1. Important information

Purpose of this privacy notice‍

This privacy notice sets out the types of personal information I collect, how I collect and process that information, who I may share it with in relation to the services I provide and certain rights and options that you have in this respect.

Controller

Clive Mackintosh, Solicitor, is the controller and responsible for your personal data. I can be contacted on +44 (0)330 043 8845 and by emailing me at; clive@solicitor.help.

I am registered with the UK data protection regulator (Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)). My unique registration number is ZB791842.

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2. The data I collect about you

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. This is known as anonymous data.

I may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which I have grouped together follows:

Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of services you have engaged from me.
Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
Profile Data includes your username and password, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
Usage Data includes information about how you use my website, products and services.
Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from me and my third parties and your communication preferences.
Sensitive personal data: In the course of my client services, I may be required to collect and use sensitive personal information relating to you that is, information about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union activities, physical or mental health, sexual life, or details of criminal offences, or genetic or biometric data. Where I process sensitive personal information in the course of my client services, I do so to assist you to establish, exercise or defend legal claims or to assist you in fulfilling the rights and obligations of applicable employment or social security laws.

I may 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 in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, I may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if I combine or connect aggregated data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, I treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

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3. How is your personal data collected?

I use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

Direct interactions

You may give me your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with me by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

seek advice from me;
apply for my services online via a contact form, enquiry form, chat function and other interactive platforms;
subscribe to my publications such as newsletters on my website;
request marketing to be sent to you;
give me some feedback;
attend my seminars, training programmes and presentation workshops;
enter a competition, prize draw or promotion.

Automated technologies or interactions

As you interact with my website, I may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. I collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. I may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies.

Third parties or publicly available sources

I may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources such as Technical Data including analytics providers such as Google based outside of the EU, advertising networks and search information providers. I may receive Contact Data through online publicly available sources for example, corporate websites, corporate profile sites such as LinkedIn and government registers such as Companies House.

4. How I use your personal data (lawful basis)

I will only use your personal data when the law allows me to. Most commonly, I will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

Where I need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into.
Where it is necessary for my legitimate interests or those of a third party and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. My legitimate interest will include for example, market research purposes, marketing purposes and appropriate controls to ensure my website, processes and procedures are running effectively. You can obtain further information about how I assess my legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting me.
Where I need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation. This will include maintaining records, compliance checks or screening and recording (e.g. anti-money laundering, financial and credit checks, fraud and crime prevention and detection, trade sanctions and embargo laws). This may include automated checks of personal data you provide about your identity against relevant databases and contacting you to confirm your identity or making records of my communications with you for compliance purposes.
Generally I do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting me.

Purposes for which I will use your personal data‍

I have set out below, a description of the ways I plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases I rely on to do so. I have also identified what my legitimate interests are where appropriate. Note that I may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which I am using your data.

Promotional offers from us‍

I may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what I think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how I decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (I call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from me if you have requested information from me or purchased my services and in that instance, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Third-party marketing‍

I will get your express opt-in consent before I share your personal data with any company outside Settlement Agreement Expert for marketing purposes.

Opting out‍

You can ask me or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by logging into the website and checking or unchecking relevant boxes to adjust your marketing preferences or by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting me at any time.

Change of purpose‍

I will only use your personal data for the purposes for which I collected it, unless I reasonably consider that I 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 me. If I need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, I will notify you and I will explain the legal basis which allows me to do so. Please note that I may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

5. Disclosures of your personal data (sharing)

I may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set above;

Service providers acting as processors based inside and outside of the EU who provide IT and system administration services so that my services can operate effectively.
SaaS platform providers to run my case management system and other databases so that I can administer and perform my services to you. I choose platform providers that may operate a cloud service, therefore the ultimate storage of personal data can be based inside and outside of the UK.
Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services to me.
HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
Third parties to whom I may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of my business or my assets. Alternatively, I may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to my business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

I require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. I 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 my instructions.

Type of data

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest

Business development

(a) Identity(b) Contact

Necessary for my legitimate interests to improve my range of services to you and to ensure you receive the relevant service

To register you as a new client which will include(a) client engagement including verification checks

(a) Identity(b) Contact

(a) Performance of a contract with you(b) Legal obligation

To manage my relationship with you which will include(a) carrying out my services to you(b) collect my fees or costs

(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Profile(d) Marketing and Communications(f) Financial data

(a) Performance of a contract with you(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation(c) Necessary for my legitimate interests to keep my records updated and to study how customers use my products/services

To administer and protect my business including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data

(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Technical

(a) Necessary for my legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising I serve to you

(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Profile(d) Usage(e) Marketing and Communications(f) Technical

(a) Necessary for my legitimate interests to study how customers use my products/services, to develop them, to grow my business and to inform my marketing strategy

To use data analytics to improve my website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences

(a) Technical(b) Usage

Necessary for my legitimate interests to define types of customers for my products and services, to keep my website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform my marketing strategy

To make suggestions and recommendations to you about my services that may be of interest to you

(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Technical(d) Usage(e) Profile

Necessary for my legitimate interests to develop our products/services and grow my business

Suppliers, experts and other service providers

(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Transaction data(f) Financial data

(a) Performance of a contract with you(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation and statutory/regulatory obligations (e.g. money laundering).

Recruitment: Potential candidates

(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Special categories of data (where you disclose to us).
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(a) Performance of a contract with you (steps taken in the first instance where your CV is first submitted to us).

Purpose/Activity

‍6. International transfers

In the course of providing my legal services to you, there may be occasions where your service requires me to transfer personal data out of the UK. Similarly, where I use cloud service providers (customer relationship management systems), ultimately the storage of that data can be based outside the UK.

Whenever I transfer your personal data out of the UK, I ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented;

I will transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the Information Commissioner’s Office ( ICO).
I will use Standard Contractual Clauses established by the ICO or its equivalent as approved or certified by the ICO.

Where I use providers such as SaaS providers based in the US to carry out my service to you, I may transfer data to them if they are part of the ICO approved safeguards as set out in Article 46 of the UK GDPR and in particular by means of an International Data Transfer Agreement ( IDTA). If you would like to find out more about my safeguards please contact me at , clive@solicitor.help.

7. Data security

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

I 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 I am legally required to do so.

8. Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?‍

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

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, I 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 I process your personal data and whether I can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

By law I have to keep basic information about my customers including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data for six years after they cease being customers for tax and legal purposes. In some circumstances you can ask me to delete your data: see “Your data protection rights” below for further information.

In some circumstances I may anonymise your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you for research or statistical purposes in which case I may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

9. Your data protection rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You can:

Request access to your personal data. This is commonly known as a "data subject access request". This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data I hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of your personal data. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data I hold about you corrected, though I 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 me to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for me continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask me to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where I may have processed your information unlawfully or where I am required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that I 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. For example where I am 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 I am processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, I may demonstrate that I have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing your personal data. This enables you to ask me to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want me to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where my use of the data is unlawful but you do not want me to erase it; (c) where you need me to hold the data even if I no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to my use of your data but I need to verify whether I have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request transfer of your personal data (data portability). I will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
Right to withdraw consent. Where we I am 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, I may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. I will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

What I need from you‍

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data or to exercise any of the other rights. However, I may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. I 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. I may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up my response.

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

10. Right to complain

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. I would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact me in the first instance. The ICO website is https://ico.org.uk.

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

Where I make changes to my privacy notice I shall let you know. It is important that the personal data I hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep me informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

This version was last updated: December 2024

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