Switalskis Solicitors is registered as a Data Controller with the Information Commissioners Office

We will process your and third parties’ personal data, as further explained below, in the course of providing you with legal and associated services including access to our website and online features (“Services”). We will keep your information confidential, subject to this Notice, at all times.

We will let you know, by posting on our website or otherwise, if we make any changes to this Notice from time to time. Your continued use of the Services after notifying such changes will amount to your acknowledgement of the amended Notice.

What is Personal Data?

“Personal data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, known as the ‘data subject’; it may include name, address, email address, phone number, IP address, location data, cookies and similar information. It may also include “special categories of personal data” such as racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a data subject, data concerning health or data concerning a person’s sex life or sexual orientation.

We may process personal data and special categories of personal data which you provide in connection with the Services about yourself and other data subjects, e.g. individuals whose details are included in any materials provided by you to us. We may obtain information about you and other data subjects from third party service providers, such as due diligence platforms. If you use our online Services, we may collect information about your devices including clickstream data.

The provision of certain personal data is mandatory in order for us to comply with mandatory client due diligence requirements and consequently to provide the Services. You warrant on a continuous basis that such personal data is accurate, complete and up to date. Failure to comply may make it difficult or impossible for us to continue to provide the Services.

In relation to personal data of data subjects you warrant to us on a continuous basis that:

• where applicable, you are authorised to share such personal data with us in connection with the Services and that wherever another data subject is referred to, you have obtained the explicit and demonstrable consent from all relevant data subjects to the inclusion and use of any personal data concerning them;
• to the extent this is required in connection with the Services, such personal data is accurate, complete and up to date.

How do we use your personal data?

The Business will only process personal data, in accordance with applicable law, for the following purposes:

• providing the Services that we are contracted to perform.
• responding to your queries, requests and other communications;
• enabling suppliers and service providers to carry out certain functions on our and/or your behalf in order to provide the Services. This may include barristers, experts and others who we need to instruct to assist you with your matter (and we will liaise with you in such circumstances and always take care to ensure that your information remains confidential and safe);
• to facilitate webhosting, data storage, identity verification, technical, logistical, courier or other functions, as applicable;
• allowing you to use features on our website, when you choose to do so;
• sending you personalised marketing communications requested by you, as well as serving personalised advertising to your devices, based on your interests in accordance with our Cookie Policy. You have the right to disable cookies;
• ensuring our security and preventing or detecting fraud;
• administering our business, including complaints resolution, troubleshooting of our website, data analysis, testing of new features, research, statistical and survey purposes;
• developing and improving our Services;
• sharing some or all of your information with the Legal Aid Agency (if you are a client under the legal aid scheme), our quality assurance auditors
• complying with applicable law, including responding to a lawful request from a court or regulatory body such as the Legal Ombudsman (should you complain), the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Information Commisioner.

The legal basis for our processing of personal data for the purposes described above will typically include:

• processing necessary to fulfill a contract that we have in place with you or other data subjects;
• your consent;
• processing necessary for our or a third party’s legitimate interests;
• processing necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject.

Disclosure of personal data

There are circumstances where we may wish to disclose or are compelled to disclose your personal data to third parties. These scenarios include disclosure to:

• our subsidiaries or associated offices;
• our suppliers and service providers to facilitate the provision of the Services and/or to protect the security or integrity of our business, including our databases and systems and for business continuity reasons, including for example webhosting providers, IT consultants, translators, couriers and other handling agents, identity verification partners (in order to verify your identity against public databases);
• public authorities to carry out acts which are necessary in connection with the Services;
• subject to your consent, our advertising and marketing partners who enable us, for example, to deliver personalised ads to your devices or who may contact you by post, email, telephone, SMS or by other means;
• successor or partner legal entities, on a temporary or permanent basis, for the purposes of a joint venture, collaboration, financing, sale, merger, reorganisation, change of legal form, dissolution or similar event relating to the Business. In the case of a merger or sale, your personal data will be permanently transferred to a successor company;
• public authorities where we are required by law to do so; and
• any other third party where you have provided your consent.

Retention of personal data

Your personal data will be retained for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes listed above or as required by the law. Please contact us for further details of applicable retention periods. Personal data may for reasons of security and convenience be stored on remote data facilities but in a secure/encrypted form.

We may keep an anonymised form of your personal data, which will no longer refer to you, for statistical purposes without time limits, to the extent that we have a legitimate and lawful interest in doing so.

Security of personal data

We will implement technical and organisational security measures in order to prevent unauthorised access to your personal data.However, please be aware that the transmission of information via the internet is never completely secure. Whilst we can do our best to keep our own systems secure, we do not have full control over all processes involved in, for example, your use of our website or sending confidential materials to us via email, and we cannot therefore guarantee the security of your information transmitted to us on the web.

Data subject rights

Data subjects have numerous rights in relation to their personal data. For further information about your data protection rights please visit the ICO website .

Right to make a subject access request  (SAR). Data subjects may request in writing copies of their personal data. However, compliance with such requests is subject to certain limitations and exemptions and the rights of other data subjects. Each request should make clear that a SAR is being made. You may also be required to submit a proof of your identity where applicable.

Right to rectification . Data subjects may request that we rectify any inaccurate or incomplete personal data.

Right to withdraw consent . Data subjects may at any time withdraw their consent to the processing of their personal data carried out by us on the basis of previous consent. Such withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on previous consent.

Right to object to processing , including automated processing and profiling. We do not usually make automated decisions but profiling may be carried out for Business administration purposes, such as monitoring trends in user visits of our website, and in order to deliver targeted ads. We may use third party due diligence platforms which provide recommendations about data subjects by automated means. We will comply with any data subject’s objection to processing unless we have a compelling overriding legitimate ground for the processing, the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or we have another lawful reason to refuse such request. We will comply with each valid opt-out request in relation to marketing communications.

Right to erasure . Data subjects may request that we erase their personal data. We will comply, unless there is a lawful reason for not doing so. For example, there may be an overriding legitimate ground for keeping the personal data, such as, our archiving/file retention obligations that we have to comply with.

Data subjects may request that we restrict our processing  of their personal data in various circumstances. We will comply, unless there is a lawful reason for not doing so, such as, a legal obligation to continue processing your personal data in a certain way.

Right to data portability . In certain circumstances, data subjects may request the controller to provide a copy of their personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and have it transferred to another provider of the same or similar services. To the extent such right applies to the Services, we will comply with such transfer request. Please note that a transfer to another provider does not imply erasure of the data subject’s personal data which may still be required for legitimate and lawful purposes.

Right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority . We suggest that data subjects contact us about any questions or complaints in relation to how we process personal data. However, each data subject has the right to contact the relevant supervisory authority directly.

Other information relating to data protection

Unencrypted data

You should be aware that forms of Internet communication such as email and completing online forms are not secure unless encrypted. The use of unencrypted methods of communication is not unusual on the Internet and Switalskis Limited cannot accept any responsibility for any unauthorised access to personal information sent to us via the contact form on this website, or via email.

Financial transactions

This website has a secure online payment facility, provided by WorldPay. Any credit or debit card payments and information relating to them are collected via a secure, encrypted gateway.

Collection of technical information about your computer and the pages you visit on this website

This website uses Google Analytics to collect data which tell us about the ways visitors use this website. This will include things like which web browser you are using, the speed of your internet connection, and which pages on the website have been visited. This data does not include any information that could identify any user of this website and is used purely to help us develop our marketing strategy and improve visitors’ experience of this website.