Privacy and cookies

Blake Morgan LLP (‘Blake Morgan’) is committed to respecting the privacy of all visitors to its website (the ‘website’) and of its clients and contacts. Please read the following privacy policy to understand how we use and protect the personal information that you provide to us or that we obtain or hold about you and to understand what your rights are in relation to personal information that we hold. This policy applies to information about living identifiable individuals only. A ‘data controller’ is a person or organisation who alone or jointly determines the purposes for which, and the manner in which, any personal data is, or is likely to be, processed. This policy is issued on behalf of Blake Morgan LLP as data controller. Blake Morgan LLP is the data controller for your personal data, unless we notify you otherwise.

Please click on the links for further information:

What information does Blake Morgan process?

From our general website

You may choose to provide personal information to us when you register with the website e.g. to register for an event, sign up for a newsletter or ask us to contact you. You may be asked to provide certain information about yourself including your name, title, postal address, telephone number and/or email address. If you are attending an event, you may also be asked to provide information about any dietary or access requirements you may have which may reveal information about your health or religious beliefs.

From our specialist websites

If you use any of our specialist websites e.g. our recruitment portal, you may be asked for information additional to your contact details e.g. information about your employment history, salary, or work permissions. The use of that information is subject to a separate privacy policy which is available on that site and below. Please check that privacy policy before supplying any information.

Automatically

We may also collect information automatically about your usage of our websites using cookies and other technology (for full details of what we use, see the section below on ‘Cookies’). To that effect, we use your IP address (a series of numbers that identifies a computer on the internet) to collect, among other things, internet traffic data and data regarding your browser type and computer. If you do not want to receive cookies, you may reject them by using your browser settings provided they are not necessary for delivery of our website or services to visitors (for help with how to do this see the section below on ‘Cookies’).

For legal work

If you seek an estimate of costs for legal work, are provided with free initial advice or become a client of the firm, we will also need information to confirm your identity e.g. your date of birth, about your matter and circumstances as well as contact information for you, your personnel and other parties to the matter. The information that we need will be explained to you by our lawyers and/or set out in our letter of engagement depending on the nature of your matter but may include both personal data and special categories of data. You may also provide us with additional information that you consider relevant as part of your instruction.

From third parties

We may also receive information about you (or your personnel) from third parties such as estate agents, accountants, banks, surveyors, medical professionals, courts, regulatory bodies and other advisors and specialists related to your matter. Our clients and matter contacts may also provide us information about you if you are involved in a transaction or dispute with one of our clients or have a connection with them such as being a tenant or employee of a client. Alternatively, you may provide us with information about you directly at our request or otherwise.

How does Blake Morgan use this information?

We will use your information for the specific purpose(s) for which it has been provided to or collected by us e.g:

to provide information that you may request regarding the services that we offer e.g. whether we can assist with certain legal advice
to contact you to introduce you to our expert lawyers
to provide our clients with legal services including referring them to other specialist advisers both in the UK and overseas
to comply with our statutory and regulatory obligations
to verify your identity and check any relevant background circumstances for anti-money laundering purposes and ‘know your client’ purposes
to book you onto a course or event
to administer your application for a vacancy
to deal with your feedback, query or complaint
to contact you for your views on our services

We also use your information to administer, support, improve and develop our business generally and to enforce our legal rights.

We may also use the information that we collect about you for marketing and hospitality purposes e.g:

to provide communications about us and other services we provide that may be of interest to you e.g. sending you newsletters
to provide you with updates on relevant areas of law and practice
to contact you about other activities and events that we may undertake
to invite you for a meal or drinks or to a hospitality event

Information gathered through cookies and similar technologies are used to measure and analyse information on visits to our websites, to tailor the websites to make them better for visitors and to improve technical performance. We will not use the data to identify you personally or to make any decisions about you.

