Privacy Policy
Last reviewed: May 2018
Please read this important notice carefully as it affects your privacy and how we use information about you.
Haddletons is the trading style of Haddleton and Co Ltd a company registered in England and Wales (No. 10728134) and its registered office is at Windsor House, Cornwall Road, Harrogate HG1 2PW.
Haddletons takes data protection seriously and safeguarding your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy and (for our clients) our Terms of Business explain how we use any Personal Data we collect.
This Privacy Policy also explains how to contact us if you have any queries about how we use your Personal Data.
By using our website or by registering for any of the specific services we offer through it, you are indicating that you understand and accept that your Personal Data may be used by us as described below.
Our client confidentiality obligations are not addressed by this Privacy Policy but are described in our terms of engagement.
We review our policies regularly and any changes will be posted on this page.
What is Personal Data?
Personal Data includes name, address, telephone number, email address and any other information which identifies a living person.
Links with other websites.
This Privacy Policy only relates to Haddletons and we cannot control the use of your Personal Data by external websites.
How we collect Personal Data
When you access, or subscribe to, any of Haddletons’s services we may collect Personal Data about you in a number of circumstances, including when you seek legal advice from us; when you use any on-line client services; when you make an enquiry on any area of the website; when you attend a seminar or other event provided by us; when you sign up to receive information from us, including training, newsletters and bulletins; when you apply for or accept employment or consultancy position with us; or when you offer to provide or provide services to us.
If you do not provide information requested by us from time to time, we may not be able to provide services to you or otherwise fulfil the purpose for which we have requested the information.
In some circumstances, we collect Personal Data about you from a third-party source. For example, we may collect Personal Data from a company for whom you work, other organisations with whom you have dealings, government agencies, a credit reporting agency, a recruitment agency, an information or service provider or from a publicly available record.
How we use Personal Data
We, our subsidiaries, employees, agents, consultants and sub-contractors, may use your Personal Data and disclose it on a confidential basis to third parties, such as Quill, Vital, Cognia Law, barristers, experts, our consultants) for the following purposes:
- the provision of our services to you including to provide you with legal advice or information;
- disclosure to other third-party advisers working for you on the same matter;
- on-line or legal technology services or solutions;
- to send you information on news, publications, seminars and events;
- to improve our services and communications to you;
- for the purposes of employment, partnership or the supply or retention of services;
- to send you invoices or reminder notices;
- for fraud prevention, anti-money laundering purposes, anti-bribery purposes and/or generally for the prevention or detection of crime, which may include disclosure to relevant third parties (here our lawful purpose might be either legitimate interest or to comply with a legal obligation);
- to ensure the safety and security of our people and premises (where we may also use CCTV) which may include disclosure to relevant third parties;
- to process your requests of, and applications to, us;
- for disclosures to our auditors, our own legal and other professional advisors, our insurers and insurance brokers;
- to administer your account with us, including credit and conflict searches, providing e-billing services at your request and tracing and collecting any debts, which may include disclosure to relevant third parties;
- to conduct specific tests on our existing or new systems, networks, applications or software, which may include disclosure to relevant third parties;
- auditing usage of our website;
- for advertising, marketing and public relations, including sending you direct marketing communications;
- providing you with further information about our products and services;
- to manage our business performance, to assess client satisfaction (such as by asking you to participate in surveys) and generally to help improve our services, which may include disclosure to relevant third parties;
- where Haddletons or its subsidiaries is/are the subject of a merger or acquisition (M&A) bid in whole or in part, whether an asset or share sale and whether or not the M&A bid completes. If the M&A bid completes the Personal Data will be owned by the merging or acquiring party;
- as otherwise required by law;
- where you have given written consent to such disclosure;
- where we are permitted by law to do so. This includes circumstances where you have expressly or impliedly consented to such use and;
- or any other purpose for which this information was provided to us or for any purpose related or ancillary to any of the above.
We will not sell, resell, lease or license your Personal Data to any third parties.
How we store your information and keep it secure
Your information is generally stored on servers and filing systems in the European Economic Area which includes the UK. We will take appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep your information confidential and secure against unauthorised access, accidental loss, improper use and disclosure in accordance with our internal procedures covering the storage, access and disclosure of information. Information may be kept on our information technology systems or in paper files.
