Privacy Policy

In this Privacy Policy the terms, ‘we’ or ‘us’ is Bailey Smailes

This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your relationship with us, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Your privacy is important to us and we are committed to keeping your information secure and managing it in accordance with our legal responsibilities under applicable data protection laws. We are registered with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a data controller under registration number Z8364133

Please read this Privacy Statement carefully as it contains important information to help you understand how and why we process any personal information that you give to us.

What Information We Collect

We process personal information which you give us:

What personal information we process

This includes:

Special Categories of Personal Data

Special categories of personal data include information about an individual’s health and other categories of personal information which are closely protected.

We do not generally process such information unless you have voluntarily provided this to us, or it is relevant to the legal service you have asked us to provide you with.  For example, in Family & Matrimonial matters, or where you have advised us of an issue, such as your health, which could mean that you may be classed as a “vulnerable client” i.e. due to your personal circumstances or personal characteristics you are particularly vulnerable to financial detriment.  We will process sensitive information where you have provided this information to us and have agreed that we can use this information to deliver products and services to you.  Where possible we shall seek to minimise the collection and use of such special categories of personal data.

How we use your Information

We use your information to:

We will process your information to meet our contractual obligations to you, were have a legitimate interest to do so, where we are permitted by law or to comply with applicable laws and regulation.

PURPOSE LEGAL BASIS
Providing a service and internal processing
To assess your needs and provide you with suitable products and services -Contractual obligation to provide you with, or a proposal including a cost estimate
-Where special categories of personal data are processed, these are necessary to assess your needs and the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or whenever Courts are acting in their judicial capacity
To service and administer your matter including billing Legitimate interests to provide and manage the service
To verify the identity of our clients To comply with legal obligations to prevent money laundering
To confirm, update and improve our client records To comply with legal obligations in the Data Protection legislation
To provide you with any information on the services that you have requested To meet our contractual obligation to provide information on the services you have requested
Where the matter relates to the buying, selling or re-mortgage of residential property, providing information to other parties in the transactional chain in accordance with the Law Society Conveyancing Protocol With your consent
Relationship Management
To manage and develop our relationship with you Legitimate interest to service your matter and improve our service to you
To inform you of products and services that may be of interest to you, where you have chosen to be made aware of this With your consent
Training and development
For training purposes and to improve our service to you Legitimate interests to improve our services and develop our employees
Complying with Legal Obligations
To prevent, investigate and prosecute crime, fraud and money laundering To comply with legal obligations for prevention of financial crime and money laundering
For auditing purpose including maintaining accreditations such as the Conveyancing Quality Standard and the Wills & Inheritance Quality Standard To comply with our legitimate interest to conduct audits
If we are obliged to disclose information because of any law, regulation or court order To comply with legal obligations
Other
To transfer information to any entity which may acquire rights in us Legitimate interests for commercial interests
For any other purpose to which you agree. With your consent

How we retain your personal information

We will retain your personal information in accordance with applicable laws.  We will take reasonable steps to destroy or anonymise personal information we no longer need for the purposes we have set out above.

Our retention periods are:

We will not ordinarily collect, store and use any data which is defined under GDPR as “special categories” of more sensitive personal information.

Type of personal Information Retention Period
General personal data which includes your normal personal data, personal identity and personal financial data 6 years after the end of our business relationship with you, or the end of your matter which ever comes later
Client Due Diligence Material which includes copies of your Passport, Drivers Licence, Bank Statements and any associated documents and explanations you have given to us to prevent fraud, financial crime and money laundering Usually 6 years after the end of our business relationship with you, or the end of your matter which ever comes later with the exception of Wills, Estate Administration and house purchase where the period is 12 years
Special categories of personal data 6 years after the end of our relationship with you
Call recordings Not applicable as calls are not recorded
CCTV – digital images if you visit our offices Not applicable as there is no CCTV in operation

How we share your information

Where necessary or required we share information with:

Information Security

We invest appropriate resources in protecting your personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. No internet-based site can be 100% secure and we cannot be held responsible for unauthorised or unintended access that is beyond our control.

Updates

We will keep this Privacy Policy under review and make updates from time to time. Any minor changes to this Privacy Statement will be posted on this page and we will communicate any major changes to you.

Cookies

What are cookies and why do we use them?

Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website or application. Your web browser (such as Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox) then sends these cookies back to the website on each subsequent visit so that they can remember things like preferences.

Cookies are very useful and do lots of different jobs. For example, they enable you to move between our web pages efficiently, they remember your preferences when you visit us again and generally improve your experience when browsing with us. They can also help to ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you and your interests.

Cookies last for different lengths of time depending on the job they do.

There are session cookies and persistent cookies:

Session cookies only last for your online session and disappear from your device when you close your browser
Persistent cookies stay on your device after the browser has been closed and last for the period of time specified in the cookie

You may delete any cookies already on your computer. You may also disable the cookies we use but doing so may mean you are unable to access all the facilities our site offers. Please refer to your browser’s help files for appropriate instructions.

Cookies we use:

Cookie Name Cookie Owner Cookie Description
DYNSRV Hosting Provider This cookie is believed to be used for load balancing to manage server traffic demand.
_ga Google Analytics Used to determine a user’s inclusion in an experiment and the expiry of experiments a user has been included in.
_gid Google Analytics Used to distinguish users.
_gat Google Analytics This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites.
fr Facebook These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you and your interests. They also perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests. For further information, see the section of the Cookie Statement entitled “”Targeted online advertising””.
wp-settings-time- WordPress WordPress also sets a few wp-settings-{time}-[UID] cookies. The number on the end is your individual user ID from the users database table. This is used to customize your view of admin interface, and possibly also the main site interface.
wp-setting- WordPress WordPress also sets a few wp-settings-[UID] cookies. The number on the end is your individual user ID from the users database table. This is used to customize your view of admin interface, and possibly also the main site interface.
wordpress_test_cookie WordPress WordPress sets this cookie when you navigate to the login page. The cookie is used to check whether your web browser is set to allow, or reject cookies.
wordpress_sec WordPress Essential WordPress session management cookies for logged in users.
wordpress_logged_in WordPress After login, wordpress sets the wordpress_logged_in_[hash] cookie, which indicates when you’re logged in, and who you are, for most interface use.
_fbp Unknown Unknown
gdpr_popup Bailey Smailes This cookie is used to track who has already been shown the notice. The cookie has been set never to expire unless there is a change in the privacy policy.

Your Rights

You have the right to request copies of your personal information.  If you think any of the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, you may also request it is corrected or erased. You also have a right, in certain circumstances, to object to our processing of your personal information, to require us to stop processing your personal information and/or to withdraw your agreement to processing based on ‘consent’, but this does not apply where we have other legal justifications to continue processing your data or an overriding legitimate interest.

In relation to any of these rights, please write to us at the address below.

Complaints Process

If you have a complaint about how we have handled your personal information you may contact us using the details below and we will investigate your complaint. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office – (www.ico.org.uk).      

Contact Us

You can contact us by writing to us at:

Richard Moss, Practice Manager

Bailey Smailes Solicitors, 6-8 New North Parade, Huddersfield, HD1 5JP

T: 01484 43 55 43

E: Richard.moss@baileysmailes.co.uk

Ian Holmes and David Wells are the STEP accredited Solicitors for Bailey Smailes

David Wells and Lucy Cortis are the SFE accredited Solicitors for Bailey Smailes