Privacy Statement

Introduction

CDS Mayfair LLP is a trading name of Charles Douglas Solicitors LLP. CDS Mayfair LLP respects and values your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy statement will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

 

Purpose of this privacy statement

This privacy statement aims to give you information on how CDS Mayfair LLP collects and processes your personal data in the course of our business, including through your use of our website, including any data you  may provide when you contact us or request information from us and when you engage our legal or other services or as a result of your relationship with one or more of our members of staff.

It is important that you read this privacy statement together with any other privacy statement or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy statement supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

 

Controller

CDS Mayfair LLP is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as the “Company”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy statement).

Our Compliance Officer is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you need further information or have any question or complaints about our privacy statement or practices, please contact our Compliance Officer using the details set out below.

 

Contact details

Compliance Officer
Charles Douglas Solicitors LLP
32 Old Burlington Street
Mayfair
W1S 3AT

Email: complianceofficer@cdsmayfair.com

Tel: +44 (0)20 7758 8170

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk) . We would, however, appreciate a chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

 

Changes to the privacy statement and your duty to inform us of changes

This version was last updated on 14th April 2021. Historic versions can be obtained by contacting us.

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 relationship with us.

 

The data we collect about you

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

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Basic information, including your first name, maiden name, last name, prefix or title), the company you work for, your job title or position, date of birth, gender and your relationship to a person.

  • Contact information, including postal or billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.

  • Financial information, including bank account details and other details of products and services you have purchased from us and payment-related information.

  • Technical information, including information from your use of our website.

  • Usage information, including information about how you use our website, products and services.

  • Marketing and communications information, including your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We may also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data could be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

  • Information that you provide to us for the purposes of attending meetings and events.
  • Personal information (which may also include special category data) provided to us by (or on behalf of) clients or generated by us in the course of providing services to clients.
  • Any other information which is otherwise personal information which you may provide to us.

If you fail to provide personal data we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with our services). In this case, we may have to cancel the service,  but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

 

How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you, including:

  • Direct interactions – You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or personal information through interactions with us directly, for example by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you telephone, e-mail or otherwise or as necessary in the course of provided legal services to you.

  • Automated technologies or interactions – We may gather personal information as you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. For further details please refer to clause 5 below as to how we deal with cookies.
  • Third parties or publicly available sources – We may collect or receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:

 

Technical Data from the following parties:

  1. analytics providers such as Google based outside the UK; 
  2. advertising networks based inside or outside the UK; and
  3. search information providers based inside or outside the UK.
  • Contact, Financial and Transaction Data from providers of technical services inside or outside the UK.
  • Identity and Contact Data from data brokers or aggregator based inside or outside the UK.
  • Identity and Contact Data from publicly available sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Register based inside the UK.



How we use your personal data

We will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

  • Where we need to perform the contract, we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
  • To comply with our legal or regulatory obligations.
  • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending direct marketing communications to you via e-mail, telephone or other means of communication. You have a right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us (see above for contact details).

 

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Please note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground, we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

 

Purpose/Activity

Type of data

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest (where applicable)

To take you on as a client of the firm (including carrying out identity checks with third parties)

(a)Basic

(b)Contact

(c)Financial

(a)Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

(b)Performance of a contract with you

(c)Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, to prevent fraud and crime)

To provide legal services to you

(a)Basic

(b)Contact

(c)Financial

(d)In some instances, special category data

(a)Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

(b)Performance of a contract with you

To manage our relationship with you, including notifying you about changes to our privacy policy

(a)Basic

(b)Contact

(c)Financial

(d)Marketing and communication

(a)Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

(b)Performance of a contract with you

(c)Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated, to develop client relationships and grow our business)

To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)

(a)Technical

Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, network security, to prevent fraud and crime)

To use data analytics to improve our website, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences

(a)Technical

(b)Usage

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

To make suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you

(a)Basic

(b)Contact

(c)Marketing communication

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our services and grow our business)

 

Use of Charles Douglas Solicitors LLP website

Our website uses traffic analysis tools to analyse website traffic to help us continually improve the design, content and layout of the site.

‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by a computer’s web server to a web browser, which enables the server to collect information from the browser. A cookie essentially takes the form of a small text file deposited on your computer’s hard drive.

We may place a cookie on your machine to help us gather the above website data or, where necessary, to ensure that pages where you log in function correctly. We do not access any information stored in cookies placed on your machine by other websites.

If you would like to prevent our cookies from being stored on your computer in future, you can do so by referring to your Internet browser’s instructions. You can do this by clicking on the Help menu. Please note however that if you disable our cookies you may not be able to access certain services or facilities on our site and your use of our site may be limited. Further information about deleting or controlling cookies is available at www.allaboutcookies.org .



Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing.

You may receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or engaged our services, or if you have provided us with your details for a specific marketing purpose, and in each case, where you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

 

Third-party marketing 

If you receive marketing communications from us and no longer wish to do so, you may opt out at any time by emailing us at marketing@cdsmayfair.com .

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company or person outside of Charles Douglas Solicitors LLP for marketing purposes.

 

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law

 

Disclosures of your personal data

We may share your personal information with certain trusted third parties in accordance with our contractual arrangements with them, including:

  • Our professional advisers and auditors;
  • Our outsourced support service providers such as dictation, IT support and photocopying; and
  • Third parties who we engage in the course of providing services to clients with their prior consent, such as barristers, local counsel and technology service providers such as data room and case management services.

Where necessary, or for the reasons stated in this policy, your personal information may be shared with regulatory bodies, courts, tribunals, or similar bodies. We may also be required to disclose your information to comply with legal or regulatory requirements. However, we will use reasonable endeavours to notify you before we do this, unless we are legally prohibited from doing so.

We do not sell, rent, or otherwise make personal information commercially available to any third party, unless with your prior consent.

 

International transfers

We may need to transfer your personal information to locations outside the UK and /European Economic Area (EEA) in order to provide our services to you. Please see ‘Disclosures of your personal data’ for more detail on how information may be shared with Charles Douglas Solicitors LLP and third-party service providers.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK or the  EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the UK Government or the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the  UK or the EEA.

 

Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. 

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

 

Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

 

Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

  • Right to be informed.
  • Right to access your personal data.
  • Right to request that your personal data be corrected.
  • Right to erase your personal data.
  • Right to restrict processing of your personal data.
  • Right to transfer your personal data.
  • Right to withdraw consent.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights set out above, please contact us.

 

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

 

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request, to speed up our response.

 

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.