Privacy Policy

We take your privacy seriously and are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This policy sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it, as well as telling you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

Please use the Glossary at the end of this policy to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this policy.

If you use our services, make any enquiries with us, or submit information through our website contact forms at https://www.brmlaw.co.uk/, you will be asked to confirm whether you accept and consent to the practices described in this policy. This includes any enquiries you make about our services, ongoing matters or employment vacancies whether that communication is made face-to-face, via post, via telephone, via email, via the website or any other electronic means, in each case you will be asked to confirm whether you accept and consent to the practices described in this policy.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy notice 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 policy supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

1. Who are we?

BRM Law Limited trades as BRM Solicitors (“BRM”). Please see our Legal Notices – https://www.brmlaw.co.uk/legal-notices/ for our full legal details. References to ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’ in this Privacy Policy means BRM and references to ‘you’ or ‘your’ means the person who is reading this notice.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 (the “Act”) and the EU General Data protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the data controller is BRM Law Limited (CRN: 08133693) trading as BRM Solicitors of Gray Court, 99 Saltergate, Chesterfield, S40 1LD.

2. How Do We Collect Your Personal Information?

We collect personal information in a few different ways, including:

When we provide legal services and advice to you;
When we liaise with you for or on behalf of a client;
When you provide us with information by filling in forms on our website https://www.brmlaw.co.uk/ (“our site”) or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise;
When you make enquiries about our services, ongoing matters or employment vacancies;
When you provide us with information in relation to attending one of our events or seminars;
When you complete surveys, feedback or evaluation forms that we use for research and development purposes;
When we collect and compile publicly available information about you or your business; or
When we collect your data from third parties such as clients, other law firms or other professional service providers.

3. What Personal Information Do We Collect From 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 follows:

Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
Contact Data includes residential address, business address, email address and telephone numbers.
Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
Transaction Data includes details of services you have purchased from us, or enquired about.
Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
Usage Data includes information about how you use our website and services.
Professional Data includes job title, qualifications, professional experience and current or previous education.
Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical, demographic, or technical data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does 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 notice.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data) unless this is necessary and required for the services you have requested that we provide to you. Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

4. How Do We Collect Personal Information From You?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you. We will only collect and process the following data about you:

Information you give us throughdirect interaction. This is information, such as Identity, Contact, Professional and Financial Data, that you give us by filling in forms on our site or by corresponding with us face-to-face, by post, phone, e-mail or otherwise. It includes personal information you provide when you:
- meet us in person;
- use our site;
- instruct us to act on your behalf;
- use our services;
- perform a contract we have or are trying to enter into with you;
- submit enquiries or information to us;
- enquiries about our services, ongoing matters or employment vacancies; and
- when you report a problem with our site.

Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy https://www.brmlaw.co.uk/legal-notices/cookies/ for further details].

Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:
Technical Data from the following parties:
Contact, Financial and Transaction Data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services such as Smartsearch, WorldPay based inside the EU.
Identity and Contact Data from publicly availably sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Register based inside the EU.

Information we receive from other sources. We are working closely with third parties (including, for example, other professional service providers such as Estate Agents, Accountants, Banks and Courts, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, search information providers and credit reference agencies). We will notify you when we receive information about you from them and the purposes for which we intend to use that information.

5. How Do We Use the Personal Information?

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. We use information held about you where legally permitted for specific purposes and for legitimate interests. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following ways:

to respond to your enquiry;
to provide you with legal advice and services and to perform the contract we have entered into with you, or are about to enter into with you;
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;
to improve our services;
to contact you in the course of providing services to our clients;
to notify you about changes to our services;
to comply with our legal, regulatory or professional obligations;
to provide you with any other information you request from us;
to comply with internal compliance, security or other legitimate reasons;
to ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer, if you have consented to this;
to administer our site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, research, statistical and survey purposes;
to improve our site to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
as part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure;
to provide you with information about services we feel may interest you if you have consented to this. If you are an existing client, we will only contact you if you have consented to this, by electronic means (e-mail) with information about services similar to those which were the subject of a previous instruction from you. If you are a new client, we will contact you by electronic means only if you have consented to this. If you do not want us to use your data in this way please do not ‘opt-in’ and do not tick the relevant box situated on the form on which we collect your data; and
to make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our site about services that may interest you or them.

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.

