Privacy Policy

This Privacy Notice explains how AssistMe Solicitors ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, and protects your personal information when you use this website or engage our services.

Collection of personal information

We may collect personal information from you in a number of ways, including:

• When you contact us or request information via a form on our website
• When you engage us to provide legal services
• When you subscribe to newsletters or publications
• When you register for or participate in events and conferences
• When you submit CVs, resumes or work history information
• Through your use of our website and any services we provide

Use of personal information

When you provide personal information to us, we may use it for any of the purposes described in this Privacy Notice or as stated at the point of collection (or as obvious from the context of collection), including to:

• Provide legal advice and services
• Update and enhance our records
• Manage our practice, statutory returns, and legal and regulatory compliance
• Monitor and enforce compliance with our Terms of Business
• Manage contracts of employment or for services
• Market our services to new and existing contacts (see 'Marketing' below)
• Use for any other purposes for which you provided the information to us, including any of the purposes given in the 'Collection of personal data' section above
• Administer and manage our website

Legal grounds for processing personal information

We rely on one or more of the following processing conditions to:

• Perform our contractual obligations to you (or taking requested steps before entering into a contract)
• Satisfy any legal and regulatory obligations to which we are subject
• Satisfy our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) in the effective delivery of information and services to you and in the effective and lawful operation of our businesses (provided these do not infringe your rights)
• (Where no other condition for processing is available) if you have agreed to us processing your personal information

If you provide us with any personal data about a third party (including special category data) which is relevant to your relationship with us, for example, an employee or beneficiary in relation to your legal matter, we will have a lawful basis for processing that information. However, you should ensure that you are entitled to disclose those personal details to us before doing so.

Security of personal information

We have implemented generally accepted standards of technology and operational security to protect personal data from loss, misuse, alteration, or destruction. Only authorised persons who are subject to confidentiality agreements are allowed access to personal data.

Although we use appropriate security measures once we have received your personal data, the transmission of data over the internet (including by email) is never completely secure. We therefore cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to or by us via email.

International transfers of personal information

Your personal data may be transferred to and stored outside the European Economic Area (EEA). If we transfer your personal data outside the EEA to someone or some organisation other than yourself, it will be only:

• To a recipient located in a country which provides an adequate level of protection for your personal information; or
• Under a written agreement which provides appropriate safeguards for you; or
• With your explicit consent; or
• Where it is necessary for the conclusion or performance of a contract that we have with you or another person; or
• It is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; or
• It is in our legitimate interests (this will only be available to and used by us in very limited circumstances)

Retention of personal information

We will retain your personal information only for as long as we need it, given the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law, or otherwise for a legitimate interest or with your consent.

We retain personal data in order to:

• Respond to any queries, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf
• Manage any longer-term relationships or requirements
• Show that we have treated you fairly
• Keep records required by law

Different retention periods apply for different types of data. A copy of our retention policy is available on request.

Marketing

From time to time, we may use your personal data to send you information about our services, events, publications, etc. which may be of interest to you.

These direct marketing communications may be provided to you via email or post. We will never send marketing communications via SMS or call you without having your specific consent to do so.

We will never sell your personal data. However, we may use it when appropriate with a limited number of third parties for joint marketing purposes, such as marketing email communications or where you book to attend one of our events.

You have the right to opt out of receiving any promotional communications at any time by unsubscribing via the email footer on our marketing emails, or by contacting us using the details provided in the 'Contact us' section below.

If you do choose to unsubscribe, we will delete most of the personal information we hold about you on our marketing database, but we may keep certain limited information about you so that we may honour your request.

Cookies and aggregate information

Currently we are not using cookies. However, we may in future use cookies and similar technologies to recognise you when you visit our website. This would help us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our site and provide us with information on how our website is being used and how we can improve it. For more information on our cookies policy, please read our Cookies Policy.

When you use our website, we collect aggregate information to enhance your experience. This data does not personally identify you but helps us to understand trends, usage patterns and the preferences of our visitors. Examples of this information include the number of visitors to specific pages, the duration of visits and the types of devices used.

Our website may link to third-party sites not controlled by us and which do not operate under our privacy practices. When you link to third-party sites, our privacy practices no longer apply. We encourage you to review each third-party site's privacy policy before disclosing any personally identifiable information.

Rights in relation to your information

You have certain rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you. In particular, you have the right to:

• Request a copy of personal data we hold about you
• Ask that we update the personal data we hold about you, or correct the information if you think is incorrect or incomplete
• Ask that we delete personal data that we hold about you, or restrict the way in which we use such personal information (this is not an absolute right and only applies in certain circumstances)
• Object to our processing of your personal information
• Withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal information. If you withdraw consent at a later time this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before the withdrawal

If you would like to exercise these rights or have any queries, please contact us using the details provided in the 'Contact us' section below. You may also contact the Information Commissioner's Office (see details below) or refer to their online guidance for the public – see https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/.

Automated decision making

We will not use your personal information for automated decision-making.

Contact us

Our full contact details are:

AssistMe Solicitors
Head Office: 49 Grosvenor Street, Mayfair, London W1K 3HP
Branch Office: 254/255 Goswell Road, Angel, London EC1V 7LQ
Telephone: +44 20 7354 1444
Email: info@assistmesolicitors.com

It is our policy to collect only such information from you to enable us to perform our service to you. If you believe we have collected excessive data about you or breached your rights, please contact us to raise any concerns you may have.

If you have any questions or complaints about this Privacy Notice or the way your personal information is processed by us or would like to exercise one of your rights set out above, please contact us using the information above.

Complaints

We hope that we can resolve any concerns you may raise with us. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority in the UK, EEA State where you work, normally live, or where the alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO can be contacted by the following means:

• Website form: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/
• Telephone from UK: 0303 123 1113
• Telephone outside UK: +44 1625 545 700
• Post: ICO, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will be published on this page.