Privacy Policy

DEAN MANSON LLP Trading as Dean Manson LLP Solicitors

Our Comprehensive Privacy Policy:

  1. Who are we?

Dean Manson LLP Solicitors is a trading name of Dean Manson LLP a company registered in England and Wales with company number OC376890 having its registered office at 243-245 Mitcham Road Tooting London SW17 9JQ (“DMLLP” “We”).

We are firmly committed to respecting and protecting the privacy of all personal data received or collected, in strict adherence to Data Protection Legislation (defined below) and best business practice. The DMLLP has established this Policy so that you can understand the care with which we intend to treat your personal data.

This policy (together with our terms of use and any other documents referred to on it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, whether via this website or otherwise, 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.

For the purpose of United Kingdom and European data protection and e-privacy legislation (Data Protection Legislation), the data controller is Dean Manson LLP and our head office address is 243-245 Mitcham Road Tooting London SW17 9JQ.

Introduction

This Privacy Policy sets out how DMLLP uses and protects any personal data that you provide to DMLLP including personal data provided through the website

https://www.deanmanson.com (“Website”).

DMLLP provides services to its clients throughout the UK in connection with their legal and related matters through their employees and through providing services to its clients may collect and process personal data about individuals on behalf of its clients or potential clients (“Services”). In addition to this, the Website also collects certain personal data from users, in accordance with this Policy.

How to contact us

If you have any questions regarding your personal data and how we may use it, including any queries relating to this Policy, please contact us at data.enquiries@deanmanson.com or writing to the “Data Protection Officer” at the head office address noted above. 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 entire retainership / relationship with us.

Terminology used

DMLLP’s data protection and privacy measures are governed by the (i) the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) (“GDPR”) and any national implementing laws, regulations and secondary legislation, as amended or updated from time to time, in the UK and then (ii) any successor legislation to the GDPR or the Data Protection Act 1998 (“Data Protection Legislation”).

2.  Information we collect from you:

Where you provide us with information about other people, you must make sure that they have seen a copy of this privacy policy and are comfortable with you giving us their information. We will collect and process the following data about you:

Personal data and Basis for Collection

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

Where DMLLP is acting as a data controller, DMLLP may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which DMLLP has grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data includes title, surname or last name, first name, middle name, company or business name if applicable or similar identifier, date of birth, nationality, passport number, driving licence, telephone numbers (home/business/mobile), email address, home address, other address, date of contact, description of matter and file reference number.
  • Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
  • Usage Data includes information about how you use DMLLP’s Services or submit an enquiry or query through the Website.

Information you give us:

  • This is information about you that you give us by filling in forms on our website www.deanmanson.com our website or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail in person or otherwise. It includes information you provide when you register to use a secure part of our website, subscribe to any of our updates or newsletters, search for a service, make an enquiry, request a quotation, make a payment on our website, engage us to provide services, during the course of a legal matter, participate in social media functions on our website, enter a competition, promotion or survey, register for an event and when you report a problem with our website. The information you give us may include your name, position, company, contact details (such as address, e-mail address and phone number), your personal preferences, choices and requirements specific to particular requests or services, financial and credit card information, personal description and photograph.
  • Where you are our client, for certain types of legal matters occasionally you may give us certain special categories of personal data. This includes information about your health, your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, your sex life or sexual orientation, biometric information to uniquely identify you or your genetics (Special Categories of Data). You may give us information about criminal convictions or offences.

Information we collect about you:

With regard to each of your visits to our website we may automatically collect the following information:

  • technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform;
  • information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), clickstream to, through and from our website (including date and time), products you viewed or searched for page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our client service number.

Information we receive from other sources:

  • This is information we receive about you from other sources. For example, we may obtain your name, address, telephone number or email address from publicly available information such as on the internet.

We are working closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, accountants, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies) and may receive personal information about you from them.

Where you are our client, for certain types of legal matters occasionally such third parties, such as Counsel or medical professionals, may disclose Special Categories of Data to us or information about criminal convictions or offences. Our clients or enquirers may give us personal data (including Special Categories of Data or information regarding criminal convictions or offences relating to you during the course of a matter or in the course of obtaining a fee estimate from us which we process in accordance with the strict obligations of confidentiality to which we are subject under the general law, regulations and professional requirements.

