Privacy Policy
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 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 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.
Key terms
We are RAW Clark LLP, and we have a designated Data Protection Officer responsible for overseeing our compliance with data protection laws and regulations.
We define personal data as any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual. Special category personal data includes personal data that reveals an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership. It also includes genetic and biometric data, as well as data concerning an individual’s health, sex life, or sexual orientation.
Personal data we collect about you
We will collect personal data such as your name, address, and telephone number, as well as information necessary to check and verify your identity, such as your date of birth or passport details. We may also collect your electronic contact details, such as your email address and mobile phone number, and any information relating to the matter for which you have instructed us.
Depending on the reason for your instruction, we may also collect additional personal data, including your National Insurance and tax details, bank and/or building society details, details of your professional online presence (such as a LinkedIn profile), information about your spouse/partner and dependants or other family members, your employment status and details (including salary and benefits), your nationality and immigration status, details of your pension arrangements, and your employment records (including relevant special category personal data such as records relating to sickness and attendance, performance, disciplinary, conduct and grievances).
If you instruct us on a matter related to discrimination, we may collect personal data such as your racial or ethnic origin, gender and sexual orientation, and religious or similar beliefs. In some cases, we may also collect personal identifying information such as your eye colour or your parents’ names, for example, if you instruct us to incorporate a company for you.
In certain cases, we may also collect your medical records, for example, if we are acting for you in a personal injury claim. We may also collect monitoring information, such as your use of our IT, communication and other systems, and other monitoring information if you use our secure online client portal after it is set up.
Please note that we will only collect personal data that is necessary for the purposes of providing legal services to you and that we handle all personal data in accordance with applicable data protection laws and regulations.
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
While we primarily collect information directly from you, we may also obtain information from other sources. This includes publicly accessible sources such as Companies House or HM Land Registry. We may also collect information from third parties, including sanctions screening providers, credit reference agencies, and client due diligence providers.
In some cases, we may obtain information from a third party with your consent. This could include your bank or building society, financial institution or advisor, consultants and other professionals engaged in your matter, your employer and/or trade union, professional body or pension administrators, and your doctors, medical and occupational health professionals.
We may also collect information through our website using cookies (for more information on cookies, please ask for our cookies policy) and via our information technology (IT) systems. This includes case management, document management and time recording systems, reception logs, and automated monitoring of our websites and other technical systems such as our computer networks and connections, CCTV and access control systems, and communication systems including email and instant messaging (if applicable).
Please note that we take appropriate measures to ensure that any personal data we collect is handled securely and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
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.
We use your personal data for several reasons, including complying with our legal and regulatory obligations, performing our contract with you or taking steps at your request before entering into a contract, pursuing our legitimate interests or those of a third party, or processing your data with your consent.
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.
We use your personal data to provide legal services to you, which is necessary for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract. We conduct checks to identify our clients and verify their identity, screen for financial and other sanctions or embargoes, and process other necessary information to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business.
We also gather and provide information required by or relating to audits, enquiries, or investigations by regulatory bodies, ensure business policies are adhered to, and for operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training, and quality control. Additionally, we ensure the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information, perform statistical analysis to help us manage our practice, and prevent unauthorised access and modifications to the systems.
Updating and enhancing client records is important for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract. We also comply with legal and regulatory obligations and have legitimate interests or those of a third party to keep in touch with our clients about existing and new services.
We comply with our legal and regulatory obligations by submitting statutory returns and ensuring safe working practices, staff administration, and assessments. Additionally, we market our services to existing and former clients, third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services, and third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings, which is for our legitimate interests or those of a third party.
To ensure that our clients are likely to be able to pay for our services, we conduct credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies. Finally, we conduct external audits and quality checks and audit our accounts to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate that we operate at the highest standards. This table does not apply to special category personal data, 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 or products.
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 share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.
You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by contacting us by email or by letter.
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
At times, we may share your personal data with third parties to ensure that we can fulfill our obligations to you.
These third parties may include professional advisers such as barristers, medical professionals, accountants, tax advisors, or other experts who we refer you to.
