PRIVACY NOTICE & COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE

Please read the following information carefully. This Privacy Notice contains information about what personal information we collect and store about you, and the purposes for which we process your personal information. It also sets out who we share this information with, the security mechanisms we have put in place to protect your personal information, your rights in respect of our processing of your personal information, and how to contact us if you have a complaint.

Who we are and what we do

Taylor Hampton Solicitors Limited is a law firm providing legal and migration services (“Services”). We are based at 20-21 Jockey’s Fields, London WC1R 4BW.

Taylor Hampton Solicitors Limited is the data controller responsible for your personal information collected and processed via the website, and in the course of the provision of our Services.

Taylor Hampton Solicitors Limited collects, uses and is responsible for storing personal information about you. When we do this, we are the ‘controller’ of this information for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and other applicable data protection laws.

Get in touch

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, or the personal information we hold about you, please contact our Privacy Officer:

• by email at [email protected]; or
• by telephone on +44 (0) 20 7427 5970.

What personal information do we collect?

We may collect personal information, including sensitive personal information, from you in the course of our business, through your use of our website, when you contact us, when you engage our Services, or as a result of your relationship with one of our staff or clients.

Information collected by us

We may collect the following personal information that you provide to us:

• Your name and job title;

• Contact information including your telephone number, email address and home address;

• Payment information;

• Electronic information that you provide to us in the course of using our website, which includes:

o Your IP address;
o Browsing activity while using our website;
o Anonymised analytics data for our own marketing and analysis purposes such as recording the number of unique visitors to our website, average length of time you spend on our website, and how you reached our website.

• If you are a Client or Prospective Client of our Services, we may process information that you provide to us in the course of our provision of Services to you. This depends on the nature of instructions. This may include sensitive personal information, also known as “special category data”. Information collected for this purpose may include:

o Health records,
o Children’s data,
o Political views,
o Racial or ethnic origin,
o Sexual orientation,
o Biometric data,
o Genetic data,
o Religious or philosophical beliefs,
o Trade union membership.

• If you are a Client or Prospective Client of our Services, in the course of our provision Services to you we may also collect and process information you provide to us relating to criminal convictions and offences, including alleged offences.

• We may also process personal information relating to any of our Clients’ or Prospective clients’ corporate officers or personnel, any opponent’s personal information including personal information relating to their legal advisors or other advisors as relevant.

• Relevant information as required by Know Your Client and/or Anti-Money Laundering regulations and as part of taking you on as our client.

• Other information relevant to the provision of our Services.

Information collected from other sources

We may receive information from third party sources such as other law firms, referral firms, or legal representatives or Clients of this firm.

We collect the following information from other sources:

• Your name and job title,

• Contact information including your telephone number, email address and home address .

Why we collect your personal information

Our purpose in collecting and processing your personal information is to help us:

• verify your identity,
• deliver our Services,
• improve, develop and market new Services,
• carry out requests made by you on the website or in relation to our Services,
• investigate or settle inquiries or disputes,
• comply with any applicable law, court order, other judicial process, or the requirements of a regulator,
• enforce our agreements with you,
• protect the rights, property or safety of us or third parties, including our other clients and users of our website or our Services,
• with recruitment purposes, and
• use as otherwise required or permitted by law.

In processing your personal information and/or special category data we rely on your explicit consent, and/or that such processing is necessary in our legitimate interest for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims in relation to the provision of our Services.

How do we process your personal information?

When we provide our Services

We collect and process personal and special category information that you voluntarily submit to us during your use of our website and in the course of our Services to enable us to perform our Services.

We will process such information as is necessary for us to perform our obligations in accordance with any contract that we may have with you. It is in our legitimate interest or a third party’s legitimate interest to use your personal information in such a way to ensure that we provide our Services to you or others. In addition to the above, we may also rely on your explicit consent.

When you use our website

Our website uses electronic enquiry forms. We may collect and store any information which you submit using these forms, such as your contact information, details of your enquiry and other personal information relevant to our Services. This information is stored and processed to allow us to respond to your requests.

It is in our legitimate interest or a third party’s legitimate interest to use your personal information in such a way to ensure that we provide our Services to you or others.

Cookies

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small piece of data that is sent from a website to your browser while you browse a website. This enables the website to record information about who visits and improve the browsing experience for the person visiting. For example, cookies allow users to set up an account with a website and be recognised by the website when they next return.

Cookies we use

Our website uses the following cookies from Google Analytics to give us general information about how you use our website so that we can improve your browsing experience. These cookies gather information for quantitative analysis and we do not collect personal or identifiable information about the individual visitor.

• utma: This cookie is used to determine unique visitors to our website. This cookie expires after 2 years.

• utmb and utmc: These cookies work together to calculate the average length of time users spend on our website. “utmb” expires after 30 minutes, “utmc” expires when you close the browser.

• utmz: This cookie records information about how the page was reached (for example via a search engine result or a direct link). This cookie expires after 6 months.

