We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

This privacy policy does not apply to any third-party websites that may have links to our own website.

Clients of this firm should read this policy alongside our general terms and conditions, which provide further information on confidentiality. Jackson Brierly Hudson Stoney Solicitors (incorporating A H Sutcliffe & Co) is a Partnership authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under number 51809.

We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

We are also subject to the EU General Data Protection Regulations (EUGDPR) in relation to services we offer to individuals in the European Economic Area (EEA).

Key terms

It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this policy:

We, us, our | Jackson Brierley Hudson Stoney Solicitors and JBHS Family Mediation Service (JBHS)
Data Protection Officer | Fleur Everett
Personal data | Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual
Special category personal data Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership | Genetic and biometric data (when processed to uniquely identify an individual) | Data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation
Data subject | The individual who the personal data relates to

Personal data we collect about you

The table below sets out the personal data we will or may collect in the course of providing legal services

Personal data we will collect

Your name, address, and telephone number

Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, eg your date of birth or passport details

Electronic contact details, eg your email address and mobile phone number

Information relating to the matter in which you are seeking our advice or representation 

Your financial details so far as relevant to your instructions, eg the source of your funds if you are instructing on a purchase transaction

Information about your use of our IT, communication and other systems, and other monitoring information

Personal data we may collect depending on why you have instructed us

Your National Insurance and tax details

Your bank and/or building society details

Details of your professional online presence, eg LinkedIn profile

Details of your spouse/partner and dependants or other family members, eg if you instruct us on a family matter or a will

Your employment status and details including salary and benefits, eg if you instruct us on matter related to your employment or in which your employment status or income is relevant.

Details of your pension arrangements, eg if you instruct us on a pension matter or in relation to financial arrangements following breakdown of a relationship

Your medical records, eg if we are acting for you in a personal injury claim.

The basis for collecting and processing data for Mediation Information and Assessment Meetings is provided in section 10 of the Children and Families Act 2014 and under the Family Procedure Rules 2010 Practice Direction 3A.

We collect and use this personal data to provide legal services. If you do not provide personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing those services.

How your personal data is collected

We collect most of this information from you, direct. However, we may also collect information:

• from publicly accessible sources, eg Companies House or HM Land Registry;
• directly from a third party, eg:
  • sanctions screening providers;
  • credit reference agencies;
  • client due diligence providers;
• from a third party with your consent, eg:
  • your bank or building society, another financial institution or advisor;
  • consultants and other professionals we may engage in relation to your matter;
  • your employer and/or trade union, professional body, or pension administrators;
  • your doctors, medical and occupational health professionals;
• via our website—we use cookies on our website (for more information on cookies, please see our Website Terms & Conditions & Cookie policy
• via our information technology (IT) systems, eg:
  • via our case management, document management and time recording systems;
  • from door entry systems and reception logs;
  • through automated monitoring of our websites and other technical systems, such as our computer networks and connections, CCTV and access control systems, communications systems, email, and instant messaging systems;

How and why we use personal data

Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, eg:

• where you have given consent;
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• for the performance of a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract; or
• for our legitimate interests or those of a third party.

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. We will carry out an assessment when relying on legitimate interests, to balance our interests against your own. You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests. We must then stop the processing unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds which override your interests, rights and freedoms or the processing is required to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why.

What we use your personal data for and our reasons

Providing services to you | To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract

Preventing and detecting fraud against you or us | For our legitimate interest, ie to minimise fraud that could be damaging for you and/or us

Conducting checks to identify our clients and verify their identity |  | Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes | Other activities necessary to comply with professional, legal, and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, eg under health and safety law or rules issued by our professional regulator | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
• in other cases, for our legitimate interests

To enforce legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• in other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect our business, interests, and rights

Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries, or investigations by regulatory bodies | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
• in other cases, for our legitimate interests

Ensuring business policies are adhered to, eg policies covering security and internet use | For our legitimate interests, ie to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training, and quality control | For our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• for our legitimate interests, ie to protect trade secrets and other commercially valuable information;
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Statistical analysis to help us manage our business, eg in relation to our financial performance, client base, services range, or other efficiency measures | For our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• for our legitimate interests, ie to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us;
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Protecting the security of systems and data used to provide services | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |  | We may also use your personal data to ensure the security of systems and data to a standard that goes beyond our legal obligations, and in those cases our reasons are for our legitimate interests, ie to protect systems and data and to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us
Updating client records | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• for our legitimate interests, eg making sure we can keep in touch with our clients about existing and new services