6. Do we Disclose Your Personal Information?

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the lawful basis of processing for the legitimate interest, including:

Internal Third Parties as set out in the Glossary in paragraph 17 below.
External Third Parties as set out in the Glossary in paragraph 17 below.
If required in order to be able to provide legal services to you or to our clients;
Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts or all of our business or assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this policy;
If the third party is a professional adviser to us, such as professional indemnity insurers, brokers, auditors, accountants and other professional advisers;
If the processing of information by a supplier or external agency is arranged on our or your behalf, including where this is necessary to provide you with information you have requested; and
If disclosure is required by law or any regulatory authority or if required to protect the rights, property, or safety of BRM Law Limited, our clients, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

All as reasonably required for the purposes set out in this privacy policy.

We will not share your personal data with any third parties for marketing purposes. We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

7. 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.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure and when you submit details via our site or email you are transmitting your information via the internet. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site or via email to us; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

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.

8. How Long Do We Store Your Personal Information?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the 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.

Some of the time periods include:

Client files will be kept in accordance with Law Society recommendations, which can be up to a maximum of 16 years depending upon the type of work undertaken and the documents involved. We may transfer paper files into and store them in electronic format;
Documents and Deeds that we have agreed in writing to store for safe keeping on your behalf will be retained indefinitely; and
Some client files may be retained indefinitely for legal, regulatory and professional indemnity reasons.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Request erasure in paragraph 18 below (Your Rights) for further information.

9. Your Rights

You have all the rights in relation to your Personal Information that you are entitled to under applicable law. If you would like to:

Access, correct, rectify, update, complete, supplement, block or restrict your Personal Information;
Delete the Personal Information we hold about you;
Object to our use of your Personal Information;
Withdraw your consent to us processing your Personal Information; or
Transfer your Personal Information from us to another firm, person or business

please contact us at any time at BRM Law Limited, Gray Court, 99 Saltergate, Chesterfield, S40 1LD, or 01246 555111 or info@brmlaw.co.uk.

Further details of your specific rights are set out below in paragraph 18 below (Your Rights).

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.

10. Failure to Provide Your Personal Data

If you choose not to provide your Personal Information to us, it is likely we will not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example for the provision of legal advice and services).

In certain circumstances (which we will inform you of) we are also required by law, (for example the requirements under the Money Laundering Regulations), to take personal data and information from you and without which we cannot act for you. In this case, we may have to cancel the service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

11. Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie policy https://www.brmlaw.co.uk/legal-notices/cookies/.

12. Other Websites

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner organisations, advertisers, affiliates, and other online content. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

13. Access to Information

You have the right to access the information held about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of the information that we hold about you, please contact us at any time at BRM Law Limited, Gray Court, 99 Saltergate, Chesterfield, S40 1LD, or 01246 555111 or info@brmlaw.co.uk.

14. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

This version was last updated on 21 May 2018.

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on our web page. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

15. Complaints

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 the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

16. Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, and should be addressed to BRM Law Limited, Gray Court, 99 Saltergate, Chesterfield, S40 1LD or info@brmlaw.co.uk.

17. Glossary

LAWFUL BASIS

Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

THIRD PARTIES

Internal Third Parties

Other companies in the same group or legally connected to BRM Law Limited, whether acting as joint controllers or processors and who are based in the United Kingdom.

External Third Parties

Service providers acting as processors based within the United Kingdom who provide IT and system administration services.

Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including accountants, bankers, auditors and insurers based within the United Kingdom who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.

HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.

18. Your Legal Rights

You have the right to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

Generally, visitors to BRM’s websites may use them without providing any information to BRM Solicitors. However there are some areas of of BRM’s websites which may allow users to submit enquiries to us or post comments or other content for publication on our website.

Any enquiries submitted through our website contact forms including enquiries about our services, ongoing matters or employment vacancies are kept strictly confidential and no information provided will be transferred outside of BRM’s office.

BRM does not share any information provided to its websites with any third parties.

BRM will not contact you about its services unless you give permission.

If you do receive unwanted marketing communications from BRM, you may remove your contact details by emailing info@brmlaw.co.uk.

If you post a comment to an article contained on our website or news blog you agree to provide a valid contact email address and you also agree that all comments are moderated and may be edited before publication. By posting a comment on our website, you agree to the comment’s publication on our website in its original or edited form. Any email address provided to BRM will be kept confidential unless disclosure is requested by the police, courts or other competent legal authority or law enforcement agency.