Processing grounds

We must have a lawful basis for processing your information; this will vary on the circumstances of how and why we have your information but typical examples include:

the activities are within our legitimate interests as a law firm seeking to engage with and provide services to prospective and current clients and personnel e.g. to make our systems and procedures more efficient
you have given consent for us to process your information e.g. in relation to certain marketing activities
we are carrying out necessary steps in relation to a contract to which you are party or prior to you entering into a contract e.g. because you wish to instruct us to carry out legal services for you
the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject e.g. for us to certify your identity under our anti-money laundering requirements including carrying out electronic ID checks
to protect your vital interests e.g. if you were unfortunate enough to fall ill or suffer an injury on our premises

If we process any special categories of information i.e. information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership, genetic data, processing of biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying individuals, health data, or data concerning your sex life or sexual orientation, we must have a further lawful basis for the processing. This may include:

where you have given us your explicit consent to do so e.g. to cater for your medical or dietary needs at an event
where the processing is necessary to protect your vital interests or someone else’s vital interests
you have made the information public
the processing being necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
the processing being necessary for reasons of substantial public interest e.g. to undertake activities in relation to the prevention or detection of fraud or other unlawful or dishonest activities

If we process any information relating to your criminal convictions or offences, we will typically rely on one of the following lawful bases:

preventing or detecting unlawful acts
complying with our regulatory requirements in relation to unlawful acts or dishonesty
dealing with suspicions of terrorist financing or money laundering
where it is necessary for us to obtain legal advice or establish, exercise or defend legal rights

Marketing

If you become a client of the firm, we may use your personal information to invite you to hospitality events or other selected events for clients and/or to send you information that we think may be of interest to you or your business. This is within our legitimate interests as a law firm to use your information in this way.

We may also use personal information about our professional contacts to invite them to hospitality events or other selected events and/or to send them information that we think may be of interest to them or their business. This is also within our legitimate interests.

You will be given an opportunity to tell us whether or not you wish to receive direct marketing materials and communications from us either at the time you submit or provide your details to us (primarily if you are a private individual, a sole trader or an unincorporated partnership) and/or within the communication itself.

If you do not wish to receive any direct marketing material or communications after you submit or provide your details, please contact our Marketing team using the details below (stating UNSUBSCRIBE in the heading of any email message) indicating if you do not wish to be contacted for one or more of these marketing purposes and/or via particular forms of communication e.g. email or telephone. Please note that the preferences that you state will override any registrations you or your organisation may have with the relevant preference organisations (such as the telephone preference services).

If you change your mind about being contacted by us in the future, or change address, or if any information that we hold about you is inaccurate or out-of-date, please let us know by: emailing: [email protected] or writing to our Marketing team at: Blake Morgan LLP, Tollgate, Chandler’s Ford, Eastleigh, SO53 3LG or calling us on 023 8090 8090 and asking for the Marketing team.

CCTV Surveillance

CCTV systems are installed at all our premises. We are responsible for the CCTV systems at our Southampton office. All internal and external CCTV cameras are clearly labelled or otherwise notified to staff and visitors and are visible. Typically, they are positioned on the exterior of the building, the car park and the reception area, but may be repositioned from time to time to ensure their effective use. Images are recorded and retained for the period of time set out in our destruction dates policy summary. This is primarily to assist with security and safety of our staff and visitors to our site, although in rare cases we may use CCTV footage in investigations.

Automated Processing/Profiling

We tailor our marketing and hospitality communications to the interests of particular clients and contacts to ensure we provide information and invitations of interest and relevance to them.

We also use certain external checking systems in order to verify your identity and carry out anti-money laundering and ‘know your client’ checks.

Disclosure of your information

Some of the information you provide to Blake Morgan will be held on our computers in the UK and will only be accessed by or given to our staff (or staff of Blake Morgan-related entities) working in the UK. Some of the information you provide to Blake Morgan may be transferred to, stored and processed by third-party organisations which process data for us and on our behalf. These third parties may be based (or store or process information) in the UK or elsewhere including outside of the EEA. As with many law firms, these third parties may include third-party IT platforms (including cloud-based platforms), suppliers of administrative and support services, and suppliers of other specialist products.

