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These are cookies that are essential, e.g. to load the website and fulfil actions requested by you. They also include Session Cookies, which are stored in your computer or device's memory during your browsing session and are automatically deleted from your computer when you leave a website. These cookies usually store a session ID, allowing you to move from page to page without having to log-in repeatedly.
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These cookies are used to collect information about your browsing habits in order to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers.
These are cookies are stored on your computer or device and are not deleted when your browser is closed. Persistent cookies can be used to retain your preferences for a particular website, allowing those preferences to be used in future browsing sessions. Persistent cookies usually assign a unique ID to your browser and they are usually configured to identify you for a prolonged period of time, from days to months or even years.
We use cookies:
The General Data Protection Regulation ('GDPR') 2018 requires website users to be told about cookies used on the site and to opt into accepting cookies, or to be able to opt out of certain cookies that are not essential to the basic functioning of the website.
You will see the opt in, opt out choices at the top of the screen. You must make a choice.
We may change the content of our Site or services without notice, and consequently our Privacy Policy and/or Cookies Statement may change at any time in the future. We therefore encourage you to review it from time to time to stay informed of how we are using personal information.
This Cookie Statement was last updated in May 2018.
Our website sometimes re-directs you to third party sites. As these websites are operated by third parties, we have no control over their use of cookies.
To find out more about the way cookies work, how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit aboutcookies.org or allaboutcookies.org
The GDPR are important European regulations that apply to all EU Member States from 25 May 2018.
We are committed to protecting and keeping confidential all of the information you provide to us, subject to certain legal duties that are explained in our terms and conditions of business above.
This privacy notice contains important information about how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.
We will collect, use and are responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do, we are regulated under the GDPR by the Information Commissioner and are responsible as a ‘controller’ of that personal information.
The personal information we collect, use and share
We will collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:
We use your personal information primarily to enable us to provide you with a legal service in accordance with your instructions. We also use your personal information for related purposes including identity verification, administration of files, updating existing records if you have instructed us previously, analysis to help improve our management, for statutory returns and legal and regulatory compliance. The information will be held in hard copy and/or electronic format.
You are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of all the personal data you supply to us, and we will not be held liable for any errors unless you have advised us previously of any changes in your personal data.
We will only take instructions from you or someone you authorise in writing.
Where you are acting as an agent or trustee, you agree to advise your principal or the beneficiary of the trust that their personal information will be dealt with on these terms.
If we are working on your matter in conjunction with other professionals who are advising you, including experts, barristers, banks, building societies, mortgage lenders, estate agents etc., we will assume, unless you notify us otherwise, that we may share and disclose relevant personal data and information about your matter to them, if we feel it is appropriate and necessary.
On occasions we may ask other trusted companies to provide services to support work on our files to ensure that this work can be done promptly. We will always obtain a confidentiality agreement from outsourced providers to ensure that they keep information sent to them securely and confidentially. All routine work is undertaken by us.
We use a private, secure, cloud computing service to assist us in processing and protecting your information and keeping it secure from the risks of cybercrime and fraud. All IT providers we use are subject to strict confidentiality agreements and we will ensure that they meet GDPR obligations in relation to the service they provide to us. All of the personal information you provide to us is kept in the UK; we will not transfer any of your personal data to another country outside the UK unless you specifically instruct us to do so.
There may be occasions when we are under a legal duty to share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities, including the Solicitors Regulation Authority or the Information Commissioner. If we are required to disclose information to the National Crime Agency, we may not be able to tell you that a disclosure has been made. We may have to stop working for you for a period of time and may not be able to tell you why. We cannot be held liable for any loss you suffer due to delay or our failure to provide information in these circumstances.
Occasionally some of our client files may be audited strictly confidentially by external auditors or examiners to ensure we meet our legal, quality and financial management standards. Some information may be disclosed to our professional indemnity insurers and to our financial auditors if required. We may also provide basic details of your case to Legal 500 or Chambers and Partners legal directories but this information is provided on a strictly confidential basis where this concerns individuals. Unless you tell us otherwise we will assume you have no objection. You may object at any time and refusing your consent will not affect our work for you. We will not submit files for external audit or disclose personal information to directories where there is particularly sensitive material.
We will not share your personal information with any other third party and will not issue any publicity material or information to the media about our relationship and the work we are doing for you without your consent, or where required to do so under the terms of any legal expenses insurance policy you are using to fund your matter with us.
How long your personal data will be kept
We will hold your personal data including your name, address and contact details and your file of papers for a period of time, depending on the nature of your matter. We will confirm this to you at the end of your matter. After this period of time, your file of papers, including the electronic file, will be destroyed confidentially without further reference to you, unless we contact you to confirm other arrangements or you contact us to request your file of papers at an earlier date.
In order to meet our regulatory requirements, we may be required to retain basic information about you to include your name, address and date of birth on our electronic database for a longer period of time.
