This privacy notice (“Notice) sets out how Napier Sterling Law Limited (“we”, “our” or “us”) collects, stores, uses and protects your personal data under applicable data protection law, in particular the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). The Notice also sets out how we might share your information, and what your rights are in relation to your personal data, including who to contact both at Napier Sterling and the supervisory authority. It should be read in conjunction with our website terms of use, cookie policy and any other documents referred to in them or this Notice.
Controller
In accordance with the GDPR, Napier Sterling Law Limited is the controller and responsible for your personal data. We will process your personal data in accordance with the GDPR and all other applicable legislation relating to data privacy and your instructions.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the by email at contact@napiersterling.com.
The types of personal data we collect about you
Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.
When you access the Napier Sterling website, if you are a potential client or if you become a client of the firm, we may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:
- Identity Data includes first name, last name, any previous names, marital status, title, date of birth, gender, eye colour and the names of your parents.
- Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
- Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
- Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you.
- Technical Data includes internet protocol address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, device ID and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
- Usage Data includes information about how you interact with and use our website.
- Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences.
We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data which is not personal data as it does not directly (or indirectly) reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate individuals’ Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature to analyse general trends in how users are interacting with our website to help improve the website and our service offering.
How is your personal data collected?
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
- Your interactions with us. You may give us your personal data by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise, or while engaging us to provide services to you. This includes personal data you provide when you:
- undertake our know your client onboarding processes;
- request marketing to be sent to you; or
- give us feedback or contact us.
- Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
- Third parties or publicly available sources. We will receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources such as:
- Companies House, HM Land Registry, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, social media accounts.
- Credit reference agencies.
- Third party electronic verifier service providers we use to undertake know your client and anti-money laundering checks.
- Third parties we engage with as part of delivering client services.
- Contact, Financial and Transaction Data is collected from providers of technical, payment and delivery services.
How we use your personal data
The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We rely on one or more of the following legal bases:
- Performance of a contract with you. Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you. For example, this will include onboarding you as a client of Napier Sterling, communicating with you, providing legal advice and billing and collecting payments.
- Legitimate interests. We may use your personal data where it is necessary to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests. For example, such interests might include preventing fraud, managing our lawyer-client relationship, accessing our premises and virtual portals, performing contracts with our clients, providing legal updates, marketing and ensuring the security of our networks and information technology. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data 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).
- Legal obligation. We may use your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to.
- We rely on consent only where we have obtained your active agreement to use your personal data for a specified purpose, for example if you subscribe to an email newsletter.
Marketing
When we onboard clients and your personal data is collected, you may be asked to indicate how you would like to receive marketing communications (by post, email or telephone) from us. If you do not wish to receive marketing communications, you can use the opt-out links within any marketing communication sent to you or by contacting us at contact@napiersterling.com.
Security
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. Those measures including engaging third-party IT specialists to ensure our information technology systems are up-to-date and apply the most recent updates, and to conduct information security checks and training for our employees.
In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
Disclosures of your personal data
We may share your personal data where necessary as follows:
- Third party advisors, such as specialist legal advisors, wealth advisors, tax advisors, barristers, accountants and trade mark and patent attorneys.
- Parties on a matter on which we are engaged to advise.
- Electronic verification service providers. We use Verify365 to conduct the know your client and anti-money laundering checks we are required to perform. Verify365 uses an app through which potential clients submit identification documents, which in turn are processed using Verify365’s proprietary software (including biometric software) and access to global politically exposed persons and sanctions lists, the electoral register, UK Financial Conduct Authority regulated Open Banking digital statements and other sources. The results of Verify365’s checks are compiled into a report which is made available to us, and which is held in accordance with this Notice. Any personal data you submit via the Verify365 app will be processed in accordance with Verify365’s privacy policy, which can be found via its website. Occasionally it may be that you provide personal data (such as scans of identification documents) to us, and we then supply that information to Verify365 for the purposes of complying with our know your client and anti-money laundering obligations.
- Our insurers, regulators, accountants and bankers.
- Third party service providers such as information technology specialists and service providers (both software and hardware), word processing specialists, bulk printer/copier service providers, e-discovery and investigation service providers.
- Marketing specialists and legal directories.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
International transfers
It may occasionally be necessary to transfer your personal data outside the UK and the European Economic Area. When we do so, we will try to ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that the following safeguards are in place:
- We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed by the UK to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data.
- We may use specific standard contractual terms approved for use in the UK which give the transferred personal data the same protection as it has in the UK by using standard contract clauses approved by the European Commission.
Where it is not possible to ensure such similar degree of protection, we will only transfer such personal information where it is strictly necessary to do so. For example, that might be to provide the services we have contractually agreed to provide to you.
Data retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you. We would typically retain your personal data for six years from the date of termination of the relevant matter.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider 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, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.
Your legal rights
You have several rights in relation to your personal data. You have the right to:
- Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “subject access request”).
- Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.
- Request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances. 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. Note, however, that 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) as the legal basis for that particular use of your data (including carrying out profiling based on our legitimate interests). In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object.
- You also have the absolute right to object any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes.
- Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that 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. This will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent.
- Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios:
- If you want us to establish the data’s accuracy.
- Where our use of the data is unlawful, but you do not want us to erase it.
- 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.
- You have objected to our use of your data, but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact contact@napiersterling.com.
No fee usually required
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 could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
What we may need from you
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 may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
Time limit to respond
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could 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 notify you and keep you updated.
Complaints
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
Changes to the privacy notice
We keep this Notice under regular review, and we reserve the right to make changes to it. Any changes will be reflected on this page.
Your duty to inform us of changes
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us, for example a new address or email address.
Third-party links
This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.