PRIVACY

Respecting your privacy and ensuring the confidentiality of your personal information is critical to us.  Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect, safeguard and use your data, and is designed to ensure that we interact with you in accordance with your wishes and in line with current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation of May 2018.

Please note that this statement does not extend to websites that are linked to this website.  You should refer to the privacy policies of any such websites for further details about their use of your personal information.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY “PERSONAL INFORMATION”

For us, “personal information” means information which identifies you, like your name or e-mail address.  Any information that does not identify you is “non-personal information”.  If we store your personal information with information that is non-personal, we will consider the combination as personal information.  If we remove all personal information from a set of data, then the remaining data will be classed as non-personal information.

GENERAL USE OF YOUR INFORMATION

WHEN DO WE RECEIVE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect personal information about you when you provide it to us.  We only collect personal data relevant to the type of transactions you make with us.  For example, when you contact us via any of our online content, such as via our free consultation or contact us links, or you telephone, e-mail or write to us, we may receive and retain personal information about you.  If you engage with our social media accounts, such as Twitter and Facebook, we may receive personal information about you then too.  If you use these networks, their privacy policies apply, and we encourage you to read them.  The information we collect is relevant to the type of transaction you are entering into.  It may include details such as your name, e-mail address, postal address, telephone or mobile number.

HOW WILL WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA?

We will use your personal information for administrative reasons, such as to answer your correspondence, keep your records up to date or to implement your instructions (for example, to ensure you no longer receive marketing information if you tell us to stop sending it to you).  We may also use your data for marketing purposes, if you have given us permission to do so.

We will use your personal information for the following purposes:

For administrative reasons, including:

• “service administration”, which means that w may contact you for reasons related to the completion of commercial or other transactions you have entered into with us, or online content you have signed up for;
• in relation to correspondence you have entered into with us whether by letter, e-mail, social media or any other means, and to contact you about any content you provide;
• for internal record keeping so as to keep a record of your relationship with us;
• to keep your data up to date;
• to implement any instructions you give us to with regard to withdrawing consent to send marketing information;
• to use IP addresses to identify the location of users, which allows us to block disruptive use and to establish the number of visits from different countries;
• to analyse and improve the activities and content we offer via our website to provide you with the most user-friendly navigation experience.

We may also use and disclose information in aggregate (so that no individuals are identified) for marketing and strategic development purposes.

If you have given us permission to do so, we may also use your contact details to provide you with information regarding our services.  We will not do this unless you have given us additional, specific consent to use your data for this purpose.

Unless legally required to do so we will not provide your information to third parties without your consent.

HOW DO WE USE INFORMATION COLLECTED PRIOR TO MAY 2018?

The way that we collect your consent to send you marketing information has changed since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force.  If you sent us an enquiry before May 2018, we asked you whether you were happy to receive marketing communications at that time.  Unless you opted out from receiving such communications at that point, we will have registered you as being happy to receive these materials.

The GDPR includes an exception known as the “soft opt-in”.  In our case, this allows us to send marketing e-mails to those who have previously enquired about our products or services as long as they did not opt out from receiving these e-mails at the time.  We apply a 24-month time limit to this consent, and stop sending e-mails once this time period has elapsed.  We will not use the “soft opt in” option if you have opted out of receiving e-mails, either at the time of signing up or by subsequently unsubscribing from our mailing list.

If you are receiving marketing communications as a result of the soft opt-in being applied and would like to change this, you can click on the “unsubscribe” link which is included in all of our marketing e-mails, or you can contact us directly by post, phone or e-mail.

OTHER RELEVANT PARTIES

Our data may be processed on our behalf by our website hosts and/or IT providers, meaning that they will organise our data into a form that is usable to us.  However, we retain control of and legal responsibility for this information.

HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR DATA SECURE?

We take all necessary steps to ensure any information you provide to us online is safe, secure and managed correctly.  In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure of this data, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures.

Any personal information stored on our servers is not publicly accessible.  The data is secured and can only be accessed by authorised Stewart Law Solicitors staff on a “need to know” basis.

HOW LONG WILL WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We will only hold your personal information on our systems for as long as we need to.  Once your data is no longer required, or if you request that we do so, we will delete your information from our database.

We will treat any consent you give us to share marketing materials with you as lasting for 24 months.  After 24 months have elapsed from the date upon which you granted consent, we will either ask you to re-grant us permission to contact you, or we will remove your details from our database.

If you request that we stop sending you marketing materials, we will keep a record of your contact details and appropriate information to enable us to comply with your request not to be contacted by us.  This allows us to specifically exclude your data when we generate mailing lists or undertake other marketing activity.

HOW CAN YOU CONTROL WHAT WE SEND YOU OR REQUEST WE UPDATE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

The accuracy of your information is really important to us.  We want to ensure that we are able to communicate with you in ways that you are happy with, and to provide you with information that is of interest.  You can tell us that your details have changed or change the way that we communicate with you in a number of ways.  If you wish to change how we communicate with you, or update the information we hold, then please contact our DPO (Data Protection Officer):

• Email: enquiries@stewartlaw.co.uk
• Post: Stewart Law Solicitors, The Stables, The Garden House, Crouchmans Farm Road, Ulting, Maldon, Essex, CM9 6QS
• Telephone: 01245 460 200

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE FOR THESE CHANGES TO BE EFFECTIVE?

When you request that we stop sending you marketing information, we aim to update our records within the following timescales:

Information sent to you via e-mail – 24 hours (next working day) from receipt of e-mail.

Telephone calls – 24 hours (next working day) from receipt of request to opt out of receiving calls.

Information sent to you by mail – 28 days from receipt of “do not mail” request.  This period is longer than for other channels due to the production times for mailing campaigns and, in most cases, we would expect the change to be effective much more quickly.

You have the legal right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected.

WHAT OTHER INFORMATION DO WE GATHER?

In addition to information gathered directly (as outlined above), we also gather information indirectly.  This information does not identify you to us, but allows us to analyse how our website is being used, ensures that the site runs smoothly, and allows us to make improvements to our online service.  In common with most websites, we have access logs.  These logs record information on user activity on the site and are aggregated to produce summary information, allowing statistics about the popularity of the website to be compiled.  Access log files do not contain any personal information and do not identify you to us.  We reserve the right to store this aggregated information indefinitely.

We may also use cookies, clear GIFs (small, transparent images which allow us to see how users behave when they reach a webpage), third party web analytics and device information for functionality and to better understand user interaction with our products, services, and communications.  No personal information is collected during these processes.  We may use cookies and device information to enhance functionality of certain areas of the website.  For example, cookies are used to count how many times you have visited our site, so we can see if users are making repeated visits.  This data is anonymised so you are not identifiable to us, but when viewed in aggregate, this information helps us to see whether our website is a useful resource to our visitors.  Please see our separate cookies tab  to find out more about our cookie usage across this website.

HOW CAN YOU CONTACT US?

This website is owned and operated by Stewart Law Solicitors, The Stables, The Garden House, Crouchmans Farm Road, Ulting, Maldon, Essex, CM9 6QS.  If you have any questions about this privacy statement or any other matters concerning this website or you wish to report a technical error, please get in touch. 

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

This privacy policy may be updated from time to time so you may wish to check it each time you submit personal information to Stewart Law Solicitors.  The date of the most recent revisions will appear on this page.  If you do not agree to these changes, please do not continue to use the Stewart Law Solicitors website to submit personal information.  If material changes are made to our privacy policy, we will notify you by placing a prominent notice on the website.

PRIVACY

Any details submitted to this site are confidential.  We will not use any such information except to provide you with legal information or otherwise respond to your queries.

PRIVACY NOTICES