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Privacy of your data

Our Website Privacy Policy (GDPR Privacy Policy)

Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Ltd., respect our clients data privacy and we make every effort to keep your data secure.

This Policy (together with our standard Terms and Conditions and any other documents referred to on our website or in documentation we share with you) explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure. It also contains some general advice about how we use your data if you instruct us to act on your behalf.

We may change this policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this policy.

Any questions regarding this policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to the DPO (Kim Rainford) at info@hannayslaw.co.uk or by writing to Kim Rainford, Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Ltd., 19 Beach Road, South Shields, Tyne & Wear, NE33 2QA, England. The rules on processing of personal data are set out in the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) which came into force on the 25th May 2018.We are registered as an Information Controller with the Information Commissioners Office.

Who are we?
Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Ltd., is the owner and operator of the website www.hannayslaw.co.uk.

Our Company is registered in England and Wales with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (Registration No 839162). Our Registered Office is at 19 beach Road, South Shields, NE33 2QA and our Company Registration Number is: 13923492. Hannays Solicitors and Advocates is VAT registered and our registration number is: 178 3441 44

Our contact details are:
Address: 19 Beach Road, South Shields, Tyne & Wear, NE33 2QA, England.
Email: info@hannayslaw.co.uk
Telephone: 0191 4555361 and 0191 4974630
Fax: 0191 4975895

For the purpose of the Data Protection Legislation, we are the “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under the Data Protection Legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy policy.

How do we collect information from you?
We obtain information about you in a variety of ways, for example:

  • when you fill in forms on our website;
  • if you contact us via our website, we will keep a record of that correspondence (for example, if you request a quotation or use our contact form);
  • details of your visits to our website including time, traffic data, communication data, location data, your IP address and your browser type and operating system.
  • if you contact us, we will keep a record of that correspondence (for example, when you submit a query regarding a service or submit a complaint via our contact us form);

Cookies
Our website uses cookies which are small text files that originate from us and are stored on your computer or website server. They do not retrieve stored on your hard drive about you and do not corrupt or damage your computer or computer files. They help us identify website visitor behaviour and visitors’ particular preferences.

The information below explains the cookies we use and why.

Essential – Some of the cookies on our website are essential for us to be able to ensure you can view our website. An example cookie would be one which allows communication between your browser and the website. You may not be able to use our website without this type of cookie.

Analytics – These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.

Social Sharing – We use cookies to allow you to share content directly on the social networking/sharing sites like Facebook, Twitter or Google+. Examples would be if you wanted to “like” or “tweet” about a business or product advertised on our website.

More Information about Cookies

Click here for an overview of privacy at Google

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Embedded content from other websites
Our pages on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website and most of our links will open a linked website on a new page.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website and are not within our control.

 The Information We Hold About You via our website
The personal information we collect might include:

  1. Identity Data (includes first name, last name, title, and any information you choose to share with us via our website forms).
  2. Contact Data (includes address, email address and telephone numbers).
  3. Technical Data (includes internet protocol (IP) address, login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on devices used to access the Website).
  4. Usage Data (includes information about how you use the website and our Services).

Our website does not allow you to purchase services and therefore we do not hold the following information via our website;

  1. Financial Data includes (includes bank account, and payment card details).
  2. Marketing and Communications Data (as we do not store your data for marketing purposes).

Credit Card and other personal details
Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Ltd., will never ask you for Credit or Debit Card details, your bank details or any security passwords from you while you are using our website and we request that you do not enter any personal security information on any of the contact forms on the Hannays Solicitors and Advocates website.

Please do not email or text us your bank account details or personal security information. We will ask for your bank account details if we need them on the forms we send to you once we are instructed (in letter form not electronic format).

If you change your bank account during your transaction with us you should communicate this to us in writing (not by email or text) if we request it. We will never request your bank account details by email.

Should we need to receive funds from you we will send you our bank account details in writing (not by email) or give them to you in person when you visit our offices.

Please remember that face to face sharing of information is always the safest way to exchange sensitive data securely.

Portable devices and your responsibility for your IT and your use of the internet

We do not accept personal documents and details on any portable memory device and no portable memory device must be connected to our network and computers.

You are responsible for maintaining the security and safety of your own computer, telephone and other smart devices and must be aware that it is necessary to have up to date anti-virus and anti-malware software installed and working to provide protection. Hannays Solicitors and Advocates cannot be responsible for your personal computing, email and telephony protection.

Hannays Solicitors and Advocates is not responsible for the content of external internet sites. You are advised to read the privacy policy of external sites before disclosing any personal information.

