Privacy Policy

If you are a Skelton Callender Solicitors client or just visiting our website this Privacy Notice applies to you.

At Skelton Callender Solicitors we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Notice sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

 

Our Responsibilities

If you are a Skelton Callender Solicitors client or a visitor to our website, we act as the ‘data controller’ of personal data. This means we determine how and why your data are processed. We are registered as a data controller at the UK Information Commissioner’s Office under number ZA202525.

To contact Skelton Callender Solicitors with a data protection query please email Dawn@skeltoncallender.com or telephone (028) 92528170

 

Your Responsibilities

Read this Privacy Notice.  If you are a client, please also check the contracts between us as they may contain further details on how we collect and process your data.  If any of the personal data that you have provided to us changes or if you become aware that we have any inaccurate personal data about you, please let us know immediately by sending an email to Dawn@skeltoncallender.com or telephone (028) 92528170. We will not be responsible for any losses arising from any inaccurate, inauthentic, deficient or incomplete personal data that you provide to us.  If you believe your privacy has been breached, please contact us immediately by sending an email to Dawn@skeltoncallender.com
If you provide information to us about any person other than yourself, your employees, counterparties, your advisers or your suppliers, you must ensure that they understand how their information will be used, and that they have given their permission for you to disclose it to us and for you to allow us to use it.

Information we collect from you

We may process your personal data (which we have either obtained directly from you or from somewhere else) if:

  • you are a prospective client, client or supplier of ours;
  • you otherwise use our services;
  • you work for a client or a supplier of ours, or for someone who otherwise uses our services;
  • you are someone (or you work for someone) to whom we want to advertise or market our services, our events; or
  • you are an alumnus of our firm.

Personal data which is not collected directly from you may be collected from:

  • your employer in connection with your job and how it relates to us;
  • third parties we work closely with, including but not limited to family
  • members, trustees, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, analytics providers, and search information providers;
  • Governmental bodies, regulators, institutions, courts or any other similar establishments; or any websites or applications (“Apps”) operated by us which you use.
 

Personal data collection methods we may use include:

  • communication in person;
  • communication by phone, email, fax, SMS or any other electronic
  • communication method;
  • communication by letters, notices, information sheets or any other paper-based
  • communication methods;
  • using our website, social media channels, Apps or other technologies; or
  • visiting us (for example, if you sign in or are recorded on CCTV while visiting our offices, or you give us the registration details of your vehicle).
 

We collect and process the following personal data from you:

Identity and Contact Data, including your name, address, telephone numbers (these details may relate to your work or to you personally, depending on the nature of our relationship with you or the company that you work for), date of birth, marital status, passport number, employment history, educational or professional background, tax status, employee number, job title and function, and other personal data concerning your preferences relevant to our services;

Financial and Payment Data, including your bank account and other data necessary for processing payments and fraud prevention, including credit/debit card numbers, security code numbers and other related billing information; including details about payments to and from you and other details of services you have received from us;
Client data, including information about how you use our services, as well as personal data which can include identity, contact, financial, transaction and profile data of you and your family members, beneficiaries, employees and employers, or other third persons about whom we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you;

Business Information, including information provided in the course of the contractual or client relationship between you or your organisation and Skelton Callender Solicitors, or otherwise voluntarily provided by you or your organisation;
Information relevant to our legal advice, including personal data relevant to any dispute, grievance, investigation, arbitration, or other legal advice we have been asked to provide to our client;

Technical Data, which allows us to see information on the activities of visitors to our website and users of our service, including page views, source and time spent on each page. The information is depersonalised and is displayed as numbers, meaning it cannot be tracked back to individuals. This will help to protect your privacy. To learn more about our use of cookies or similar technology please check our cookies policy.
Physical Access Data, relating to details of your visits to our premises;

Sensitive personal data: In the course of our client services, we may represent you and/or your organisation in legal matters that require us to collect and use sensitive personal information relating to you (that is, information about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union activities, physical or mental health, sexual life and sexual orientation or details of criminal offences, or genetic or biometric data). Where we process sensitive personal information in the course of these and other similar client services, we do so to assist you or your organisation to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

Information about other people

If you provide information to us about any person other than yourself, your employees, counterparties, your advisers or your suppliers, you must ensure that they understand how their information will be used, and that they have given their permission for you to disclose it to us and for you to allow us, and our outsourced service providers, to use it.

 

How do we collect your personal data?

The circumstances in which we can collect personal data about you include:

  • when you or your organisation seek legal advice from us or use any of our services;
  • when you or your organisation offer to provide, or provides, services to us;
  • when it is provided to us by a third party because you are the subject of, or your data is otherwise included in, legal advice we are asked to provide to that third party client (for example, where we are asked to provide advice in an employment dispute, or where you are the subject of an investigation we are asked to conduct);
  • when you correspond with us by phone, email or other electronic means, or in writing, or when you provide other information directly to us, including in conversation with our lawyers, consultants and staff;
  • when you or your organisation complete a form or make an enquiry or otherwise interact on our website or other online platforms;
  • when you attend our seminars or other events or sign up to receive personal data from us, including training;
    by making enquiries from your organisation, other organisations with whom you have dealings such as former employers and educational institutions, or from third party sources such as government agencies, a credit reporting agency, information service providers or from publicly available records.
 