3.   Cookies:

Our site uses cookies to keep track of your session information. We do link the information we store in cookies to personally identifiable information you submit while on our site.

We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your internet browser’s “help” file.

Dean Manson LLP Cookie Policy
What are Cookies?

Cookies are tiny text files that are stored on deanmanson.com as you browse, to help track your use of our site and to personalize your journey. If you return to deanmanson.com, the server can call the information from the cookies stored on your computer to tailor your experience of the site.

We use cookies and other similar technologies to help provide our Services, to advertise to you and to analyse how you use our Services and whether advertisements are being viewed. We also allow third parties to use tracking technologies for similar purposes. Cookies are perfectly safe to be stored on your computer and almost all web browsers have cookie storing enabled as default. However, all browsers have the option of disabling cookies being stored on your computer if you wish to do this. If you are using our Services via a browser you can restrict, block or remove cookies through your web browser settings. The Help menu on the menu bar of most browsers also tells you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to delete old cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie and how to disable cookies altogether.

We want to make sure you are fully aware of the cookies we use and what they do on deanmanson.com. Our cookies serve various purposes, but are generally either necessary or essential to the functioning of our sites, services, applications, tools or messaging, help us improve the performance of or provide you extra functionality of the same, or help us to serve relevant and targeted advertisements.

4.   Legal grounds for collection and use of your personal information

We will only collect, use and otherwise handle your personal information when:

  • We have your consent for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes (see section 5) – please note that there are very limited circumstances where we rely on your consent as we usually have another lawful basis for processing; and/or
  • it is necessary for our legitimate interests in connection with operating the website and our business, in particular:
  • responding to your queries;
  • carrying out marketing activities;
  • providing services and/or information to you;
  • transmitting personal information between our group companies for internal administrative purposes;
  • keeping in touch with you and/or your business;
  • hosting and maintaining our website;
  • providing technical support to you;
  • using in the investigation and/or defence of potential complaints,
  • disciplinary proceedings and legal proceedings;
  • preventing and detecting fraud and other criminal offences;
  • ensuring network and information security; as long as, in each case, these interests are in line with applicable law and your legal rights and freedoms; and/or
  • where this is necessary for legal obligations which apply to us (for example, under the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 and professional obligations to which we are subject as a member of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and other professional bodies); and/or
  • where this is necessary for the performance of a contract we have with you (for example to provide our services to you, invoice you for our services and investigate and address any fee disputes that may arise) or that you have with a third party. This applies where we use Special Categories of Data or information about criminal convictions and offences in connection with a legal matter; and/or
  • where this is necessary to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract

5.   Uses made of the information

We use information held about you in the following ways:

  • Information you give to us. We will use this information:
  • To fulfil your requests – to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, respond to your queries and to provide you with the information, products and services that you request from us;
  • Events
  • if you register for one of our business-focused events, we will share your name, business name and professional title with other people that are attending the same event;
  • if you register for one of our other events, we may share your name with other people that are attending the same event;
  • if you register for an event jointly organised with a selected third party, we will share your name, business name and professional title with the other event organiser for event communication management;
  • Marketing and updates –
  • to provide you with information about other services we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about;
  • where you have provided us with your contact details, to provide you with information about goods or services we feel may interest you. This may be by post, telephone or electronic means (e-mail or SMS).

If you are a client, Counsel, supplier or referrer, we will only contact you by electronic means (e-mail or SMS) with information about goods and services similar to those which were the subject of a previous legal matter where you instructed us or an enquiry made to us unless you specifically consent to other marketing emails. If you do not want us to use your data in this way, you can opt out. If you opt out of marketing communications, your visit to and use of the website, the response to your enquiry and your use of our legal services will not be affected.

  • Changes – to notify you about changes to our service;
  • Website content presentation – to ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.

We may also use any personal information that you provide to us:

  • where legally permitted for specific purposes made clear at the point of collection on particular pages of our website or in our dealings with you; and/or
  • where we otherwise have legal grounds for collection and use of your personal information as explained in more detail in clause 4 above .

If you choose not to provide personal information requested by us, we may not be able to provide you with the information and/or services you have requested or otherwise fulfil the purpose(s) for which we have asked for the personal information. Aside from this, your visit to the website will remain unaffected.

