Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

28 October 2024

PRIVACY NOTICE

Branch Austin McCormick LLP is committed to safeguarding the privacy of your data whilst providing a personalised and valuable service.

  • IMPORTANT NOTICE
  • This is the Privacy Notice of Branch Austin McCormick LLP (registration number OC434246) whose registered office is at 32 St James’s Street, London, SW1A 1HD (“we”, “us” or “our”). It sets out how we collect and process your personal data. This Privacy Notice also provides certain information that is legally required and lists your rights in relation to your personal data.
  • This Privacy Notice relates to personal information that identifies “you” meaning individuals who browse our website and individuals outside our organisation with whom we interact. If you are our client, or our employee, consultant, contractor or otherwise engaged in work for us or applying to work for us, a separate privacy notice applies to you.
  • We refer to the information we collect about you in this Privacy Notice as “personal data” and 3 sets out further detail of what this includes.
  • Please read this Privacy Notice to understand how we may use your personal data
  • This Privacy Notice may vary from time to time so please check it regularly. We last updated the notice on 28 October 2024.
  • HOW TO CONTACT US
  • Data controller and contact details
    • For the purposes of relevant data protection legislation, we are a controller of your personal data and as a controller we use the personal data we hold about you in accordance with this Privacy Notice.
    • If you need to contact us in connection with our processing of your personal data, then our contact details are:

Privacy Officer
Branch Austin McCormick LLP
32 St James’s Street,
London, SW1A 1HD

Email address: info@branchaustinmccormick.com
Telephone: (+) 44 207 851 0100

  • You also have the right to report concerns or make complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how we have used your data. The ICO’s address is:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline: 0303 123 1113
Website: https://ico.org.uk/

  • CATEGORIES OF PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT
  • The categories of personal data about you that we may collect are:
    • Identity Dataincludes but is not limited to, information used to identify a person, such as a name, date of birth, nationality, passport number and place of issue and principal residential address.
    • Contact Dataincludes, but is not limited to, personal data you provide to us, including your address, email address and telephone number and any other contact details you supply when contacting us or completing a form on our website;
    • Financial Dataincludes, but is not limited to, source of wealth, source of funds, personal assets, bank account details and income details.
    • Professional Dataincludes, but is not limited to, your professional online presence, for example, your profile on LinkedIn;
    • Recruitment Dataincludes, but is not limited to, personal data you provide when you apply for a job advertised or submit a speculative job application and/or your CV;
    • Marketing, Communications and Attendance Dataincludes, but is not limited to, via our information technology (IT) systems, reception logs; automated monitoring of our websites; and other technical systems, such as our computer networks and connections, CCTV and access control systems, communications systems and email.
    • Cookies and Website Dataincludes, but is not limited to, personal data gathered using cookies and details of your visits to our website to traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data.
  • In addition, we may obtain certain special categories of your data (“Special Categories of Data”). The Special Categories of Data are:
    • personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership; and
    • the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purposes of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation.
  • HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED?
  • We use different methods to collect data from you and about you are including, but not limited to:
  • Direct interactions These are occasions we you may give us your personal information in face to face or virtual meetings, completing forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, instant messaging services (such as WhatsApp) and email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
    • Make an enquiry or contact us;
    • Attend an initial consultation;
    • Providing details for our money laundering obligations and client verification (including photographs or screenshots for proof of identity);
    • During your instruction of us to assist you on your matter;
    • Request marketing information to be sent to you.
  • Third Parties or publicly available sources
    We will receive data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:

    • Identityand Contact and Professional data from publicly available sources such as online searches of clients, Land registry, Companies House, professional websites, and insolvency registers;
    • Identityand Contact, Professional and Special Category Data from search on database maintained by professional service provides to identify and confirm regulatory and reputational risk;
    • Identity and Contact Data from third parties conducting electronic verification of identity.
  • HOW AND WHY WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA
  • Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a legal ground for doing so, e.g.
    • for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
    • to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
    • for our legitimate interests or those of a third party; or
    • where you have given us your consent.
  • A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.
  • The table below explains what we use (process) your personal data for and our reasons for doing so:
How do we use your personal data? The legal ground
Marketing our goods and services and sending legal updates to you. For our legitimate interests i.e. to offer a high level of service to our clients.
To provide legal services to you. To perform our engagement contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into an engagement contract.

 
Processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety regulation or rules issued by our professional regulator or to identify and verify the identity of our clients and their beneficial owners including performing anti-money laundering checks (including by providing your personal data to third parties to undertake these actions).

 

 To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
Processing necessary to safeguard the health of those at our premises and to follow public health guidance.

 

 To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies. For our legitimate interests i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best value.

 
For operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control.

 

 For our legitimate interests i.e. to offer a high level of service to our clients.
Statistical analysis to help us manage our practice, e.g. in relation to our financial performance, client base, work type or other efficiency measures.