Reasons we can collect and use your personal information
We intend to rely on (i) Your consent, (ii) Contractual obligations, (iii) Legal Obligations; (iv) Legitimate interests to collect and use your personal or sensitive personal data:
Marketing
Information about us and up to date articles which may be of interest to you are available on our website www.markellaw.co.uk.
In relation to future marketing, we would like to keep in touch with you and let you know periodically about information that we think may be of specific interest to you or to tell you about events or our developments. We ask you to provide your email address and give specific confirmation that you want to “opt in” to us sending you such information in the future. If you provide your consent, you may withdraw it at any time by contacting us to confirm that you no longer want us to contact you. If you provide your consent, we may use third party software and services to assist us in relation to the processing of our marketing communications, but we will ensure we have confidentiality agreements in place and will never disclose your information to third parties for them to use for their own marketing purposes.
If you are an existing client or we are holding documents for you such as Wills or Deeds we may rely on legitimate interests as the reason for contacting you in future. We will only do this where we feel it would be of benefit to you or where we need to update you in relation to our terms and conditions.
Your rights
Under GDPR you have a number of important rights, free of charge. Further information about these rights can be found on the Information Commissioners Website www.ico.org.uk/for-the-public/.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please:
Keeping your personal information secure
We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
How to complain
We hope that our Data Protection Officer can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information.
The GDPR also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at www.ico.org.uk/concerns/ or telephone 0303 1231113.
Changes to this privacy notice
We may change this privacy notice from time to time. When we do we will inform you via our website or by a direct communication with you.
How to contact us
If you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information we hold about you or wish to contact our Data Protection Officer, please send a letter marked FAO Data Protection Officer, Markel Law LLP, 11th Floor, 82 King St, Manchester, M2 4WQ or call 0345 351 0025.
Markel Law LLP is law firm which is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (No 459781) and registered in England and Wales, Registered Number OC325244, VAT No. 245 7363 49 with registered office: Markel Law LLP,11th Floor, 82 King St, Manchester, M2 4WQ, (“we”, “our” or “us”).
We provide legal and other client services. We are committed to protecting information which identifies and relates to you or other individuals (personal information) and complying with data protection laws. Markel Law is a data controller responsible for your personal information processed through our website.
This privacy policy sets out Markel Law’s personal information collection and sharing practices in relation to the personal information that we collect and process when you contact or request information from us, when you engage our legal or other services and the provision of advisory services.
This privacy policy also covers any personal information collected through your use of our website. This policy should be read with our terms and conditions.
Clients, suppliers, advisers, service providers, enquirers, beneficiaries, insurance policyholders, candidates for recruitment, members of organisations for whom we are the preferred legal services supplier or claimants and their agents and relatives (“you”).
Please read this privacy policy with care. It provides information about how we use personal information that we collect from you or from third parties. In addition, it describes the rights available to you under data protection laws.
This website may contain links to other third party websites. If you follow a link to any of those third party websites, please note that they have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for their policies or processing of your personal information.
Data protection laws require us to provide you with a lot of information about how we collect and use your personal information – and it is easy for all this information to become confusing rather than helpful.
We use a layered approach to providing you with the information required by law. This means that we may provide the information required in a number of different formats and documents. In particular, it means that in our initial contact with you, we may provide you only with the most important information about how we will use your personal information; but we will always provide you with easy access to all the further information you need about our privacy practices.
This privacy policy is intended to explain our privacy practices and covers the following areas:
We may collect and process the following personal information about you:
We may use your personal information in the following ways:
| The purpose | The law basis |
| To make decisions on whether to provide legal and other services. | To perform our obligations in accordance with any contract that we anticipate or that we may have with you. |
| To perform and provide legal and advisory services to you. | To perform our obligations in accordance with any contract that we may have with you. |
| To manage our infrastructure, business operations and comply with internal policies and procedures. | It is in our legitimate interest or a third party's legitimate interest to use your personal information to ensure that we provide our services in the best way that we can. |
| To notify you about changes to our service. | It is in our legitimate interest or a third party's legitimate interest to use your personal information to ensure that we provide our services in the best way that we can. |
| For marketing services to you by post, email, SMS, phone and fax. | It is in our legitimate interest to use your personal information for marketing purposes. We will make sure our communications are relevant to you, tailored to your interests. |
| For recruitment purposes, including to assess your skills, qualifications and suitability for a position, in relation to recruitment specifically, and/or to review our equal opportunity procedures. | In anticipation of a contract of employment that we may have with you following a recruitment process; Or where it’s in our legitimate business interest to use your personal information to make recruitment decisions. |
| To comply with our legal obligations. | Using your personal information to comply with our legal obligation. |
| To decide whether to enter into a contract of employment with you. | In anticipation of a contract of employment that we may have with you following a recruitment process; Or where it’s in our legitimate business interest to use your personal information to make recruitment decisions. |
| To carry out background and reference checks, in relation to recruitment specifically. | In anticipation of a contract of employment that we may have with you following a recruitment process; Or where it’s in our legitimate business interest to use your personal information to make recruitment decisions. |
