Privacy Notice

It is important that you read this Privacy Notice carefully as it contains information about:

1. Who we are
2. What personal data we may collect
3. How and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data.

It also sets out your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or the authorities that supervise us if you have a complaint about our collection, storage or use of your personal data.

Please be assured that our collection and use of your personal data is regulated by current data protection law and the accompanying rules.

Key Terms
It is useful to start by explaining some key terms we use in this Privacy Notice:

We, us, our
Sewell Law, Beverley Enterprise Centre, Beck View Road, Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, HU170JT, Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) ID No 815244.

Sewell Law is the trading name of Sewell Law Limited, a company registered in England and Wales whose registered office is Suite B, Wold House, Annie Reed Road, Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, HU17 0LF (Company Number 12845256) and referred to as “the Controller’ for the purposes of your personal data.

You, your
A client, potential client or person making enquires with Sewell Law.

Data Protection Officer
Gordon Sewell – Managing Director and Solicitor
Address: Suite B, Wold House, Annie Reed Road, Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, HU17 0LF.
Email: gordon.sewell@sewell-law.co.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1482 692 298

Personal Data
This is any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual. The personal data that wecollect can include (but is not limited to):

• Your name.
• Your date of birth.
• Your home address.
• Your personal and/or work email address.
• Your personal mobile telephone number and/or your work telephone number and/or your home telephone number.
• Your National Insurance Number, your Passport Number and/or your Driver’s License Number.
• Your IP Address.
• Any, what is known as, Special Category Data (i.e. health/medical information, details about religion, sexuality, criminal records, etc.)

Personal data likely to be collected during the course of providing you with legal services.
• Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, e.g. your name, address, telephone number, date of birth and/or passport details. Checking and verifying your identity is a regulatory requirement on us for the purposes of the current anti-money laundering and other regulatory legislation. This personal data also enables us to check whether there could be a conflict of interest with another client or prospective client.
• Information relating to the matter in which you are seeking our advice or representation.
• Your financial details to the extent that they are relevant to your instructions to us, e.g. the source of your funds if you would like us to act for you in a transaction.

This personal data is required to enable us to provide our legal services to you. If you do not provide the personal data and information that we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing the legal services to you that you have contracted with us to carry out on your behalf.

How your personal data is collected
We may obtain your personal data directly or indirectly. Directly from you during an enquiry by telephone, email, post, or via a contact form on our website or when you visit our premises. We may obtain your personal data indirectly when your personal data is provided to us by a third party i.e., another law firm or organisation acting on your behalf such as a conveyancer or other professional individual.

Other examples of how we may obtain your personal data are:
• From publicly accessible sources, e.g. Companies House or HM Land Registry;
• From your bank or building society, or other financial institution or financial advisor;
• From consultants and other professionals that we may communicate with in relation to your matter e.g. barristers, accountants, surveyors;
• From your employer and/or trade union, professional bodies or pension administrators;
• From your doctor(s), medical and occupational health professionals;
• Via our website.

How and why your personal data is used
Sewell Law will never disclose, share or sell your data without your consent; unless required to do so by law. We only retain your data for as long as is necessary and for the purpose(s) specified in this statement. An assessment on the retention of data is carried our and reviewed annually. Under current data protection legislation, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason for doing so. Proper reasons include:

• To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, including our business accounting and tax obligations;
• For the performance of our contract/retainer with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, whether our services are provided to you face to face or remotely;
• For our legitimate interests or those of a third party. A legitimate interest is when we have a specific business or commercial reason to use your information; or where you have freely given specific and informed consent.
• When you visit our website or social media, personal data is collected via our cookie management system on our website and when you send us an enquiry via our contact forms or direct message us through Twitter or Facebook.

We do not share or disclose any of your personal information without your consent, other than for the purposes specified in this statement or where there is a legal requirement.

If you have consented to us providing you with marketing related information, such as details of events that you may be interested in or our newsletter and legal updates, you are free to withdraw this consent at any time.

We will never share your personal data with third parties outside of our appointed external marketing consultants for marketing purposes and we will not sell your data on to any third parties. We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences from time to time.

