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Privacy Policy

This privacy policy describes what personal information we collect and how we use it.

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PRIVACY NOTICE

We at Stuart Miller Solicitors take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy notice 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 our supervisory bodies 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

It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this notice:

We, us, our Stuart Miller Solicitors Limited
Personal data Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual
Special category personal data

Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership

Genetic and biometric data

Data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation

For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the GDPR, Stuart Miller Solicitors Limited is the data controller of your personal information and is entered in the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Register of Data Controllers under registration number Z2149438.

PERSONAL DATA WE 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 (anonymous data).

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

Identity Data                                                        includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar

Identifier, marital status, title, national insurance number, date of birth and gender.

Contact Data                                                        includes home address, email address, and telephone numbers

Financial Data                                                      includes bank account and payment card details if privately instructed

Transaction Data                                                 includes details about payments to and from the firm

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 purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.

Usage Data                                                           includes information about how you use our website, products and services.

Marketing & Communications Data               includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our

third parties and your communication preferences.

Special Categories of Personal Data               includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data, criminal convictions and offences.

The table below sets out the personal data we will or may collect in the course of advising and/or acting for you.

Personal data we will collect Personal data we may collect depending on why you have instructed us

Your name, address and telephone number

Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, e.g. your date of birth or passport details

Electronic contact details, e.g. your email address and mobile phone number

Information relating to the matter in which you are seeking our advice or representation

Information to enable us to undertake a credit or other financial checks on you

Your financial details so far as relevant to your instructions, e.g. the source of your funds if you are instructing us on a private basis.

Information about your use of our IT, communication and other systems, and other monitoring information, e.g. if using our website.

Your National Insurance and tax details

Your bank and/or building society details

Details of your professional online presence, e.g. LinkedIn profile

Details of your spouse/partner and dependants or other family members, e.g. for legal aid applications

Your employment status and details including salary and benefits, e.g. when making a legal aid application all financial information is needed to determine eligibility.

Your employment records, e.g. for legal aid applications and for mitigation if being sentenced

Your racial or ethnic origin, gender and sexual orientation, religious or similar beliefs, e.g. for mitigation, legal aid application and monitoring purposes.

Your medical records, e.g. if we need to have a psychiatric report about you and or we need to have more information about you in order to mitigate on your behalf.

Your criminal records, e.g. we act for you in criminal proceedings

This personal data is required to enable us to provide our service to you. If you do not provide personal data when we ask for or if you stop us from using it once provided, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.

HOW YOUR PERSONAL DATA IS COLLECTED

We collect most of this information from you direct or via our secure online client portal. However, we may also collect information:

  • from publicly accessible sources, e.g. Companies House or HM Land Registry;
  • directly from a third party, e.g.:
  • sanctions screening providers;
  • credit reference agencies;
  • client due diligence providers;
  • from a third party with your consent, e.g.:
  • your bank or building society, another financial institution or advisor;
  • consultants and other professionals we may engage in relation to your matter;
  • your employer and/or trade union, professional body or pension administrators;
  • your doctors, medical and occupational health professionals;
  • via our website—we use cookies on our website (for more information on cookies, please see our Cookies policy on our website)
  • via our information technology (IT) systems, e.g.:
  • case management, document management and time recording systems;
  • automated monitoring of our websites and other technical systems, such as our computer networks and connections, CCTV, communications systems, email and instant messaging systems;

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, e.g.:

  • to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
  • for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
  • for our legitimate interests or those of a third party; or
  • where you have given 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.

The table below explains what we use (process) your personal data for and our reasons for doing so:

What we use your personal data for Our reasons
To provide legal services to you For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract

Conducting checks to identify our clients and verify their identity

Other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety regulation or rules issued by our professional regulator

Carrying out conflict checks

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

 

 

Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Ensuring business policies are adhered to, e.g. policies covering security and internet use For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control; this includes mere storage of data

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, in establishing, exercising or defending legal claims

Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to protect our intellectual property and other commercially valuable information

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Statistical analysis to help us manage our practice, e.g. in relation to our financial performance, client base, work type or other efficiency measures For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Updating and enhancing client records

For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our clients about existing and new services

Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you

Marketing our services to:

—existing and former clients;

—third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services;

—third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings.

