Privacy Policy

Mary Monson Solicitors takes privacy seriously and we are committed to protecting it.

This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about you, how this information is used, the conditions under which it may be disclosed to others and how it is kept secure.

This is our main privacy policy. We may provide additional, specific privacy information to you as you interact with us in different ways (e.g. that we will only use certain information for specific purposes). To the extent that any of that information differs from what we say below, those specific statements will apply in those circumstances.

This policy may change from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes.

This policy was last updated on 23/05/2018. Please see section 13 on changes to this policy below.

Mary Monson Solicitors is the data controller in relation to the processing activities described below. This means that we decide why and how your personal information is processed. Our registered address is 87 Chorley Road, Swinton, M27 4AA.

Mary Monson Solicitors is a limited company, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority registration number 465457.

Mary Monson Solicitors is registered with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) on the Data Protection register, registration number Z1779341.

The Directors are responsible for our data protection function. You can find contact details for our Information Requests team at the end of this policy.

When you use our website, our products or services, interact with us online, or by phone, email or otherwise, the categories of information that we collect about you are as follows:

This is information about you that you give to us by entering information via:

and is provided entirely voluntarily.

The basic personal information we may ask for, or you may choose to give us, includes your name, your address, date of birth, NI number, email address and phone number. We may retain details of any enquiry you make to us and records of any correspondence with us. We may also ask for, or you may choose to give us, other information for specific purposes, e.g. personal information for Legal Aid applications, proof of funds for conveyancing purchases, etc.

In the majority of cases personal data will be restricted to basic information and information needed to complete ID checks. However some of the work we do may require us to ask formore sensitive information.

Sensitive personal data: is, by its nature, more sensitive information and may include your racial or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, political opinions, health data, trade union membership, philosophical views, biometric and genetic data.

We will seek to minimise the information we ask for to that which is needed to perform the relevant function or service at the time.

We may also be provided with data from third parties in connection with your matter, for example, Crown Prosecution Service, Police, other solicitors, estate agents, etc.

We automatically collect the following information when you interact with us: e.g. details of transactions you carry out through the site, and your visits to our site, including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, and the resources you access. We also automatically collect technical information, including anonymous data collected by the hosting server for statistical purposes, the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer or device to the Internet, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform.

We do not store credit card details nor do we share financial details with any 3rd parties.

If you are a child and need further advice or explanation about how we collect or would use your data, please email requests@marymonson.co.uk or telephone our Information Requests team on 0161 794 0088.

We may use and process your personal information where we have supplied you (or continue to supply you) with any services; where we have arranged for the supply of another company’s products or services to you; or where you are in discussions with us about any new product or service. We will use this information in connection with the contract for the supply of services when it is needed to carry out that contract with you or for you to enter into it. For example contracted services would include representation in your criminal matter, conveyancing transactions, commercial transactions, etc.

Please see section 3 on types of personal information we process about you above for details of the types of personal information we process for these purposes.

We will use your personal information to comply with our legal obligations: (i) to assist any public authority or criminal investigation body as required; (ii) to identify you when you contact us; (iii) to verify the accuracy of data we hold about you; and/or (iv) to comply with a request from you in connection with the exercise of your rights.

We may use and process your personal information where you have consented for us to do so for the following purposes:

• if you: (i) sign up to one of our newsletters via our website or other medium where available; or (ii) refresh your marketing preferences when responding to a request from us to do so;

• for marketing activities, in order to contact you by email or text with marketing information about our services. Please see the Marketing section (section 11) below in this policy.

You may withdraw your consent for us to use your information in any of these ways at any time. Please see section 12 on withdrawing your consent for further details.

We may use and process your personal information where it is necessary for us to pursue our legitimate interests as a business, for the following purposes:

Our professional functions

• to conduct research and to compile management information;

• for the management of queries, complaints, or claims;

To carry out marketing

• for analysis to inform our marketing strategy, and to enhance and personalise your customer experience when you buy services from us (including to improve the information we provide to you on our website);

To fulfil online delivery and security

• to ensure that our online content is presented in the most effective manner for you and your device/computer;

• to allow you to participate in interactive features of our services, when you choose todo so;

• for network and information security in order for us to take steps to protect your information against loss or damage, theft or unauthorised access;

• for prevention of fraud and other criminal activities;

Other

• to assess and improve our service through recording of any calls with our offices

• operating and managing contracts with our suppliers and service recipients; and

• for the establishment and defence of our legal rights.

Your information may be converted into statistical or aggregated data in such a way as to ensure that you are not identified or identifiable from it. Aggregated data cannot be linked back to you as a natural person. We may use this data for analytical and research purposes

We may disclose your information to our third party service providers, agents,subcontractors and other organisations for the purposes of providing services to us or to us on your behalf.

Such third parties may include cloud service providers; hosting, email and content providers; Legal representatives i.e. Counsel; expert witnesses; and payment processing companies (who will process your debit/credit card securely if you purchase services from us).

When we use third party service providers, we only disclose to them any personal information that is necessary for them to provide their service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it other than in accordance with our specific instructions.

We may transfer your personal information to a third party if we’re under a duty to disclose or share it in order to comply with any legal obligation, to detect or report a crime, to enforce or apply the terms of our contracts or our legal rights or to protect the rights, property or safety of our visitors and customers. We will always take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.

All physical personal data is stored in our various premises throughout the UK.

