GWCA solicitors are committed to respecting the privacy of all visitors to our website, our clients and contacts. Please read the following privacy policy to understand how we use and protect the information that you provide to us or that we obtain or hold about you and to understand what your rights are in relation to information that we hold. This policy applies to information about living identifiable individuals only.
What information do we process?
From our website
You may choose to provide personal information to us when you register with the website e.g. to request that we contact you. You may be asked to provide certain information about yourself including your name, title, postal address, telephone number and/or email address.
Automatically
We may also collect information automatically about your usage of our websites using cookies and other technology (for full details of what we use see the section below on "Cookies"). To that effect, we use your IP address (a series of numbers that identifies a computer on the internet) to collect, among other things, internet traffic data and data regarding your browser type and computer. If you do not want to receive cookies, you may reject them by using your browser settings (for help with how to do this see the section below on "Cookies").
For legal work
If you seek an estimate of costs for legal work or become a client of the firm, we will also need information to confirm your identity e.g. your date of birth, your address, and contact information for you and other parties to the matter. The information that we need will be explained to you by our lawyers and/or set out in our letter of engagement depending on the nature of your matter.
From third parties
We may also receive information about you from third parties such as estate agents, accountants, banks, surveyors, medical professionals, courts, regulatory bodies and other advisors and specialists related to your matter. Our clients and matter contacts may also provide us with information about you if you are involved in a transaction or dispute with one of our clients or have a connection with them such as being a tenant or employee of a client.
How do we use this information?
We will use your information for the specific purpose(s) for which it has been provided to or collected by us e.g.:
- to provide information that you may request regarding the services that we offer e.g. whether we can assist with certain legal advice
- to contact you to introduce you to our expert lawyers
- to provide our clients with legal services including referring them to other specialist advisers both in the UK and overseas
- to comply with our statutory and regulatory obligations
- to verify your identity for anti-money laundering or anti-fraud purposes
- to administer your application for a vacancy
- to deal with your feedback, query or complaint
- to contact you for your views on our services
We also use your information to administer, support, improve and develop our business generally and to enforce our legal rights.
We may also use the information that we collect about you for marketing purposes e.g.:
- to provide communications about us and other services we provide that may be of interest to you e.g. sending you newsletters
- to contact you about other activities and events that we may undertake
Information gathered through cookies and similar technologies are used to measure and analyse information on visits to our websites, to tailor the websites to make them better for visitors and to improve technical performance. We will not use the data to identify you personally or to make any decisions about you.
Processing grounds
We must have a lawful basis for processing your information; this will vary on the circumstances of how and why we have your information but typical examples include:
- the activities are within our legitimate interests as a law firm seeking to engage with and provide services to prospective and current clients and personnel
- you have given consent for us to process your information e.g. in relation to certain marketing activities
- we are carrying out necessary steps in relation to a contract to which you are party or prior to you entering into a contract e.g. because you wish to instruct us to carry out legal services for you
- the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject e.g. for us to certify your identity under our anti-money laundering requirements including carrying out electronic ID checks
- to protect your vital interests e.g. if you were unfortunate enough to fall ill or suffer an injury on our premises
- If we process any special categories of information i.e. information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership, processing of genetic or biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying individuals, health data, or data concerning your sex life or sexual orientation, we must have a further lawful basis for the processing. This may include:
- where you have given us your explicit consent to do so
- where the processing is necessary to protect your vital interests or someone else's vital interests
- you have made the information public
- the processing being necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
- the processing being necessary for reasons of substantial public interest
Marketing
If you become a client of the firm, we may use your personal information to send you information that we think may be of interest to you or your business. This is within our legitimate interests as a law firm to use your information in this way.
You will be given an opportunity to tell us whether or not you wish to receive direct marketing materials and communications from us either at the time you submit or provide your details to us and/or within the communication itself.
If you do not wish to receive any direct marketing material or communications after you submit or provide your details, please contact us using the details below (stating UNSUBSCRIBE in the heading of any email message) indicating if you do not wish to be contacted for one or more of these marketing purposes and/or via particular forms of communication e.g. email or telephone. Please note that the preferences that you state will override any registrations you or your organisation may have with the relevant preference organisations (such as the telephone preference services).
