Privacy policy

1.Who are we?

Garfield Smith – Technology & Data Lawyers is the trading name for the company Garfield Smith Solicitors Limited (registered in England and Wales with company number 9378978) and at registered office, The Exchange Building, 132 Commercial Street, London, E1 6NG, UK. Garfield Smith Solicitors Limited is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (No. 620674).

When we refer to “we” or “our” or “Garfield Smith – Technology & Data Lawyers” or “us” we are referring to Garfield Smith Solicitors Limited.

2.What is the purpose of this Privacy Policy?

We are committed to protecting your personal information when you are accessing our Website (either on a personal computer or mobile device) (“Website”) or utilising any of the full range of legal or information services provided by Us (our “Services”).

In order to provide you with the Website and full range of our Services, we sometimes need to collect information about you. This Privacy Policy relates to our use of any personal information you provide to us via personal computer, mobile device or otherwise whether through our Website or other online portal or by text message, email, telephone, letter or other form of communication, electronic or not.

This Privacy Policy applies to use of our Website or Services around the world but, in particular, to use of our Website or Services from within the United Kingdom.

This Privacy Policy explains the following:

  • what information we may collect about you;
  • how we will use information we collect about you;
  • when we may use your details to contact you;
  • whether we will disclose your details to anyone else;
  • your choices regarding the personal information you provide to us; and
  • the use of cookies on our Website and how you can reject cookies.

We are committed to safeguarding your personal information. Whenever you provide such information, we are legally obliged to use your information in line with all laws and regulations concerning the protection of personal information, including the Data Protection Act 1998 (these laws and regulations are referred to collectively in this Privacy Policy as “Privacy Laws”).

Our Website may contain or provide access to hyperlinks to Website owned and operated by third parties (“Third Party Website”). These Website may use cookies and have their own privacy policies which will govern the use of personal information you submit and which may also be collected by cookies whilst visiting these Website. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices or policies of such third party Website and your use of such Website is at your own risk.

3.What information will we collect about you?

When you visit our Website or use our Services we may receive personal information about you. Personal information may, depending on how you interact with us, our Website and our Services, consist of information including, but not limited to:

  • your first name and surname;
  • your email address;
  • your postal address (which may be where you live or work or both);
  • your date of birth;
  • your location (both generally in respect of your locale, e.g. the UK and specifically, exact latitude and longitude coordinates);
  • the first language that you speak or read;
  • your home or work landline telephone number; and
  • your mobile telephone number.

Please note that the functionality of our Website and our other Services may change from time to time and we specifically reserve the right to make changes to the personal information that we process.

Our Website and some of our other Services may require you to sign-in via a third-party service such as LinkedIn. If you choose to sign-in via a third-party service, we may receive extra information about you from the third-party.

We also use cookies. Please see section 11 below for details. Please see section 12 below for more information about the use of mobile devices with our Website and other Services.

4.How will we use the information collected about you?

We will use your personal information for a number of purposes including the following:

  • to provide our Website and our other Services and to provide you with information about our Website and our other Services and to deal with your requests and enquiries in relation to our Website and other Services;
  • for “service administration purposes”, which means that Garfield Smith – Technology & Data Lawyers may contact you for reasons related to technical or operational aspects of the Website and other Services you receive as more particularly set out in section 5 below;
  • where we are offering personalised services as part of the Website or our other Services, we may need to analyse the information you supply so that we can offer you a better personalisation service as part of the Website or our other Services;
  • to use IP addresses and device identifiers to receive data analytics services these shall include, but not be limited to:
  • identifying the location of users of our Website and our other Services;
  • to establish the number of users of our Apps, visits to our Website and users of our other Services from different countries;
  • to establish how you visited our Website or used our other Services in respect of aspects of our Website or other Services;
  • for analysis and research purposes so that we may improve our Website or our other Services or to develop and create Website and services to be offered by us;
  • to protect the operational and technical integrity and security of the Website and our other Services including, but not limited, to:
  • blocking disruptive or unlawful access to our Website or our other Services; and
  • ensuring that access to the Website and receipt of our other Services is lawful in the country where the Website is accessed or our Services received, whatever the case may be.
  • for marketing and promotional purposes related to our Services.

Where we use your personal information for any other uses we will ensure that we notify you first. You will also be given the opportunity to withhold or withdraw your consent for the use of your personal information for purposes other than those listed above.

5.When will we contact you?

We may contact you:

  • in relation to your use of the Apps, your visits to the Website or your use of our other Service in order to ensure that Garfield Smith – Technology & Data Lawyers can continue to properly provide the Apps to you, to continue to allow you to visit the Website and to continue to deliver our other Services to you;
  • in relation to any correspondence we receive from you or any comment or complaint you make about Garfield Smith – Technology & Data Lawyers, the Apps, Website or our other Services or any other products or services that we may offer from time to time;
  • in relation to the personalised services you are using;
  • in relation to any contribution you have submitted to Garfield Smith – Technology & Data Lawyers;
  • to invite you to participate in surveys about Garfield Smith – Technology & Data Lawyers, the Apps, Website or our other Services; and
  • for marketing purposes, where you have agreed to this (see section 6 below)

6.Will we contact you for marketing purposes?

