We take privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities, in the event that you have a complaint.
When we use your personal data we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as “controller” of that personal data for the purposes of GDPR. We are registered on the Public Register of Public Data Controllers as maintained by the Information Commissioner and our registration number is Z5990601. Our use of your personal data is subject to your instructions, the GDPR, the relevant UK and EU legislation and our professional duty of confidentiality.
1. Key Terms
1.1 It would help if we explained some key terms used in this policy:-
- “We, us, our” relates to Brighouse Wolff
- Our Information Compliance Manager is Michael Flynn who can be contacted by phone on 01695 717000.
- Personal data is any information relation to an identified or identifiable individual
- Special category personal data is personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union memberships; genetic and biometric data; data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation.
2. Personal Data We Collect About You
2.1 The information below sets out the personal data we will or may collect in the course of advising and/or acting for you:-
Personal data we will collect:
- Your name, address and telephone number;
- Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, e.g. date of birth or passport number;
- Electronic contact details, e.g email address and mobile phone number;
- Your financial details so far as relevant to your instructions, e.g. the source of your funds if you are instructing on a purchase transaction;
- Information about your use of our IT, Communication and other systems, and other monitoring information.
Personal data we may collect depending on why you instructed us:
- Your National Insurance and tax details;
- Your bank and/or building society details;
- Details of your professional online presence e.g. Linkedin profile;
- Details of your spouse/partner and dependents or other family members e.g. if you instruct us on a family matter or a Will;
- Your employment status and details including salary and benefits e.g. if you instruct us on a matter related to your employment or in which your employment status or income is relevant;
- Details of your pension arrangements e.g. if you instruct us on a pension matter or in relation to financial arrangements following the breakdown of a relationship;
- Your employment records including, where relevant, records relating to sickness and attendance, performance, disciplinary, conduct and grievances (including relevant special category data protection) e.g. if you instruct us on a matter related to your employment or in which your employment records are relevant;
- Your racial or ethnic origin, gender and sexual orientation, religious or similar beliefs e.g. if you instruct us on a discrimination claim;
- Your trade union membership e.g. if you instruct us on a discrimination claim or your matter is funded by a trade union;
- Your medical records e.g. if we are acting for you in a personal injury claim.
2.2 This personal data is required to enable us to provide our service to you. If you do not provide the personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.
3. How Your Personal Data Is Collected
3.1 We collect most of this information from you directly. However, we may also collect information:-
- From publicly accessible sources e.g. Companies House or HM Land Registry;
- Directly from a third party e.g. Sanctions screening providers; Credit reference agencies; Client due diligence providers;
- Via our website – we use cookies on our website (including Google analytics cookies to obtain an overall view of visitor habits and visitor volume to our website) Cookies are small pieces of information sent to your computer and stored on its hard drive to allow our website to recognise you when you visit. It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences.
- Via our information technology (IT) systems e.g.:- Case management, document management and time recording systems; Automated monitoring or our websites and other technical systems, such as our computer networks and connections, communication systems, email and instant messaging systems.
4. How and Why We use your Personal Data
4.1 Under Data Protection Law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason for doing so e.g.:-
- To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
- For the performance of our contract with you and to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
- For our legitimate interest or those of a third party; or
- Where you have given consent.
4.2 A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.
4.3 Below explains what we use (process) your personal data for an our reasons for doing so:-
- To provide legal services to you – For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract
- Conducting checks to identify our clients and verify their identity; Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes; other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety regulations or rules issued by our professional regulator – To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
- Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies – To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
- Ensuring business policies are adhered to e.g. policies covering security and internet use – For our legitimate interests or those of a third party i.e. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service.
- Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control – For our own legitimate interests of those of a third party i.e. to protect our intellectual property and other commercially valuable information and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
- Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information – For our own legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to protect our intellectual property and other commercially valuable information and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
- Statistical analysis to help manage our practice e.g. in relation to our financial performance, client base, work type or other efficiency measures – For our legitimate interests or those of a third party i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best services for you at the best price.
- Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems – For our legitimate interests or those of a third party i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
- Updating client records – For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our clients about existing and new services.
- Statutory returns – To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
- Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments – To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations and for our legitimate interests or those of a third party i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best services for you at the best price.
- Marketing our services to:- Existing and former clients; Third parties who had previously expressed an interest in our services; Third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings For our legitimate interests or those of a third party i.e. to promote our business to existing and former clients
- External audits and quality checks e.g. for Legal Aid Agency accreditations or other accreditations for example conveyancing accreditations and the audit of our accounts.
4.4 The above does not apply to special category personal data, which we will only process with your explicit consent.
5. Promotional Communications
5.1 We may use your personal data to send you updates (by emails, text messages, telephone or post) about legal developments that might be of interest to you and/or information about our services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new services.