How to delete cookies

By continuing to use our website you consent for us to place cookies on your computer to help us improve your browsing experience. If you want to withdraw your consent and remove any cookies stored on your computer, simply follow the instructions below, which are slightly different for each browser. However, please note this may affect the features you can use on a website.

To remove cookies on each of the major browsers:

• If you use Google Chrome, please follow these instructions: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32050?co=GENIE.Platform=Desktop&hl=en

• If you use Internet Explorer, please follow these instructions: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/278835/how-to-delete-cookie-files-in-internet-explorer

• If you use Mozilla Firefox, please follow these instructions: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/delete-cookies-remove-info-websites-stored

• If you use Safari on an iPhone or iPad, please follow these instructions:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201265

• If you use Safari on a Mac, please follow these instructions:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/safari/manage-cookies-and-website-data-sfri11471/mac

• If you use Opera, please follow these instructions:
https://www.opera.com/help/tutorials/security/privacy/

Compliance with our own legal obligations

We may use your personal information to comply with our own legal obligations. These include:

• Know Your Client or Anti-Money Laundering checks or similar legal obligations,
• To enforce our legal rights; or
• To protect the rights of third parties.

Where we use our information in the above ways it is in our legitimate interest, or a third parties legitimate interest to do so.

Recruitment

We may process your personal information at your request to assess your suitability for any position that you may apply for within Taylor Hampton Solicitors Limited .

All personal information collected and processed for recruitment purposes is done so in line with all applicable legislation and our Equal Opportunities Policy to ensure that all candidates are considered for positions at our firm irrespective of age, gender, race, ethnicity, disability and other factors that have no bearing on an individual’s ability to perform their job.

In doing so we are relying on our legitimate interest to make recruitment decisions in the best interest of Taylor Hampton Solicitors Limited. We will process your personal information for recruitment purposes only at your request, and we rely on your request that such processing is necessary for us to take steps to enter into contractual relations. We will not process any special category data except under relevant legislation or with your explicit consent.

Marketing communications

We may use information that we collect from your use of our website, or that you have provided to us, to contact you with relevant marketing information.

We will only contact you in this way if we have a lawful basis to do so, or where you have provided us with your explicit consent.

Third party outsourcing and contracting

We may instruct a third party to assist us in the provision of our Services. For example, we may appoint legal counsel, arbitrators, mediators, translators or document processors to assist us in providing our Services. We also have relationships with a number of third parties with whom we routinely share our Clients’ personal data. These include IT support staff, third party service providers such as Microsoft and Google Analytics, accountancy services, confidential document storage services and confidential document disposal services. We may also be obliged to share your personal information with third parties such as the Court, clerks, witnesses, costs draftsmen, Opposing parties in a legal matter, and government or regulatory authorities. We may also instruct courier companies to deliver documents related to the provision of our Services, and to deliver postal marketing campaigns. Please note this list is not intended to be exhaustive and there may be other instances where we need to share your information with third parties to assist us in the provision of our Services.

This data sharing enables us to comply with our contractual obligation in delivering our Services. We have a legitimate interest to use your personal information in such a way as to allow us to provide our Services to the best of our ability.

We will share personal information with law enforcement agencies if required by applicable law.

We will not share your personal information with any other third parties unless you have provided us with your explicit consent, it is necessary to assist us in the provision of our Services, it is required to comply with a legal obligation or to enforce or apply any agreements, or to protect the rights, property and safety of Taylor Hampton Solicitors Limited, our clients, or others.

Transfer of your information outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

It may be necessary for us to transfer your personal information outside the EEA or to an international organisation in order to provide our Services to you.

These countries may not have the same data protection laws as the United Kingdom and EEA. Where we transfer your information to be processed or stored outside the EEA, we will ensure that the country’s data protection laws have been deemed as adequate by the European Commission, or that appropriate safeguards have been put in place by the recipient to protect your information.

If you would like any further information, please contact us by email at:

[email protected].

How long will we store your personal data?

If you are a Client or Prospective Client we will hold any personal information we collect from you in the course of our Services for the minimum period required under law and appropriate regulations, being at least six years. In line with Migration Agents Registration Authority (MARA) regulations, files relating to migration to Australia will be kept for 7 years. We may then destroy such files without further notice to you. We may from time to time be required to hold your personal information for longer to allow us to fulfill our regulatory, statutory or professional indemnity obligations.

We will hold any automatically collected analytics information from visitors to our our website for a period of two years.

Security of your personal information

We are dedicated to ensuring that your personal information is kept secure and confidential and we have appropriate checks, policies, and technical measures in place to ensure that your personal information within our control is protected from unauthorised access, use, destruction or accidental loss.

We have strict internal policies and rules in place to ensure that all of our employees, consultants, and workers who have access to personal information or process it in any way are obliged to respect its confidentiality and act in such a way so as to preserve its security.

Consent

Where we rely on your explicit consent you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by emailing us at: [email protected] and giving details of your contact information and also the information or processing to which you are withdrawing your consent.