Statutory returns | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• for our legitimate interests, eg to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you

Marketing our services to: | 

• existing and former clients;
• third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services;
• third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings

Depending on the circumstances: | 

• For our legitimate interests, ie to promote our business
• consent

Credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies | For our legitimate interests, ie to ensure our clients are likely to be able to pay for our services
External audits and quality checks, eg for ISO, Lexcel or Investors in People accreditation and the audit of our accounts | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• for our legitimate interests, ie to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards;
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

To share your personal data with members of our group and third parties that will or may take control or ownership of some or all of our business (and professional advisors acting on our or their behalf) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale or in the event of our insolvency |  | In such cases information will be anonymised where possible and only shared where necessary | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• in other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect, realise or grow the value in our business and assets

Our Reasons

Providing services to you | To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract
Preventing and detecting fraud against you or us | For our legitimate interest, ie to minimise fraud that could be damaging for you and/or us
Conducting checks to identify our clients and verify their identity |  | Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes | Other activities necessary to comply with professional, legal, and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, eg under health and safety law or rules issued by our professional regulator | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
• in other cases, for our legitimate interests

To enforce legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• in other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect our business, interests, and rights

Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries, or investigations by regulatory bodies | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
• in other cases, for our legitimate interests

Ensuring business policies are adhered to, eg policies covering security and internet use | For our legitimate interests, ie to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training, and quality control | For our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• for our legitimate interests, ie to protect trade secrets and other commercially valuable information;
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Statistical analysis to help us manage our business, eg in relation to our financial performance, client base, services range, or other efficiency measures | For our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• for our legitimate interests, ie to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us;
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Protecting the security of systems and data used to provide services | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |  | We may also use your personal data to ensure the security of systems and data to a standard that goes beyond our legal obligations, and in those cases our reasons are for our legitimate interests, ie to protect systems and data and to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us
Updating client records | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• for our legitimate interests, eg making sure we can keep in touch with our clients about existing and new services

Statutory returns | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• for our legitimate interests, eg to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you

Marketing our services to: | 

• existing and former clients;
• third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services;
• third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings

Depending on the circumstances: | 

• For our legitimate interests, ie to promote our business
• consent

Credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies | For our legitimate interests, ie to ensure our clients are likely to be able to pay for our services
External audits and quality checks, eg for ISO, Lexcel or Investors in People accreditation and the audit of our accounts | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• for our legitimate interests, ie to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards;
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

To share your personal data with members of our group and third parties that will or may take control or ownership of some or all of our business (and professional advisors acting on our or their behalf) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale or in the event of our insolvency |  | In such cases information will be anonymised where possible and only shared where necessary | Depending on the circumstances: | 

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• in other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect, realise or grow the value in our business and assets

How and why we use your personal data—Special category personal data

Before we process special category personal data (see above “Key Terms”), we will also ensure we are permitted to do so under data protection laws, eg:

• we have your explicit consent;
• the processing is necessary to protect your (or someone else’s) vital interests where you are physically or legally incapable of giving consent; or
• the processing is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims this includes using special category personal data, where necessary, for:
  • actual or prospective court proceedings;
  • obtaining legal advice; or
  • establishing, exercising, or defending legal rights in any other way.

How and why we use your personal data—sharing

See ‘Who we share your personal data with’ for more information on the steps we will take to protect your personal data where we need to share it with others.

Marketing

We will use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text message, telephone, post or social media channels) about our services, including exclusive offers, promotions, or new services.

We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data for marketing purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal data’). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you marketing information. If we change our marketing approach in the future so that consent is needed, we will ask for this separately and clearly.

You have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by:

• contacting us at [email protected];
• using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in emails or ‘STOP’ number in texts; or
• We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.

We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell it with other organisations for marketing purposes.

Who we share your personal data with?

We routinely share personal data with:

• third parties we use to help deliver our services to you, eg providers of our case management and finance system, IT service providers including cloud service providers such as data storage platforms, shared service centres and financial institutions in connection with invoicing and payments; payment service providers, warehouses, and delivery companies;
• third party external advisors or experts engaged in the course of providing services to you, eg. barristers, tax advisors, technology service providers and document review platforms;
• other third parties we use to help us run our business, eg marketing agencies or website hosts;
• third parties approved by you, eg social media sites you choose to link your account to or third-party payment providers;
• our insurers
• our bank(s)

We only allow those organisations to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also impose contractual obligations on them to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.

