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GDPR

Who holds your personal data

Aston Bond is the data controller that holds and processes any personal data we may have about you.  Some third parties may process some of your personal data on our instructions as explained below.

Please email gdpr-enquiry@astonbond.co.uk with any concerns or queries you may have regarding your personal data.

When you browse our website

Our website tracks your browsing history anonymously by use of cookies (data it places on your computer or other device).  We use these to analyse how people use our website and to measure the effectiveness of our digital marketing campaigns.  You can decline cookies using the opt out option on the website or by configuring your browser to do so.

If you complete and submit a Contact Us form on our website, you provide us with your contact details and some information about a legal issue you have.  We use these to contact you in response to your request and inform you how we can help with that issue.

Our website will also associate your browsing history from the cookies with the contact details you have provided so we can send you targeted marketing information about our services.  You will be given the opportunity to opt in to receiving appropriate marketing communications and newsletters from us when you contact us or when we first contact you.  We will not send you further marketing information unless you have opted in to receiving it, and you can withdraw or change your consents at any time.

When you become a client

In order to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations for the purposes of preventing money laundering and terrorist financing we are required to carry out customer due diligence on our clients and (in most cases) to obtain evidence of identity from them as explained in our Client Care Letter and Terms of Business.  Copies of evidence of identity documents for individuals are held in electronic form only, encrypted on our servers, and are destroyed after 6 years.  Because we are legally required to hold these for regulatory purposes, you cannot request their deletion but you can request copies of them.

We also need to obtain certain personal data from you in order to enter into our contract with you for the supply of legal services; for example your name and contact details (or those of your contact directors and/or employees if you are a company) and information regarding your case and any other parties to it.

When we are acting for you as our client

We hold the personal data that is required to perform our contract with you for the supply of legal services in electronic and hard copy form and process it as necessary to provide those services and/or as you may instruct us.  We may use Cloud-based technology to store some of this data; for example our conveyancing case management system.

When we are acting for you on a family or immigration matter it may be necessary that we hold personal data about any child/ren of the family including their names and dates of birth, which we will process in accordance with our instructions to determine issues such as custody, access, maintenance and/or immigration status..  We ask that you provide us with your explicit written consent in our Client Care Letter on behalf of your child/ren to our processing their personal data.  You have the right to withdraw consent at any time.

Third Party Data

We may also process personal data relating to persons other than our clients as part of our legal services to our clients.  In litigation matters such data is processed where it is necessary in the public interest for the administration of justice.  In non-contentious matters such data is processed where it is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by our clients.

Who we may transfer your data to

Our work for you may require us to give information to third parties such as barristers we instruct on your behalf, expert witnesses and other professional advisers, government departments and/or solicitors acting for other parties to the case or transaction.

All our suppliers and reviewers have entered into appropriate confidentiality obligations and/or contractual data processing clauses with us.

If you make a complaint or claim against us, we will need to disclose your personal data regarding your case to the Legal Ombudsman, the court and/or our insurers and solicitors in accordance with our legitimate interest in resolving the complaint or claim and defending our legal position where applicable.

After we have finished acting for you

If we cease acting for you, you can ask us to send you (or your new solicitors) your file, but we have the legal right to hold onto it until you have paid us in full for our services (this is known as a “solicitor’s lien for costs”).

When we have completed a matter for you, we archive the file.  The paper file is held in our secure storage facility for 6 years from archiving and is then destroyed.  You can request its return to you at any time before then.  Electronic records held on our system may be retained for longer, but we take steps to delete any readily accessible sensitive personal data held in relation to persons who are no longer clients after 6 years.

Any original deeds or wills that we hold for you are stored indefinitely at our secure storage facility.  You can request their return to you at any time.

Your rights to your personal data

You have the legal right to request copies of personal data we hold about you as our client and the right to have it transferred to another organisation.  This is a technical process and is different from us sending you the file of documents we hold for you.  We may decline to do so to the extent it will involve disproportionate effort by us.

If a person who was not our client in relation to any personal data relating to them makes a data protection subject access request in respect of it, we will refuse to comply with it to the extent the data is protected by the duties of confidentiality we owe to our client or by legal professional privilege.

You can also request that we correct or delete any personal data we hold about you or other parties to your case and can object to or restrict its processing, but we may have to stop acting for you if this prevents us from providing a proper service to you.  We will also need to retain a record of the advice we have provided to you and its context in accordance with our legitimate interest in protecting ourselves against future negligence claims.

You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office as our supervisory authority if you have any concerns regarding our processing of your personal data.

Marketing information

We would like to tell you more about the range of legal services we offer and our events and to keep you up to date with relevant legal developments.  In the help centre and services sections of our website, you have the opportunity to download useful documents – brief data is requested from you to do this.  At the point of downloading documentation, you have the option to ‘opt in’ to receive similar information from us when it becomes available and or other marketing material.

If, however, you have consented to receive appropriate marketing communications and/or newsletters from us, we may use your contact details and information about the types of services you are interested in to send you such communications.  You can withdraw or change your consent at any time.

We do not provide your personal details to third parties for marketing purposes.  If you have asked us to recommend another professional to you (for example an accountant or another solicitor if we are unable to act), we will, with your consent, pass your contact details to them with brief details of what is required.