Information we collect about you:

We will use this information:

  • to administer our website and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
  • to improve our website to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
  • to allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so;
  • as part of our efforts to keep our website safe and secure;
  • to measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you;
  • to make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our website about goods or services that may interest you or them.

Information we receive from other sources:

We will combine this information with information you give to us and information we collect about you. We will use this information and the combined information for the purposes set out above (depending on the types of information we receive), where those purposes are compatible.

6.   Disclosure of your information

Some services that we provide require the involvement of third parties.  We have carefully selected these third parties and taken steps to ensure that your personal information is adequately protected.

You agree that we have the right to share your personal information with the following third parties:

i).   Google Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service provided by Google Inc. (“Google“). Google Analytics works using cookies.

Google Analytics cookies collect your IP address, however because IP anonymisation is used on this website, your IP address will be shortened (and therefore anonymised) as soon as technically possible and before it is stored or otherwise used in connection with Google Analytics.

The anonymisation process takes place within the European Union or the European Economic Area, except in exceptional cases, where your full IP address may be sent to a Google server in the USA and shortened there.

We use the information collected by Google Analytics cookies to find out about how visitors use our website.

The IP address sent by your browser in connection with Google Analytics will not be combined by Google, with other data.

You can prevent Google Analytics cookies from being stored by setting your browser software accordingly (see our Cookie Policy for further information). However, please note that you may not then be able to make full use of all the website’s functions.

You can also opt-out of Google Analytics by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available at the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.

ii).   Sharing with our group companies

The personal information you provide on the website is collected by Dean Manson LLP. However where you ask or indicate that we should do so (e.g. in an online form) or where we are otherwise legally permitted to do so in accordance with this privacy policy, we may transfer your personal information between and to our related companies.

When a group company intends to use your personal information for a new purpose, they will let you know about this.

iii).   Sharing with our service providers

We may share your personal information with our third party service providers based in the UK or the European Economic Area (“EEA”) who we engage to process the information that we collect from you on the website or otherwise, and/or to host and maintain our website, content or services, on our behalf and in accordance with this privacy policy.

We will let you know if we need to transfer your personal information to any third party service providers located outside of the EEA.

Where we employ third party companies or individuals to process personal information provided by us (and not collected by them), they only use this personal information on our behalf and in line with our instructions and this privacy policy.

iv).   Sharing with other selected third parties

We may share your personal information with selected third parties including:

  • business partners and other professionals for the performance of any contract we enter into with you, for example (but not limited to) barristers, medical professionals, other solicitors, care providers and courts;
  • business partners with whom we organise a joint event, for joint or our marketing purposes. Where we do this for joint events, we do it for the purpose of removing duplicates from our invitation list and for event communication management.  We may do this when we hand over the organisation of a regular event to another organisation and we or the new organiser will contact you at that time to let you know.  We will never share your confidential matter or enquiry details with such business partners;
  • analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our website;
  • credit reference agencies for the purpose of assessing your credit score where this is a condition of us entering into a contract with you;
  • our website offers the possibility to share content on social media channels, e.g., Facebook. The respective social media provider will directly gather personal information only after you click on the corresponding sharing button. Please refer to the privacy policy of the social media providers to learn more about what personal information is collected and used.

We will disclose your personal information to third parties:

  • In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we will disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
  • If Dean Manson LLP or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its clients will be one of the transferred assets. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.
  • If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use or our terms of business and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Dean Manson LLP or its group companies (see section 6.ii), our clients, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations, regulators and law enforcement agencies for the purposes of preventing and detecting fraud, other criminal offence, credit risk reduction and/or to ensure network and information security.

7.   How long do we store personal information?

It is our policy to retain your personal information for the length of time required for the specific purpose or purposes for which it was collected. Such purposes are set out in this privacy policy.

