this shared enquiry process. It does not restrict your rights against either organisation.

What information is used?

The enquiry form collects your name, email address, country of residence, service interest, project timing and message. You may also provide a telephone number and preferred location in France. Required fields are marked: without them we may be unable to route or answer your request. We also retain the submission date, reference and your acknowledgement of the privacy information.

Please do not include passports, tax identifiers, bank details, health information or confidential documents in this initial form. If documents are needed later, the relevant team will explain what is necessary and how to provide them.

When you visit, the hosting infrastructure may process technical information such as your IP address, requested URL, browser information and security events to deliver and protect the service.

The service finder

Your answers are evaluated in your browser. No name or email is required to see a suggestion. If you continue to the contact page, the suggested service and timing are passed in the page address to prefill the form; this address may also appear in hosting logs. The full questionnaire answers are not submitted with the form.

The suggestion is guidance only. It does not decide your legal eligibility, residence, access to a service or contractual terms. You can choose another service or ask the team for a personal review.

Why we use information

• To discuss a service you request: preparing a quotation or taking steps towards an engagement at your request (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR).
• To answer other enquiries and direct them to the relevant team: our legitimate interest in managing correspondence and providing useful, proportionate assistance (Article 6(1)(f)).
• To operate and protect the website: our legitimate interest in reliable service delivery and preventing misuse (Article 6(1)(f)).
• To respond to data protection requests and legal requirements: compliance with the applicable legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c)). Relevant records may also be retained where necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims (Article 6(1)(f)).

The form checkbox records your request for a reply and acknowledgement of this notice. It is not consent to newsletters, advertising or unrelated uses. Browsing this site does not constitute consent to optional tracking. If a future feature requires consent, it must be requested separately and be withdrawable.

Who may receive your information?

Staff of the two controllers may use the information needed to assess, allocate and respond to your enquiry. Information is shared for this purpose, not as permission for unrelated marketing by either team. We do not sell enquiry information or provide it to unrelated advertisers.

OVHcloud hosts this website, its WordPress content-management system and the database used to record enquiries. Brevo is used to deliver enquiry notification emails. Authorised members of the FTO and HCB teams can access enquiries to respond and provide the requested service. Necessary information may also be disclosed to professional advisers or competent authorities where justified by a legal obligation or legal claim.

A subsequent tax, property or relocation engagement may involve different records, recipients and responsibilities. The entity providing that service must explain these before collecting additional information.

How long information is kept

For enquiries that do not lead to an engagement, our retention rule is a maximum of 12 months after your last substantive contact, with earlier deletion when the information is no longer needed. An unanswered follow-up from us does not restart this period. At the end of the period, the enquiry records are to be deleted or irreversibly anonymised across the shared enquiry systems and working copies.

If an engagement begins, only the information necessary for it is transferred into the client file, under the service-specific retention rules. Where a legal obligation or a dispute requires limited records to be kept longer, they must be separated from routine follow-up and retained only for the applicable obligation or claim period. The relevant team can explain the rule applying to your records.

Information used to handle a rights request is limited to what is needed to respond and demonstrate compliance. Identity evidence, when necessary, is not kept longer than required for verification unless a specific legal reason applies. Hosting logs and residual backups follow the provider’s technical retention arrangements; contact us for the arrangements relevant to your request.

International processing

French Tax Online operates in France and HCB Services Limited is established in the United Kingdom. Transfers covered by the European Commission’s UK adequacy decision rely on that decision while it remains applicable.

The website is hosted by OVHcloud in France. Access by HCB Services Limited in the United Kingdom, email services and any other service providers may involve processing outside the European Economic Area. Where a transfer requires safeguards, these must be an applicable adequacy decision or appropriate contractual safeguards. You may contact either controller for information about the recipients, locations and safeguards relevant to your enquiry.

You may request further information about international transfers and the applicable safeguards from either controller.

Your choices and rights

Subject to the conditions in applicable law, you can request access, correction, erasure, restriction and portability of your data. You can object to processing based on legitimate interests for reasons relating to your situation. If consent is used for a specific purpose, you can withdraw it without affecting the lawfulness of earlier processing. You can also give instructions concerning your data after your death where French law applies.

Write to contact@ftoxhcb.com or either controller above. Describe your request and the email address used for your enquiry. Identity evidence may be requested only where reasonably necessary; please do not send an identity document unless asked.

The normal response period is one month. A permitted extension of up to two additional months may apply to complex or numerous requests; you must be informed within the first month, with the reason. If a request cannot be fully met, the response must explain why and the available remedies.

You may complain directly to the CNIL, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office where applicable, or the competent authority where you live or work or where an alleged infringement occurred. Contacting us first is not a condition of making a complaint.

Cookies, fonts and external links

This website does not include advertising pixels or an optional audience-measurement tool in its theme. WordPress uses technical cookies for administrator login and security. The public contact form is processed on this website. Any optional analytics or marketing trackers added later must be described here and, where required, remain disabled until you consent.

Any non-essential tracking introduced to the site must be withheld until the required consent is obtained, with an equally accessible refusal and a way to withdraw consent. The fonts and landscape images are hosted with the website; loading them does not require a request to Google Fonts or Unsplash. Following an external link opens a service governed by its own privacy information.

Changes to this notice

The date above identifies this version. Material changes to purposes, recipients or rights will be explained before they take effect where required. Updating a notice does not by itself authorise a new use of your information.