For our legitimate interests, i.e. to promote our business to existing and former clients
External audits and quality checks, e.g. for Lexcel, accreditation and the audit of our accounts

For our legitimate interests or a those of a third party, i.e. to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

The above table does not apply to special category personal data, which we will only process with your explicit consent.

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

We may use your personal data to send you updates (by email, telephone or post) about legal developments that might be of interest to you and/or information about our services.

We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data for promotional purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal data’) and certain regulations mean that we are able to provide our existing clients and business contacts with electronic marketing communications regarding similar services. 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 sell or share it with other organisations outside Stuart Miller Solicitors Ltd for marketing purposes.

You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by:

  1. Contacting us by email on [email protected]
  2. Writing to Data Protection Officer (DPO) at: Stuart Miller Solicitors Ltd, 247 High Road Wood Green N22 8HF.

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

We may share personal data with:

  • professional advisers who we instruct on your behalf or refer you to, e.g. barristers, agents (solicitors & police station advisors) medical professionals, accountants or other experts;
  • other third parties where necessary to carry out your instructions, e.g. expert witnesses, the Legal Aid Agency or Companies House;
  • our Case Management company who manage our Case Management System – DPS
  • credit reference agencies;
  • our insurers and brokers;
  • external auditors, e.g. in relation to or Lexcel or similar accreditation and the audit of our accounts;
  • our banks;
  • external service suppliers, representatives and agents that we use to make our business more efficient, e.g. typing services, marketing agencies, document collation or analysis suppliers;
  • automated marketing platforms operated by us

We only allow our service providers to handle your personal data if we are satisfied, they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers relating to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.

We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies such as the Legal Aid Agency and Solicitors Regulation Authority to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

We may also need to share some personal data with other parties, such as potential buyers of some or all of our business or during a re-structuring. Usually, information will be anonymised, but this may not always be possible. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.

WHERE YOUR PERSONAL DATA IS HELD

Information may be held at our offices and those of our third-party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see ‘Who we share your personal data with’).

HOW LONG YOUR PERSONAL DATA WILL BE KEPT

We will keep your personal data after we have finished advising or acting for you. We will do so for one of these reasons:

  • to respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;
  • to show that we treated you fairly;
  • to continue to carry out conflict checks to prevent breaches of regulatory obligations or client confidentiality;
  • to keep records required by law.

We will not retain your data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this notice. Different retention periods apply for different types of data. Further details on this are available in our Data Retention Policy and Archiving Procedure, copies of which can be provided on request.

In general, paper files and records will be destroyed at our specific destruction date. For many routine matters, this is six years from the point that the file is closed. However, there are some exemptions to this.

Electronic files will be kept indefinitely, in order for us to protect our clients’ confidentiality and to avoid breaches of disclosure obligations, and to prevent conflicts, all by carrying out conflict checks.

Electronic files also allow us to respond to claims, and to enquiries by law enforcement agencies.

When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal data, we will delete or anonymise it.

Regulations relating to identifying clients for anti-money laundering purposes specify that, in the absence of consent, material obtained from clients for that specific purpose should be kept for no more than five years from the end of the transaction or business relationship. However, the additional purposes for the use of information listed above will possibly exceed five years. Consequently, we shall treat your continuing instruction of us as your consent relating solely to our retaining material provided by you for the purposes of identification for anti-money laundering purposes for more than five years. Your papers (including any information used for the purpose of identifying you) will then be destroyed in accordance with our existing file archive and destruction policy.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:

Access The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data
Rectification The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data
To be forgotten The right to require us to delete your personal data—in certain situations
Restriction of processing The right to require us to restrict processing 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

The right to object:

—at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling);

—in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests.

Not to be subject to automated individual decision-making 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

For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

  • email, call or write to us – see below: ‘How to contact us’; and
  • let us have enough information to identify you (e.g. your full name, address and client or matter reference number);
  • let us have proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill); and
  • let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.