Remember The Risks Whenever You Use The Internet
While we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to Hannays Solicitors and Advocates and you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any personal passwords or other account information. In addition other Internet sites or services that may be accessible through Hannays Solicitors and Advocates have separate data and privacy practices and terms & conditions independent of us, and therefore we disclaim any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions. Please contact those vendors and others directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies.

Other online sources
We may collect information about you from other sources, for example, if you access third-party services (such as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram) through or in connection with our website, we may collect information available about you through those services, including personal information as well as publicly observable data, such as activities on blogs, videos, and other online postings. We may also collect personal information from you at events, from telephone calls, surveys and/or other correspondence with you.

GDPR: Privacy Notice

The lawful basis for our holding and processing your personal information is based on the contract you enter into when we do work for you, legitimate interest , consent and that we have to comply with legal obligations.

GDPR sets out the following rights for data subjects:

  • The right to be informed
  • The right of access
  • The right of rectification
  • The right of erasure (known as the right to be forgotten)
  • The right to restrict processing
  • The right to object

Further information can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website: https://ico.org/for-the-public/

Subject access requests (SARs) to allow individuals to find our more about the personal data the firm holds about them, what it is being used for and why, may be made in writing to the Managing Director (Kim Rainford) at 19 Beach Road, South Shields, Tyne and Wear NE33 2QA. Responses will be made within one month or where a request is complex or numerous request have been made this may be extended to two months. Please also refer to the Terms & Conditions we send when accepting your instructions as to ownership of your file and our closing letter for retention and storage times relevant to your matter

More information
We will use your information as described in the Privacy Notice and as permitted by applicable laws, including in circumstances where it is necessary:

  • To fulfil our obligations to you when providing legal services to you
  • To share information with third parties where necessary to fulfil the obligations of our legal services for you, to enable us to ensure we hold your information securely and where acting as an agent for a third party on your behalf
  • To comply with our statutory and regulatory obligations, including verifying your identity in the prevention of fraud and money laundering
  • To comply with requests made by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Law Society and the Legal Aid Authority to fulfil our regulatory obligations and when audited by those bodies or when information is requested by those bodies
  • Communicate with you during the course of providing our services, for example responding to your enquiries and requests
  • Statistical purposes to enable us to analyse figures to help us to manage our business and plan strategically for the future
  • We will use your information to notify you of changes to our service
  • We will use your information to notify you of any information that we become aware of that may affect the matter on which you have sought advice and assistance in the future
  • To ensure that content on our website or social media is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer or portable communication/computing device

We may use your information in order to:

  1. ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
  2. carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between you and us;
  3. allow you to participate in purchasing items or other activities related to our services, and other interactive features of our services, when you choose to do so;
  4. provide you with information, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, where you have consented or otherwise agreed to be contacted for such purposes e.g. when you contact us via the forms on this website, or as otherwise provided in this policy;
  5. if you choose to provide information to us regarding your interests and/or preferences we may send you content based on the information that you have provided to us. We may use the information provided by you to display information about products and services that we believe may be of interest to you. We do not share this information with any other third party;
  6. notify you about changes to our services;
  7. seek your opinions on our services;
  8. for our internal business record keeping, tax, accounting and audit purposes;
  9. in connection with legal and regulatory matters that we need to deal with.

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. 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. Form data submitted via our website is held for 6 years as this period coincides with the time period in which a complaint can be submitted to us.

We do not pass your information to marketing companies. Any third parties that we engage will not use your data for marketing purposes.

We do not maintain a database for marketing purposes.

When you provide identification proof to us, we will only use your documents for identification purposes. We will hold your identification for as long as you continue to instruct us to act for you and for a period thereafter until your file is destroyed.

Information will be provided to you when your legal matter concludes that explains how we store your data on file closure.

Change of Purpose
We will only use your personal information 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 we need to use your personal information 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 information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you may hold with us.

What is our legal basis for processing your personal data?
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data on one of the following lawful bases:

  1. Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
  2. 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.
  3. Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

Third Parties
We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer our relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so. We will never sell or pass on your personal data to third parties for marketing purposes.

Which third-party service providers process my personal information?
Where permitted by the provisions of applicable law, Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Ltd., may share such information from time-to-time with the following third parties:

  • Our other group companies including the employees, directors and managers of those companies who have a need to access your personal information in carrying out their responsibilities; and
  • Any agent, contractor, supplier, vendor, or third party service providers who provides administration, logistics or other services to Hannays Solicitors and Advocates which are relevant to the services which we provide to you or who otherwise assist us in conducting our business, such as printers, storage facilities, communications software, data hosting, call centre operations, and email management services.

All our third party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information. We do not allow our third party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for our specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions, which are all as described in this privacy policy.
For a list of our third-party service providers, please see the section titled Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Ltd., Third Party Data Processors.

