Privacy Policy
Gowlings Solicitors Ltd (“Gowlings Solicitors”, “we” or “us”) take your privacy and security of personal information very seriously and are committed to protecting your personal information. This privacy policy sets out the way in which any personal information you provide to us is used and kept secure. It applies whenever we collect your personal data (including when you use our website or other digital platforms), so please read it carefully.
About Us
For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998, Gowlings Solicitors Ltd is the “data controller” (i.e. the company who is responsible for, and controls the processing of, your personal data).
About this privacy policy
This privacy policy explains what information we may collect about you, how we may use it, and the steps we take to ensure that it is kept secure. We also explain your rights in respect of your personal data.
Third party websites
Please note that our website and other digital platforms may contain links to third party websites / digital platforms which are provided for your convenience. We are only responsible for the privacy practices and security of our own digital platforms. We recommend that you check the privacy and security policies and procedures of each and every other website / digital platform that you visit.
Contact Details
If you have any comments or queries regarding our use of your data, please contact Idris Natha by emailing idris@gowlingslaw.co.uk, write to us at Derby House, Lytham Road, Preston, PR2 8JE or call us on 01772 251 287.
What information do we collect about you and what is it used for?
All personal information that we collect about you will be recorded, used, and protected by us in accordance with applicable data protection legislation and this privacy policy.
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:
(a) Identity data –name, title, job title, address, telephone number, email address, photographic identification, date of birth, credit check
(b) Contact data – billing address, email address and telephone numbers.
(c) Financial Information – bank account or payment card details
(d)Transaction data – details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
(e) Matter information – the categories of personal information that we hold will vary according to the type of matter that we are instructed to advise on. By way of example this may include (and is not limited to) criminal convictions or offences, medical conditions, surgeries, therapies, medical history or disabilities.
(f) Marketing information – name, title, job title, address, telephone number, email address, company, engagement, event attendance history, and marketing preferences
(g) Website data – when you interact with our digital platforms, we may also automatically collect the following information about your visit. This is primarily to help us better understand how people use our digital platforms to enable us create better content and more relevant communications:
- how you have reached our digital platform and the internet protocol (IP) address you have used
- your browser type, versions and plug-ins, and your operating system
- your journey through our digital platform, including which links you click on and any searches you made, how long you stayed on a page, and other page interaction information
- what content you like or share
- information collected in any online forms you complete
(h) Social media information – username, company details and engagement details (likes, retweets, shares, reactions, comments).
(i) Monitoring – CCTV footage, vehicle details, PC login details, use of our IT and communications systems.
How your data is used
In broad terms, we use your data for the following purposes:
| 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 |
(a) Performance of a contract with you
(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation |
| To administer and provide any legal services or products you have used, requested or expressed an interest in, including
– Managing payments, fees and charges – Collect and recover money owed to us |
(a) Identity
(b) Contact (c) Financial (d) Transaction (e) Matter |
(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 leave a review or take a survey |
(a) Identity
(b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Marketing and Communications (f) Marketing (g) Website |
(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 customers use our products/services) |
| To communicate with you about legal updates, breaking news, newsletters and event invitations which are relevant to your interests and in line with your preferences. | (a) Identity
(b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Transaction (f) Marketing (g) Website (i) Social media |
(a) Performance of a contract with you
(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/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 (g) Website |
(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 or group restructuring exercise)
(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation |
| To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you | a) Identity
(b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Transaction (f) Marketing (g) Website (h) Social media |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy) |
| To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences | (g) website
(b) Usage |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy) |
| To conduct human resource administration to process applications for employment | (a) Identity | Performance with a contract with you |
| To ensure the firms offices and its stored information is secure we use CCTV services. | (i) Monitoring | Necessary for our legitimate interests (for the protection of our staff and prevention of crime) |
How we collect your data
Client Information
We collect personal information directly from clients as part of our file opening process and may also obtain further information about specific matters from other sources, including publicly available registers, court transcripts, credit searches and private investigators.
We may also collect further information from other sources such as Companies House, the electoral register or market information providers.
Marketing Information
We collect marketing and social media personal information either directly from clients, and from social media platforms when clients engage with our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
Disclosure of your personal data
In order to provide our products and services to you or to otherwise fulfil contractual arrangements that we have with you, we may need to use selected third parties to carry out data processing activities on our behalf.
We may share your data with third parties:
- if we are under a legal or regulatory duty to do so
- if it is necessary to do so to enforce our contractual rights
- to lawfully assist the police or security services with the prevention and detection of crime or terrorist activity
- where such disclosure is necessary to protect the safety or security of any persons,
- otherwise as permitted under applicable law.
We will not share your data with any third parties other than when we are legally obliged to do so without prior consent, and we will ensure that your information is appropriately protected if, after your consent, we do.
Data Security
We have put in place appropriate security measures to protect your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those people who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.
Monitoring
We may monitor and record communications with you (such as telephone conversations and emails) for the purpose of quality assurance to improve the quality of services that we provide to you.
Credit checking
To enable us to make credit decisions about you and for fraud prevention and money laundering purposes, we may search the files of credit reference and fraud prevention agencies (who will record the search). We may disclose information about how you conduct your account to such agencies and your information may be linked to records relating to other people living at the same address with whom you are financially linked. Other credit grantors may use this information to make credit decisions about you and the people with whom you are financially associated, as well as for fraud prevention, debtor tracing and money laundering purposes. If you provide false or inaccurate information and we suspect fraud, we will record this.
Your rights
You may correct or update your personal information at any time by emailing us at mail@gowlingslaw.co.uk
We will securely retain your information for as long as is reasonably necessary and in accordance with applicable law. If you wish to submit a request that your data be deleted, please write to us at the above address. You have the right to receive a copy of the personal information that we hold about you. Please write to us at the address above if you wish to exercise this right.
Complaints
If you have any concerns over how we use your data, please contact us in the first instance by either telephoning 01772 251 287, emailing idris@gowlingslaw.co.uk or by post to Derby House, Lytham Road, Preston, PR2 8JE.
In due course if you are not satisfied that we have addressed your concerns adequately, you have the right to make a complaint to the supervisory authority, the details of which will be provided to you as part of the above process.
Cookie Policy
To make this site work properly, we sometimes place small data files called cookies on your device. Most big websites do this too.
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site. It enables the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login, language, font size and other display preferences) over a period of time, so you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you come back to the site or browse from one page to another.
How do we use cookies?
We use the following cookies:
Necessary cookies – These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website or make use of online booking forms.
Google Analytics – a web analytics service provided by Google. These cookies allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works and is structured.
Facebook Pixel – Used for tracking visitor behaviour to improve website usability and performance, we may also use Facebook Pixel and Facebook Advertising to advertise relevant services to website visitors. If you do not wish to be remarketed to in future you can control this via Facebook or you can block the Pixel via your phones operating system or browser.
Functionality cookies – These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you and remember your preferences.
Third-party cookies – (for example, Linkedin and Facebook). Some third-party software utilises its own cookies over which we have little or no control. You can find out about their use of cookies by visiting the third party’s website.
Enabling some of these cookies is not strictly necessary for the website to work but it will provide you with a better browsing experience. You can delete or block these cookies, but if you do that some features of this site may not work as intended.
The cookie-related information is not used to identify you personally. These cookies are not used for any purpose other than those described here.
How to control cookies
You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish – for details, see aboutcookies.org. You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. If you do this, however, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site and some services and functionalities may not work.
This site uses cookies – small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping baskets, and provide anonymised tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better. However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. We suggest consulting the Help section of your browser or taking a look at the About Cookies website which offers guidance for all modern browsers.