Where you are a client:

  • the period the hardcopy file for your matter (including your personal data) will be retained is set out in our terms of business which you were sent with our letter of engagement – please contact data.enquiries@deanmanson.com for a copy if you have mislaid yours. However, on occasion we may be obliged to store some data for a longer time, for example, where a longer time period is required by applicable laws.
  • We will keep your will and any other original documents or deeds until such time as we are informed that you have died or revoke your will (in the case of a will) or you ask for the deeds or documents to be returned to you or destroyed, provided we are not under a legal or professional obligation to retain such a document.
  • Our experience shows that our clients appreciate us retaining in electronic form full records (including your personal data) of their matter so that they can access it in the future. We, therefore, keep this for as long as we are obliged under legal and professional obligations and thereafter until you ask us to delete it. Please note that we must always maintain a record of your name, your contact details, the name of your matter and when your file was opened and closed even if you request us to delete the electronic records of your matter.

Where we keep personal data for a longer period than is set out in our terms of business, we will ensure that your personal data will continue to be treated in accordance with this privacy policy.

For more information on how long cookies are stored, please refer to our cookie policy.

8.   Where we store your personal data

All information you provide to us is stored in our offices or off-site secure storage or on our secure servers. Any payment transactions will be processed securely by Worldpay. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not 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

9.   Confidentiality

We acknowledge that the information you provide may be confidential.  We will maintain the confidentiality of and protect your confidential information in accordance with all applicable laws.

10.   Your rights

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will usually inform you (when we collect your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on our welcome email or by letting us know when we collect your information. You can also exercise the right at any time by managing your preferences on our website (click here) or by contacting us at data.enquiries@deanmanson.com.

Our website may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates.  If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.  Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

If you wish to:

  • Access, confirm, correct, rectify, update, supplement, anonymise, block, restrict or delete your personal information;
  • Object to our use of your personal information;
  • Withdraw your consent;
  • If you have any questions about our processing of your personal information; or
  • If you would like to transfer your personal information from us to another person or business,

please contact us at data.enquiries@deanmanson.com.

Where you request access to your personal information, we will fulfil your request by sending your copy electronically, unless the request expressly specifies a different method. For any subsequent access request, we may charge you an administrative fee. In order to comply with your request, we may ask you to verify your identity.

We will provide you with all rights in relation to your personal information to which you are entitled under applicable law.  If you are unhappy with the way that we have handled your personal information, you can make a complaint to the authority responsible for data protection in the country that you are based.  Contact details are typically available online, or alternatively you may ask us for assistance at data.enquiries@deanmanson.com. In the UK the data protection authority is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Tel 0303 123 1113, website 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.

11.   Changes to our privacy policy

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

12.   Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to data.enquiries@deanmanson.com

Issue date: 22nd May 2018

Version history: DMLLP 01

PRIVACY NOTICE

This Privacy Notice together with the Website Use Disclaimer and our Terms of Business (if applicable) sets out the basis on which the Dean Manson LLP (as defined in these legal notices) processes your personal data.

HOW WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Your personal data may be collected by us in a number of ways, including:

  • through our provision of legal services to you;
  • during the course of dealings with you for or on behalf of a client;
  • when you provide us with information in relation to your attendance at any of our seminars or other hosted events;
  • when you provide information to us by filling in forms on this web site. For example, this includes information provided at the time of registering for newsletters and updates on this web site, subscribing to our services, participating in webinars, posting material or requesting further services;
  • when you complete surveys that we use for research purposes;
  • when you contact us for these and any other reason, we may monitor and keep a record of that correspondence (in whatever form);
  • when we collect publicly available information about you or your business (including through electronic data sources); and
  • when we collect your personal data from third parties (for example our clients or other law firms).

THE TYPE OF PERSONAL DATA THAT WE MAY COLLECT

The category of your personal data that we may collect includes, but is not limited to, the following:

  • Contact details (including names, postal addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers);
  • Professional information such as job titles, previous jobs, and professional experience and qualifications;
  • Where you provide it, information about your hobbies and interests;
  • Details of your visits to this web site including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data; and
  • Images captured by our offices’ CCTV cameras.

Where necessary and legally permitted, we may also collect more sensitive data such as diversity and health data, and details of offences and related proceedings.

USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We process personal information about you for the following purposes:

  • to provide you or a client with, and to improve, our services;
  • to deal with your enquiries and requests;
  • to contact you in the course of providing services to our clients;
  • to provide you with information about our services, and to advise you of news and industry updates, events, promotions and competitions, reports and other information, and to carry out market research campaigns;
  • to provide you with any other information that you request from us;
  • to comply with our legal and professional responsibilities; and
  • where we have other legitimate reasons, such as for internal compliance and security purposes.

