Introduction

Welcome to the Creed Solicitors privacy policy.

Creed Solicitors respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will let you know how we look after your personal data, your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

Please use the Glossary to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this privacy policy.

1. Important information, and who we are.

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how Creed Solicitors collects and processes your personal data.

Our website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

Controller

Creed Solicitors Limited is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as Creed Solicitors, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy).

Contact details

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our privacy practices, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact Creed Solicitors in the following ways:

Full name of legal entity: Creed Solicitors Limited
Email address: info@creedsolicitors.com
Postal address: 255A Upper Newtownards Road, Belfast, BT4 3JF
Telephone number: +44 2890 650 481

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority 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 policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was last updated on [18 December 2019].
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.

Third-party links

Our 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 policy of every website you visit.

2. The data we collect about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data means first name, maiden name, last name, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
• Contact Data means billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Financial Data means bank account details.
• Transaction Data means details about payments to and from you.
• Marketing and Communications Data means your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.
• We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data (as defined in the General Data Protection Regulation) about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with services). In this case, we may have to cancel the service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3. How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

• Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity Data, Contact Data and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
• apply for our services on your own behalf or on behalf of a business you represent;
• 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 may automatically collect data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies.
• Third parties or publicly available sources. Our clients and persons who refer work to us (as data controllers in their own right) may pass your Identity Data and Contact Data onto us, for example:
• because you are a representative of or adviser to one of our clients or a potential client and you are instructing us or working with us;
• because you or your employer or other entity you represent are a customer of one of our clients and our client has asked us to review their files, for example, to advise them on responding to a dispute or potential dispute you have with them. In doing so, we may also directly process, for example, Identity Data in relation to the employees of the customers of one our clients or other such data as required in order to provide our services to our client.
• because you or your employer or other entity you represent is considering entering into a contract, or will enter into a contract or has entered into a contract with one of our clients and we have been instructed to advise in relation to that contract. In which case, we may also directly process, for example, Contact Data or Identity Data of you or your employer or employees of the entity you represent.
• because you or your employer or other entity you represent is in a dispute with or will potentially be in a dispute with one of our clients which we have been asked to advise on. In which case, we may also directly process, for example, Contact Data or Identity Data of you or your employer or employees of the entity you represent or an entity which represents you in this dispute.
• Our suppliers, including for example our accountants, landlord, bankers, stationary providers, electricity providers etc may pass your Identity Data and Contact Data onto us in the ordinary course of business.
• Contact, Financial Data and Identity Data from providers of delivery services inside the EU.
• Identity Data and Contact Data from publicly available sources such as Companies House.

4. How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• 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 obligation.
• Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Purpose/Activity
Type of data
Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest

To register you or a business you represent as a new customer
(a) Identity
(b) Contact
(a) Performance of a contract with you
(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for example running our business and to prevent money laundering and fraud)
(c) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

To manage our relationship with you or the business you represent which will include:
(a) providing our services to you or paying you or the business you represent;
(b) notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy; and
(c) notifying you about information relevant to our services. (a) Identity
(b) Contact
(c) Marketing and Communications
(d) Financial
(a) Performance of a contract with you
(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to run our business)

To make suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you
(a) Identity
(b) Contact
(c) Marketing and Communications
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our services and grow our business)

To advise our client on its relationship with you or the business you represent. (a) Identity
(b) Contact
(c) Financial
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to provide legal services to our clients)

Change of purpose

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. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that 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.

5. Disclosures of your personal data

We may share your personal data with the parties set out below:

• Our service providers and agents (including their sub-contractors) or third parties which process information on our behalf (e.g. internet service and platform providers, payment processing providers, software application providers and those organisations we engage to help us send communications to you) so that they may help us to provide you with the services and information you have requested or which we believe is of interest to you.
• Third parties where you have a relationship with that third party and you have consented to us sending information (for example other professional advisers, or other persons or businesses you have a relationship with).
• Credit reference and fraud prevention agencies.
• Regulators to meet Creed Solicitors legal and regulatory obligations.
• Law enforcement agencies so that they may detect or prevent crime or prosecute offenders.
• Any third party in the context of actual or threatened legal proceedings, provided we can do so lawfully (for example in response to a court order).
• Any third party in order to meet our legal and regulatory obligations, including statutory or regulatory reporting or the detection or prevention of unlawful acts.
• Our professional advisors and accountants for the purpose of seeking professional advice or to meet our audit responsibilities.
• Another organisation if we choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or assets.
• Another organisation to whom we may transfer our letter of engagement with you or your employer/company or sub-contract some of the services we have agreed to carry out for you.
• Government departments where reporting is mandatory under applicable law.

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.

6. International transfers

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries.
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe. For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries.
• Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between Europe and the US. For further details, see European Commission: EU-US Privacy Shield.
• Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the EEA.

7. Data 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. 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.

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.

8. Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

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. 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.

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.

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 legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

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 requirements.

We will retain your personal data for the duration of our business relationship and afterwards for as long as is necessary and relevant for our legitimate business purposes, in accordance with the relevant Creed Solicitors policies or as otherwise required by applicable laws and regulations. Where we no longer need your personal information, we will dispose of it in a secure manner (without further notice to you).

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see below for further information.

9. Your legal rights

Under the GDPR you have the following rights:

• 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.
• The right to 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.
• The right to 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. 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.
• The right to object to processing of your personal data – this arises 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.
• 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.
• The right to 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. 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.
• The right to 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.

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.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally 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 notify you and keep you updated.

11. Glossary

Lawful basis

Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights 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). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to.