Abbotstone Law respects your right to privacy.  This Privacy Notice explains who we are, how we collect, share and use personal information about you, and how you can exercise your privacy rights.  It applies to all individuals who access our website www.abbotstonelaw.com (“Website”), engage our legal services (“Services”), or who participate in our recruitment activities. We recommend that you read this Privacy Notice in full to ensure you are fully informed.

What does Abbotstone Law do?

‘Abbotstone Law’ is the trading name of Abbotstone Law LLP, Unit F24A, Parkhall Business Centre, 40 Martell Road, London, SE21 8EN.

For more information about Abbotstone Law and the legal services we provide, please see the “About Us” section of our Website at http://www.abbotstonelaw.com/about-us

What personal information does Abbotstone Law collect when you visit our Website and why?

The personal information that we may collect about you when you visit our website broadly falls into the following categories:

Information that you provide voluntarily

We collect personal information that you provide voluntarily through our Website, for example when completing online forms to contact us or register for events that we are organising.  The information we collect about you may include some or all of the following:

1. Name and job title;
2. Company or organisation;
3. Contact information, including email address and telephone number(s);
4. Demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests;
5. Other information relevant to client surveys or similar research;
6. Information pertinent to fulfilling our Services to you; and
7. Any other personal information that you voluntarily choose to provide to us.

If we ask you to provide any other personal information not described above, the personal information that you are asked to provide, and the reasons why you are asked to provide it, will be made clear to you at the point that you are asked to provide your personal information.

Information that we collect automatically

When you visit our Website, we may collect certain personal information automatically from your device.

Specifically, the information we collect automatically may include information like your IP address, device type, unique device identification number, browser-type, broad geographic location (e.g. country or city-level location) and other technical information.  We may also collect information about how your device has interacted with our Website, including the pages accessed and links clicked.

Collecting this information enables us to better understand the visitors who come to our Website, where they come from, and what content on our Website is of interest to them.  We use this information for our internal analytics purposes and to improve the quality and relevance of our Website to our visitors.

What personal information does Abbotstone Law collect when you engage our Services and why?

When you engage us to provide you with legal services, we collect and use personal information which is necessary for the performance of those Services.

The majority of the personal information we collect and use to provide our Services is supplied voluntarily by (or collected by us from third party sources at the request of) our clients.  Because of this, if you are a client of Abbotstone Law then it will generally be obvious to you what personal information we collect and use.  This information may include:

1. Basic information such as your name, the company you work for, your position and your relationship to a person;
2. Contact information such as your postal address, email address and telephone number(s);
3. Financial information, such as payment related information;
4. Identification and background information provided by you or collected as part of our business acceptance process;
5. Special categories of personal information, such as information about a person’s physical or mental health, alleged criminal activities, or similar where this is necessary in connection with the Services we provide and
6. Any other personal information relating to you or other third parties which you may provide to us for the purpose of receiving our Services.

 We use this information to facilitate the provision of our Services to you, the client.  In addition, we will process identification and background information as part of our business acceptance, finance, administration and marketing processes, including anti-money laundering, conflict, reputational and financial checks, and to fulfil any other legal or regulatory requirements to which we may be subject. The information our clients provide may be disclosed to third parties to the extent that is reasonably necessary in connection with that work (for example, when seeking advice from external counsel or experts).

What information does Abbotstone Law collect when you engage in recruitment services?

Abbotstone Law collects information from and about candidates in connection with available employment opportunities at Abbotstone Law.  This information may include CVs, identification documents, academic records, work history, employment and references.

Abbotstone Law uses your personal information to match your skills, experience and education with the specific roles offered by the firm.  This information is passed to the relevant hiring managers and persons involved in the recruitment process to decide whether to invite you for interview.  Abbotstone Law will collect further information from you if you are invited to the interview (or equivalent) stage and onwards.

In connection with our recruitment activities, we may also collect special categories of personal information from candidates where we have an employment law obligation to do so, the information is relevant to their future working environment at Abbotstone Law or the future provision of employment benefits, or with the individual’s explicit consent.  For example, we may need to collect information about a candidate’s disabilities in order to provide a suitable working environment for that candidate if they are successful in their application.  We may also need to conduct criminal background checks for some candidates, for example applicant lawyers, to assess their eligibility to work at Abbotstone Law.  We may also ask you to provide diversity information about your race/ethnicity and sexual orientation for diversity monitoring purposes, although the provision of this information will be entirely voluntary.

Abbotstone Law may collect personal information about candidates from the following sources:

1. Directly from you – for example, information that you have provided when applying for a position directly through the firm’s recruitment website;
2. From recruitment agencies – for example, when a recruitment agency contacts us to identify you as a potential candidate;
3. Through publicly available sources online – for example, where you have a professional profile posted online (e.g. on your current employer’s website, or on a professional networking site like LinkedIn); and
4. By reference or word of mouth – for example, through a referred from former employee/employer or from a referee you have identified.

When and with whom might Abbotstone Law share your personal information?

We may disclose your personal information to the following categories of recipients:

1. To any competent law enforcement body, regulator, government agency, court or other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary: (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights, or (iii) to protect your vital interests or those of any other person;
2. To a person you have given us your consent to disclose to.

Legal basis for processing personal information

Our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it.

However, we will normally collect personal information from you only where we have your consent to do so, where we need the personal information to perform a contract with you (for example, when providing our Services), or where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to process personal information about you, or may need to process personal information in order to exercise, establish or defend legal claims.

If we ask you to provide personal information to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contract with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not (as well as the possible consequences, if any,  if you do not provide your personal information).

If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information (including any legitimate interests relied upon), please send an email to dataprotection@abbotstonelaw.com

How does Abbotstone Law keep my personal information secure?

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information that we collect and process about you.  The measures we use are designed to provide a level of security appropriate to the risk of processing your personal information.

Data retention

We will retain personal information we collect from you where we have an ongoing legitimate business need to do so (for example, to provide you with a service you have requested or to comply with applicable legal, tax or accounting requirements).

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymise it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

If you have questions about, or need further information concerning, our data retention periods, please send an email to dataprotection@abbotstonelaw.com

Your data protection rights

You have the following data protection rights:

1. If you wish to access, correct, update or request deletion of your personal information, you can do so at any time by sending an email to dataprotection@abbotstonelaw.com;
2. You can object to the processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict processing of your personal information or request portability of your personal information. You can exercise these rights by contacting us by email at dataprotection@abbotstonelaw.com;
3. You have the right to opt-out of marketing communications we send you at any time. You can exercise this right by clicking on the “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” link in the marketing e-mails we send you.  To opt-out of other forms of marketing (such as postal marketing or telemarketing), then please email dataprotection@abbotstonelaw.com;
4. Similarly, if we have collected and process your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent; and
5. You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority.

We respond to all requests received from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

Updates to this Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time in response to legal, technical or business developments. When we update our Privacy Notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you.  We will obtain your consent to any material Privacy Notice changes if and where this is required by applicable data protection laws.

How to contact us

If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, please email us at dataprotection@abbotstonelaw.com.

If you are a visitor to our Website, the data controller of your personal information is Abbotstone Law LLP, registered in the UK with the Information Commissioner’s Office with the registration number: OC384159.  Otherwise, if you are a client of our Services or a candidate seeking employment at Abbotstone Law, the data controller of your personal information will be the relevant Abbotstone Law member with whom you have engaged.