At APARI we know just how important it is to our users, that their data is safe, secure, and well protected. A few of you have asked us about our security procedures, and so we thought it would be a great thing to write about! 

When dealing with Making Tax Digital and your Self Assessment tax return, it isn't just your personal data that you are dealing with, but also business and financial data. This is sensitive information and we know that this can be the number one priority when choosing a digital record keeping platform. 

So how can you know if APARI is secure? 

To start with - we need to be. To become a HMRC-recognised software provider, we had to go through rigorous security testing. It is all part of the process to become HMRC compliant. 

But this isn’t the main reason - the main reason is that our users need us to be secure. 

How do we ensure that your data is safe? 

Within the APARI system we have a rating system on the security level of your data. Your personal and tax data are at the highest ranking level of this list. Non specific data is the lowest on this list - for example “At what time of the day do people use APARI the most?”. 

Depending on this level of data, the level of access is restricted and even more security features are added - such as encryption, non transferable personal keys for those needing to access the data within our workforce. This not only minimises any security risk within the APARI organisation, but also minimises the chance of any external threats. 

Most importantly however, we ensure that everyone within APARI understands the importance of data security, and we monitor and update our data security policies frequently, so that they are always up to date and to the highest possible standard.

What you can do to protect your data

Some of the data security does fall to our users. Here are a few tips to ensure that your APARI account is the most secure it can be:

• Use two factor authentication

• Never share your password with anyone and do not write it down!

• Use a complex password using a mixture of letters, numbers and special characters

• Use a nonsensical password, not a word that appears in the dictionary

• Use a unique password, not one that you use elsewhere

• Keep access to your attached email account private

• Have a firewall & Antivirus software installed and kept up to date

• Always log out after every session