Electronic data is stored at our offices and also held securely by our third party service providers who are located within the UK and adhere to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

We keep personal information for as long as necessary to ensure we can deliver our services and in line with our data retention policy. This policy reflects legal requirements, our regulatory and compliance functions and other applicable considerations to determine the appropriate retention period.

We do not retain personal information in an identifiable format for longer than is necessary.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to our website and any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your personal information, we put in place reasonable and appropriate controls to ensure that it remains secure against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, or unauthorised access.

Like many other websites, our website uses cookies to obtain an overall view of visitor habits and visitor volumes to our website. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent to your computer or device and stored on its hard drive to allow our websites to recognise you when you visit.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences.

We may collect and process your preferences to receive marketing information directly from us by email.

You have the right to opt out of our use of your personal information to provide marketing to you in any of the ways mentioned in this privacy notice. Please also see section 12 on withdrawing your consent and on objecting to our use of your personal information and automated decisions made about you above for further details on how you can do this.

You have a number of rights in relation to your personal information under data protection law. In relation to certain rights, we may ask you for information to confirm your identity and, where applicable, to help us to search for your personal information.

Except in rare cases where additional time may be required, we will respond to you within one month from either (i) the date that we have confirmed your identity, or (ii) where we do not need to do this because we already have this information, from the date we received your request.

• Accessing your personal information

Under data protection laws you have a legal right to ask to see a copy of the personal information that we hold about you. Such requests are called subject access requests.

If you would like to make a subject access request, please put your request in writing.

You will also need to provide one form of identification and proof of your address, for example, passport, driving licence, utility bill, and if appropriate, any particulars about the source or location of the information you are requesting.

Please send your request in writing to:

Information Requests Mary Monson Solicitors 87 Chorley Road Swinton M27 4AA

Or via email to requests@marymonson.co.uk

Further information about subject access requests can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website https://ico.org.uk

We may not provide you with a copy of your personal information if this concerns other individuals or if we have another lawful reason to withhold that information.

• Correcting and updating your personal information

The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you change your name or address/email address, or you discover that any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please let us know by contacting us in any of the ways described at the end of this policy.

• Withdrawing your consent

Where we rely on your consent as the legal basis for processing your personal information, as set out under section 4 on how we use your personal information, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the details at the end of this policy.If you would like to withdraw your consent or object to receiving any direct marketing to which you previously opted-in, you can do so by writing to us or calling us using the contact details at the end of this policy. If you withdraw your consent, our use of your personal information before you withdraw is still lawful.

• Objecting to our use of your personal information and automated decisions made about you

Where we rely on our legitimate business interests as the legal basis for processing your personal information for any purpose(s), as outlined under section 4 on how we use yourpersonal information, you may object to us using your personal information for these purposes by emailing or writing to us at the address at the end of this policy. Except for the purposes for which we are sure we can continue to process your personal information, we will temporarily stop processing your personal information in line with your objection until we have investigated the matter. If we agree that your objection is justified in accordance with your rights under data protection laws, we will permanently stop using your data for those purposes. Otherwise we will provide you with our justification as to why we need to continue using your data.

You may object to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes and we will automatically comply with your request. If you would like to do so, please email or write to us at the address at the end of this policy.

• Erasing your personal information or restricting its processing

In certain circumstances, you may ask for your personal information to be removed from our systems by emailing or writing to us at the address at the end of this policy. Unless there is a reason that the law allows us to use your personal information for longer, we will make reasonable efforts to comply with your request. You may also ask us to restrict processing your personal information where you believe it is unlawful for us to do so, you have objected to its use and our investigation is pending or you require us to keep it in connection with legal proceedings. In these situations we may only process your personal information whilst its processing is restricted if we have your consentor are legally permitted to do so, for example for storage purposes, to protect the rights of another individual or company or in connection with legal proceedings.

• Transferring your personal information in a structured data file (‘data portability’)

Where we rely on your consent as the legal basis for processing your personal information or need to process it in connection with a contract we’ve entered into with you, as set outunder section 4 on how we use your personal information, you may ask us to provide you with a copy of that information in a structured data file. We will provide this to you electronically in a structured, commonly used and machine readable form, such as a CSV file.

You can ask us to send your personal information directly to another service provider, and we will do so if this is technically possible. We may not provide you with a copy of your personal information if this concerns other individuals or we have another lawful reason to withhold that information.

• Complaining to the UK data protection regulator

We’d like to be able to resolve all your concerns, and we hope that we can do so. Where we haven’t been able to do this, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are concerned about the way we have processed your personal information. Please visit the ICO’s website for further details: https://ico.org.uk

We may review this policy from time to time and any changes will be notified to you by posting an updated version on our website. We recommend you regularly check for changesand review this policy whenever you visit our website. If you do not agree with any aspect of the updated policy you must immediately notify us and cease using our services.

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcome. Please direct any queries about this policy or about the way we process your personal information to the Information Requests team using the post and email details below.

If you wish to write to us, please write to us at:

Information Requests Mary Monson Solicitors 87 Chorley Road Swinton M27 4AA

Our email address for data protection queries is requests@marymonson.co.uk.

If you wish to update your preferences by email, you can do so via our Information Requests team at requests@marymonson.co.uk.

If you would prefer to speak to us by phone, please call the Information Requests team on 0161 794 0088.