PRIVACY POLICY – JSS/JED/C9-JSSGEN

1. Privacy Statement

This Statement of Privacy applies to the Commercial Legal Centre website, Commercial Legal Centre’s Terms of Business and any agreement entered into with Commercial Legal Centre and governs data collection and usage.  By using Commercial Legal Centre’s website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.

2. Our Privacy Promise

1. To keep your personal data safe
2. To not sell your personal data to any other party or group
3. To give you choices in how you wish to hear from us

3. Data Protection Laws Are Changing

This notice sets out some of your rights under the new laws which came into effect on 25th May 2018.  We will continue to review and update it as and when changes come in to effect.

4. Collection of your Personal Information

If you choose to instruct Commercial Legal Centre to carry out legal services on your behalf we will ask you to provide information about you for security, identification and verification purposes.  This is personally identifiable information, such as your e-mail address, name, home or work address or telephone number. How the information will be used is set out on our Terms of Business. When providing information about others you must ensure you have their consent or are otherwise entitled to do so.  Commercial Legal Centre will retain information collected about you for as long as permitted for legitimate business purposes and to meet any legal obligations.

5. This is what we use your personal information for:

1. To deliver the legal services you have instructed us to carry out.
2. To manage our relationship with you or your business.
3. Develop and carry out various marketing activities.
4. To understand how our clients are using our services.
5. To manage how we work with other companies that provide services to us and our clients.
6. To collect and recover money that is due to us.
7. To obey laws and regulations that may apply to us.
8. To enable us to respond to complaints and seek to resolve them.
9. To run our business in an efficient and proper manner.
10. To enable us to exercise our rights as set out in our Terms of Business or contracts.

6. Personal information about you:

We may collect information about you or your business from some or all of these sources:

1. Data that you provide to us:
   • Full name
   • E-mail address
   • Contact number
   • Date of birth
   • Postal address
   • How you heard about us
   • Two forms of identification (Passport or Driving Licence and utility bill/council tax bill or bank/credit card statement)
   • Company registration (if applicable)
   • VAT information (if applicable)
   • Bank details (if applicable)

   This information will be retained for the duration of the period during which we provide you with legal services or a period of ten years, whichever is the longest.

2. Data from third parties we may work with from time to time:
   • Agents manage fee collection on our behalf.
   • Sources of public information such as Companies House.
   • Government and law enforcement agencies, as applicable.
   • Agents that may work on our behalf.

Commercial Legal Centre does not collect, use or disclose sensitive personal information, such as race, religion or political affiliations, without your explicit consent.

7. Who we will share your personal information with:

1. We may share your personal information with the following organisations:
   • Other solicitors or advisers who provide us with services to assist us in providing a legal service to you.
   • Any party that may be linked to you or your business or a service you provide.
   • Any organisation you ask us to share your personal data with.
   • Anyone to whom we may transfer our rights and duties under any agreement we have with you .i.e. for payment processing.
2. We may need to share your personal information from time to time with other organisations to assist us in providing you with legal services:
   • If you pay our fees by direct debit we may share your legal data with the direct debit scheme provider.
3. We may also share your personal information if Commercial Legal Centre changes in the future:
   • Commercial Legal Centre may choose to sell, transfer or merge any part of its business or its assets or we may seek to merge or acquire another business.
   • During any such process we may share your data with other parties, however, this is only if the other party agrees to keep your data safe, private and secure.
   • If such an event occurs then the other party may use your data in the same way as has been set out within this notice.

8. Sending Data Outside of the European Economic Area (EEA):

We do not currently send your data outside of the EEA to follow your instructions, to comply with legal duties or to work with our agents, advisers and suppliers who Commercial Legal Centre uses to help run our business and legal services.  If in future we do transfer information outside of the EEA we will ensure that the receiver agrees to only use your personal data in accordance with our instructions that it is protected in the same manner as if it was being used within the EEA.  To do this we will adopt the following safeguards:

1. Commercial Legal Centre will put in place a contract with the recipient that obligates them to protect it to the same standards as the EEA requires.  You can find more information on the European Commission Justice website.
2. We will transfer it to a non-EEA country with privacy laws that provide the same protection as the EEA.  You can find more information on the European Commission Justice website.
3. Transfer it to organisations that are part of Privacy Shield.  Privacy Shield is a framework that sets out the privacy standards for data that may be sent between the US and EU countries.  This framework ensures those standards are similar to those within the EU. You can find more information on the European Commission Justice website.

9. How long do we keep this information about you?

We keep information in line with our retention policy.  These retention periods are in line with the length of time we need to keep your personal information in order to provide you with legal services and our need to meet any legal, statutory and regulatory obligations.  These reasons can vary from one piece of information to the next. In all cases our need to use your personal information will be reassessed on a regular basis and information which is no longer required will be disposed of securely.

10. If you do not wish to give us personal information:

We may need to collect personal information about you.  If you choose not to give us this personal information it will prevent us from being able to meet our obligations.  It may also mean that we are unable to perform the legal services required and may result in Commercial Legal Centre stopping the provision of legal services to you.  Any data collection that is optional will be made clear at the time of collection.

11. Accuracy of information

In order to provide the highest level of client service possible, we need to keep accurate personal data about you.  We take reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of any personal data or sensitive information we obtain. We ensure that the source of any personal data or sensitive information is clear and we carefully consider any challenges to the accuracy of the information.  We also consider when it is necessary to update the information, such as name or address changes and you can help by informing us of these changes when they occur.

12. Data subject rights:

1. Subject access requests

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) grants you (“the “data subject”) the right to access particular personal data that we hold about you.  This is referred to as a subject access request. We shall respond promptly, and certainly within one calendar month from the point of receiving the request and all necessary information from you.  Our formal response shall include details of the personal data we hold about you, including the following: 

• sources from which we acquired the information;
• the purposes for processing the information;
• persons or entities with whom we are sharing the information.
2. Right to rectification

You shall have the right to obtain from us, without undue delay, the rectification of inaccurate personal data we hold concerning you.  Taking into account the purposes of the processing, you shall have the right to have incomplete personal data completed, including by means of providing a supplementary statement.

3. Right to erasure

You shall have the right to obtain from us the erasure of personal data concerning you without undue delay where not required to be maintained by us by law.  If you do not wish us to hold the minimum personal data required for us to provide legal services we will cease acting for you. In these circumstances Commercial Legal Centre will retain the information required by law for the relevant period.

4. Right to restriction of processing:

Subject to exemptions, you, the data subject, shall have the right to obtain from us restriction of processing where one of the following applies:

• the accuracy of the personal data is contested by you and is restricted until the accuracy of the data has been verified;
• the processing is unlawful and you, the data subject, oppose the erasure of the personal data and instead request the restriction in its use;
• we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of processing, but it is required by you for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims;
• you have objected to processing of your personal data pending the verification of whether there are legitimate grounds for us to override these objections.
5. Notification obligation regarding rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing

We shall communicate any rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing as described above to each recipient to whom the personal data has been disclosed, unless this proves impossible or involves disproportionate effort.  We shall provide you with information about those recipients if you request it.  

6. Right to data portability

You shall have the right to receive your personal data, which you have provided to us, in a structures, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit this data to another controller, without hindrance from us.

7. Right to object

You shall have the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, at any time to the processing of personal data concerning you, including any personal profiling; unless this relates to processing that is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or an exercise of official authority vested in us.  We shall no longer process the personal data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing, which override the interest, rights and freedoms of you or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

8. Right to not be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing

We do not carry out any automated processing, which may lead to an automated decision based on your personal data.

13. Invoking your rights

If you would like to invoke any of the above data subject rights with us, please write to us at Commercial Legal Centre LLP, 36 Tay Street, Perth, PH1 5TR addressing your letter for the attention of our Data Protection Administrator or email the same to [email protected]

14. Security of your Personal Information

Commercial Legal Centre undertakes to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use or disclosure.  Commercial Legal Centre secures the personally identifiable information you provide on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected from unauthorised access, use or disclosure.

15. Changes to this Statement

Commercial Legal Centre will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect company and customer feedback and to meet the requirements as set out in law.  We encourage you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how we are protecting your information.

16. Contact Information

We welcome your comments regarding this Statement of Privacy.  If you believe that Commercial Legal Centre has not adhered to this Statement, please contact us at [email protected].  We will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly determine and remedy the problem.