 

Marketing

You can change your preferences for receiving group marketing emails, legal updates and other information from us by clicking on the ‘update your preferences’ link in a Dean Manson email.

Please note that we may use your marketing and content preferences, and other information you provide to us (including details of your attendance at, or interest in, events) in order to build a profile for you. We may supplement this profile with information about how you use our websites, review our content and interact with us. We use this profile to try and ensure that you only receive information that you are likely to find of interest.

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal information for marketing purposes. When we collect contact information from you (for example, when you provide us with your business card), we may add your details to our contacts database and to our mailing lists. In all other cases, we will usually inform you (before collecting your information) if we intend to use your information for marketing purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. You can exercise the right at any time by sending us an email at data.enquiries@deanmanson.com, calling us on +44 (0)20 8767 5000, writing to us at the following address: Dean Manson LLP Solicitors 243-245 Mitcham Road Tooting London SW17 9JQ, United Kingdom or clicking on ‘unsubscribe’.

Cookies

Our site uses cookies to keep track of your session information. We do link the information we store in cookies to personally identifiable information you submit while on our site.

We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your internet browser’s “help” file.

Dean Manson LLP Cookie Policy
What are Cookies?

Cookies are tiny text files that are stored on deanmanson.com as you browse, to help track your use of our site and to personalize your journey. If you return to deanmanson.com, the server can call the information from the cookies stored on your computer to tailor your experience of the site.

We use cookies and other similar technologies to help provide our Services, to advertise to you and to analyse how you use our Services and whether advertisements are being viewed. We also allow third parties to use tracking technologies for similar purposes. Cookies are perfectly safe to be stored on your computer and almost all web browsers have cookie storing enabled as default. However, all browsers have the option of disabling cookies being stored on your computer if you wish to do this. If you are using our Services via a browser you can restrict, block or remove cookies through your web browser settings. The Help menu on the menu bar of most browsers also tells you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to delete old cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie and how to disable cookies altogether.

We want to make sure you are fully aware of the cookies we use and what they do on deanmanson.com. Our cookies serve various purposes, but are generally either necessary or essential to the functioning of our sites, services, applications, tools or messaging, help us improve the performance of or provide you extra functionality of the same, or help us to serve relevant and targeted advertisements.

 

 Where we store and transfer your personal information

We have a number of offices around the world and, as below, we may disclose personal information to third parties in certain circumstances.

When you provide information to us (or a third party on our behalf) it may be accessed and used in countries outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). In relation to such transfers, you acknowledge that you have been made aware that: (i) some countries outside the EEA provide levels of protection of personal data which are significantly poorer than those of countries within the EEA and (ii) in respect of such countries, for example the United States, it is possible that this personal data might be intercepted and accessed by governmental and other authorities/agencies in those countries. By submitting your personal information, you consent to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your information is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Disclosure of your information

We may disclose personal information: to successors in title to our business; to any of our affiliated firms and entities; to suppliers and external agencies that we engage to process information on our and your behalf including to provide you with information that you have requested; to third parties (including, but not limited to, professional indemnity insurers, brokers, auditors and other professional advisors); to our clients in the course of providing services, and where disclosure is required by law or any regulatory authority, all as reasonably required for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

If you attend an event organised or hosted by us, we may disclose your details to others who attend or participate in the organisation of that event (as notified to you).

The internet

Given that the internet is a global environment, using the internet to collect and process personal information necessarily involves the transmission of information on an international basis. Therefore, by browsing this web site and communicating electronically with us, you acknowledge and agree to our processing of personal information in this way. The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to this web site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use appropriate procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

This web site may, from time to time, contain links to other web sites which are outside of our control and are not covered by this Privacy Policy. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for other sites’ privacy policies. If you access other web sites using the links provided, please check their policies before submitting any personal information.

Access to information

You have a right to access personal information that we hold about you or to obtain a copy of it. Any access request may be subject to a fee (not to exceed £10 in the UK) towards our costs in providing you with details of the information that we hold about you. We may ask you to verify your identity and for more information about your request. To obtain a copy of the personal information that we hold about you, please write to us at Dean Manson LLP Solicitors 243 -245 Mitcham Road Tooting London SW17 9JQ (or, if you are based outside England and Wales, to your local office address), marked to the attention of the ‘Data Protection Officer, Risk and Compliance Department’.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We will post any material changes that we may make to our Privacy Policy in the future on this page and, where appropriate, we will notify you of the change by email.

