Privacy Notice

Confidentiality, Data Protection and Disclosure

Introduction

We are committed to protecting your information and privacy. This Notice (together with our website Terms of Use) explains how we use and process personal information collected and what your rights are in relation to that personal information.

Explanatory Terms

“us” “we” “our” refers to David Sayer Consultancy Limited which may be trading as David sayer Consultancy or DSC. In each case David Sayer Consultancy Limited is a company registered in England and Wales, company number 11623241.

“you” “your” refers to anyone visiting our website, any purchaser of consultancy services from us or any other party from whom data is collected as a result of us communicating with you or one of our clients.

Relevant Legislation

Your rights in relation to “Personal Information” are outlined in Data Protection legislation, most recently the General Data Protection Regulation which came into force on 25 May 2018 (“GDPR”). The GDPR specifies how your Personal Information may be used and sets out your rights.

Who is my Point of Contact?

David Sayer is the firm’s nominated Data Protection Manager.

Our Contact Information

Our current address and contact information is available on our website.

When do we obtain Personal Information?

This may be obtained when:

• You visit our website;
• You telephone us;
• You contact us or consult us in connection with the provision of consultancy services;
• Otherwise as a result of our communications with you or one of our clients.

What Personal Information do we process?

The categories of Personal Information we process include General Personal Information. This is information that might identify you such as your name, address, email addresses or your personal financial information.

We may also process special or sensitive categories of Personal Information (Special Personal Information) if this has been voluntarily provided to us. This is information that a person may ordinarily wish to keep private, for example your political or religious views or medical history. We refer to both categories of information below collectively as “Personal Information”.

How do we use your Personal Information?

When our appointment is ongoing we process Personal Information:

• to fulfil our Agreement with you;
• where you or we have a legitimate interest in doing so;
• where we are otherwise permitted by law;
• to comply with applicable law and regulation. 

We use your Personal Information for:

• service provision and internal processing (i.e. to assess and/or provide and to service your instructions or to trace and collect debts);
• management of our relationship with you (e.g. to develop your relationship with us);
• resolving queries;
• training and service review (e.g. to help us enhance our services and the quality of those services);
• statistical analysis (e.g. to help us enhance our products and services or delivery channels to keep costs down);
• complying with legal obligations (e.g. to prevent, investigate and prosecute crime, including fraud and money laundering).

When our appointment is completed and/or your matter is closed, we may still process your Personal Information where:

• we have a legitimate interest for doing so;
• we are permitted by law;
• to comply with applicable laws and regulation.

Examples of a legitimate interest where we may provide your Personal Information on a confidential basis to our Partners, employees and agents are:

• to administer your account with us, including tracing and collecting any debts;
• to ensure the safety and security of our premises (where we may also use CCTV);
• for fraud prevention purposes (including verification checks for our money laundering obligations);
• to assess client satisfaction (such as by asking you to participate in surveys);
• to help improve our services generally.

We may also use it to contact you by letter, telephone, e-mail or otherwise about our services and about events such as seminars and conferences and to send you briefings and similar material.  Contacting you by electronic means requires your specific and verifiable consent.  By signing and returning a copy of any Letter of Engagement you are agreeing that we may use your contact details and information in this way.  If you do not wish to be contacted or having provided consent previously you wish to withdraw or amend it, please inform us in writing. 

Sometimes we ask other companies or people to do typing/photocopying/other administrative duties on our files to ensure this is done promptly.  We believe we have a legitimate interest in doing this.  If you do not want your file to be outsourced, please tell us as soon as possible.

We may store information about You, Your Instructions or any other Documents and correspondence relating to Your file(s) using cloud-based technology.  Again, we believe we have a legitimate interest in acting in this way and take every possible precaution to protect your personal information.  If you do not wish for your file(s) or other information to be stored in this way, please inform Us in writing before we commence work on Your Matter.

Examples of where we are permitted by law or obliged to process your Personal Information include:

• complying with legal obligations for statutory and regulatory requirements including for example, HMRC Returns, complaint handling, anti-money laundering, reporting to our regulatory body, the Solicitors Regulation Authority;
• archiving and storage of your file. (Archiving and Storage of personal data is still classed as a processing activity even though it is not being regularly accessed and remains securely locked away); and
• for legitimate interest reasons such as conducting conflict of interest checks, statistical analysis and research to help us enhance our products and services.

Our Duty of Confidentiality 

• We are bound by a general duty of confidentially towards you as our client.  Any information which we obtain from you during our Agreement, and which is not in the public domain, will be treated as confidential except for the purposes of acting for you. 
• We will not use information confidential to you for the advantage of a third party. Conversely you accept that we will not use confidential information obtained from any other person to your advantage.

How do we share your Personal Information?

• We may share your Personal Information with a range of organisations which enable us to fulfil our Agreement with you, or where we have legitimate interests to do so, or are otherwise required by applicable law and regulation for example our auditors, other advisers, for the purposes of our professional indemnity insurance.
• On rare occasions we may be required to disclose information to relevant regulatory authorities, or under rules of professional conduct.  In such cases, we would (where both permissible and practicable) inform you of the request or requirement for disclosure. 
• If you do not wish us to disclose your Personal Information and/or your file to be released you must notify us in writing and discuss this with us when signing/acknowledging our Letter of Engagement/ Terms & Conditions of Appointment or other such document.  Please note that we may be unable to act for you in such circumstances.
• We may refer publicly to your name as a client of ours, which we believe is a legitimate interest in collecting and promoting client feedback provided we do not disclose any information which is confidential to you.
• For further information on how we use your Personal Information please see our Privacy Policy which is available on request.

Your Duty of Confidentiality

Our advice and other communications with you are confidential and may not, without our consent, be disclosed by you to any third party (other than to your employees and agents who require access and who do not disclose it further) or otherwise made public except as required by law or other regulatory authority to which you are subject.

If, as a result of our acting for you, you acquire any information in respect of which we notify you that we owe a duty of confidentiality to a third party you must keep it confidential and may not use it without our consent.

What are your rights?

You have the right to:

• be informed about the collection and use of your Personal Information;
• access your Personal Information;
• have inaccurate Personal Information rectified, or completed
• be forgotten;
• stop Personal Information being used for direct marketing.

Detailed information about these rights appears on the Information Commissioner’s website: https://ww.ico.org.uk.

What if you are not happy with how we are using your Personal Information?

Tell us but, if you are unhappy with our response, or prefer to communicate direct with the Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ww.ico.org.uk , you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. This office regulates the processing of Personal Information. You may also seek a judicial remedy.

For more detailed information read our Privacy Policy which is available on request or read the very detailed information available on the Information Commissioner’s website https://ww.ico.org.uk. David Sayer Consultancy Ltd           www.davidsayerconsultancy.co.uk