1. About us
AmicusLaw (South West) LLP (also referred to as ‘we’ or ‘us’) respects the privacy of all individuals and we are committed to protecting your personal information (also known as ‘data’).
The purpose of this policy is to inform you how we look after your personal data, make clear your rights and how your privacy is protected by law.
We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share any information relating to you (your personal data) in connection with your use of our website. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or a relevant regulator in the event you have a complaint.
We are a limited liability partnership (number OC399264) authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and registered in England and Wales under SRA number 628528. The registered office is Regional Rural Business Centre, Market Way, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA6 6DF. We are registered with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) under number Z2138086.
We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).
2. What this policy applies to
This privacy policy relates to your use of our website only.
Throughout our website we may link to other websites owned and operated by certain trusted third parties tomake additional products and services available to you etc. Those third-party websites may also gather information about you in accordance with their own separate privacy policies. For privacy information relating to those third party websites, please consult their privacy policies as appropriate.
3. Who do we collect personal information from?
- Clients.
- Employees and prospective employees.
- Contractors.
- Suppliers and service providers.
- Business and Legal contacts
4. Personal data we collect about you
Personal data means any information relating to an individual from which they can be identified. It does not include anonymous data, i.e., any data where the individual’s identity has been removed.
The personal data we collect about you depends on the particular activities carried out through our website.
The various types of data include the following:
- Personal information such as name, date of birth, gender, marital status, national insurance number, passport and driving licence, family, employment etc.
- Contact information such as address, telephone numbers, email addresses, social media.
- Financial information such as bank and building society account details, credit card cards, income and expenditure, pensions and HMRC.
- Technical information obtained in the course of access made to our website, and in relation to your use of our services and the provision of services to you.
- The transaction details.
- Marketing preferences.
We may also acquire and process certain sensitive data which is a special category of information relating to an individual. We are only able to process such information if you have given specific consent, it is a legal requirement for us to hold such information or it is necessary to enable us to provide you with the service we are contracted to provide. The categories of information concerned are as follows:
- Racial or ethnic origin.
- Political opinion.
- Religious or philosophical beliefs.
- Trade Union membership.
- Genetic and biometric data.
- Sex life or sexual orientation
Sometimes you can choose if you want to give us your personal data and let us use it.
Where that is the case we will tell you and give you the choice before you give the personal data to us. We will also tell you whether declining to share that personal data will have any effect on your use of our website or any services on it.
We collect and use this personal data for the purposes described in the section ‘How and why we use your personal data’ below.
5. How your personal data is collected
Personal data is collected by various methods, the most frequent of which are:
- Direct contact with you face to face, by email, letter and telephone. The level and type of data collected will depend upon the basis of our relationship with you. In particular, whether you are a client or a prospective client, an employee or a prospective employee, a supplier, service provider or contractor.
- From our website via the ‘Contact Us’ page, the message service on the website and through our social media platforms. When you contact us using our website certain technical information is automatically collected such as your IP address operating system and browser type together with information concerning your use of the site, such as the URL, length of visit and pages viewed.
- Networking events and seminars attended by you. We may from time to time invite you to certain networking events and seminars being held by us where we feel they would be of use and interest to you.
- Marketing. It is a legal obligation for us to obtain your consent before providing any marketing communications and we shall not do so without having such consent. You can also withdraw your consent to receiving marketing material from us at any time either by contacting us directly or unsubscribing via the link on any electronic communication received. At present we do not undertake any form of direct marketing.
- Through third parties such as those we have joined with to provide relevant information concerning the use of our website such as Google Analytics, companies and organisations providing specific search information such as Jordans and Companies House or public resources such as search engines and social media platforms.
- By the use of cookies to assist in the improvement of our website and ensure its security and functionality. The aim is to provide you with a positive and helpful experience when using our site. Please see our separate Cookie Policy for further information including how you can block cookies should you wish to do so and the affect this will have on your use of our site.
6. How and why we use your personal data
Under UK GDPR we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, e.g.,:
- where you have given consent.