We or the third parties mentioned above occasionally also share personal data with:

• our external auditors, eg in relation to the audit of our accounts, in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations
• our and their professional advisors (such as lawyers and other advisors), in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations
• law enforcement agencies, courts, tribunals, and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
• other parties that have or may acquire control or ownership of our business (and our or their professional advisers) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, or asset sale or in the event of our insolvency—usually, information will be anonymised, but this may not always be possible. The recipient of any of your personal data will be bound by confidentiality obligations

Who we share your personal data with—further information

If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).

Where your personal data is held

Personal data may be held at our offices third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see ‘Who we share your personal data with’).

Some of these third parties may be based outside the UK. For more information, including on how we safeguard your personal data when this occurs, see below: ‘Transferring your personal data out of the UK”.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will not keep your personal data for longer than we need it for the purpose for which it is used.

As a general rule, if we are no longer providing services to you, we will delete or anonymise your account data after 6 years. However, different retention periods apply for different types of personal data and for different services. Further details on this are available in our Information Management Policy.

When it is no longer necessary to keep your personal data, we will delete or anonymise it.

Transferring your personal data out of the UK

To deliver services to you, it may sometimes be necessary for us to share your personal data outside the UK eg:

• with your and our service providers located outside the UK;
• if you are based outside the UK
• where there is a European and/or international dimension to the services we are providing to you.

We will transfer your personal data outside of the UK only where:-

• the recipient country ensures an adequate level of protectionof personal data (known as an adequacy decision); or
• there are appropriate safeguards in place (eg. standard contractual data protection clauses published or approved by the relevant data protection regulator), together with enforceable rights and effective legal remedies for you; or
• a specific exception applies under data protection law.

If you would like a list of countries benefiting from a UK or European adequacy decision or for any other information about protection of personal data when it is transferred abroad please contact our Data Protection Officer (see ‘How to contact us’ below).

Your rights

You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:

Access | The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data
Rectification | The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data
Erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten) | The right to require us to delete your personal data—in certain situations
Restriction of processing | The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data—in certain situations, eg if you contest the accuracy of the data
Data portability | 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—in certain situations
To object | The right to object: | 

• at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling);
• in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, eg processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests unless there are compelling legitimate grounds for the processing to continue or the processing is required for the establishment, exercise, or defence of legal claims.

Not to be subject to automated individual decision making | 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 right to withdraw consent | If you have provided us with a consent to use your personal data you have a right to withdraw that consent easily at any time |  | You may withdraw consents by contacting us at [email protected] Withdrawing a consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn

For more information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

• email, call or write to us—see below: ‘How to contact us’; and
• provide enough information to identify yourself (eg your full name, address and client or matter reference number)]and any additional identity information we may reasonably request from you;
• let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.

Keeping your personal data secure

We have implemented appropriate technical and organisational security measures to keep your personal data confidential and secure from unauthorised access, use and disclosure. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your personal data will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We request our business partners, suppliers and other third parties to implement appropriate security measures to protect personal data from unauthorised access, use and disclosure.

We also have procedures 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 want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your personal data and other information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit https://www.getsafeonline.org/. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.

How to complain

Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data (see below ‘How to contact us’). We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with:

• the Information Commissioner in the UK;
• a relevant data protection supervisory authority in your jurisdiction The UK’s Information Commissioner may be contacted using the details at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/ or by telephone: 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this privacy policy

This privacy policy was published in October 2021 and updated in November 2023

We may change this privacy policy from time to time when we do we will inform you in writing and we will publish a copy on our website.

Updating Your Personal Data

We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal data remains accurate and up to date. To help us with this, please let us know if any of the personal data you have provided to us has changed, eg. your surname or address – see below “How to contact us”.

How to contact us

You can contact us and/or our Data Protection Officer by post, email, or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.

Our contact details are shown below:

Jackson Brierley Hudson Stoney, The Old Parsonage, 2 St Mary’s Gate, Rochdale OL16 1AP

Email:  [email protected] Tel: 01706 644187

Our Data Protection Officer’s contact details - Fleur Everett 

If you would like this policy in another format (for example audio, large print, braille) please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ above).