Contact

If you have any requests or queries concerning your personal information or any queries with regard to our practices, please contact us at data.enquiries@deanmanson.com.

Children

Our website and services are not aimed specifically at children because in legal work children are generally represented by their parent or guardians. If you are a child and need further advice or explanation about how we would use your data, please email

data.enquiries@deanmanson.com.

What we need

The exact information we will request from you will depend on what you have asked us to do or what we are contracted to do for you.

There are two types of personal data (personal information) that you may provide to us:

  • Personal data: is the general information that you supply about yourself – such as your name, address, gender, date of birth, contact details, financial information etc.
  • Sensitive personal data: is, by its nature, more sensitive information and may include your racial or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, political opinions, health data, trade union membership, philosophical views, biometric and genetic data.

In the majority of cases personal data will be restricted to basic information and information needed to complete ID checks. However some of the work we do may require us to ask for more sensitive information.

Sources of information

Information about you may be obtained from a number of sources; including:

  • You may volunteer the information about yourself
  • You may provide information relating to someone else – if you have the authority to do so
  • Information may be passed to us by third parties in order that we can undertake your legal work on your behalf. Typically these organisations can be:
    • Banks or building societies
    • Panel providers who allocate legal work to law firms
    • Organisations that have referred work to us
    • Medical or financial institutions – who provide your personal records / information

Why we need it

The primary reason for asking you to provide us with your personal data, is to allow us to carry out your requests – which will ordinarily be to represent you and carry out your legal work.

The following are some examples, although not exhaustive, of what we may use your information for:

  • Verifying your identity
  • Verifying source of funds
  • Communicating with you
  • To establish funding of your matter or transaction
  • Obtaining insurance policies on your behalf
  • Processing your legal transaction including:

Providing you with advice; carrying out litigation on your behalf; attending hearings on your behalf; preparing documents or to complete transactions

  • Keeping financial records of your transactions and the transactions we make on your behalf
  • Seeking advice from third parties; such as legal and non-legal experts
  • Responding to any complaint or allegation of negligence against us

Who has access to it

We have a data protection regime in place to oversee the effective and secure processing of your personal data. We will not sell or rent your information to third parties. We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Generally, we will only use your information within Dean Manson LLP Solicitors. However there may be circumstances, in carrying out your legal work, where we may need to disclose some information to third parties; for example:

  • HM Land Registry to register a property
  • HM Revenue & Customs; e.g. for Stamp Duty Liability
  • Court or Tribunal
  • Solicitors acting on the other side
  • Asking an independent Barrister or Counsel for advice; or to represent you
  • Non legal experts to obtain advice or assistance
  • Translation Agencies
  • Contracted Suppliers
  • External auditors or our Regulator; e.g. Lexcel, SRA, ICO etc.
  • Bank or Building Society; or other financial institutions
  • Insurance Companies
  • Providers of identity verification
  • Any disclosure required by law or regulation; such as the prevention of financial crime and terrorism
  • If there is an emergency and we think you or others are at risk

In the event any of your information is shared with the aforementioned third parties, we ensure that they comply, strictly and confidentially, with our instructions and they do not use your personal information for their own purposes unless you have explicitly consented to them doing so.

There may be some uses of personal data that may require your specific consent. If this is the case we will contact you separately to ask for your consent which you are free to withdraw at any time.

How do we protect your personal data

We recognise that your information is valuable and we take all reasonable measures to protect it whilst it is in our care.

We have exceptional standards of technology and operational security in order to protect personally identifiable data from loss, misuse, alteration or destruction. Similarly, we adopt a high threshold when it comes to confidentiality obligations and both internal and external parties have agreed to protect confidentiality of all information; to ensure all personal data is handled and processed in line with our stringent confidentiality and data protection policies.

We use computer safeguards such as firewalls and data encryption and annual penetration testing; and we enforce, where possible, physical access controls to our buildings and files to keep data safe.

