Privacy Policy

Introduction

This privacy notice explains how personal data is collected and used by Leathes Prior Solicitors (referred to as “the Firm”, “we”, “us”, “our” throughout this privacy notice), including its trading styles Employmentor, DebtCollector, Traffic Lawyers and FullContact.

The Firm respects your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we collect, use, handle and disclose your personal data, as well as telling you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.  If you need any more information about our data protection practices, please contact us using the details below.

This privacy notice contains the following information:

1.         Important information and who we are

2.         Data protection principles

3.         The data we collect about you and how we collect and use your data

4.         Disclosures of your personal data

5.         International transfers

6.         Data security

7.         Data retention

8.         Your legal rights

9.         Glossary

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy notice

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how we collect and process your personal data, including any data you may provide when instructing us to carry out our legal services and any data you may provide through this website when you navigate through the site, submit an enquiry or sign up to receive newsletters.  Please see the Glossary section for an explanation of the meaning of “personal data” and “personal information”.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children, other than where strictly necessary to provide our services.

It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you, so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

Controller

Leathes Prior solicitors is the controller and responsible for your personal data.

We have appointed a data compliance team who are responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice.  If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights (see section 8 below), please contact the data compliance team using the following details:

Contact details

E-mail address:  info@leathesprior.co.uk

Postal address:   74 The Close, Norwich NR1 4DR

Telephone number:  01603 610911

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (“ICO”), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes

This version was last updated on 25 May 2018.

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and may amend the notice from time to time.  Please check back regularly to view the latest version.  Hard copies of this privacy notice are available on request.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us for example, if you change your email address, name or payment details please let us know the correct details by sending an email to info@leathesprior.co.uk or by sending a letter addressed to Leathes Prior, 74 The Close, Norwich, Norfolk, NR1 4DR.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

2. Data protection principles

We adhere to the principles set out in data protection legislation when handling personal data.  These principles require personal data to be:

(a)        Processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner.

(b)        Collected only for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes.

(c)        Adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which it is processed.

(d)        Accurate and where necessary kept up to date.

(e)        Not kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the data is processed.

(f)        Processed in a manner that ensures its security using appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage.

(g)        Not transferred to another country without appropriate safeguards being in place.

(h)        Made available to data subjects and allow data subjects to exercise certain rights in relation to their personal data.

We are also responsible and accountable for ensuring that we can demonstrate compliance with the data protection principles listed above.

3. The data we collect about you and how we collect and use your data

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you.  We collect and process personal data about you when:

• you instruct us to provide our legal and associated professional services;
• you enquire about a potential engagement with us;
• you attend one of our legal seminars or other events;
• you use this website, including when you submit an enquiry or sign up to receive any legal newsletters or updates.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data under data protection law, as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate data about your use of the website to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature.  Likewise, we may aggregate data that we collect through providing services to you in order to produce certain benchmarking reports.  However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

We may collect and process Sensitive Personal Data (as defined in the Glossary) about you.  For example, we may collect medical information about you relevant to a personal injury or tortious claim or medical information regarding your capacity. We may also collect data regarding criminal convictions or offences. In these circumstances, we will ensure to collect and process any such Sensitive Personal Data in compliance with data protection laws.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of our engagement with you, (such as identity data we are required to collect under money laundering regulations) and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to provide our services to you.  If so, we may have to terminate our engagement with you but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

The below table provides a summary of how we collect and process your personal data:

Personal data collected for our legal and associated professional services

Personal data collected when you enquire about a potential engagement with us

Personal data collected through the website

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table above.

Marketing

We will only contact you by e-mail for marketing purposes if you have given us your opt-in consent to do so.  Please note that we will continue contacting you about information that we reasonably believe is related to our duty of care (for example, updates in changes to legislation, industry specific information or to invite you to an event that may be of interest), as this is relevant to the contract that you have with us.

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages by contacting us at any time or by clicking the “unsubscribe” button in the relevant e-mail.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

Cookies

A “cookie” is a text data file that is stored on your computer that is revealed to the website controller when you access the relevant site. Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. You can find more information about cookies at www.aboutcookies.org.

We use cookies from time to time on this site in the following ways:

• In order to assist with the operation of our website;
• In order to allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it;
• In order to allow us to personalise content for our users and to remember their preferences (for example, a choice of language or region); and
• To assist us in recording visits to our website, the pages visited and the links followed.

All recent versions of popular browsers give you a level of control over cookies. It is possible to configure your web browser not to accept cookies. Please refer to your browser support for guidance on how to do this. However, if you do so, you may be unable to access certain areas of our website.

