Last updatedNovember 4, 2024
1.1
Your privacy is extremely important to us. This privacy policy provides essential details about who we are, as well as how and why we gather, store, use, and share your personal information. It also outlines your rights concerning your data and the steps you can take if you wish to raise a concern or file a complaint.
1.2
Linnear Legal Ltd (company no: 15894546) is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “Linnear”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy).
1.3
Our use of your personal data in regulated by the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), derived from the retained EU law version of the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), and relevant data protection laws in the United Kingdom, including the Data Protection Act 2018.
1.4
Our solicitors are also bound by a professional duty of client confidentiality as set out in the SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors.
2.1
When we refer to personal data we mean any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.
2.2
For a more detailed explanation of personal data you can visit What is personal data? | ICO.
3.1
We may collect, use, store and transfer:
Basic Details: Your name, address, and phone number so we can identify you and stay in touch.
Contact Information: Including your email address and phone number so that we can communicate with you.
Identity Data: Information like your gender, nationality, date of birth, or passport details to enable us to confirm your identity
Relevant Case Details: Information about the issue or service you are instructing us in relation to so that we can provide the best assistance.
Financial Information: Details we may need to perform credit or financial checks, or that are relevant to the work we are doing for you.
Technical Data: Information about how you access our website and systems, such as your IP address or the type of browser you use, to ensure everything runs smoothly and securely.
Your Preferences: Your choices about how you’d like us to communicate with you or send updates.
Website Usage: Data about how you interact with our website and services to improve your experience with us.
3.2
In addition to the above, there are also other forms of personal data that we may collect depending on the purpose for which you instruct us. This includes:
Your employment status, including details about your salary and benefits and your employment records, such as attendance, performance, sickness, disciplinary issues, and grievances if applicable to your matter.
Personal characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, health conditions, or disability, especially if related to a discrimination claim.
Personal details of your family members where provided in relation to your matter e.g. parent’s names and maiden names we are instructed to incorporate a company for you, for example.
Your nationality, immigration status, and related documentation (e.g., passport or ID), including any immigration information provided during your instructions.
Financial information such as your bank account or building society details, your National Insurance number and relevant tax information.
Information about your professional online presence, such as your LinkedIn profile.
Special category personal data which includes racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs, trade union membership genetic and biometric data. We will only process this type of data with your explicit consent.
3.3
We may also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data which is not personal data as it does not directly (or indirectly) reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate individuals’ Website Usage to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature in order to analyse general trends in how users are interacting with our website to help improve the website and our service offering.
4.1
We collect this personal data to ensure we can effectively deliver our services to you. Failure to provide the requested information may result in delays or prevent us from providing the services.
4.2
Additionally, this data helps us enhance your overall experience with us.
4.3
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, for example, you have a new address or email address
5.1
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
Your interactions with us.
You may give us your personal data directly when you instruct us or by filling in online forms and corresponding with us.
Our website and other automated technologies.
As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
Our IT systems
Such as our case management, document management and time recording systems.
Publicly available sources.
Such as Companies House, HM Land Registry and the Electoral Register.
From third parties
Such as credit reference agencies and sanctions screening providers so that we can carry out client due diligence. Banks, other professionals, including medical professionals and your employer, depending on the purpose for which you instruct us.
6.1
The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We rely on one or more of the following legal bases:
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Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you. |
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We may use your personal data where it is necessary to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, for example to prevent fraud and enable us to give you the best and most secure client experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) 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). |
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We may use your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to. We will identify the relevant legal obligation when we rely on this legal basis. |
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We rely on consent only where we have obtained your active agreement to use your personal data for a specified purpose and no other legal bases apply. |
7.1
The table below explains what we use (process) your personal data for and our legal bases for doing so:
| Purpose/Use | Type of data | Legal basis |
To onboard you as a client including:
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| To provide legal and administrative services to you including collecting payment of those services and carrying out credit reference checks |
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To manage our relationship with you which will include:
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| To comply with external audits and quality checks |
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| To enable you to partake in a prize draw, competition or complete a survey |
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| To administer and protect our business, services and website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data) including improving services and operations |
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| To deliver relevant website content and online advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you |
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Necessary for our legitimate interests to study how clients use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy |
To send relevant marketing communications and make personalised suggestions and recommendations about services that may be of interest to:
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Necessary for our legitimate interests to carry out direct marketing, develop our products/services and grow our business. |
| To carry out market research through your voluntary participation in surveys |
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Necessary for our legitimate interests to study how clients use our services and to help us improve and develop our services. |
| To undertake statistical analysis to help us manage our practice, e.g. in relation to our financial performance, client base, work type or other efficiency measures including using data analytics to improve our website, services, client relationships and experiences and to measure the effectiveness of our communications and marketing. |
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8.1
You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information or services and have not opted out of such messages. We may use your personal data to provide updates via email or post, including information about legal developments, events we are hosting, or details about our services, including any new offerings that may interest you. We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data for these purposes.
8.2
We may also analyse your personal data to form a view on which services and promotions may be of interest to you so that we can send you relevant marketing communications.
8.3
You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by following the opt-out links within any marketing communication sent to you or by contacting us using the details set out at paragraph 15.
8.4
If you opt out of receiving marketing communications, you will still receive service-related communications that are essential for administrative or client service purposes for example checking that your contact details are correct.
8.5
We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you instruct us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
8.6
We will get your express consent before we share your personal data with any third party for their own direct marketing purposes.
9.1
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.
9.2
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.
9.3
By law we have to keep basic information about our clients for six years after they cease being clients for tax purposes.
9.4
In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see paragraph 13 below for further information.
9.5
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.
10.1
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.
10.2
We have also 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.
11.1
We may share your personal data where necessary with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in paragraph 7 above.
External service providers, representatives and agents we use.
Our insurers, brokers and external auditors.
Our banks.
Credit reference agencies including suppliers of ID verification services.
Other third parties where necessary to carry out your instructions, e.g. Companies House.
Other professional advisers who we instruct on your behalf or refer you to, e.g. barristers, tax advisors or other experts.
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.
Law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies.
11.2
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.:
We may need to do this where we have service providers outside of the UK or EEA, if you are based outside of the UK or EEA, or where there is an international dimension to the assistance you require from us.
13.1
You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. These include the right to:
| Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) as the legal basis for that particular use of your data (including carrying out profiling based on our legitimate interests), you can object to its processing. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object.
You also have the absolute right to object any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (see paragraph 8 for details of how to object to receiving direct marketing communications). |
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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. |
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This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios:
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13.2
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any your other legal 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.
13.3
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us using the contact details set out in paragraph 15.
13.4
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 legal 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.
13.5
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 case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
14.1
We aim to address and resolve any questions or concerns you may have regarding our use of your information. However, you also have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”), the UK regulator for data protection issues. The ICO’s contact details can be found here: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
14.2
We would appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
15.1
If you have any questions about this privacy policy or about the use of your personal data or you want to exercise your privacy rights, please contact us. You can do so in the following ways:
16.1
We keep our privacy policy under regular review. We may change this privacy policy from time to time, when we do we will inform you by notice on our website.
17.1
Our 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.
17.2
We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements.
17.3
When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.
18.1
If you would like this policy in another format (for example audio, large print, braille) please contact us (see “How to contact us’” above).