- to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
- for the performance of a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract; or
- for our legitimate interests or those of a third party.
A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.
We will carry out an assessment when relying on legitimate interests, to balance our interests against your own. You can obtain details of this assessment by contacting us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).
The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why.
| What we use your personal data for | Our reasons | |
| Creating and managing your account with us | For our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price OR To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract | |
| Providing services to you | To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract | |
| Conducting checks to identify you and verify your identity or to help prevent and detect fraud against you or us | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations OR For our legitimate interests, ie to minimise fraud that could be damaging for you and/or us | |
| Enforcing legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings | Depending on the circumstances: to comply with our legal and regulatory obligationsin other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect our business, interests and rights | |
| Customising our website and its content to your particular preferences based on a record of your selected preferences or on your use of our website | Depending on the circumstances: your consent as gathered (e.g., by the separate cookies tool on our website) see Cookies belowwhere we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price If you have provided such a consent you may withdraw it at any time bychanging the setting on the cookies tool (this will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn) | |
| Retaining and evaluating information on your recent visits to our website and how you move around different sections of our website for analytics purposes to understand how people use our website so that we can make it more intuitive or to check our website is working as intended | Depending on the circumstances: your consent as gathered (e.g., by the separate cookies tool on our website) see Cookies below where we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price If you have provided such a consent you may withdraw it at any time bychanging the setting on the cookies tool this will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn) | |
| Communications with you not related to marketing, including about changes to our terms or policies or changes to the services or other important notices | Depending on the circumstances: to comply with our legal and regulatory obligationsin other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price | |
| Protecting the security of systems and data used to provide the services | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations We may also use your personal data to ensure the security of systems and data to a standard that goes beyond our legal obligations, and in those cases our reasons are for our legitimate interests, ie to protect systems and data and to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us | |
| Statistical analysis to help us understand our customer base | For our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price | |
| Updating and enhancing customer records | Depending on the circumstances: to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contractto comply with our legal and regulatory obligationswhere neither of the above apply, for our legitimate interests, e.g., making sure that we can keep in touch with our customers about existing orders and new products | |
| Disclosures and other activities necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g., to record and demonstrate evidence of your consents where relevant | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations | |
| Marketing our services to existing and former customers | For our legitimate interests, ie to promote our business to existing and former customers See Marketing below for further information | |
| The audit of our Firm’s processesto comply with legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business | For our legitimate interests, to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards | |
| To share your personal data with members of our group and third parties that will or may take control or ownership of some or all of our business (and professional advisors acting on our or their behalf) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale, initial public offering or in the event of our insolvency In such cases information will be anonymised where possible and only shared where necessary | Depending on the circumstances: to comply with our legal and regulatory obligationsin other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect, realise or grow the value in our business and assets |
7. Who we share your personal data with
We may share your personal information with certain external third parties to enable us to properly carry out our services to you and comply with our legal and regulatory obligations as referred to previously. Examples of such third parties include:
- Those providing IT, software, marketing and administration services. In particular our external IT support is provided by Nexus Open Systems and our case management system is provided by Solicitors Own Software;
- Other professionals including lawyers, accountants, experts, bankers, insurance providers and recruitment services;
- HMRC, Companies House and HM Land Registry;
- Event and marketing organisers.
We only allow those organisations to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data.We also impose contractual obligations on them to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.
We or the third parties mentioned above occasionally also share personal data with:
- our and their external auditors, e.g., in relation to the audit of our or theiraccounts, in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
- our and their professional advisors (such as lawyers and other advisors), in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
- law enforcement agencies, courts, tribunals and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
- other parties that have or may acquire control or ownership of our business (and our or their professional advisers) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale, initial public offering or in the event of our insolvency Usually, information will be anonymised, but this may not always be possible. The recipient of any of your personal data will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).
8. Marketing
We may use your personal data to send you updates from time to time (by email, telephone or post) about our services.
We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data for marketing purposes and this means we do not need your consent to send you marketing information. If we change our marketing approach in the future so that consent is needed, we will ask for this separately and clearly.