You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time, but this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing activity we have carried out prior to you withdrawing your consent.

Your Rights and how to access your information

Under the GDPR, you have a number of important rights that you can exercise. In summary, these rights are:

1. Your right of access

You can ask us to confirm whether we are processing your personal information, and if so, to provide you with a copy of your personal information that we hold, along with other supplementary information. We will provide this free of charge, however we reserve the right to charge a reasonable copying fee for additional copies.

2. Your right to rectification

If you believe the personal information we hold about you is wrong or incomplete, you can ask us to have it corrected. If we have shared this information with others, we will notify them that it has been corrected where it is possible and legal to do so.

3. Your right to erasure

You can ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances. For example, if we no longer need it or if you have withdrawn your consent (where we have relied on your explicit consent). If we have shared your personal information with others, we will let them know that you have requested it to be erased if it is possible and legal to do so.

4. Your right to send data to a third party

You can ask us in certain circumstances to provide your personal information to a third party. We will do so in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.

5. Your right to object to processing

You can object at any time to our processing of your personal information for direct marketing, and we will no longer do so.

You can object in certain other circumstances to our continued processing of your personal information, or you can let us know that you would like such processing to be restricted. We will comply with your request, unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for our continued processing.

6. The right to make a complaint

If you are unhappy with any aspects of our privacy practices you are able to report it to the relevant supervisory authority. Please see our ‘Complaints’ section below for further details.

If you would like more information about your rights under the GDPR please see the Guidance from the Information Commissioners Office on Individual’s rights under the GDPR.

Exercising your rights

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please let us know by email at [email protected], call us on +44 (0) 20 7427 5970 or write to us at Taylor Hampton Solicitors Limited, 20-21 Jockey’s Fields, London WC1R 4BW for the attention of the Privacy Officer. When contacting us, please provide us with your name and contact details and sufficient information to allow us to deal with your request. We may need to contact you to request proof of your identity.

We will respond to you within one month from when we receive your request. Please note if you wish to unsubscribe from any email you can do so by sending an email to [email protected]. Depending on our system updates, it may take 7 days for this to become effective.

COMPLAINTS

We hope that you are happy with our Services and that we can resolve any issues or complaints that arise. Please get in touch if you have any concerns (see ‘Get in touch’ section above).

The GDPR also gives you the right to lodge a complaint to a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or EEA) state where you work, normally live or where the alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The UK supervisory authority is the Information Commissioner’s Office who can be contacted at: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/.

Complaints Procedure

Taylor Hampton is committed to high quality legal advice and client care. In the unlikely event that you have a complaint, we will ensure that it is handled promptly, fairly and effectively.  If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service you have received, or about a bill, please contact our senior partner Daniel Taylor on 020 7427 5971, [email protected]. Daniel can also be contacted by post at Taylor Hampton Solicitors Limited, 20-21 Jockey’s Fields, London WC1R 4BW.

We have eight weeks to consider your complaint, if we have not addressed it in this time or if you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint (www.legalombudsman.org.uk) on 0300 555 0333, by post to PO Box 15870, Birmingham B30 9EB, or by email to [email protected].

If you are unhappy with our service for any reason, you may also lodge your complaint with our regulatory body, the SRA, The Solicitors Regulation Authority HERE

We assure you that we will endeavour to resolve all complaints internally. We will provide you with a copy of our complaints handling procedure on request.

You have the right to complain about or challenge your bill. Once our complaints procedure has been exhausted, if you remain unsatisfied you can contact the Legal Ombudsman at Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ. You also have the right to ask the court to challenge your bill by applying for an assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974. You usually need to apply to have your bill assessed within one month of getting your solicitors bill. You must be aware that we are able to charge interest on all, or part, of a bill and the Legal Ombudsman will not consider your complaint if you have already applied to the court for an assessment.

If the bill is not paid within 30 days:

  • in non-contentious matters we are entitled to charge interest on the unpaid amount of the bill in accordance with article 5 of the Solicitors’ (Non-Contentious Business) Remuneration Order 2009;
  • in contentious matters, we reserve the right to apply to the court to award interest on the unpaid amount of the bill from the date payment was due at the prescribed rate on judgment debts.

Online dispute resolution

If you are our client and we have made a contract with you by electronic means (such as through our website, by email, etc.) you may be entitled to use an EU online dispute resolution service to assist with any contractual dispute you may have with us. Details of this service may be found at http://ec.europa.eu/odr. Our email address for the purposes of using this service is [email protected].

Alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”)

Alternative complaints bodies (such as Ombudsman Services (https://www.ombudsman-services.org/), ProMediate (http://www.promediate.co.uk/) and Small Claims Mediation (http://www.small-claims-mediation.co.uk/) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our Firm wish to use such a scheme.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We do not intend to process your personal information for any reason other than stated within this Privacy Notice.

This Privacy Notice was published on 24 May 2018 and may be updated from time to time in line with our internal Privacy Policy or with regulatory or legal obligations.

An up to date version of our Privacy Notice will always be available on our website.