If you change your mind about being contacted by us in the future, or change address, or if any information that we hold about you is inaccurate or out-of-date, please let us know by: emailing us or writing to us. We may need to check your identity before amending your information.
Automated Processing/Profiling
We do not undertake any automated processing or data profiling.
Disclosure of your information
Some of the information you provide to us will be held on our computers in the UK and will only be accessed by or given to our staff working in the UK. Some of the information you provide to us may be transferred to, stored and processed by third party organisations which process data for us and on our behalf. These third parties may be based (or store or process information) in the UK or elsewhere including outside of the EEA. As with many law firms, these third parties may include third party IT platforms (including cloud based platforms), suppliers of administrative and support services and suppliers of other specialist products.
We may also transfer your information to other organisations or professional advisers with whom we are working on client matters or to whom we are referring you for additional or separate advice.
We may also be obliged to disclose data under certain laws or by court order or other competent regulatory body or may be permitted to disclose it under applicable data protection laws.
We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.
Protection of your information
We have in place administrative, technical and physical measures on our website and internally designed to guard against and minimise the risk of loss, misuse or unauthorised processing or disclosure of the personal information that we hold.
Where we transfer information to third parties to enable them to process it on our behalf, we ensure that the providers meet or exceed the relevant legal or regulatory requirements for transferring data to them and keeping it secure.
We will also ensure that where information is transferred to a country or international organisation outside of the UK / EEA, we will comply with the relevant legal rules governing such transfers.
We keep your personal information no longer than is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. Information for clients is provided in our engagement letter and terms of business including details on how we keep secure personal data received from clients about their tenants, employees, third parties or similar individuals.
Your rights
You have certain rights in relation to your personal information, although those rights will not apply in all cases or to all information that we hold about you. For example, we may need to continue to hold and process information to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights. We will tell you if the rights will not apply if this is the case when you contact us.
You have the right to request that we:
- Provide you with a copy of your personal information that we hold
- Update your personal information where it is out-of-date or incorrect
- Delete personal information that we hold
- Restrict the way in which we process your information
- Consider any valid objections to our processing of your personal information
- Provide information you have given to us to a third party provider of services (where our lawful basis for processing is consent and where processing is automated)
We will respond to your request (including providing information on whether the rights apply in the particular circumstances) within the applicable statutory time period. If we are not sure of your identity, we may require you to provide further information in order for us to confirm who you are.
Changes to this policy
We may make changes to this policy from time to time as our business and internal practices and/or applicable laws change. We will not make any use of your personal information that is inconsistent with the original purpose(s) for which it was collected or obtained (if we intend to do so, we will notify you in advance wherever possible) or otherwise than is permitted by applicable law.
How to contact us
If you would like to get in touch to discuss this policy, how we use your personal information, to exercise your rights or to provide feedback or make a complaint about use of your information, please contact us as follows:
The Data Protection Partner
Jon Rogers
GWCA
The Estate Office, London Road
Arundel
West Sussex
BN18 9AS
You can also contact the Information Commissioner's Office via https://ico.org.uk/ for information, advice or to make a complaint.
Cookies
Cookies, also known as browsers or tracking cookies, are small text files that are added to your computer when you visit a website. They help websites to perform certain functions e.g. to know who you are if you log into a restricted part of a website, for shopping carts, and for tracking purposes.
We use cookies on our website.
Manage cookies
Shortly after arriving at our website we will add an 'opt-in' tracking cookie to your computer unless you specify otherwise. If you would like to opt-in or opt-out of using cookies then you can do so by using your cookie settings. You can review your cookie settings at any time.
If you do opt-out then an opt-out preference cookie will be added to your computer, however if you delete all your cookies or use a different device then you will need to set your cookie preference again.
If this is your first visit and you navigate away from this website page without specifying your cookies preference then an 'opt-in' tracking cookie with be added to your computer.
Please note that you cannot opt-out of the deployment of cookies that are necessary for delivery of our website or services to visitors.
Our Use of Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics to monitor how our website is being used so we can make improvements. Our use of Google Analytics requires us to pass to Google your IP address (but no other information) - Google uses this information to prepare site usage reports for us, but Google may also share this information with other Google services. In particular, Google may use the data collected to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network. Related information: