Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Druces LLP Privacy Notice

Druces LLP (“Druces”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you about our privacy policy as to how we use and look after your personal data and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you when:

  • you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from); and/or
  • you sign up to receive information about us, our services and events; and/or
  • you are a client or prospective client of Druces; and/or
  • you are a contact of Druces; and/or
  • you are connected to a client or prospective client of Druces or a matter in respect of which we receive instructions from a client of Druces.

1. Important information and who we are

 

PURPOSE OF THIS PRIVACY NOTICE  

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how we collect and process your personal data in the circumstances listed in (i) to (v) above. This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data from children.

It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

CONTROLLER  

Druces is the controller of and responsible for your personal data and responsible for this website.

We have appointed a data privacy manager who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the data privacy manager using the details set out below.

CONTACT DETAILS  

Full name of legal entity: Druces LLP

Name of Data Privacy Manager: Neil Pfister

Email address: n.pfister@druces.com

COMPLAINTS

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY NOTICE AND YOUR DUTY TO INFORM US OF CHANGES  

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Any changes to this privacy policy will be posted on this site and where appropriate notified to you in writing.

THIRD-PARTY LINKS  

This website may include links to third-party websites. Clicking on those links may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

2. The data we collect about you

 

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about a person from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data includes names, including maiden names, titles, other similar identifiers, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
  • Contact Data includes residential, correspondence and email addresses and telephone numbers.
  • AML Data includes identification documents and details collected for the purposes of compliance with the Money Laundering Regulations 2017.
  • Financial Data includes bank account details and details about payments to and from you.
  • Matter Data includes communications and documents collated or created in respect of any matter in which we act for you or another client of Druces.
  • Marketing and Communications Data includes your contact details and your preferences in relation to receiving information about us, our services and events.

3. How is your personal data collected?

 

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

  • Direct interactions with you. You may give us your data electronically, by phone, by post or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
    • Contact us via our website;
    • Provide us Identity, Contact, AML, Financial and Matter Data when you become a client or prospective client of Druces;
    • Provide us with Identity or Contact Data when you become a contact of Druces;
    • Opt in to receive information about us, our services and events.
  • We may also collect Identity, Contact, AML, Financial and Matter Data about you if you are connected to a client of Druces or if you are involved in a matter in respect of which we are instructed. Such data may be collected from our client, their or our agents or from a variety of other sources.
  • Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies.

4. How we use your personal data

 

  • We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
    • Where we need to provide services to you in respect of an engagement we have with you as our client or in preparing to provide services where you are a prospective client.
    • To provide you information about us, our services or events.
    • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party, including those of our clients) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
    • Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
  • Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data but where we do, you have the right to withdraw consent at any time by contacting us.

PURPOSES FOR WHICH WE WILL USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA  

  • We have set out below, in a table format, a description of the ways we commonly use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
  • Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the list below.

 

Purpose/Activity: To take you on as a client.

Type of data: (a) Identity, (b) Contact, (c) AML.

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest: Performance of a contract with you and compliance with AML regulations.

 

Purpose/Activity: To record you as a contact.

Type of data: (a) Identity, (b) Contact.

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest: (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to enable us to manage our business and to provide our services to a client).

 

Purpose/Activity: To process and deliver your instructions including:

(a) providing you with our services

(b) Managing payments, fees and charges

(b) Managing our relationship with you

Type of data: (a) Identity, (b) Contact, (c) Financial, (d) Matter.

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest: (a) Performance of a contract with you, (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to enable us to manage our business and to keep our records updated and to study how our clients use our services).

 

Purpose/Activity:  Where you are not our client, to provide our services to our clients

Type of data: (a) Identity, (b) Contact, (c) Financial, (d) Matter.

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest: (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests and those of our clients (to enable us to manage our business and to fulfil our clients’ instructions).

 

Purpose/Activity: To comply with regulatory or legal requirements applying to us.

Type of data: (a) Identity, (b) Contact, (c) Financial, (d) Matter.

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest: (a) To comply with a legal obligation.

 

Purpose/Activity: To administer and protect our business and this website.

Type of data: (a) Identity,(b) Contact, (c) Cookies.

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest: (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (including, but not limited to, running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud). (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation.

 

Purpose/Activity: To make suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you.

Type of data: (a) Identity, (b) Contact.

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest: Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our services and grow our business).

 

OPTING OUT  

You can ask us to stop sending you information about us, our services or events at any time by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving information about us, our services or events, your opt out will not apply to personal data provided to us for any purpose.

COOKIES  

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our cookie policy.

CHANGE OF PURPOSE  

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

5. Disclosures of your personal data 

 

We may have to share your personal data with third parties for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above, including other lawyers, advisers and expert witnesses, third party service providers (including providers of IT services), regulatory bodies including the SRA, law enforcement agencies such as the NCA, or pursuant to an order of a court or a legal obligation, to enforce our terms of business or to protect the rights of our business, our employees and our clients and other third parties for example in the context of a merger, sale or restructuring of our business

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. International transfers

 

Some of our external third parties are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

  • We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission.
  • Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe.
  • Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US.

7. Data security 

 

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, legal or regulatory 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.

8. Data retention

 

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

By law we have to keep Contact, Identity, AML, Financial and Matter Data about our clients and their matters for six years after the termination of their instructions to us to comply with regulations applicable to our business. We may keep such data for longer periods for our legitimate business interests, or to comply with legal or regulatory obligations or to protect your or others’ vital interests.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see below for further information.

9. Your legal rights

 

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

NO FEE USUALLY REQUIRED  

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

WHAT WE MAY NEED FROM YOU  

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

TIME LIMIT TO RESPOND  

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

How can we help?

To find out more about our services, please contact us on:

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