 

 For our legitimate interests i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service at the best value.
External audits and quality checks, e.g. external auditors of both our client files and our client account. For our legitimate interests i.e. to assist with operating at the highest standards; and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

 

 

  • There we process Special Category Data, we will only do so with your explicit consent, where we need the information for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims on your behalf, where you volunteer the information to us unprompted, where necessary in the interests of public health, or otherwise in accordance with Article 9 of the GDPR.
  • HOW IS YOUR DATA STORED
  • All data collected to perform our services is held on a number of secure systems depending on the service being provided. These include but are not limited to the following:
    • Privately owned server hardware based in our UK Office;
    • Privately owned dedicated server and storage platform based in a UK Data centre;
    • Third party sub-processors.
  • For further information on where data is stored, please contact the fee earner dealing with your matter or our Privacy Officer, James Chesney.
  • COMMUNICATIONS ABOUT ADDITIONAL SERVICES
  • We may use your personal data to send you updates by email or by post about legal developments that may be of interest to you and/or information about our services, including new services, or invitations to events we believe may be of interest to you.
  • We will either seek your express consent to send such communications to you, or we will rely on our legitimate interests in promoting our business and building our relationship with you.
  • We will always treat your personal data with the utmost care and never sell it to other organisations for marketing purposes.
  • You have the right to opt out of receiving unprompted communications at any time by:
    • using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in emails; or
    • by emailing us at contact@branchaustinmccormick.com
  • We may ask you to confirm or update your preferences if you instruct us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
  • WHO RECEIVES YOUR PERSONAL DATA
  • We may share your personal data with:
    • professional advisors whom we instruct on your behalf or refer you to, e.g. barristers, medical professionals, accountants, tax advisors or other experts provided that they are under duties of confidentiality;
    • other third parties where necessary to carry out your instructions e.g. your mortgage provider or HM Land Registry in the case of a property transaction, or Companies House;
    • credit reference agencies;
    • our insurers and brokers;
    • external auditors, e.g. in relation to auditors of our files and our accounts;
    • external professional advisors who assist us with our compliance and other regulatory obligations;
    • our bank;
    • any service company controlled by the designated members of Branch Austin McCormick LLP;
    • external service suppliers, representatives and agents that we use to make our business more efficient, e.g. typing services, marketing agencies, document collation or analysis suppliers;
    • third parties with whom we organise or run events from time to time;
    • legal and regulatory authorities with whom we have a legal obligation to share your data, e.g. HMRC, or to report any potential or actual breach of applicable law or regulation;
    • law enforcement agencies, debt collection agencies, courts or other relevant party, for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal rights;
    • third parties, government bodies and agencies for public health reasons;
    • third parties for the purposes of prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties;
    • third parties who are considering or have decided to buy some or all of our assets or shares (including in the event of a reorganisation, dissolution or liquidation).
  • We only allow our service providers to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.
  • INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS
  • As a matter of general practice, we do not transfer your personal data outside the UK.
  • In the event that any of your personal data must be transferred outside the UK for a legitimate purpose (for example, to obtain advice from a foreign lawyer on your behalf), we will 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.
      • Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK.
  • HOW LONG YOUR DATA WILL BE KEPT
  • We will keep your personal data after we have finished advising you or responding to a query from you. We will keep records if required to do so by law and in accordance with our terms of business from time to time in force.
  • We will not retain your data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. Different retention periods apply for different types of data. If you would like to know the retention period for a specific type of data please contact our Privacy Officer whose details can be found above.
  • LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES This policy only applies to Branch Austin McCormick LLP. If you link to another website from our website, you should remember to read and understand that website’s privacy policy as well. We are not responsible for any use of your personal data that is made by unconnected third party websites.
  • YOUR RIGHTS
  • Subject to applicable law including relevant data protection laws, you may have a number of rights in connection with the processing of your personal data, including:
    • the right to request access to your personal data that we process or control;
    • the right to request rectification of any inaccuracies in your personal data or, taking into account the purposes of our processing, to request that incomplete data is completed;
    • the right to request, on legitimate grounds as specified in law:
        1. erasure of your personal data that we process or control; or
        2. restriction of processing of your personal data that we process or control;
  • the right to object, on legitimate grounds as specified in law, to the processing of your personal data;
  • the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and to have your personal data transferred to another controller, to the extent applicable in law; and
  • the right to lodge complaints regarding the processing of your personal data with the Information Commissioner’s Office or other relevant supervisory body. Please see https://ico.org.uk/concerns/for how to do this.
  • If you would like to exercise any of the rights set out above, please:
  • email or write to our Privacy Officer;
  • let us have enough information to identify you, (e.g. your full name and any reference number used in communications with us); and
  • let us know what right you wish to exercise and the information to which your request relates.
  • INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS All intellectual property rights in or arising from our website, including all copyright belong to Branch Austin McCormick LLP, unless otherwise stated. All rights are reserved.

Version 1, 11 January 2021
Version 2, 9 May 2022
Version 3, 28 October 2024