Types of cookies we use:

• Functional: These cookies are used to ensure you can correctly navigate our website or share pages via social media.
• Performance: These cookies are used to analyse trends, administer the website, track visitor movements and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve our websites. These cookies are not usually linked to personally identifiable information however IP addresses may be recorded.
• Targeting: These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.

4. Disclosures of your personal data

We will ensure that we comply with strict duties of confidentiality in the way in which we handle information that we are provided with by our clients and other third parties, including sometimes sensitive information. We may however need to make disclosures of personal data for the purpose of, or in connection with, legal proceedings and for the purposes of establishing, exercising or defending the legal rights of our clients. This may include disclosures to opponent solicitors.

We may also share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 3 above. We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law.  We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions. 

Legal counsel and other professional advisers such as mediators, who act or advise on your matters: We may share your data and information relating to your matter with barristers other professionals such as consultants, mediators, insurance providers and expert surveyors or accountants. The legal basis for sharing this data is consent.

Her Majesty’s Court and Tribunal Service: We may send your data and information relating to your matter to the court service. The legal basis for this is consent and the establishment, exercise and defence of legal claims.

CSC IT Ltd: CSC IT provide IT support and system administration services. In providing their services to us and in helping to secure and protect our IT system they may have access to your personal data. In addition to compliance with data protection legislation CSC IT also comply with ISO9001 and ISO/IEC 27001. The legal basis for sharing this data is our legitimate business interests, namely ensuring that we have a functioning and secure IT system.

Storage service providers: We will use local storage providers to securely store archived client files which may contain personal data. These files will be stored in line with our retention periods (see below). The legal basis for this is our legitimate business interests, namely to allow us to store and archive client files securely. 

Mailchimp: We may occasionally use Mailchimp to help us administer our newsletter. The legal basis for sharing this data is consent and our legitimate interests namely to promote inform clients about updates or changes in the law and to promote our services.

Citrix Systems Inc.: We may use Citrix ShareFile for secure content file sharing on our corporate transactions to assist with the due diligence process or on litigation matters with a disclosure exercise. The legal basis for sharing this data is our legitimate business interests, namely to help us efficiently and securely

The Justice Platform Ltd t/a/ Legl:  We use Legl’s services for the purposes of enabling and facilitating the payment function on our website, to give our clients a quicker and easier way to pay online, if they wish. The legal basis for sharing this data is our legitimate business interests, namely to enable us to efficiently offer online payments for our client’s convenience.  Personal data will only be shared with Legl if you use our online payment function and in no other circumstances. See Legl’s own Privacy Policy here:  https://www.crowdjustice.com/privacy-policy/.

Our professional advisers: We may share personal data with professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including experts, other accountants, insurers and other third parties based who provide banking, consultancy, accounting, insurance and other related services to us.

Motor Insurers' Bureau - askCUE: For some personal injury claims we are required to supply certain basic personal information to an online database called askCUE which assists with detecting fraud by checking your history of making personal injury claims. The legal basis for sharing this data is our compliance with legal obligations.

In addition to the above we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice

5. International transfers

We do not routinely transfer data outside of the country however some of our external third party service providers may be based outside the European Economic Area (EEA), specifically in the US, in which case, their processing of your personal data may involve a transfer outside the EEA. Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that at least one of the following safeguards is implemented: Where we use service providers based in the US, we may transfer personal data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires the service provider to apply a similar standard of protection to personal data shared between the EU and the US.

Please contact us if you would like further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data outside the EEA

6. Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. This includes (but is not limited to) AD controlled user access to our computer systems, Antivirus and firewall systems in place to constrict access to our systems remotely, intrusion detection via Symantec Endpoint protection and 2 Factor Authentication process for Remote Access.

In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, consultants, mediators and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.  

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

7. Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, insurance or other reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available on request by contacting us using the details above.

8. Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Please click on the links below to find out more about these rights:

• Request access to your personal data.
• Request correction of your personal data.
• Request erasure of your personal data.
• Object to processing of your personal data.
• Request restriction of processing your personal data.
• Request transfer of your personal data.
• Right to withdraw consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive.  Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

9. Glossary

“Personal data”, or “personal information”, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

“Sensitive Personal Data” means information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or similar beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health conditions, sexual life, sexual orientation, biometric or genetic data, and personal data relating to criminal offences and convictions.

LAWFUL BASIS

“Legitimate interest” means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the privacy impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).  You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us

“Performance of contract” means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

“Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation” means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

You have the right to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.