5.2 We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data for promotional purposes (see above “How and Why We Use Your Personal Data”). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you promotional communications. However, where your consent is needed we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.
5.3 We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations outside Brighouse Wolff for marketing purposes.
5.4 You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by contacting us using the details set out in section 14 below.
5.5 We may ask you to continue to update your marketing preferences if you instruct us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, or the structure of the business.
6. Who We Share Your Personal Data With
6.1 We routinely share your personal data with:-
- Professional advisers who we instruct on your behalf or refer you to e.g. Barristers, medical professionals, accountants, tax advisors or other experts;
- Other third parties, where necessary, to carry out your instructions e.g. your mortgage provider or HM Land Registry in the case or a property transaction or Companies House;
- Our insurers or brokers;
- External auditors e.g. in relation to ISO accreditation and the audit of our accounts;
- Our bank and;
- External service suppliers, representatives and agents that we use to make our business more efficient.
6.2 We only allow our service providers to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers relating to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.
6.3 We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
6.4 We may also need to share some personal data with other parties, such as potential buyers of some or all of our business or during a re-structuring. Usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
7. Where Your Personal Data Is Held
7.1 Information may be held at our offices on paper and electronic file and those of our third party agencies, service providers, representative and agents as described above (see above “Who We Share Your Personal Data With”)
7.2 Some of these third parties may be based outside the European Economic Area. For more information, including on how we safeguard your personal data when this occurs, see below, “Transferring Your Personal Data Out of the EEA”
8. How Long Your Personal Data Will Be Kept
8.1 We will keep your personal data after we have finished advising or acting for you. We will do so for one of the following reasons:-
- To respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;
- To show that we treated you fairly;
- To keep records required by law 8.2 We will not retain your data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. Different retention periods apply for different types of data. Further details of this is available in our file retention policy.
8.3 When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal data, we will delete or anonymise it.
9. Transferring Your Personal Data Out of the EEA
9.1 To deliver services to you, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA), e.g.:-
- With your and our service providers located outside the EEA;
- If you are based outside the EEA;
- Where there is an international dimension to the matter in which we are advising you
9.2 These transfer are subject to special rules under UK and European Data Protection Laws.
9.3 If you would like further information please contact our Information Compliance Manager (see below “How To Contact Us”).
10. Your Rights
10.1 You have the following rights, which we can exercise free of charge:-
- Access – The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data;
- Rectification – The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data;
- To be forgotten – The right to require us to delete your personal data – in certain circumstances
- Restriction of processing – The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data – in certain circumstances e.g. if you contest the accuracy of your data
- Data portability – The right to receive the personal data your provided to us, in a structured commonly used and machine readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party – in certain circumstances
- To object – The right to object:- ° At any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling); ° In certain other situations, to our continued processing of your personal data e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of legitimate interests.
- Not to be subject to automated individual decision marketing – The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you.
10.2 For further information on each of those rights, including circumstances in which they apply, please contact us or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on Individual’s rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.
10.3 If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:-
- Email, call or write to us – see below “How to Contact us”;
- Let us have enough information to identify you e.g. a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill;
- Let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.
11. Keeping Your Personal Data Secure
11.1 We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who had a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
11.2 We have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
11.3 If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.
12. How to Complain
12.1 We hope that we or our Information Compliance Manager can resolve any query or concern;
12.2 The general Data Protection Regulation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or European Economic Area) state where you work, normally live or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at http://ico.ork.uk/concerns or by telephone 0303 123 1113.
13. Changes to Privacy Policy
13.1 This privacy policy was published on 1 June 2018 and last updated on the 1 June 2018.
13.2 We may change this privacy policy from time to time, when we do we will inform you.
14. How to Contact Us
14.1 Please contact our Information Compliance Manager by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you.
14.2 Our contact details are shown below:-
- Address: Brighouse Wolff, 82 Sandy Lane, Skelmersdale, WN8 8LQ
- Telephone: 01695 717000
- Email: Mike Flynn (Information Compliance Manager)
Cookies (Cookie Law)
By understanding how people use our website, Brighouse Wolff can improve the information provided. Like many websites, we use “cookie” technology (Google Analytics) to collect additional website usage data and to improve our Services. A cookie is a small amount of data which is stored on your computer’s hard drive which is revealed to us when you use this website. We also use cookies to track the interest of our users so that we can subsequently enhance their experience on our website. You can configure your web browser not to accept cookies, although this may affect how you see and are able to use this website.
Full details on the cookies set by Google Analytics are published on the Google website. Google also publishes a browser add-on to allow you to choose that information about your website visit is not sent to Google Analytics.
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