Overview

We take our obligations under privacy and data protection law very seriously.  This Privacy Policy is designed to help you understand what Personal Information we collect, why, how we use it and who we share it with.  It also explains the rights you have in connection with your Personal Information, including how to contact us or to make a complaint.

This notice applies to Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP (WBD UK), who we also refer to throughout as “we”, “us” or “our”.  See below for our ‘Contact Information’.

WBD UK is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights.  As a data controller we are responsible for ensuring that when we process Personal Information we comply with EU and UK data protection law and use it in accordance with our client’s instructions and our professional duty of confidentiality.

If you have any questions about this notice please get in touch with your usual WBD UK contact or see below for our ‘Contact Information’.

This Privacy Policy may change from time to time and in response to guidance and best practice advice issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office in particular in response to the change in data protection law in the UK on 25 May 2018.  We will inform you of changes via our website and if you are a client we will inform you of any key changes in writing.  This Privacy Policy was last updated on 24 May 2018.

Glossary of Key terms used in this Privacy Policy

We, us, our Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP
Data Protection Officer Nicki Shepherd

See below for ‘Contact Information’

Personal Information Also referred to as ‘personal data’ and means information about a living person by which that person can be identified.

Some of that information will identify the individual directly, for example by giving their name and email address.  It may also be possible to identify someone indirectly, from information in which their name is not given, for example by naming their job title and employer, or by using another form of identifier such as their IP address.

See below in ‘What Personal Information do we collect and use?’  for examples of the type of information which would fall within this definition.

Special Category Personal Information Personal information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership

Genetic and biometric data

Data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation

Website the website at this address https://financialinstitutionsnews.com/

What Personal Information do we collect and use?

The type of Personal Information we collect and process depends on our relationship with you and the context in which we obtain and use it.  The table below sets out the Personal Information we will or may collect depending on the circumstances.

Personal Information we will collect Personal Information we may collect depending on our relationship with you
Business development and Website use

This Personal Information will be used to develop our business and the services we provide.

Technical Personal Information in connection with details of your visits to our Website including your internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating systems and platforms (see also below ‘Visitors to our Website’).

 

Details about the services or business and legal updates you specifically request
  Details of your name, email address and service and marketing preferences if you subscribe to our updates and communications.

 

How Personal Information is collected and your responsibilities

We will collect Personal Information from you via our Website (see below ‘Visitors to our Website’) and when you provide contact information to us if you choose to receive updates and other related information from us.

Visitors to our website

We use Google Analytics to collect statistical information about the number of visitors to our Website.  This information includes, pages visited and content searched.  Further information can be obtained from the Google privacy policy – https://policies.google.com/privacy.  We use this information to maintain and improve our Website and the services we provide and to analyse and understand what is of interest to our Website visitors so we can improve and tailor the content and this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity.

We use technology to track the patterns of behaviour of visitors to our Website.  This can include using a “cookie” which would be stored on your browser or the hard drive of your computing device.  Please read our Cookies Policy for more information about how we use cookies and similar technologies: https://financialinstitutionsnews.com/cookies-policy/.

Our Website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children via the Website.

How and why we use your Personal Information

Under data protection law, we can only use your Personal Information if we have a proper reason for doing so, for example:

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

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your Personal Information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.  We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your Personal Information for our legitimate interests.  We do not use your Personal Information 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).

The table below explains what we use your Personal Information for and our reasons for doing so. In general terms we will collect Personal Information to:

  • provide you with information about our business and the services we offer including relevant communications; and/or
  • help us improve our business and the services we offer.
What we use your Personal Information for Our reasons
Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Ensuring our business policies (and client requirements) are adhered to, eg policies covering security and internet use For our legitimate interests or those of a third party
Operational reasons, such as improving our business and services by undertaking analysis and research and assessing your satisfaction with our services, efficiency, insurance purposes, training and quality control For our legitimate interests or those of a third party
To respond to any complaint or allegation of negligence made against us For our legitimate interests or those of a third party

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Statistical analysis to help us manage our business For our legitimate interests or those of a third party
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems For our legitimate interests or those of a third party

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

To contact you about our services and events which we think may be of interest to you, and to provide you with legal updates and briefings For our legitimate interests or those of a third party

The information above does not apply to any Special Category Personal Information which you may have provided to us, and which we will usually only process with your explicit consent.

Change of purpose

We will only use your Personal Information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.  If we need to use your Personal Information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

We may process your Personal Information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

Marketing communications

We may use your Personal Information to send you updates (by email, telephone or post) about legal developments that might be of interest to you and/or information about our services, including new services.

We have a legitimate interest in processing your Personal Information for our business development purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your Personal Information’).  This means we do not usually need your consent to send you legal updates and information about our services.  However, where consent is needed (for example to send you electronic communications), we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.

We will always treat your Personal Information with the utmost respect and we will never sell or share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.

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

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.

Who we share your Personal Information with

We share Personal Information with external service suppliers and analysis suppliers.

Our IT support and service providers may also access your Personal Information as a consequence of them providing support to us.

We only allow our service providers to handle your Personal Information if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your Personal Information.  We also impose contractual obligations on service providers to ensure they can only use your Personal Information to provide services to us and to you.