You have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by:
- contacting us at info@amicuslaw.co.uk
- using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in emails.
- updating your marketing preferences on our client feedback forms.
- We may also ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.
For more information on your right to object at any time to your personal data being used for marketing purposes, see ‘Your rights’ below.
9. How long your personal data will be kept
Any data collected from you in the course of a transaction will only be retained in accordance with the legal, accounting or reporting requirements placed upon us. This means that once our service to you has concluded we will need to hold your personal information for a certain period of time thereafter. A copy of our policy concerning the retention of files relating to the matter for which we were instructed by you is available upon request. The length of the retention period varies according to the matter type.
Where your personal information has been collected with your consent for marketing reasons we may continue to contact you. You have the right, at any time, to ask that your data be removed from such lists.
In certain circumstances (usually for analytical or research purposes) we may anonymise your data so that you cannot be identified from it. If we do this we shall retain such anonymised information indefinitely.
10. Transferring your personal data out of the UK
All personal information held electronically is stored on secure servers within the UK. If your data is transferred, stored or processed outside the European Economic Area (EEA) it will be for a legitimate reason to enable us to provide relevant services to you.
Unless you instruct us in a matter or case that involves an international element, we do not normally send your personal data outside the UK or EEA. If we do, then we will seek your consent to do so, explain the risks to you and talk to you about UK adequacy decisions and potential safeguards depending on the country involved.
Where personal information has to be transferred outside the EEA, we will ensure that safeguards are in place.
11. Cookies
A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your device (e.g., computer, smartphone or other electronic device) when you use our website. We use cookies on our website. These help us recognise you and your device and store some information about your preferences or past actions.
For further information on cookies, when we will request your consent before placing them and how to disable them, please see our Cookie Policy.
12. Your rights
You generally have the following rights, which you can usually exercise free of charge:
| Access to a copy of your personal data | The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data. | |
| Correction (also known as rectification) | The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data. | |
| Erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten) | The right to require us to delete your personal data (in certain situations). | |
| Restriction of use | The right to require us to restrict use of your personal data in certain circumstances, e.g., 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 to use | The right to object: at any time to your personal data being used for direct marketing (including profiling);in certain other situations to our continued use of your personal data, eg where we use your personal data for our legitimate interests unless there are compelling legitimate grounds for the processing to continue or the processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. | |
| Not to be subject to decisions without human involvement | 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. We do not make any such decisions based on data collected by our website. | |
| The right to withdraw consents | If you have provided us with a consent to use your personal data you have a right to withdraw that consent easily at any time. You may withdraw consents by Withdrawing a consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn |
For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they do and do not apply, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).
You may also find it helpful to refer to the guidance from the UK’s Information Commissioner on your rights under the UK GDPR.
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email, call or write to us.
When contacting us please:
- provide enough information to identify yourself e.g.,your full name, address and matter reference number)]and any additional identity information we may reasonably request from you; and
- let us know which right(s) you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.
We may ask you to complete a Data Subject Access Request Form which we will send to you, and which will enable us to ascertain additional information to assist in the process.
13. 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 need to access it.
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.
If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your personal data and other information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.
14. How to complain
Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data (see below ‘How to contact us’). We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner in the UK. The Information Commissioner may be contacted using the details at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by telephone: 0303 123 1113.
15. Changes to this privacy policy
We may change this privacy policy from time to time. When we make significant changes we will take steps to inform you via the website or by email if appropriate.
16. How to contact us
You can contact us and/or the Person Responsible for Data Protection Compliance by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.
Our contact details are shown below:
| Our contact details | The Person Responsible for Data Protection Compliance |
| Amicus Law (South West LLP) Regional Rural Business Centre, Market Way, North Petherton, Bridgwater TA6 6DF Tel: 01278 664060 Email: info@amicuslaw.co.uk | Stephen Forsey Boulevard House 17 Southernhay West Exeter Devon EX1 1PJ Tel: 01392 964930 Email: stephen.forsey@amicuslaw.co.uk |