We may also transfer your information to other organisations or professional advisors with whom we are working on client matters or to whom we are referring you for additional or separate advice. If you agree to act as a referee for us in relation to other legal work for which we are tendering, we will only do this with your prior permission.

We may share your information with service providers who assist us with our marketing and communications.

We may also be obliged to disclose data under certain laws or by order of Court or other competent regulatory body, or may be permitted to disclose it under applicable data protection laws.

Finally, if Blake Morgan merges with another business entity or divests a part of its business or carries out internal corporate restructuring, your information may be disclosed and transferred to Blake Morgan’s new business partners or owners or the new corporate entities.

We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy; please see section ‘Protection of your information’ below.

Protection of your information

We have in place administrative, technical and physical measures on our website and internally designed to guard against and minimise the risk of loss, misuse or unauthorised processing or disclosure of the personal information that we hold.

Where we transfer information to third parties to enable them to process it on our behalf, we ensure that the providers meet or exceed the relevant legal or regulatory requirements for transferring data to them and keeping it secure.

We will also ensure that where information is transferred to a country or international organisation outside of the UK/EEA, we will comply with the relevant legal rules governing such transfers.

We keep your personal information no longer than is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. Information on our destruction dates policy summary is available below. Information for clients is provided in our engagement letter and terms of business including details on how we keep secure personal data received from clients about their tenants, employees, third parties or similar individuals. We currently hold Cyber Essentials Plus Certification and ISO 27001 Certification which is the internationally recognised standard for information security.

Your rights

You have certain rights in relation to your personal information, although those rights will not apply in all cases or to all information that we hold about you. For example, we may need to continue to hold and process information to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights. We will tell you if this is the case when you contact us.

You have the right to request that we:

provide you with a copy of your personal information that we hold
update your personal information where it is out-of-date or incorrect
delete personal information that we hold
restrict the way in which we process your information
consider any valid objections to our processing of your personal information
provide information you have given to us to a third-party provider of services (where our lawful basis for processing is consent or contract and where processing is automated)

We will respond to your request (including providing information on whether the rights apply in the particular circumstances) within the applicable statutory time period. If we are not sure of your identity, we may require you to provide further information in order for us to confirm who you are.

Changes to this policy

We may make changes to this policy from time to time as our business and internal practices and/or applicable laws change. We will not make any use of your personal information that is inconsistent with the original purpose(s) for which it was collected or obtained (if we intend to do so, we will notify you in advance wherever possible) or otherwise than is permitted by applicable law.

How to contact us

If you would like to get in touch to discuss this policy, how we use your personal information, to exercise your rights or to provide feedback or make a complaint about use of your information, please contact us as follows:

Elaine Heywood, Data Protection Manager

[email protected] or 023 9253 0356

Blake Morgan LLP, New Kings Court, Tollgate, Chandler’s Ford, Eastleigh, Hampshire, SO53 3LG

You can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office via https://ico.org.uk/ for information, advice or to make a complaint.

Cookies

Cookies, also known as browsers or tracking cookies, are small text files that are added to your computer when you visit a website. They help websites to perform certain functions eg to know who you are if you log into a restricted part of a website, for shopping carts, and for tracking purposes.

Necessary Cookies

At Blake Morgan we use necessary cookies to enable us to operate our website. These cookies will be placed on your device shortly after arriving at our website and as you navigate its pages. You cannot opt out of the use of these cookies.

Optional Cookies

We will ask for your permission to place certain cookies or other similar technologies on your device. You can withdraw any consent to the use of cookies or manage any other cookie preferences by using the privacy dashboard at the bottom of any page on this site and clicking on manage cookies. It may be necessary to refresh the page for the updated settings to take effect.

The full list of our necessary and optional cookies are below:

You can find out more about cookies and how to manage them on your browser here.

Version no. 9 / April 2021

Supporting Documents