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

If we are acquired, or substantially all of our assets are acquired, by a third party (or are subject to a reorganisation), Personal Information held by us will be one of the assets which is transferred.

Where your Personal Information is held

Information may be held at our offices and by our third party support and service providers.  We also hold your Personal Information in secure data centres in the UK (and in relation to personal data held in our client relationship management system only, in secure data centres in the UK, France and Germany) with all reasonable technological and operational measures put in place to safeguard it from unauthorised access.

Some of the third parties may be based outside the European Economic Area (EEA).  For more information, including on how we safeguard your Personal Information when this occurs, see below ‘Transferring your Personal Information out of the EEA’   and ‘How we protect your personal information’

Transferring your Personal Information out of the EEA

To deliver services to you, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your Personal Information outside the European Economic Area (EEA), eg with our service providers located outside the EEA or if you are based outside the EEA.

These transfers are subject to special rules under European and UK data protection law.  In those circumstances, we undertake an assessment of the level of protection in light of the circumstances surrounding the transfer.  We will make sure that any transfers are not repetitive and only limited to the minimum amount of information possible and will always take steps to ensure that your Personal Information is adequately protected.  In certain circumstances we may need to seek your consent unless there is an overriding legal need to transfer the Personal Information.

Where necessary we have entered into standard European Commission approved model data protection clauses with our external service providers and business partners in relation to the services they provide which may involve processing Personal Information for which we are the data controller from locations outside the EEA.

Our current IT support is provided from across the world and when support is provided remotely, your Personal Data may be accessed from and therefore transferred to that country.  One of the countries to which we may transfer Personal Information in connection with IT support is Canada; this has been assessed by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of protection for Personal Information.  We also receive IT support from the USA, South Africa and Australia and these do not have the same data protection laws as the United Kingdom and EEA.  We will, however, ensure the transfer complies with data protection law and all Personal Information will be secure.

How long your Personal Information will be kept

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

When it is no longer necessary to retain your Personal Information, we will delete or anonymise it.  In some circumstances we may anonymise your Personal Information (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.

To determine the appropriate retention period for Personal Information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the Personal Information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of it, the purposes for which we process your Personal Information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data, see ‘Your rights with respect to your personal information’ below.

Complaints or requests

If you complain to us about how we have processed your Personal Information or you seek to exercise a data protection right such as a data subject access request, we will retain details of your complaint or request.  We will only use the Personal Information we collect to process the complaint or request, to audit the level of service we have provided and to provide information to our insurers or regulator.

We will keep information in connection with the complaint or request in line with our retention policy.  In most cases this means we will retain the information for six years.

How we protect your Personal Information

Keeping information secure is a key part of data protection compliance.  We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent 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 employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have 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 or where we have otherwise agreed with you that we will.

With the exception of our new Edinburgh office which has yet to undergo an external certification audit, we are certified to ISO 27001 (information security) which is an international standard published by the International Standardization Organization (ISO) and describes best practice in information security management.  To maintain our ISO 27001 certification we undergo regular independent security audits.  We also maintain our own internal audit programme to verify that our staff are familiar with and adhere to our policies and procedures.

Your rights with respect to your Personal Information

You are entitled at any time to ask us for a copy of Personal Information we hold about you, known as a data subject access request.  You are also entitled to ask that any information we hold about you is supplemented, updated or rectified.  You can make any of these requests free of charge by contacting us – see our ‘Contact Information’ below.

In certain circumstances you can also ask us to restrict our processing of your Personal Information, eg if you contest the accuracy of it.  We will always review your request and will inform you if we decide we are not required to action it.  If you require us to restrict or stop processing your Personal Information in any way, this may impact on our ability to provide our legal or professional services to you.  Depending on the nature of your requests we may have to stop acting for you but you will still have to pay any unpaid fees and disbursements which we have incurred on your behalf to date.

You are entitled to ask that we send a copy of the Personal Information we hold about you to another organisation for your own purposes, for example if you intend to instruct another service provider instead of us.  If you want us to move, copy or transfer your Personal Information in these circumstances, please let your usual WBD UK contact know or contact us, see ‘Contact Information’ below..  We will aim to respond to your request within one month once we have assessed how feasible your request is, taking into account the technical capability of the other organisation involved.

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

We do not use your Personal Information for automated decision making.

How to complain

We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you may raise about our use of your information.  If you want to complain about how we have handled your Personal Information, please follow the procedure in our Complaints Policy which is available on our legal notices on the Website.  We will investigate your complaint but if you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your Personal Information unlawfully, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. Further information is available on the ICO website at www.ico.org.uk/concerns or telephone 0303 123 1113.

The EU General Data Protection Regulation also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or EEA) State where you work, normally live or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred.  The UK supervisory authority is the Information Commissioner.

Contact information

Please contact us 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.

Our contact details Our Data Protection Officer’s contact details
dataprotectionqueries@wbd-uk.com

Our Helpdesk – 0191 2799468

Nicki Shepherd, General Counsel

Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP

Oceana House, 39-49 Commercial Road,

Southampton, Hampshire,

UK

SO15 1GA

Email address and telephone number are the same as for our general contact details opposite

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