Who your personal data is shared with
Sewell Law uses third parties to provide services to it. The use of those third parties is crucial in the provision of legal services to you. Examples of the third parties that we share personal data with for the provision of our services to you are:

• Professional advisers who we instruct on your behalf or refer you to, for example, barristers, medical professionals, accountants, tax advisers or other experts;
• HM Land Registry in a property related matter or Companies House in the case of a business issues.
• Our insurers and brokers;
• Our external marketing and website consultants,
• Our bank;
• Our external ICT providers;
• The authorities that regulate us such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Legal Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner’s Office;
• With online electronic verification providers when we check and verify your identity to comply with our legal obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering laws currently in force.

Any instructed third party is only permitted to access and use your personal data if we are satisfied that they take appropriate measures to protect it and they only process your personal data in accordance with current data protection laws.

We also impose obligations on the third parties that we instruct to make sure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.

We may also disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

Where your personal data is held
Information may be held at our offices, located in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire and at the offices of the third parties mentioned above.

How long do we retain your personal data
We will keep your personal data after your matter has come to and this will be 6 years from date the matter is closed. This could be to respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you, to allow us to carry out conflict of interest checks and for us to keep records required by law, including compliance with the anti-money laundering legislation.

We will not retain your personal data for longer than is necessary for the purposes set out in this Notice. We will keep different types of personal data for different periods.

If we receive a new enquiry, so that the firm can comply with it’s professional obligations, in particular, to ensure that it does not act where there is a conflict of interest or a significant risk of a conflict, the name and address or other unique identifier will be stored for a period of 6 years from the date the enquiry is made. All other information, including details and documents relating to the enquiry will be permanently deleted 6 months after the enquiry is made.

We may need to obtain and use personal information about you (such as your medical records). Any sensitive information like this is called Special Category Data. If we need this information, we only process what we need, for the shortest period of time necessary and in accordance with a specific legal reason for doing so.

Transferring your personal data out of the EEA
From time to time it may be necessary to send your personal data outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). Examples of when this might occur are where the third parties that we need to use are located outside of the EEA, for example, if foreign legal representation is required, if you or part of an organisation you are involved in are based outside the EEA, if the case you have instructed us about concerns countries or laws outside of the EEA.

The transfer of your personal data is still subject to special rules under current European and UK data protection legislation.

Non-EEA countries do not have the same data protection laws as the UK and EEA.

Your Rights
1. The right to access to any personal data that Sewell Law holds about you. You can ask Sewell Law to tell you what personal data we hold about you, why we hold it, to whom the personal data has been or will be disclosed, how long we will hold your personal data and where we obtained your personal data from.

2. The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data.

3. The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data. If you believe that the personal data we hold about you is inaccurate, you can ask us to correct it. We will do so as soon as possible unless there is a legal reason for the data to not be corrected.

4. The right to request that we erase all of the personal data that we hold about you or restrict what we do with your personal data. This includes your right to ask that we do not provide you with any marketing information.

5. The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party.

6. The right to object at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling) and in other situations, to object to our continued processing of your personal data.

7. The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you.

The exercise of your rights
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email or write to our Data Protection Officer(Gordon Sewell), and provide us with documentary evidence of proof of your identity and address and inform us of which right(s) you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates. This is necessary to make sure your personal data is kept secure.

Keeping your personal data secure
We have security measures in place to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

If you do not provide your personal data
There is no obligation on you to provide your personal data to us, however, as this information is required for us to provide you with our services or deliver your legitimate interests, we will not be able to offer some/all our services without it.

Complaints
If you have any queries, concerns or complaints about how Sewell Law is using your personal data, please contact Gordon Sewell in the first instance using the contact details above. We hope that we will be able to resolve any issues that you may have promptly and in a manner that is satisfactory to you.
The current data protection laws also give you the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory body. The supervisory body in the UK is the Information Commissioner’s Office (“the ICO”) who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns or by their address, which is Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF or telephone: 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this Privacy Notice
We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time.

Contact us
Please contact our Data Protection Officer by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or the information that we hold about you. Details of how you can contact him can be found at the top of this Notice.

06 October 2024