| To communicate with you about the recruitment process, in relation to recruitment specifically. | In anticipation of a contract of employment that we may have with you following a recruitment process; Or where it’s in our legitimate business interest to use your personal information to make recruitment decisions. |
| To keep records related to our hiring processes in relation to recruitment specifically.. | In anticipation of a contract of employment that we may have with you following a recruitment process; Or where it’s in our legitimate business interest to use your personal information to make recruitment decisions. |
| To protect the rights of third parties. | It is in our or a third party’s legitimate interest to use your personal information to protect the rights of a third party. |
| Using your information in relation to a business transaction for example a sale, merger or a restructure. | It is in our legitimate interest to use your personal information in this context. |
| To enhance the security of our network and information systems; | It is in our legitimate interests to ensure we offer a secure and responsive service. |
| To identify and prevent fraud; | It is in our legitimate interests to act responsibly as a business. |
| To maintain our accounts and records; | Using your personal information to comply with our legal obligations in relation to record keeping and accounting. |
| To respond to live chat or online enquiries; | It is in our legitimate interests to respond to your queries and provide any information requested in order to generate and develop business. |
| To modify, personalise or otherwise improve our services/ communications; | It is in our legitimate interests to continually monitor and improve our services and your experience of our website and to ensure network security. |
| To comply with foreign law, law enforcement, court and regulatory bodies’ requirements; | Using your personal information to comply with our legal obligations in relation to the law. |
| To defend or make claims; | To perform our obligations in accordance with any contract that we may have with you. |
| To correspond with our clients, beneficiaries and claimants in order to facilitate the legal and advisory services; | To perform our obligations in accordance with any contract that we may have with you. |
| For training and quality purposes; | It is in our legitimate interests to continually monitor and improve our services to our clients. |
We will never process your data where these interests are overridden by your interests.
Your consent to our processing of your personal information for certain purposes may be necessary to comply with applicable data protection laws; and where this is the case we will ask you for your consent in accordance with those laws.
You may withdraw your consent to such processing at any time. However, if you withdraw your consent in relation to advisory or legal services that we have provided then this is likely to impact our ability to provide those advisory services or legal services.
Markel Law LLP may make personal information available to:
Other third parties
We may also permit selected third parties and agents including suppliers, service providers, reinsurers and financial organisations to access to your personal information for the purposes set out in section 2. Examples of third parties include: HMRC, insurance companies, providers of identity verification, external auditors or if there is an emergency where we determine you or others are at risk.
All such exchanges will be made in accordance with applicable laws. If false or inaccurate information is provided and/or fraud is identified or suspected, details may be passed to fraud prevention and anti-money laundering agencies, law enforcement agencies or other insurers and may be recorded by us or by them.
We and other organisations may also access and use this information to prevent fraud and other crime.
Governmental authorities and third parties involved in court actions
We may disclose your personal information to third parties, the courts and/or regulators or law enforcement agencies in connection with enquiries, proceedings or investigations by such parties anywhere in the world or in order to enable Markel Law LLP to comply with its regulatory requirements or dialogue with its regulators as applicable.
Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or any website can be guaranteed to be secure from intrusion. However, we maintain commercially reasonable physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your personal information in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
All information within our control is stored on our secure servers (or secure hard copies) and accessed and used subject to our security policies and standards.
Where Markel Law LLP discloses your personal data to a third party, for example IT systems support or software providers, we require that third party to have appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to protect your personal data.
Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our website or any other portal we operate, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential and for complying with any other security procedures that we notify you of. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.
We do not transfer your data outside of the EEA.
We will retain your personal information for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes listed in section 2 of this privacy policy. This may mean that we hold your personal information for some time where, for instance, there is a possibility that it may be needed in connection with a legal claim under the legal or advisory services provided, or where we are obliged to keep it to comply with tax, accounting, regulatory or legal requirements.
We maintain a data retention policy which we apply to all data in our care. Where your personal information is no longer required we will ensure it is securely deleted.
Data protection laws give you rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you, which may include the right to require us to:
We have a data protection officer who supervises how we use personal information. You can contact our data protection officer about privacy related issues by:
We may change the content of our website or services without notice, and consequently our privacy policy may change at any time in the future. We therefore encourage you to review it from time to time to stay informed of how we are using personal information.
This privacy policy was last updated on January 2019.
Our website uses cookies. If you would like to find out more about how we use cookies then please go to our Cookies Statement
If you are not satisfied with our use of your personal information or our response to any request by you to exercise your data protection rights, or if you think that we have breached any relevant data protection laws, then you have the right to complain to the authority that supervises our processing of your personal information. In the UK, this is the ICO, details of which can be found here: https://ico.org.uk/
If you are unsure of the authority that supervises our processing of your personal information then please contact us for further guidance.
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