Privacy Policy

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1. Information
The information you provide, including personal information, will be used by us primarily to provide legal services to you. This information will be kept confidential and secure, and our use of this information is subject to your instructions, the data protection regulations under which we are a data controller, and our duty of confidentiality.

2. Who this policy applies to
This privacy notice applies to the following:-
a.    Our clients and people that represent them or work for them.
b.    Customers of our client, that our clients have instructed us to act for.
c.    People who make enquiries about our services.
d.    People who visit our website or who follow us on various social media channels.
e.    People whose personal information is required in order to enable our client (or their customer) to obtain legal advice or otherwise established, exercise or defend legal rights.
f.     People (and their representatives) who are involved in one of our client's matters including witnesses and the other parties to litigation or on the other side of transactions.
g.    Our business contacts.
h.    Suppliers that we use or that our clients use.
i.     Our regulators, insurers, auditors, professional advisors and certification bodies.

This privacy notice does not apply to employees, prospective employees, workers and contractors.

3.    Personal data that we collect
Our firm will collect the following data from you:-
a.    Your name, address and telephone number.
b.    Information to enable us to check and verify your identity e.g. your date of birth or passport details.
c.    Electronic contact details e.g. your email address and mobile phone number.
d.    Information relating to the matter in which you are seeking our advice or representation.
e.    Information to enable us to undertake a credit or other financial checks on you.
f.     Your financial details so far as relevant to your instructions e.g. the source of your funds if you are instructing us on a purchase transaction.
g.    Information about your use of our IT communication to other systems and other monitoring information e.g. if using our secure online client portal.

4.    Personal data we may collect depending on why you have instructed us includes the following:-
a.     National Insurance and Tax details.
i.      Your bank and or building society details.
ii.     Details of your professional online presence e.g. linked in profile.
iii.    Details of your spouse/partner and dependent or other family members e.g. if you instruct us on a family matter or will.
iv.     Your employment data and details including salary and benefits e.g. if you instruct us on a matter related to your employment or in which your employment status or income is relevant.
v.     Details of your pension arrangements e.g. if you instruct us on a pension matter or in relation to financial arrangements following breakdown of a relationship.
vi.    Your employment records including where relevant records relating to sickness, attendance, performance, disciplinary, conduct, and grievances e.g. if you instruct us on matters relating to your employment or which your employment records are relevant.
vii.   Your medical records e.g. if we are acting for you in a personal injury claim.

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.

5.    How your personal data is collected
We collect most of this information from you. However, we may also collect information from you as follows:
a.     From publicly accessible sources e.g. Companies House, the Electoral Register or HM Land Registry.
b .    Directly from a third party e.g. credit reference agency, client due diligence providers or anti-money laundering providers.
c.     From a third party with your consent e.g. your bank or building society, another financial institution or advisor, consultant, and professionals we may engage in relation to the matter, your employer and or trade union or your doctor's medical and occupation health professionals.
d.     Via our website.
e.     Via our IT systems.

6.     Why we use your personal data
Under data protection law we can only use your data protection if we have a proper reason for doing so e.g.
a.    To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
b.    For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract.
c.    For our legitimate business interests, all those of a third party or where you have given consent.

A legitimate interest is where 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 information below explains what we use (process) your personal data for and our reasons for doing so.

What we use your personal details for and 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/ Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes/ Other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal, and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety regulations or rules by our professional regulator - to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

Gathering and providing information required by or relating to auditors, 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 interest 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 - for our legitimate interest or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price.

Ensuring the confidentialty of commercially sensitive information - for our legitimate interest or those of a third party, i.e. to protect our intellectual property and other commercially valuable information, and 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 interest or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price.

Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems - for our legitimate interest or those of a third party, i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you, and 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, and for our legitimate interest or those of a third party, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our clients about existing and new services.

Statutory returns - to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments - to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, and for our legitimate interest 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 and those of selected third parties 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 - for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to promote our business to existing and former clients.

Credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies -  for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. for credit control and to ensure our clients are likely to be able to pay for our services.

External audits and quality checks, and the audit of our accounts - for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to maintain our accreditation so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards, and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

To use data analytics to improve our website, services, marketing, client relationships and experiences - for our legitimate interest to define types of users of our events and services, to keep our website updated and relevant and to develop our organisation.

Manage payments fees and charges - for our legitimate interest to carry our credit control and to ensure that our clients are likely to be able to pay for services as well as recover debts due to us.

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

7. Who we share your personal data with
a.    A professional advisor who we instruct on your behalf or refer to you e.g. barristers, medical professionals, accountants, tax advisors other experts.
b.    Other third parties where necessary to carry out your instructions, e.g. your mortgage provider or HM Land Registry in the case of a property transaction or Companies House.
c.    Credit reference agencies.
d.    Our insurers and brokers.
e.    External auditors, and the audit of our accounts.
f.     Our bank
g.    External service suppliers, representatives and agents that we use o make our business more efficient.
h.    Couts, tribunals and mediators in the case of litigation.

We may also disclose your personal information to third parties e.g. if we sell all or part of your business (i.e. we are acquired by or merge with a third party) then the personal data we hold about you may be one of the transferred assets. Your file may also be reviewed in a due diligence exercise relating to the sale or transfer of all or part of our business the acquisition of another business by us or the acquisition of new business. You may let us know if you do not wish your file to be used in this way.

If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect the rights property or safety of our partners our staff or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

8.    Where your personal data is held

Information may be held at our offices, third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above.

9.    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:-
a.    To respond to any questions, complains or claims made by you or on your behalf.
b.    To show that we treated you fairly.
c.    To keep records required by law.
We will not retain your data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. Different retention periods apply for different types of data. When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal data, we will delete or anonymise it.

10.    Your rights
Subject to the basis upon which we lawfully process your data you may have the following rights which you can exercise free of charge.

Request access to your personal data - the right to be provided with a copy of your personal data we hold about you.

Request rectification of the personal data we hold about you - the right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data.

Request erasure of your personal data - the right to require us to delete or remove your personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it.

Request restriction of processing of your personal data - the right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:

  1. If you want to establish the accuracy of data;
  2. Where our use of data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
  3. 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;
  4. You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

Request transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party - 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. This right only applies to automated information from which you initially provided consent to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

To object to processing of your personal data - the right to object:

- At any time of your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling);

- In certain other sitiuations to our continued processing of your personal data e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests;

- In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Not to be subject to automated individual decision making - the right to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you.

The right to withdraw consent - the right to 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 will.

11.    How we keep 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 only do so 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.

12.    How to contact us
We have appointed a data protection officer who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. The full datils are:
Pritchard Jones Lane LLP, 37 Y Maes, Caernarfon, Gwynedd, LL55 2NP
Name of data protection officer- Wyn Trefor Jones
Email address- wyn.jones@pritchardjones.co.uk
Telephone number- 01286 671 167

13.    How to complain
Please contact our data protection officer if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal information. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner Officer, the UK Supervisory Authority for data protection issues.

14.    Updates
This privacy notice was updated on 1 9th of March 2024. We keep this privacy notice under regular review and may change it from time to time by updating this page in order to reflect changes in the law and/or our privacy practices.