How long will we keep it for

Your personal information will be retained, usually in computer or manual files, only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which the information was collected; or as required by law; or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you may hold with us. For example:

  • As long as necessary to carry out your legal work
  • For a minimum of 7 years from the conclusion or closure of your legal work; in case you, or we, need to re-open your case for the purpose of defending complaints or claims against us
  • For the duration of a trust
  • Some information or matters may be kept for 16 years – such as commercial transactions, sales of leasehold purchases, matrimonial matters (financial orders or maintenance agreements etc.)
  • Probate matters where there is a surviving spouse or civil partner may be retained until the survivor has died in order to deal with the transferable Inheritance Tax allowance
  • Wills and related documents may be kept indefinitely
  • Deeds related to unregistered property may be kept indefinitely as they evidence ownership
  • Personal injury matters which involve lifetime awards or PI Trusts may be kept indefinitely

What are your rights?

Under GDPR, you are entitled to acess your personal data (otherwise known as a ‘right to access’). If you wish to make a request, please do so in writing addressed to our Data Protection Officer Nida Mansoor; or contact the person dealing with your matter.

A request for access to your personal data means you are entitled to a copy of the data we hold on you – such as your name, address, contact details, date of birth, information regarding your health etc.- but it does not mean you are entitled to the documents that contain this data.

Under certain circumstances, in addition to the entitlement to ‘access your data’, you have the following rights:

  1. The right to be informed: This is fulfilled by way of this privacy notice and our transparent explanation as to how we use your personal data
  2. The right to rectification: you are entitled to have personal data rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete
  3. The right to erasure / ‘right to be forgotten’: you have the right to request the deletion or removal of your personal data where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing. This right only applies in the following specific circumstances:
  • Where the personal data is no longer necessary in regards to the purpose for which it was originally collected
  • Where consent is relied upon as the lawful basis for holding your data and you withdraw your consent
  • Where you object to the processing and there is no overriding legitimate interest for continuing the processing
  • The personal data was unlawfully processed
  • Where you object to the processing for direct marketing purposes
  1. The right to object: you have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests; and direct marketing. This right only applies in the following circumstances:
  • An objection to stop processing personal data for direct marketing purposes is absolute – there are no exemptions or grounds to refuse – we must stop processing in this context
  • You must have an objection on grounds relating to your particular situation
  • We must stop processing your personal data unless:
    • We can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms; or
    • The processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
  1. The right to restrict processing: you have the right to request the restriction or suppression of your data. When processing is restricted, we can store the data but not use it. This right only applies in the following circumstances:
  • Where you contest the accuracy of the personal data – we should restrict the processing until we have verified the accuracy of that data
  • Where you object to the processing (where it was necessary for the performance of a public interest or purpose of legitimate interests), and we are considering whether our organisation’s legitimate grounds override your right
  • Where processing is unlawful and you request restriction
  • If we no longer need the personal data but you require the data to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim

Complaints about the use of personal data

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer who will investigate further. Our Data Protection Officer is Nida Mansoor and you can contact them at data.enquiries@deanmanson.com

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law, you may complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Marketing data

We may contact you for the purpose of direct marketing. This means that we may use your personal data that we have collected in accordance with this privacy policy to contact you about our products or services, events etc. which we feel may interest you. The direct marketing communications may be provided to you by social media channels, email or post. We will never send marketing communications via SMS or call you without your specific consent; nor do we ever pass on or sell your details to a third party.

How we collect personal data

The following are examples, although not exhaustive, of how we collect your personal information:

  • Sign-up to receive one of our newsletters
  • Submitting an online enquiry
  • Following/liking/subscribing to our social media channels
  • Take part in one of the competitions or promotions we run on the website or on our social media channels
  • Agree to fill in a questionnaire or survey on our website
  • Ask us a question or submit any queries or concerns you have via email or on social media channels
  • Post information to the our website or social media channels, for example when we offer the option for you to comment on, or join, discussions
  • When you leave a review about us on Trustpilot.com or Google Reviews

Whenever we collect your personal data, you will be provided the opportunity to ‘opt in’ to receiving marketing communications from us. We hope you will provide this information so you find our communications useful but if you choose not to this will have no effect on accessing our legal services.

Dean Manson LLP handles enquires at different stages and we group those enquiries in three main ways. We will take the following steps in each instance:

Prospects: Consent will need to be recorded before being added to marketing campaigns.

