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Privacy Information Notice

Introduction

Vincent Sykes & Higham LLP respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from), contact us by some other means or enter into a contract for services with us. This policy also tells you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how Vincent Sykes & Higham LLP collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you use the website’s “Contact us”, “Call me Back” or “Get a Quote” functions or where you contact us by some other means.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing policy 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 other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them unless specifically stated to do so.

Controller

Vincent Sykes & Higham LLP is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “VSH Law”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy).

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer (DPO), who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the DPO, using the details set out below.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues, under reference Z4692590.

Contact details

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our privacy practices, please contact our DPO, Laura Carter, in the following ways:

Full name of legal entity: Vincent Sykes & Higham LLP

Email address: laura.carter@vshlaw.co.uk

Postal address: Montague House, Chancery Lane, Thrapston, Kettering, Northamptonshire NN14 4LN

Telephone number: 01832 732161

If you want to lodge a complaint with a regulatory authority

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the ICO (www.ico.org.uk) at:

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

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

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was last updated on 5 April 2023.

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.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. 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 policy of every website you visit.

2. 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:

• Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, marital status, title, dates of birth, death marriage or divorce, occupation, national insurance number, photographic identity documents (e.g. passport, driving licence) and gender.

• Contact Data includes residential address, email address, telephone numbers and website address.

• Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details, tax reference number and VAT registration details.

• Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of services you have purchased from us.

• Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, 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.

• Profile Data includes feedback and survey responses.

• Usage Data includes information about how you use our website and services.

• 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 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.

We do not routinely 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 it is necessary in order to carry out our contractual or legal obligations or for our or your legitimate interests. Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where 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 to provide you with services. In this case, we may have to cancel a contract or an agreement to enter into a contract with you but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3. How is your personal data collected?

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

• Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
• Ask us to provide a quote for providing services;
• enter into a contract for services with us by agreeing to our terms of business;
• Provide us with instructions during the course of your matter;
• request marketing to be sent to you;
• complete a survey; or
• give us feedback or contact us.

• Automated technologies or interactions. 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. Please see our Cookie Policy for further details.

• Third parties or publicly available sources. We will receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:

Technical Data from the following parties:
(a) analytics providers such as Google based outside the UK; and
(b) search information providers based inside or outside the UK.

• Contact, Financial and Transaction Data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services based inside and outside the UK.

• Identity and Contact Data from data brokers or aggregators based inside and outside the UK.

• Identity and Contact Data from publicly available sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Register, based inside the UK.

4. How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, 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 (Performance of Contract Basis).

• 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 (Legitimate Interest Basis).

• Where we need to comply with a legal obligation (Comply with a Legal Obligation Basis).

To find out more about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data please see the Glossary below.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data although we will get your consent before processing special category data. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us. However if you do not give consent, we may still process special category data if that processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of a client or another person where consent cannot be given due to legal or physical incapacity.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all 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.

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
To register you as a new client (a) Identity

(b) Contact

 Performance of a contract with you
To process your matter:

(a)    Respond to your queries, requests and other communications;

(b)    Provide you with legal advice and associated services;

(c) Enable us to fulfil our obligations to our client (if you are not our client);

(d) Manage payments, fees and charges

(e) Collect and recover money owed to us

 (a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Financial

(d) Transaction

(e) Marketing and Communications

 (a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)
To manage our relationship with you which will include:

(a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy

(b) Asking you to take a survey

 (a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Marketing and Communications

 (a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how clients use our services)
To enable you to complete a survey (a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Usage

(e) Marketing and Communications

 (a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how clients use our services, to develop them 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) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Technical

 (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation)

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
To deliver relevant website content to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of our marketing (a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Usage

(e) Marketing and Communications

(f) Technical

 Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how clients use our services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To use data analytics to improve our website, services, marketing, client relationships and experiences (a) Technical

(b) Usage

 Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of clients 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) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Technical

(d) Usage

(e) Profile

(f) Marketing and Communications

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

Marketing

We undertake very little marketing and rarely contact individuals to advertise our services. If and when we do, we do so in ways that are proportionate, have minimal privacy impact and are likely to be what people might expect (e.g. reminding clients that we hold original documents for them and enclosing a leaflet about our other services at the same time).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased services from us and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Third-party marketing

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.

Opting out

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by contacting us.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of service purchase or service experience.

Cookies

Our website – www.vshlaw.co.uk – uses three cookies – one to provide a link e.g. to e-mail addresses, and two which function as analytical tools.  A cookie is a small text file that is downloaded onto a computer or smartphone when the user accesses a website.  It allows the website to recognise that user’s device and store some information about the user’s preferences or past actions.  Cookies are not enabled on our website unless you give express consent (a banner appears on the web page). Therefore, unless you consent, the cookies will remain disabled.  You also have the option to disable cookies, meaning that you have complete control over whether they are to function or not.  Further information is available on our legal information page.

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.

5. Disclosures of your personal data

We may share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table Purposes for which we will use your personal data above.

• External Third Parties as set out in the Glossary.

• Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our 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 privacy policy.

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.

6. International transfers

Some of our external third parties store and/or process personal data outside the UK so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the UK in order to fulfil our contractual obligations to you.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK, 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.

• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK, which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK.

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

7. Data security

Your personal data is held in electronic form and hard copy. 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.

Please note that for ease of use and compatibility, communications will not be sent in an encrypted form unless your require it and provide us with instructions to enable us to communicate with you in that way. Although we use appropriate security measures, unencrypted e-mail is not a fully secure means of communication, therefore do not provide us with personal data, particularly bank account information, by e-mail.

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 will you use/keep my personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

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, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

By law we have to keep basic information about our clients (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being clients for tax purposes.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available in our Retention Policy which you can request from us by contacting us.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see your legal rights below for further information.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

9. Your legal rights

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

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact our DPO via post, e-mail, telephone or via our website.

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 could 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. We will not provide information about your personal data if the request is made by a third party unless that third party provides evidence of its authority to make such a request on your behalf.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this situation, we will notify you and keep you updated on the reason for any delay and revised timescale.

10. 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). There may be occasions on which we need to collect and process personal data from someone with whom we do not have a contractual agreement (such as the beneficiary of an estate or a third-party providing funds for a house purchase) in which case we will rely upon such processing being necessary for ours or your legitimate interests.

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. That includes taking some basic initial steps to set up our files and carry out Anti-money laundering Identity checks. We will then provide you with a letter of engagement, which sets out the terms on which we will carry out work for you.

Comply with a legal obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to. This includes statutory and regulatory obligations such as compliance with Anti-money laundering and terrorist financing legislation, HM Revenue & Customs and HM Land Registry.

THIRD PARTIES

External Third Parties
• Service providers acting as processors who provide IT, Anti-money laundering identification services and system administration services based in the UK and outside the UK.

• Professional advisers acting as processors including accountants, bankers, lawyers, auditors and insurers based in the UK who provide accountancy, banking, legal, audit and insurance services.

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

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 (in whatever format you prefer) 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:

• If you want us to establish the data’s accuracy.

• Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.

• 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.

• 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 services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.