Privacy Policy

Birdsall & Snowball Solicitors
Privacy Policy

We take your privacy seriously and we are committed to protecting your personal information. It is therefore important that you read this Privacy Policy as it sets out how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It applies whenever we collect your personal date (including when you use our website or other digital platforms).

Key terms

We, us, our

Means Birdsall & Snowball Solicitors of 10 York Place, Scarborough, YO11 2NU regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) ID 47146, the data controller for the purpose of your personal data.

Data Protection Officer

Paul Richardson of Birdsall & Snowball Solicitors 10 York Place, Scarborough YO11 2NU
Telephone: 01723351351
Email address: pr@birdsall-snowball.co.uk

Personal Data

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.

Special category personal data

This includes details about race, ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data.

About this privacy policy

This privacy policy explains what information we may collect about you, how we may use it, and the steps we take to ensure that it is kept secure. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and what to do if you have a complaint.

Our website and other digital platforms may contain links to third party websites and digital platforms which are provided for your convenience. We are only responsible for the privacy practices and security of our own digital platforms. We recommend that you check the privacy and security policies and procedures of other website and digital platforms that you visit.

Changes to this privacy policy and your duty to inform us of any changes

It is important that the personal date we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal date changes during your relationship with us.

Data we collect about you

We may collect, use and store and transfer different kinds of personal date about you. Below sets out some examples of the personal date we may collect during the course of your matter depending on your instructions to us:-

  • Your name, address and telephone number

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

  • Information about your use of our IT, communication and other systems, and other monitoring information

  • Information to enable us to check and verify identity, e.g. your date of birth or passport details Your National Insurance and tax details

  • Financial details so far as required by the money laundering regulations or as relevant to your instructions including your ability to meet our invoices

  • 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. if you instruct us on a family matter or a will

  • Your employment status and details including salary and benefits, e.g. if you instruct us on matter in which your employment status or income is relevant

  • Your nationality and immigration status and information from related documents, such as your passport or other identification, and immigration information, e.g. if necessary for compliance with the money laundering regulations

  • 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

  • Your medical records, e.g. if they are material in court proceedings or for tax planning

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

We collect most of the information from you. This may be directly when you give us your identity and contact details by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by phone, post, email or otherwise. We may also collect data when you interact with our website. We collect his personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies.

We may also collect information from publicly accessible sources such as Companies House or HM Land Registry and from third parties with your specific consent such as your bank of building society or other financial institution or financial advisor, employer, pension provider, your doctor or medial advisor.

How 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.:

  • you have given consent;

  • 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; or

  • for our legitimate interests or those of a third party.

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 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 in to a contract
Conducting checks to identify our clients and verify their identity To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Screening for financial and other sanctions To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Outer processing necessary to comply professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business 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 parties 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 control. For our legitimate interest or those of third parties i.e. to be as efficient as we can
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information For our legitimate interests or those of third parties 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 For our legitimate interests or those of third parties to be as efficient as we can
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems For our legitimate interests or those of third parties to prevent and detect criminal activity
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 of those of third parties e.g. to make sure we can keep in touch with our clients about existing or 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
For our legitimate interests or those of third parties e.g. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently
Marketing our services to:
Existing and former client
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 or those of third parties i.e. to promote our business to existing and former clients
External audits and quality checks and the audits of our accounts For our legitimate interests or those of third parties e.g. to maintain accreditations

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

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal date uses, particularly around marketing and advertising.

Promotional offers from us

We may use your identity, contact technical, usage and profile data to for a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

Third-party marketing

We will never share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes without your express consent.

Opting Out

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending your marketing messages at any time by contact us at any time. Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a service purchase, product/service experience or other transactions.

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of the website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our Cookie Policy.

Who we share personal data with:

We routinely share personal data with

  • professional advisers who we instruct on your behalf or refer you to, e.g. barristers, medical professionals, accountants, tax advisors or other experts;

  • other third parties where necessary to carry out your instructions e.g. your mortgage provider, Companies House, or HM Land Registry in the case of a property transaction;

  • our insurers and brokers;

  • external auditors, e.g. in relation to quality assessments and the audit of our accounts;

  • our bank;

  • external service suppliers, representatives and agents that we use to make our business more efficient, e.g., marketing agencies, analysis suppliers, cloud providers, software providers.

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 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 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 such information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.

Where your personal data is held

Information may be held at our offices in Scarborough and Filey, and by 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 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. As a general guideline we will not hold your data for more than six years unless there is a specific need or you instruct us to do so. When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal data, we will delete or anonymise it.

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

  • to comply with your instructions;

  • to respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;

  • to show that we treated you fairly;

  • to keep records required by law.

International Transfers

To deliver our legal services to you, it is sometimes necessary for us to send your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA), e.g.where our service providers are located outside the EEA e.g. foreign lawyers who are assisting with your legal matter; if you are based outside the EEA; where there is an international element to the matter upon which we are advising you. These transfers are subject to special rules under current European and UK data protection legislation.

Non-EEA countries do not have the same data protection laws as the United Kingdom and EEA. We will, however, ensure that the transfer of your personal data complies with current European and UK data protection legislation and all personal data will be secure. –

If you would like further information please contact our Data Protection Officer.

Your Rights

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

Access – the right 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 or 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 circumstances

To object – the right to object at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling and in certain situations to our continued processing of your personal data)

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

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.

How to complain

We hope that our Data Protection Officer can resolve any query or concern you may raise about our use of your information.

The General Data Protection Regulations also gives you the 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 their address if Wycliffe house, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF or telephone: 0303 123 1113

Changes to this privacy statement

We may change this privacy statement from time to time and any changes will be published on our website.

Contact us

Please contact us or our Data Protection Officer by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you. Details of how you can contact him are at the top of this Policy.