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.

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 NOTICE

This privacy notice was published on 11 May 2018.

We may change this privacy notice from time to time, when we do we will inform you via email or letter.

HOW TO CONTACT US

Please contact us by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information, we hold about you.

Our contact details for data protection purpose are shown below. For any other purposes you should use the contact details given to you by the person or people handling your matter.

Our contact details

Post/in person: Abu Kibla (Data Protection Officer)

Stuart Miller Solicitors Ltd.

247 High Road Wood Green

London N22 8HF

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 0208 888 5225

 

 WEBSITE PRIVACY & COOKIES POLICY

 WHAT IS THIS POLICY FOR?

 This policy is for the website www.stuartmillersolicitors.co.uk. It is served by Stuart Miller Solicitors Limited who govern the privacy of their users who visit the website. This policy should be read together with the firms main Privacy Notice.

The policy sets out the different areas where user privacy is important and outlines the obligations & requirements of the users, the website and website owners. Furthermore, the way this website processes, stores and protects user data and information will also be detailed within this policy.

Any personal information collected on this website is treated with confidence and dealt with in accordance with this policy and our Privacy Notice. All personal data you provide to us through the designated enquiry forms or via email links on the website will only be used to provide the services that you request us to provide.

We cannot guarantee the security of an email during transmission. If you have any concerns as to the privacy of the online enquiry forms or email correspondence, you can telephone or email us at [email protected].

We respect your right to privacy and treat our obligations under the Data Protection Act very seriously. We will keep your personal information confidential except to the extent that it is necessary to disclose it by law or to fulfil a legal process or in order to provide a product or service that you have requested. Under the Data Protection Act, you have the right to access the information regarding yourself we hold.

This policy ceases to apply should you proceed through to another website using a link. You must then check the privacy policy of the website you land in.

THE WEBSITE

 This website and its owners take a proactive approach to user privacy and ensure the necessary steps are taken to protect the privacy of its users throughout their visiting experience. This website complies to all UK national laws and requirements for user privacy.

 USE OF COOKIES

 This website uses cookies to better the users experience while visiting the website. Where applicable this website uses a cookie control system allowing the user on their first visit to the website to allow or disallow the use of cookies on their computer / device. This complies with recent legislation requirements for websites to obtain explicit consent from users before leaving behind or reading files such as cookies on a user’s computer / device.

Cookies are small files saved to the user’s computer’s hard drive that track, save and store information about the user’s interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server to provide the users with a tailored experience within this website. Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website on to their computers hard drive, they should take necessary steps within their web browsers security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors.

INFORMATION COLLECTION

We use Google Analytics to monitor how our website is being used so we can make improvements. The software will save a cookie to your computer’s hard drive in order to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website, but will not store, save or collect personal information. 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:

Google Re-marketing: we use cookies for re-marketing purposes. These cookies are written by Google for the purpose of showing advertisements to users who have previously visited our site as they browse other websites on the internet.

Other cookies may be stored to your computer’s hard drive by external vendors when this website uses referral programs, sponsored links or adverts. Such cookies are used for conversion and referral tracking and typically expire after 30 days, though some may take longer. No personal information is stored, saved or collected.

We may use photos, videos and links to other websites to support our website and the information we are posting. If you access other sites using the links provided, the operators of these sites may collect information from you which will be used by them in accordance with their privacy policy, which may differ from ours. You should check the relevant third-party website for more information about these. Stuart Miller Solicitors does not control the dissemination of these cookies.

If you have any queries about the cookies that we use or would like more information, please contact [email protected].

 CONTACT & COMMUNICATION

 Users contacting this website and/or its owners do so at their own discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until a time it is no longer required or has no use, as detailed in the Data Protection Act and GDPR.