What about other third parties?
We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of a possible sale, restructuring or financing of or investment in our company or any of our businesses. In this event we will take appropriate measures to ensure that the security of your personal data continues to be ensured with this Privacy Policy and the Data Protection Legislation. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.
We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law. We may disclose your personal information in order to enforce or apply our Website Terms of Use and other agreements with you or to protect our rights or property or those of our customers or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud prevention and credit risk reduction.

Keeping your personal data secure
We will take all reasonable and appropriate steps to protect the security and integrity of all personal information provided via our website, or by any other means electronic or otherwise.
We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal details from unauthorised physical and electronic access.
As effective as modern security practices are, we cannot guarantee the complete security of personal data held in our systems, nor that that information you supply through the internet or any computer network is entirely safe from unauthorised intrusion, access or manipulation during transmission. Any transmission is at your own risk. We will not be liable for any resulting misuse of your personal data.

Your duty to inform us of changes
It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed of any changes to your personal information of which we need to be made aware.

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal information. This enables you to receive details of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are processing it lawfully.
  • Request the correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
  • Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us to continue to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below), but we may not be able to comply due to the nature and complexity of your legal matter.
  • Object to processing of your personal information 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. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
  • Request the restriction of the processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal information to another person.

Accessing the personal data we hold on you
If you want to exercise any of the above rights, please contact us using the contact details in the ‘Who Are We?’ section of this privacy policy.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if any request made by you is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Right to Withdraw Consent
In those circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose you may wish to withdraw your consent. These types of requests are usually connected to holding data for direct marketing, but we do not hold any data for direct marketing purposes. However, you have the right to request us to stop processing your data for specific purposes.

You can exercise this option at any time by contacting us using the contact details in the ‘Who Are We?’ section of this privacy policy. Once we have received your notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes for which you originally agreed, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law. We will advise you of the steps we will take and the steps you must take to cease your instructions to us as we do not wish to prejudice your position in respect of your instructions to us.

Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.

Transferring your information outside of the EEA
As part of the services we offer to you, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the UK and EEA, but we try to avoid this. The EEA includes all European Union Member countries as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. For example, this may happen if any of our servers are from time to time located in a country outside of the EEA. If we do this, we have procedures in place to ensure your data receives the same protection as if it were being processed inside the EEA. For example, our contracts with third parties stipulate the standards they must follow at all times.

None of our servers are currently located outside the UK/EEA and all data stored by us is stored within the UK/EEA.

Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Ltd., Third Party Data Processors
Hannays Solicitors and Advocates may share your personal data with the following third-parties who assist us in providing products and services and who provide technical services:

Marketing – communications software and social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
DATA WILL BE STORED BY THESE SITES ONLY IF YOU CHOOSE TO CORRESPOND OR INTERACT WITH US VIA SOCIAL MEDIA. Any direct messaging using these sites should not be visible in the public domain, but we cannot guarantee this.
Data Storage Microsoft (email)/ Mimecast (email) Pracctice Ltd (CRM data)
Email Microsoft
Web Hosting Urban River Ltd and WordPress
Shipping Royal Mail and Courier Companies


How to make a complaint about data protection
To exercise all relevant rights, queries or complaints please in the first instance contact the our Data Protection Officer (DPO) via email at: info@hannayslaw.co.uk or write to us at: Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Ltd., 19 Beach Road, South Shields NE33 2QA, England. If this does not resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office on 03031231113 or via email https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/

Review of this Policy
Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy. This Policy was last updated on 1st May 2022.

Disclaimer

This website and its content is copyright of Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Ltd – © 2014. All rights reserved.

The copyright for any photographs or images appearing on this site remains with the creator of those photos and should not be copied or reused without permission of the copyright owner.

Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than the following:

  • you may print or download to a local hard disk extracts for your personal and non-commercial use only
  • you may copy the content to individual third parties for their personal use, but only if you acknowledge our website as the source of the material

You may not, except with our express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.

Hannays Solicitors and Advocates Ltd., are not responsible for any websites purporting to be our genuine website and we display the SRA check icon on our website which provides reassurance that this website is our genuine website. If the SRA icon does not link to the SRA please check that you are accessing our genuine website.  Our offices are located in South Shields, as is our telephone and fax numbers. Our main contact telephone numbers for our office are land-lines and not mobile numbers.

What our clients think

"Advice given was useful and the service was brilliant"
"Recommended by my friends – friendly and straightforward"
"We were treated with polite friendliness at all times"
"First class service and I am completely satisfied - thanks"
"I would recommend because of the professionalism at all times from the staff"
"Recommended by our Estate Agents - easy to make initial contact"

Contracted with the Legal Aid Agency