However, the internet and information systems are not completely secure and although we will do our best to protect your information the transmission of your data to us is done so at your own risk.
From time to time your information may be stored in, or accessed from ,countries outside the EEA. Where this may happen, we always make sure that there are appropriate safeguards in place, such as the model contract clauses, binding corporate rules or the EU-US Privacy Shield, to guarantee that your information – and your rights – are protected to the same high standard as under UK law.
Lawful Purpose for Processing Personal Data
We consider that the processing of Personal Data as described above is necessary for the legitimate interests of Haddletons’s business except where we expressly state otherwise: In deciding this:
- We understand our responsibility to protect your individual interests.
- We only use your Personal Data in ways you would reasonably expect (described above).
- We are not using Personal Data in ways you would find intrusive or which could cause them harm.
- We have considered safeguards to reduce the impact where possible
- We have considered whether we can offer an opt out (see Your Rights below).
Cookies
Our website uses cookies. A cookie is a text-only string of information that a website transfers to the cookie file of the browser on your computer’s hard disk so that the website can remember who you are. A cookie will typically contain the name of the domain from which the cookie has come, the “lifetime” of the cookie, and a value, usually a randomly generated unique number. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and allows us to improve our site and services.
We may use cookies in the following ways:
• Where they are essential to make our site work
• To enable the personalisation features on our site (which give you the ability to recall recently viewed pages and see information which you have input on line)
• To compile anonymous, aggregated statistics that allow us to understand how users use our site and to help us improve the structure of our site. We cannot identify you personally in this way.
For detailed information about cookies and how they are used on our website, see our Cookie Policy.
Disabling/enabling cookies
You can accept or decline cookies by modifying the settings in your browser. However, you may not be able to use all the interactive features of our site if cookies are disabled. For further information about disabling or blocking cookies, please see ‘Can I withdraw my consent?’ in our Cookie Policy.
Relevant and Useful Information
Occasionally we may contact you with information we think may be of interest to you and you would expect to receive from a law firm such as legal updates, and details of legal services. If you prefer not to receive this material from us, please email us at [email protected].
Marketing
Occasionally we may contact you with details of marketing events or competitions hosted by the Haddletons usually by email. If you prefer not to receive promotional material from us in this way or at all, please email us at the address below (Contact Information). You may unsubscribe at any time.
How long do we keep your information for?
We only keep your information for as long as is necessary. We have a Document Retention Policy which we refer to decide how long is necessary.
Your rights
Under the data protection rules, you have several rights in respect of your information, which include the right to:
- access your information
- withdraw your consent to the processing of your information at any time
- ask us to make changes to the information we hold about you to make sure that it is accurate and up to date
- delete or erase your information (sometimes called the right to be forgotten)
- stop or restrict our processing of your information
- object to our processing your information
- not be subject to automated decision-making and
- request the transfer of some of the information we hold about you (known as data portability).
If you would like to exercise any of your rights, please contact us at the address below (Contact Information). Please note that an archive copy of any information provided to us may be retained by us for our records and for audit purposes.
You have the right to request a copy of the information we hold about you by sending your request in writing to us at the below address.
You can unsubscribe from our marketing emails at any time by sending us an email to [email protected] with your name and the word “UNSUBSCRIBE” in the heading of the email.
In other instances, we will review the lawful purpose for processing your information which we process. If we process it for our legitimate interests, we will check that the processing is necessary and there is no less intrusive way to achieve the same result. We will also conduct a balancing test to decide whether your interests do not override our legitimate interests.
Access requests should be put in writing and addressed to the contact details below (Contact Information).
Your Acceptance of These Terms
By using our website, you accept the policies and restrictions in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use the website. This Privacy Policy may be revised from time and you are bound by any such revisions. You should therefore periodically visit this page to review the current Privacy Policy by which you are bound.
Contact Information
If you have any comments or questions about our data protection and privacy practices, please send an email to [email protected] or send a letter to our risk and compliance team at Windsor House, Cornwall Road Harrogate HG1 2PW.
If you have a complaint about how your Personal Data is used, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office www.ico.org.uk