Introduction
We are a controller of personal information. This privacy notice tells you how we collect, use and share your personal information and what your rights are and how to exercise them. We are required to review this policy regularly. It was last reviewed on 23.11.2018
This notice applies to you if you are:
A private client: a private individual who is a client or prospective client
A client contact: a contact for us at a private sector
A client-related individual: an individual whose details we hold because we’ve acquired them in the course of providing legal or other professional services, normally because you are involved in some way in a case, transaction or other matter that also concerns our client, for example if you are on the other side of a dispute
An intermediary/business associate: a third party intermediary or business associate, such as a contact at a firm of accountants, who we work with for business development purposes
A supplier: either an independent supplier such as barristers or other professional who provides services for our client’s benefit, or a business supplier, such as a sole trader or partnership or a contact for us at a corporate supplier who provides services to us as a business
A prospective employee: a job applicant/prospective employee, or a work placement or work experience student
An interested person: an individual who is not a client but is interested in our services, updates or events and who may receive updates or attend events, or who makes an enquiry
A relative of a member of our staff: a close family member or next of kin of a member of our staff, or
A website visitor: a visitor to our website who isn’t in any of the categories above.
This notice doesn’t apply to our staff (partners, consultants, employees or other workers).
“Personal information” means personal data as defined in UK data protection law. In general, it means any information relating to you, which identifies you or allows you to be identified. That may be your name, an ID number, location, an online identifier or factors specific to you (e.g. physical, physiology (thoughts, feelings), genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social factors).
“Sensitive” personal information means two things: personal information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying an individual, data concerning health or data concerning an individual’s sex life or sexual orientation) and criminal data (criminal offences or related security measures, including the alleged commission of offences, proceedings for an offence Our
“Lawful Reasons” For Processing Your Personal Data
The “General Data Protection Regulation” (GDPR) is the primary piece of legislation defining your rights over our processing of your personal information. The GDPR together with evolving legislation requires us to declare which of six “lawful reasons” we are relying on when we are processing your personal data: we operate on the basis of “consent” when sending newsletters (you won’t get sent a newsletter unless you have explicitly opted in to receive one) and we operate on the basis of “legitimate interest” when communicating with you in other ways (e.g. when responding to your enquiry).
committed or alleged to have been committed or the disposal of those proceedings, including sentencing).
What information do we collect about you?
When using our website enquiry form we collect personal information about you when you complete a contact form on this website and/or register to receive our email marketing newsletters. We only collect the following personal data about you:
Your name
Telephone number
Email address
If you become a client we will collect other personal information that will be explained to you.
Website usage information is also collected using cookies. Our cookies policy provides more information about our use of cookies.
How Long We Keep Personal Data
Personal data may be stored by the website for a period of up to 90 days after which time it is removed automatically. If you become a client and we do work for you it is possible that we will retain information for between 6 years and an indeterminate period for the purposes of preventing money laundering, terrorist financing or proliferation financing. The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 require that we keep it for at least 5 years and not more than 10 years. If we undertake a simple matter for you such as resolving a minor dispute we would expect to keep your information for 6 years whereas in a Trust matter it is advisable to retain the information indefinitely.
Website contact form completions
This information is used to process and respond to your enquiry. We will not collect any personal data from you we do not need in order to provide and oversee this service to you. All traffic (transferral of files) between this website and your browser is encrypted and delivered over HTTPS, including information you submit in the contact form.
All the personal data we process is processed by our staff in the UK; however for the purposes of IT hosting and maintenance this information is located on servers within the European Union. No third parties have access to your personal data unless the law allows them to do so.
Website usage information
Website usage information is used to measure, monitor and improve the performance of our website and marketing campaigns. Please see our cookies policy for further information.
Marketing
If you become a client and you choose to register for our email newsletter, the email address that you submit to us will be forwarded to Aweber who provide us with email marketing services. We consider Aweber to be a third-party data processor. The email address that you submit will not be stored within this website’s own database.
Your email address will remain within Aweber’s database for as long as we continue to use them for email marketing or until you specifically request removal from the list. You can do this by unsubscribing using the unsubscribe links contained in any email newsletters that we send you.
However, your personal data will remain in the EU or countries considered by the EU to have equivalent policies such as Jersey, Guernsey, Switzerland, New Zealand and Canada. Companies based in the USA that have certified with the EU-US Privacy Shield programme are also considered to be permitted destinations by the EU (this includes popular US products like Aweber.
Access to your information and correction
You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information please contact us.
We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove information you think is inaccurate. In the case of access and correction requests, please provide as much detail as you can about the particular information you need, in order to help us locate it.
Cookies
Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. This information is used to track visitor use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity.
Our cookies policy provides more information about our use of cookies.
You can set your browser not to accept cookies. However, in a few cases, some of our website features may not function as a result.
Third party data processors
We use Aweber processors who are carefully chosen and comply with relevant Data Protection legislation. They are based in the USA
Questions or Complaints
In the first instance we hope you will contact us directly with any questions or complaints (contact details are displayed prominently on this website). However, legal rights regarding privacy are the remit of the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) and you will find more information about how to complain here: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/
Our Use of Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics to monitor how our website is being used so we can make improvements. Our use of Google Analytics requires us to pass to Google your IP address (but no other information) – Google uses this information to prepare site usage reports for us, but Google may also share this information with other Google services. In particular, Google may use the data collected to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network. Related information:
Google’s privacy policy
How to contact us
Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you:
Our GDPR contact is:
Michael Birch Partner
E-mail: mbirch@birchandco.com
Telephone: 0191 284 5030