We may also share your personal data with third parties who are necessary to carry out your instructions, such as your mortgage provider or HM Land Registry during a property transaction.
Additionally, we may share your personal data with credit reference agencies, insurers, brokers, and external service suppliers, representatives, and agents who we use to improve our business operations.
We take appropriate measures to ensure that our service providers handle your personal data responsibly and only use it to provide services to us and to you.
We may also disclose personal data to law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.In certain circumstances, we may need to share personal data with other parties, such as potential buyers during a business sale or re-structuring.
While we will usually anonymise this information, it may not always be possible, and the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
Rest assured that we will not share your personal data with any other third party, and we take all necessary steps to protect your personal data and ensure that it is only used for the purposes outlined above.
Where your personal data is held
Information may be held at our offices third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see ‘Who we share your personal data with’).
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’.
How long your personal data will be kept
We may retain your personal data even after we have completed our services for you. This will only be done for the following reasons:
- To address any questions, complaints, or claims made by you or on your behalf.
- To demonstrate that we treated you fairly and in accordance with our obligations.
- To keep records that we are required to maintain by law.
We will not keep your personal data for longer than is necessary for the purposes outlined in this policy. The length of time we keep your data may vary depending on the type of data involved.
Transferring your personal data out of the EEA
In order to provide you with our services, there may be instances where it is necessary for us to share your personal data outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). This could include sharing your data with service providers located outside of the EEA, if you are based outside of the EEA, or if there is an international aspect to your matter. However, these transfers are subject to specific regulations under European and UK data protection laws. If you would like more information regarding these transfers, please do not hesitate to contact us using the details provided in the ‘How to contact us’ section below.
Your rights
You have certain rights regarding your personal data that you can exercise without charge. These rights include:
- Access: You have the right to request a copy of your personal data.
- Rectification: You have the right to request that we correct any mistakes in your personal data.
- Erasure: You have the right to request that we delete your personal data in certain situations.
- Restriction of processing: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
- Data portability: You have the right to receive the personal data you provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, and to transmit that data to a third party in certain situations.
- Objection: You have the right to object to your personal data being processed for direct marketing or in certain other situations.
- Automated decision-making: You have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you.
If you wish to exercise your data protection rights, please contact us using the information provided in the ‘How to contact us’ section below. To process your request, please provide enough information to identify you, including your full name, address, and client or matter reference number.
We will require proof of your identity and address, which can be provided by sending a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill. Please specify which data protection right you wish to exercise and provide details of the information to which your request relates.
We will respond to your request as soon as possible and within the timeframes required by applicable laws and regulations. For further information on your rights and the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us or refer to the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.
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.
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 online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.
Information stored on mobile devices
It is our company policy that all personally identifiable information stored on mobile devices (e.g. laptop computers / smartphones) and portable media (e.g. flash drives / back-up tapes) is protected by encryption.
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 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.
Changes to this privacy policy
This privacy policy was published on 10/4/2023
We may change this privacy policy from time to time, when we do we will inform you via post or email.
Keeping your personal data secure
We take the security of your personal data very seriously and have implemented appropriate security measures to prevent accidental loss or unauthorized access. Access to your personal data is limited to those with a genuine business need to access it, and those who process your information will do so only in an authorized manner and are bound by a duty of confidentiality.
In the unlikely event of a suspected data security breach, we have established procedures in place to address it promptly. We will notify you and any applicable regulators of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
To learn more about how to protect your information and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses, and other online threats, we recommend visiting www.getsafeonline.org. This website is supported by HM Government and leading businesses and provides comprehensive information and resources to help you stay safe online.
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 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.
Changes to this privacy policy
This privacy policy was published on 10/4/2023
We may change this privacy policy from time to time, when we do we will inform you via post or email.
How to contact us
Please contact us by post or email (not by telephone) if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you.
Our contact details are shown below:
RAW Clark LLP
35 Newgate Street, Morpeth, NE61 1AT
Tel: 01670 512391
e mail: law@rawclark.co.uk