Every effort has been made to ensure a safe and secure form to email submission process but advise users using such form to email processes that they do so at their own risk. This website and its owners use any information submitted to provide you with further information about the services they offer or to assist you in answering any questions or queries you may have submitted. This includes using your details to subscribe you to any email newsletter program the website operates but only if this was made clear to you and your express permission was granted when submitting any form to email process; or, whereby you the consumer have previously purchased from or enquired about purchasing from the company a service that the email newsletter relates to. This is by no means an entire list of your user rights in regard to receiving email marketing material. Your details are not passed on to any third parties.

EMAIL NEWSLETTER

 This website operates an email newsletter program, used to inform subscribers about services supplied by this website. Users can subscribe through an online automated process should they wish to do so but do so at their own discretion. Some subscriptions may be manually processed through prior written agreement with the user.
Subscriptions are taken in compliance with UK Spam Laws detailed in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.

All personal details relating to subscriptions are held securely and in accordance with the Data Protection Act. No personal details are passed on to third parties nor shared with companies / people outside of the company that operates this website. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 you may request a copy of personal information held about you by this website’s email newsletter program. If you would like a copy of the information held on you, please email [email protected].

Email marketing campaigns published by this website or its owners may contain tracking facilities within the actual email. Subscriber activity is tracked and stored in a database for future analysis and evaluation. Such tracked activity may include; the opening of emails, forwarding of emails, the clicking of links within the email content, times, dates and frequency of activity [this is by no far a comprehensive list].

This information is used to refine future email campaigns and supply the user with more relevant content based around their activity. In compliance with UK Spam Laws and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 subscribers are given the opportunity to un-subscribe at any time through an automated system. This process is detailed at the footer of each email campaign. If an automated un-subscription system is unavailable clear instructions on how to un-subscribe will by detailed instead.

EXTERNAL LINKS

Although this website only looks to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised to adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. (External links are clickable text / banner / image links to other websites.

The owners of this website cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite their best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement or policy applicable to the website in question.

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

 We adopt a Social Media Policy to ensure our business and our staff conduct themselves accordingly online. The social media channels we use include Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn which all have privacy notices built into them.

While we may have official profiles on social media platforms users are advised to verify the authenticity of such profiles before engaging with or sharing information with such profiles. We will never ask for user passwords or personal details on social media platforms and we ask none is sent via the channels. Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners participate on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate / engage upon them with due care and caution in regard to their own privacy and personal details.

This website nor its owners will ever ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.

This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.

SHORTENED LINKS IN SOCIAL MEDIA

 This website and its owners through their social media platform accounts may share web links to relevant web pages. By default, some social media platforms shorten lengthy URLs [web addresses].

Users are advised to take caution and good judgement before clicking any shortened URLs published on social media platforms by this website and its owners. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine URLs are published many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and therefore this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

Advertisements and sponsorship links

This website may contain sponsored links and adverts. These will typically be served by our advertising partners, to whom may have detailed privacy policies relating directly to the adverts they serve.

Clicking on any such adverts will send you to the advertiser’s website through a referral program which may use cookies and will track the number of referrals sent from this website. This may include the use of cookies which may in-turn be saved on your computer’s hard drive. Users should, therefore, note they click on sponsored external links at their own risk and we cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

IP Addresses

We use IP addresses to analyse trends, administer the website, track users’ movements, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information

Withdraw consent

All our communications contain an unsubscribe link. If you wish to stop receiving communications from us, you will be able to do so by contacting us either by post or email.

All data is held securely by Stuart Miller Solicitors in accordance with the 1998 UK Data Protection Act. We will keep you updated with publication news. Depending on your preferences, you will receive communications via post, email, SMS, telephone and social media. We will pay attention to your responses (including e-tracking) and, from time to time, may use your data for profiling, targeting, and research purposes. Your information will only be made available to our trusted agents acting on behalf of Stuart Miller Solicitors. If you wish to alter your communication preferences please contact the Data Protection Officer by email at [email protected].

Right to be forgotten

You can ask that we erase all personal information that we hold about you. Where it is appropriate that we comply, your request will be fully actioned within 30 days. For further information, please contact our Data Protection Officer at Stuart Miller Solicitors, 247 High Road Wood Green London N22 8HF or via email at [email protected].

Emergency?

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