Fixed fee clients: Legitimate interest will be the legal basis. Relevant marketing communication by email will be sent during the case and once the case has been closed. Clients have the option to exclude themselves from marketing by clicking on the unsubscribe link on all of our emails, on the telephone when speaking to an advisor or contacting Dean Manson LLP through email or on social media.

Retainer clients: Legitimate interest will be the legal basis. Relevant marketing communication by email will be sent during the case and once the case has been closed. Clients have the option to exclude themselves from marketing by clicking on the unsubscribe link on all of our emails, on the telephone when speaking to an advisor or contacting Dean Manson LLP through email or on social media.

Any contacts who have not engaged by opening an email over a period of 6 months will be removed from marketing communications.

How we may use your details

The following are examples, although not exhaustive, of how we may use your personal information for our legitimate business interests:

  • fraud prevention
  • direct marketing
  • network and information systems security
  • data /analytics /enhancing, modifying or improving our services
  • identifying usage trends
  • determining the effectiveness of promotional campaigns and advertising.

We may use your personal information for legitimate interests such as direct marketing or under reasonable expectation to provide you with information you would expect to receive or that would benefit and enhance our relationship. This information will help us review and improve our products, services and offers.

Your rights

You have the right to object to this processing. Should you wish to do so please email feedback@deanmanson.com

How we protect your personal information

We will only ever use non sensitive personal information to target individuals with marketing materials; such as name, address, telephone, email, job description and previous buying behaviours. Sensitive information or specific details will never be used to target marketing communications. We may use personalisation to collect analytics to inform marketing and produce relevant content for the marketing strategy to enable it to enhance and personalise the “consumer experience”.

If you do not wish us to continue to contact you in this way, you can either follow the unsubscribe instructions on any of our communications to you or contact us by emailing feedback@deanmanson.com with your name and email address. Your details will be removed immediately. Once unsubscribed, you may still receive transactional emails from us regarding your legal case.

Any questions regarding this notice and our privacy practices should be sent by email to data.enquiries@deanmanson.com

Collecting your information

You can access our website without giving us your personal information. However, you may choose to provide us with your personal information on some pages of the website, for instance by completing the contact us form. By submitting your personal information, you consent to our use of the information as set out in this privacy notice. Although we will not collect personal data on you unless you provide this to us, we do store a session cookie on your computer for the duration of your visit. This records your IP address, the pages you navigate between and the time and duration of your visit. This helps us to monitor overall traffic to the website. We do not use cookies to monitor your particular use of our website. You may disable the use of cookies in your Internet browser.

 Using your information

If you give us your personal information, we may from time to time contact you by mail, telephone, or email to provide information that may be of interest to you, including legal updates, publications and details of events and seminars. You can tell us to stop sending you marketing information at any time via email at data.enquiries@deanmanson.com.

Accessing your personal information

You have a right to ask us to provide you with the information we hold about you and to update any data we hold. If you would like to do so, or if you have any other queries about this policy, please write to the Risk and Compliance Team, Dean Manson LLP Solicitors 243-245 Mitcham Road Tooting London SW17 9JQ or email at data.enquiries@deanmanson.com.

We charge a £10 fee for this to cover our costs.

 Who to contact

We have delegated day-to-day record keeping to our IT department. They hold and process your data on our behalf and can be contacted by email, phone or in writing. Email: data.enquiries@deanmanson.com Tel: 020 8767 5000

or

Dean Manson LLP Solicitors

243-245 Mitcham Road

Tooting London

SW17 9JQ

or

The Members / Directors can be contacted in writing to:

Dean Manson LLP Solicitors

243-245 Mitcham Road

Tooting London

SW17 9JQ

 

To ask for a copy of your data, please contact:

Personal Data Enquiries

Dean Manson LLP Solicitors

243-245 Mitcham Road

Tooting London

SW17 9JQ

Please quote the DMLLP file reference number, your date of birth.

The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Tel: 0303 123 1113

or

in writing at:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House Water Lane

Wilmslow Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Please quote reference Z1361083

Did you know

If you are being cold called or solicited for providing legal services then it may be illegal in certain circumstances. The information Commissioner may be able to take action to stop this happening.