As a legal services firm, this Notice applies to the personal information we obtain which identifies and relates to:
- people who use or enquire about using our services;
- visitors to our website;
- job applicants and potential job applicants;
- complainants;
- people whose services we use; and
- third parties whose personal information we need to process in the course of providing our services.
1. Who does this Notice apply to?
As a legal services firm, this Notice applies to the personal information we obtain which identifies and relates to:
- people who use or enquire about using our services;
- visitors to our website;
- job applicants and potential job applicants;
- complainants;
- people whose services we use; and
- third parties whose personal information we need to process in the course of providing our services.
2. People who use or enquire about using our services
We ask for your personal information as it enables us to provide our services to you. To use a basic example, it would not be possible for us to communicate with you in relation to our services without knowing your contact details, which contain your personal information.
Personal information we will collect:
The types of personal information we collect in the course of advising and/or acting for you may include:
- your name and contact details (postal address, email address and telephone/mobile number);
- information to enable us to check and verify your identity, e.g. your date of birth or passport details;
- information relating to the matter on which you are seeking our advice or representation;
- your financial details so far as they are relevant to the nature of our services which you request, e.g. the relevant source of funds if you are asking for us to help with a purchase transaction;
- your use of our IT, communication and other systems; and
- other monitoring information, e.g. if using our secure online client portal or if receiving our email updates.
Personal information we may collect depending on why you have instructed us:
- your national insurance number and tax details;
- your bank and/or building society details;
- details of your professional online presence, such as your company website profile or LinkedIn profile;
- your employment status and details including salary and benefits;
- your nationality, immigration status and information from related documents, such as copies of your passport, BRP cards, driving licence or other identification documents;
- details of your marital status/civil partnership, spouse/partner and dependents or other family members including children;
- details of your pension arrangements; and
- your employment records including, where relevant, records relating to sickness and attendance, performance, disciplinary, conduct and grievances.
3. Visitors to our website
Our website uses cookies or other tracking technologies to record visits and allow engagement with our content and communications. This is useful for us because it can help us to improve how we operate our website, communications and services and, in turn, provide you with a better experience when using our website.
In particular, we use Google Analytics to collect details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out information that might be useful, such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. We also track how effective our email marketing is by using tracking pixels.
We do not use this information to identify anyone. The information is collected anonymously and in aggregate and we make no attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. Please see our Cookie Notice for more information.
In general, the personal information we collect from website visitors (as well as those who subscribe to our email updates, attend our seminars/webinars or view our other publications) includes:
- your name, email address and internet service provider address;
- name of your organisation, your job title and details of your job;
- information relating to the matter which you contact us about;
- technical data including internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
- payment details; and
- dietary or access requirements.
4. Job applicants or potential job applicants
The Careers section of our website contains our Job Applicant Privacy Notice which explains how Greenwoods Legal LLP (‘we’, the ‘firm’) handles information it collects about job applicants. This notice is non-contractual and can be amended at any time. You can access it here.
5. Complainants
We are committed to providing a high-quality service to all of our clients. However, when you do want to raise a concern with us (which we encourage you to do if you consider it appropriate), we may need to collect personal information in order to administer and respond to that complaint, such as:
- your name, home address, email address and mobile phone number;
- information relating to the matter about which you sought our assistance or which are/were subject of our services/relationship; and
- details of your complaint.
6. People whose services we use
Where we engage individuals or organisations to provide services for us (for example, outsourcing functions such as benefits administration), we may be required to collect and use personal information related to the staff of the service provider in order to facilitate the provision of the service (for example, for the purposes of administrative communication). We may also collect and retain personal information to enable us to evaluate that service.
Any such use of personal information will be governed by contractual terms between us the service provider as well as the relevant provisions of this Notice
9. How and why we use your personal information
We can only use your personal information where we have a legally recognised justification for doing so, such as:
- in order to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
- for or in the performance of our contract to provide you with our services, or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
- for our legitimate interests or those of a third party (explained in more detail below); or
- where you have provided your consent.
We do not share your personal information with any organisations for marketing, market research or commercial purposes other than providing our services.
A “legitimate interest” is when we have a valid operational or commercial reason to use your personal information, so long as this does not pose an excessive impact on your rights to privacy.
We summarise how and why we use your personal information (and the applicable legal justifications) below:
10. How we use personal information relating to other individuals collected from you
For other individuals:
Due to the nature of our business, we frequently need to collect and use personal information of third parties as part of the service we provide to our clients.
We will not usually inform you that we are processing your personal information in this way and for these purposes, because our use of your personal information will be subject to the “legal professional privilege” exemption from the transparency obligations of applicable law. For the sake of clarity, and in accordance with the same applicable provisions, we are not required to provide disclosure further to a data subject access request (in part or in full) where the relevant personal information which has been requested is held subject to legal professional privilege or where we have an overriding duty of confidentiality to a third party.
For you:
In the course of providing our services to you, you may provide us with personal information which relates to and identifies individuals who are not aware of our involvement or of our use of their personal information at all. Examples include:
- Personal information relating to employees in the course of a corporate acquisition.
- Personal information relating to key individuals of parties to a dispute.
- Personal information contained in allegations made about former colleagues by a claimant ex-employee.
In such situations (which, by the nature of our business, are relatively common), it will not usually be appropriate for us to have any direct contact with individuals whose personal information we are using (for example, because we communicate instead with their solicitors). Alternately, it may not be appropriate for us to provide such individuals with this Notice (for example, because it may prejudice the purpose of the services we are providing or to maintain confidentiality).
Before you pass any such personal information to us, please ensure that the relevant individual has received any requisite privacy notices in connection with the performance of our services.
Additionally, please direct any individuals who interact with us on your behalf to this Notice, a link to which is also contained in the footer of all our emails.
15. Your rights explained
Applicable law gives you certain rights to control how we use your personal information. There are as follows:
We may ask you for additional information to confirm your identity for security purposes before actioning any attempt to exercise these rights. Please note that some of these rights only apply in limited circumstances. For further information on these rights and how to exercise them, please contact us using the details in section 19 below.
17. Changes to the terms of this Notice
This Notice was published on 03/05/2022.
We may change this Notice from time to time (for example because there is an update in applicable law). Where we make any significant changes, we will inform you via a notice on our website and within our email footers. Where it is practical and not intrusive, we will notify you directly of any material changes to this Notice.
Nonetheless, we recommend that you review this Notice periodically to remain informed about how we may use your personal information.
We will only notify individuals who are directly engaging with us about these changes. In particular, we will not notify any third parties whose personal information you give us.
18. The COVID-19 pandemic
During the Covid-19 pandemic and in response to UK Government / other authorised body guidance / regulation / law, we may need to collect, use and store more personal information than we normally would (for example, before you attend our premises, we may ask you information about recent travel history, clinical vulnerability, your recent Covid-19 test reports, whether you or someone in your family is isolating or has any other symptoms).
This is because we are under legal obligations to keep our workplace as healthy and safe as possible for all individuals on our premises, and take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent the spread and transmission of Covid-19.