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law or in order to process your instructions or perform a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to carry out your instructions or perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you. In this case, we may have to cancel our engagement or contract you have with us, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

How will we use your personal data?

We use your personal data only for the following purposes:

To fulfil a contract, or take steps linked to a contract, with you or your organisation. This includes:

  • to register you as a client of Skelton Callender Solicitors;
  • to provide and administer legal services or other services or solutions, as
  • instructed by you or your organisation;
  • to process payments, billing and collection; and
  • to process applications for employment.
As required by Skelton Callender Solicitors to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, in particular:

  • to administer and manage our relationship with you, including accounting, auditing, and taking other steps linked to the performance of our business relationship including identifying persons authorised to represent our clients, suppliers or service providers;
  • to carry out background checks, where permitted;
  • to analyse and improve our services and communications and to monitor compliance with our policies and standards;
  • to manage access to our premises and for security purposes;
  • to protect the security of our communications and other systems and to prevent and detect security threats, frauds or other criminal or malicious activities;
    for insurance purposes;
  • to exercise or defend our legal rights or to comply with court orders;
  • to provide legal advice and legal services to our clients; and
  • to communicate with you to keep you up-to-date on the latest developments, announcements, and other information about our services and solutions (including briefings, newsletters and other information), events and initiatives; and
  • to collect information about your preferences to personalise and improve the quality of our communications with you.
 

Please note that we will only provide you with marketing related information when we have a previous contractual relationship or a business relationship with you and provided you do not opt-out to receive those communications. You have the opportunity to opt-out at any time.

For purposes required by law. This includes:
maintaining records, compliance checks or screening and recording (e.g. anti-money laundering, financial and credit checks, fraud and crime prevention and detection, trade sanctions and embargo laws). This can include automated checks of personal data you provide about your identity against relevant databases and contacting you to confirm your identity, or making records of our communications with you for compliance purposes.
We will not use your personal data for taking any automated decisions affecting or creating profiles other than as described above.

 

Disclosure of your personal data

We share your personal data, in the following circumstances:

with third parties including certain service providers we have retained in connection with the legal services we provide, such as barristers, legal services agency, consultants, mediators, or experts and other legal specialists such as law firms for obtaining specialist or foreign legal advice, translators, education evaluation services, couriers, or other necessary entities;
if we have collected your personal data in the course of providing legal services to any of our clients, we may disclose it to that client, and where permitted by law to others for the purpose of providing those services;
with companies providing services for money laundering and terrorist financing checks, credit risk reduction and other fraud and crime prevention purposes and companies providing similar services, including financial institutions, credit reference agencies and regulatory bodies with whom such personal data is shared;
with courts, law enforcement authorities, regulators, government officials or lawyers or other parties where it is reasonably necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim, or for the purposes of a confidential alternative dispute resolution process;
if we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets to whom we assign or novate any of our rights and obligations.
Information we transfer

When we transfer your information to other countries, we will use, share and safeguard that information as described in this Notice. We do not transfer the personal information we collect to countries outside of the EEA which do not provide the same level of data protection as the country in which you reside and are not recognised by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of data protection.

How do we protect your information? 

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, altered, disclosed or accessed in an unauthorised way. For example, all information you provide us is stored on secure servers.

In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees who have a business need to access your data. They will only process your personal data on our instructions.

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.

The transmission of information via the internet is never completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our website. Any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Our website is managed by external developers who also host the site. They are located within the United Kingdom.

Our website may, from time to time, contain links to external sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such sites.

 

How long we keep your personal data

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 and, where required for Skelton Callender Solicitors to assert or defend against legal claims, until the end of the relevant retention period or until the claims in question have been settled.

If you want to learn more about our specific retention periods for your personal data established in our retention policy you may contact us at Dawn@skeltoncallender.com

Upon expiry of the applicable retention period we will securely destroy your personal data in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

 

Your rights

  • The right to be informed – which this Privacy Notice is for.
  • The right to access the data we hold about you.
  • The right to object to direct marketing.
  • The right to object to processing carried out on the basis of legitimate interest.
  • The right to erasure (in some circumstances).
  • The right to data portability.
  • The right to have your data rectified if it is inaccurate.
  • The right to have your data restricted or blocked from processing.
  • To exercise any of these rights please contact Dawn@skeltoncallender.com

If you are not satisfied with any of our responses to any queries, then you can submit a complaint to:

Information Commissioners Office
3rd Floor
14 Cromac Place
Belfast
BT7 2JB

Telephone: 028 90 278757

Email: ni@ico.org.uk

 

Changes to our Privacy Notice

We reserve the right to update and change this Notice from time to time in order to reflect any changes to the way in which we process your personal data or changing legal requirements. Any changes we may make to our Notice in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our Notice.

This Privacy Notice was updated on 9th May 2019.