Privacy Policy
This privacy
policy sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you or
that you provide to us will be processed by us. By submitting personal data to
us, you agree to your data being used as follows.
The Data
Controller is Cousins Business Law of Swan House, PO Box 11543, Birmingham, B13
0BL. You can contact us by post to the above address, by telephone (0845 003
5639) or by emailing us.
Personal data we collect
We collect
personal data when clients engage with us, either when they formally instruct
us to act for them as their solicitors or when they seek legal advice, whether
through completing forms on our website, writing to us (whether by post, email
or fax) or by telephoning us. We also collect personal data about third parties
to enable us to conduct legal services or to properly run our business and
provide legal services.
Where we store personal data
We store personal
data on our computer and server systems. These systems are based in the UK.
We only transfer data abroad specifically to ensure that the service you seek
is properly provided to you, or to comply with a court order or because a
particular law requires us to do so (such as counter terrorism or anti money
laundering legislation).
We take care of your personal data and protect it not only under the terms
of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) but also to keep it
confidential in compliance with the SRA Code of Conduct.
Disclosure and transfer of personal data
Personal data is
shared between lawyers in Cousins Business Law and support staff. It may be
disclosed when necessary to the courts, regulators, auditors, insurers and
accounts staff but they have all agreed with us to keep your data secure and confidential.
We will not sell your personal data to anyone other than a replacement owner of
our business and then only in accordance with the SRA Code of Conduct and data
protection laws.
Why we hold and process personal data
We hold and
process personal data for various reasons:
-
Performance of a contract
– when clients instruct or consider instructing us to advise them or act
for them as their solicitors;
- Compliance with legal
obligations – as solicitors, we are often under legal duties to process
your data to comply with legal obligations;
- Our legitimate interests –
when we require third party data to provide legal services (this depends
on the nature of our instructions but includes data on other parties to a
transaction or litigation, suppliers, court staff, witnesses and experts);
to keep in touch with our client base, including clients who have
instructed us in the past and those who have sought legal advice (this
enables us to build long-lasting relationships with clients to provide
better services to them which is to our mutual benefit); to identify and
keep in touch with suppliers (this enables us to perform our services to
clients better, and is to the mutual benefit of us and suppliers); and to undertake
marketing activities (this enables us to facilitate our business
development, to grow our business and to offer better services to our
clients);
-
Consent – when people subscribe
to our newsletters, or download reports and white papers.
We retain personal
data for the period reasonably necessary for us to process it as above, and
also as long as may be reasonably required for the establishment, exercise or
defence of legal claims, and compliance with legal obligations.
Your rights
Under the GDPR,
you have the right:
-
to request a copy of your personal information;
- for your information to be processed by us fairly and in
a transparent way;
- to object to decisions that we take solely by automated
means in relation to your personal information which may have a legal or
similarly significant effect on you;
- to object to processing of your personal information
where we do so for the purposes of our legitimate interests;
- to request that any inaccurate personal information we
hold about you is corrected or deleted;
- to request that we delete your personal information under
certain circumstances; and
- to opt out of receiving electronic communications from
us.
Should you wish to complain about the way we process your
personal data, or to request any of your rights, please email us. You
also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner.
Cookies Policy
Visitors to our website
When someone visits www.business-lawfirm.co.uk, we
collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour
patterns. We do this so that we know how many people use our website and which
pages are visited most frequently. We do not use this information to try to
personally identify any users.
Use of cookies on our website
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information about how the website is used.
We use the following cookies on our website:
- A number of Google analytics cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports which help us to improve our website.
- A temporary session ID cookie is used to make the most efficient use of resources when you are browsing from page to page. The cookie is removed when you leave our website.
- A visitor cookie is used to monitor how long a visitor is on our site before they take an action (for example fill in one of our forms to contact us) and also to provide statistics on whether this is a visitor’s first visit to our site.
These cookies collect information in an anonymous form, we are NOT able to identify individual users from these cookies.
If you do not wish to allow this use of cookies, you may be able to change the settings on your browser to disable them. There is more information to help you on this link: www.allaboutcookies.org.
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
How to contact us
Questions about our privacy policy can be emailed to us here or sent in writing to:
Cousins Business Law, Solicitors
Swan House
PO Box 11543
Birmingham
B13 0ZL
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