OTB LEGAL PRIVACY POLICY

OTB Legal Limited is the controller and responsible for your personal data and we can be contacted at [email protected].  Should you have any queries about your privacy rights or how this privacy notice works in practice you can contact Marcus Worthington who is our Data Protection Manager (DPM) at [email protected]. We can also be contacted at Creative House, Unit 1, Chase Park, Daleside Road, Nottingham NG2 4GT which is our registered address. For us to be able to ensure that your personal data is accurate and up to date it is important that you let us know of any changes to your personal data.

You have the right to refer any issues to The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) but would ask that you give us the opportunity to resolve any issues you may have on the contact details above in the first instance.

There may be links in our website to other websites or third-party applications which may mean that your personal data may be collected by others. As we do not control third-party websites or applications we would urge all users to read the privacy notices for these as we cannot accept any liability.

It is important that you know the data that we collect about you so that you can decide if you wish to use our website, contact us or purchase legal services.

Personal data is information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual but does not include anonymous data.

The types of data we may collect include

• Information about your identity such as name, date of birth, address, email address and phone numbers.
• Technical and usage  data about your use of our website such as IP address, browser type, operating system etc
• Marketing data such as your preferences for future communications from us.
• We will only collect any Special Categories of personal data about you (e.g. religious views, sexual orientation, health information etc) where this is provided directly by you in relation to a service you wish us to provide.

As immigration lawyers it is important that we have all relevant personal and special categories of data to be able to fully advise you on your immigration status and make applications for you. We will discuss this with you as part of your instructions but there is a possibility that we may not be able to fully advise you (or act at all) if relevant information is not provided by you.

We will collect data from you in a variety of ways depending upon the nature of the interaction we have with you. This can be either through direct interactions such as corresponding with you on a case, requesting identity details on a new business enquiry, via third party applications on our website such as Google or via marketing communication tools.

We will always ensure that we have legal reasons for processing your data.

This will generally be in the following circumstances as defined by the General Data Protection Regulation:

• Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
• Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
• Where you have consented to us processing your personal data, principally in relation to disclosure of information to third parties, and for sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

We will also be clear about the purpose and legal reason for processing your data. Below is set out the legal basis for each activity and further information to justify our legitimate interests as appropriate. There may be more than one legal basis for collecting data for each activity.

New Business Enquiries – we will be taking identity and contact details as well as relevant case instructions and documents along with reference numbers.

Lawful Basis – Performance of a contract with you; Consent for marketing purposes; Legitimate interest in business development after expiry of contractual reasons.

Legal Representation - we will be taking identity and contact details as well as relevant case instructions and documents along with reference numbers.

Lawful Basis – Performance of a contract with you; Consent for marketing purposes; Legitimate interest in business development after expiry of contractual reasons.

Business Development - we will be taking identity (including job title) and contact details as well as segmenting details by industry type and any relevant tags.

Lawful Basis -  Legitimate Interest in business development; Consent where legitimate interest does not apply (for Marketing Purposes)

Work Applications and Employees- we will be taking identity and contact details as well as your job application and CV.

Lawful Basis – Performance of a contract with you and consent for keeping your application and CV (where not initially successful). Complying with a legal obligation (e.g. HMRC records)

Analytical data for website, marketing and service feedback purposes – we will be taking technical usage data.

Lawful Basis – Legitimate interest in business development and improving service and marketing performance.

Our Approach to Data Privacy

You can opt out of receiving marketing or other materials at any time where consent is the legal basis for us holding your data.

Our website allows you to not accept cookies when browsing our site. Please be aware though that parts of our site may not fully function where consent has been refused and as such we may advise you not to use our website where cookies are not welcomed.

We will only use your personal data 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. We are happy to further clarify this if it happens. Should we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. We may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

We will not disclose your data to any third parties other than where it is necessary for the provision of our legal services to you. We always require than third parties adhere to the necessary levels of data security and only use your personal data for the specified purpose and in line with our express instructions.

Some of our third parties are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA. We always ensure that suitable safeguards are implemented where this is necessary to give you an adequate level of protection equivalent to that within the EEA.

Our security measures are designed to prevent your personal data from being used or accessed in an unauthorised. Access to your personal data is limited to those who have a genuine and legitimate reason for doing so and will always be subject to a duty of confidentiality in any event. Where a data security breach is identified we will notify those to who it applies as well as the ICO (as appropriate).

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any regulatory requirements. The appropriate retention period for personal data is determined my considering a number of factors such as the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Under certain circumstances, you have legal rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out below, please contact us.

GDPR ensures that you have the right to:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. We may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
• Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms. We generally would accept your request in this scenario.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. This right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances. This does not include the circumstances where a file transfer is requested which is not considered to be a data subject access request, and therefore a charge may apply.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

We aim to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Exceptionally, it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will always keep you updated.