We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on why we collect, store, use and share your personal data (defined as any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual). It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event 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 the GDPR. Our use of your personal data is subject to your instructions, the GDPR, other relevant UK and EU legislation and our professional duty of confidentiality.

Personal data we collect about you

The table 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

Personal data we may collect depending on why you have instructed us

Your name, address and telephone number

Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, eg your date of birth or passport details

Electronic contact details, eg your email address and mobile phone number

Information relating to the matter in which you are seeking our advice or representation

[Information to enable us to undertake a credit or other financial checks on you]

Your financial details so far as relevant to your instructions, eg the source of your funds if you are instructing on a purchase transaction

Your National Insurance and tax details Your bank and/or building society details

Details of your professional online presence, eg LinkedIn profile

Details of your spouse/partner and dependants or other family members, eg if you instruct us on a family matter or a will

Your employment status and details including salary and benefits, eg 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, eg if you instruct us on a pension matter or in relation to financial arrangements following 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 personal data), eg if you instruct us on a matter related to your employment or in which your employment records are relevant

Personal identifying information, such as your eye colour or your parents’ names, eg if you instruct us to incorporate a company for you

Your medical records, eg if we are acting for you in a personal injury claim

This personal data is required to enable us to provide our service to you. If you do not provide personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.

How your personal data is collected

We collect most of this information from you direct. However, we may also collect information:

from publicly accessible sources, eg Companies House or HM Land Registry;
directly from a third party, eg: sanctions screening providers, credit reference agencies, client due diligence providers;
from a third party with your consent, eg: your bank or building society, another financial institution or advisor, consultants and other professionals we may engage in relation to your matter, your employer and/or trade union, professional body or pension administrators, your doctors, medical and occupational health professionals;
via our information technology (IT) systems, eg: case management, document management and time recording systems, reception logs, automated monitoring of our websites and other technical systems, such as our computer networks and connections, communications systems, email and instant messaging systems

How and why we use your personal data

Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason for doing so, eg:

to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
for our legitimate interests or those of a third party; or
where you have given

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.

What we use your personal data for

Our reasons

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, eg under health and safety regulation or rules issued by our professional regulator

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

What we use your personal data for	Our reasons
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, eg policies covering security and internet use	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, ie to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, ie to protect our intellectual property and other commercially valuable information To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Statistical analysis to help us manage our practice, eg in relation to our financial performance, client base, work type or other efficiency measures	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, ie to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Updating and enhancing client records	For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, eg 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	To comply with our legal and regulatory

What we use your personal data for	Our reasons
administration and assessments	obligations For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, eg to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you
Marketing our services to: —existing and former clients; —third parties who have 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, ie to promote our business to existing and former clients
External audits and quality checks, eg for quality accreditations and the audit of our accounts	For our legitimate interests or a those of a third party, ie to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

The above table does not apply to special category personal data (data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical belies, trade union membership, genetic and biometric data, health, sex life or sexual orientation), which we will only process with your explicit consent.

Promotional communications

We may use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text message, 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.

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 consent is needed, we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.

We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations for marketing purposes (aside from those carrying out marketing activities on our behalf).

You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by:

advising the person handling your matter at the firm
sending an email with ‘Opt-out’ in the subject field to sweetman@sbs-law.co.uk

We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you instruct us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.

Who we share your personal data with

We routinely share personal data with:

professional advisers who we instruct on your behalf or refer you to, eg barristers, medical professionals, accountants, tax advisors or other experts;
other third parties where necessary to carry out your instructions, eg your mortgage provider or HM Land Registry in the case of a property transaction or Companies House;
our insurers and brokers;
external auditors, eg in relation to accreditations and the audit of our accounts;
our bank;
external service suppliers, representatives and agents that we use to make our business more efficient, eg marketing agencies or document collation

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 to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.

We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

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.

We will not share your personal data with any other third party.

Where your personal data is held

Information may be held at our offices and those of our service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see ‘Who we share your personal data with’).

How long your personal data will be kept

We will keep your personal data after we have finished advising or acting for you. We will do so for one of these 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

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.

When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal data, we will delete or anonymise it.

Transferring your personal data out of the EEA

To deliver services to you, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA), eg:

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 These transfers are subject to special rules under European and UK data protection law.

Your rights

You have the following rights, which you 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 situations
Restriction of processing	The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data—in certain circumstances, eg if you contest the accuracy of the data
Data portability	The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party—in certain situations
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, eg processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests.
Not to be subject to automated individual decision-making	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

For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

email, call or write to us—see below: ‘How to contact us’; and
let us have enough information to identify you [(eg your full name, address and client or matter reference number)];
let us have proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill); and
let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request

Keeping your personal data secure

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 have 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.

We also 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.

How to complain

We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you may raise about our use of your information.

The General Data Protection Regulation also gives you the 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 https://ico.org.uk/concerns or telephone: [0303 123 1113].

How to contact us

Please contact us by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you.

Peter Sweetman, Data Protection Officer, Sweetman Burke & Sinker Solicitors, 158-160 Broadway, West Ealing, London W13 0TL or p.sweetman@sbs-law.co.uk or 020 8840 2572.