Garfield Smith – Technology & Data Lawyers will only use your information for marketing purposes, or to promote new services, activities or content where you have agreed to this by submitting your details to the Website or by having previously indicated to one of our lawyers that you wish to receive marketing material in relation to legal services.

7.Will we share your personal information with anyone?

We will always keep your information confidential except in the circumstances set out below when we may disclose it to the third parties described below.

We may disclosure your personal information to government bodies and law enforcement agencies where our disclosure of that personal information is required or permitted by law. Where we reasonably believe that you are or may be in breach of any applicable laws we may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties such as your internet provider or law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour. If you post or send offensive, inappropriate, or objectionable content anywhere on or to us or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour in respect of our Website or any of our other Service, we may use your personal information to stop such behaviour.

We may disclosure your personal information to certain third parties (“Data Processors”) that we use to process your information on our behalf, for example to host our information technology infrastructure or to carry out data analysis. We require Data Processors to enter a legally binding contract with us and to comply strictly with our instructions. Furthermore, we require that our Data Processors do not use your personal information for their own business purposes, unless you have explicitly consented to the use of your personal information in this way.

8.Sensitive Personal Information

Garfield Smith – Technology & Data Lawyers does not collect, hold or otherwise process the following types of personal information about you:

  • your racial or ethnic origin;
  • your political opinions;
  • your religious beliefs or other beliefs of a similar nature;
  • whether you are a member of a trade union;
  • information relating to your physical or mental health or condition;
  • information about your sexual life;
  • information about whether you have committed or have been alleged to commit a criminal offence or any information relating to any legal proceedings about such offence or alleged offence.

9.How long will we keep your personal information?

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.

10.Can I find out what personal information we hold about you?

Under the Data Protection Act 1998 you have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. This is called a Data Subject Access Request. We have a statutory right to charge you £10 for carrying out a Data Subject Access Request and are obliged by law to require you to prove your identity which will include, but may not be limited to, providing us with two documents that conclusively prove your identity. We will always comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 in order to supply, correct or delete personal information about you that we process. Please address requests and questions about this to info@garfieldsmith.co.uk

11.Web browser cookies

  • a. What is a cookie?
    A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes a unique identifier that is sent to your computer, tablet or mobile phone web browser from a Website’ computer and is stored on your computer, table or mobile phone web browser. Our Website can send their own cookie to your web browser if your browser’s preferences allow it but, to protect your privacy, your web browser only permits a Website to access the cookies that it has sent and not the cookies that are sent to you by other Website.
  • b. How do we use cookies?
    In general terms, we only uses cookies to record information about your preferences, how your prefer to use our Website and our other Services. They allow us to tailor our Website and our other Services to your interests.
    Information supplied by cookies can help us to analyse the profile of visitors to our Website and users of our other Services and help us to provide you with a better user experience.
  • c. Third Party Cookies in embedded content on our Website pages
    Please note that during your visits to our Website you may notice some cookies that are not related to us. When you visit a page with content embedded from a third party you may be presented with cookies from these Website (“Third-Party Website”). We do not control the dissemination of these cookies. You should check the Third-Party Website for more information about these.
  • d. Our cookies and how to reject cookies
    If you wish to control what cookies are set on your device through our Website or other Services then you can by changing the settings on your personal computer or mobile device web browser. It is important to note that if you change your settings and block certain cookies, this means that certain personalised features and other functionality cannot then be provided to you and accordingly you may not be able to take full advantage of all of the Website or our other Services features.
  • e. Other information collected from web browsers
    Your web browser may also provide us with information about your device, such an IP address and details about the browser that you are using. It may also provide us with access to details of your personal computer or mobile device’s location.

12.Mobile devices

When you download or use our Website on your mobile device information may be accessed from or stored to your mobile device. This is used in a similar way to a web browser cookie, such as by enabling the mobile device to ‘remember’ you or provide you with the content you have requested.

Your web browser on your device or your mobile device’s operating system may also provide us with information about your mobile device, such as a device identifier or IP address. Device identifiers may be collected automatically, such as the device ID, IP address, MAC address and IMEI number.

If you have any concerns about the information which might be accessed from or stored to your device by us you should not use your mobile device on our Website and you may wish to only access the Website through a web browser on a personal computer that allows you to alter the settings as set out above in section 11 on Web browser cookies.

13.Changes to this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time so you may wish to check it each time you submit personal information to us. The date of the most recent revisions will appear on this page. If you do not agree to these changes, please do not continue to use the our Website or our other Services to submit personal information to us. If material changes are made to the Privacy Policy we will notify you by placing a prominent notice on our Website.

14.Contacting us about this Privacy Policy

If you any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy please contact:

The Data Protection Officer
Garfield Smith Solicitors Limited
The Exchange Building
132 Commercial Street
London
E1 6NG

Email: info@garfieldsmith.co.uk

This privacy policy is effective from 15 December 2016.