1. Introduction
Gentle Mathias is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not send unsolicited emails (i.e. emails unrelated to our business transactions with our customers) to customers, and do not pass on your private details to any third parties.
This Privacy Notice explains in detail the types of personal data we may collect about you when you interact with us. It also explains how we store and handle that data, and keep it safe.
We appreciate that this Notice contains a lot of information but we want you to be fully informed about your rights, and how we use your data. We hope the following sections will answer any questions you have but if not, please do get in touch with us.
We will update this Privacy Notice from time to time.
2. What is Gentle Mathias LLP?
Gentle Mathias LLP is a limited liability partnership incorporated in England under Company number OC343678 with its registered office at 59 Charlotte Street, London, England, W1T 4PE.
3. Explaining the legal bases we rely on
The law on data protection sets out a number of different reasons for which a business may collect and process your personal data, including:
Consent
In specific situations, we can collect and process your data with your consent. When collecting your personal data, we will always make clear to you what data is necessary in connection with a particular service.
Contractual obligations
In certain circumstances we need your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations. For example, we will need your address details in order to send documents to you.
Legal compliance
If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data. For example, we are obliged to collect proof of identity and residence, and can pass on details of people involved in fraud or other criminal activity to law enforcement.
Legitimate interest
In specific situations, we may request your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and which does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests.
4. When do we collect your personal data?
- When you first instruct us, in order to comply with our ‘know your client’ obligations.
- We may collect additional personal data from you for the purposes of progressing your matter and as may otherwise be required in order for us to fulfil your instructions.
- If we act again for you in a later transaction we may be required to obtain up to date proof of identity and residence.
5. What sort of personal data do we collect?
- Proof of identity and residence and other contact information i.e. your name, address, nationality, email and telephone number.
- Details of your interactions with us – for example, your transaction history.
- Information gathered by the use of cookies in your web browser. Learn more about how we use cookies by reading our Cookies Policy.
6. How and why do we use your personal data?
We use your data to undertake the work you want us to undertake and to comply with our legal obligations (for example under regulations to combat money laundering and fraud). We also use it:
- To respond to your communications. Handling the information you sent enables us to respond. We may also keep a record of these to demonstrate how we communicated with you throughout our relationship. We do this on the basis of our contractual obligations to you, our legal obligations and our legitimate interests in providing you with the best service and understanding how we can improve our service based on your experience.
- To process payments and to prevent fraudulent transactions. We do this on the basis of our legitimate business interests. This also helps to protect our clients from fraud.
- If we discover any criminal activity or alleged criminal activity through our use of fraud monitoring and suspicious transaction monitoring, we will process this data for the purposes of preventing or detecting unlawful acts. We aim to protect the individuals we interact with from criminal activities.
- To send you communications required by law or which are necessary to inform you about our changes to the services we provide to you.
- To comply with our contractual or legal obligations to share data with law enforcement (for example, when a court order is submitted to share data with law enforcement agencies or a court of law).
- Sometimes, we will need to share your details with a third party who is providing a service (such as delivery couriers). Without sharing your personal data, we’d be unable to fulfil your request.
If you wish to change how we use your data, you’ll find details in the ‘What are my rights?’ section below, but please note that if you choose not to share your personal data with us, or refuse certain contact permissions, we might not be able to provide some services you require.
7. How we protect your personal data
We know how much data security matters to all our customers. With this in mind we will treat your data with the utmost care and take all appropriate steps to protect it.
8. How long will we keep your personal data?
Whenever we collect or process your personal data, we will only keep it for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. Your data will then either be deleted completely or anonymised, for example by aggregation with other data so that it can be used in a non-identifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.
At the conclusion of our retainer we are entitled to keep papers while money is owed to us for our charges and expenses. We will keep any hardcopy file of documents (except for any of your documents which are returned to you) for no less than 6 years, on the understanding that we have your authority to destroy it 6 years after the date of the final Bill we send you for your matter. We will not destroy documents you ask us in writing to deposit in safe custody.
9. Who do we share your personal data with?
We sometimes share your personal data with trusted third parties – for example, delivery couriers, for fraud management, to handle complaints and so on.
Here’s the policy we apply to those organisations to keep your data safe and protect your privacy:
- We provide only the information they need to perform their specific services.
- They may only use your data for the exact purposes we specify in our contract with them.
- We work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected at all times.
- If we stop using their services, any of your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous.
Examples of the kind of third parties we work with are:
- IT companies who support our website and other business systems.
- Operational companies such as delivery couriers.
- Data insight companies to ensure your details are up to date and accurate.
We will only share your data with third parties for their own purposes in very specific circumstances, for example:
- For fraud management, we may share information about fraudulent or potentially fraudulent activity in our premises or systems. This may include sharing data about individuals with law enforcement bodies.
- We may also be required to disclose your personal data to the police or other enforcement, regulatory or Government body, in your country of origin or elsewhere, upon a valid request to do so. These requests are assessed on a case-by-case basis and we take the privacy of our customers into consideration.
For further information please contact our Data Manager.
10. Where your personal data may be processed
Sometimes we will need to share your personal data with third parties and suppliers outside the European Economic Area (EEA), such as Australia or the USA.
International orders
If you are based outside the UK and place an order with us, we will transfer the personal data that we collect from you to the Group in the UK.
Protecting your data outside the EEA
The EEA includes all EU Member countries as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. We may transfer personal data that we collect from you to third-party data processors in countries that are outside the EEA. Any transfer of your personal data will follow applicable laws and we will treat the information under the guiding principles of this Privacy Notice.
11. What are your rights over your personal data?
An overview of your different rights
You have the right to request:
- Access to the personal data we hold about you, free of charge in most cases.
- The correction of your personal data when incorrect, out of date or incomplete.
For example, when you withdraw consent, or object and we have no legitimate overriding interest, or once the purpose for which we hold the data has come to an end.
- That we stop any consent-based processing of your personal data after you withdraw that consent.
- Review by a Partner of any decision made based solely on automatic processing of your data (i.e. where no human has yet reviewed the outcome and criteria for the decision).
You have the right to request a copy of any information about you that the Group holds at any time, and also to have that information corrected if it is inaccurate. To do this please contact the Data Manager, Gentle Mathias LLP, 59 Charlotte Street, London W1T 4PE ENGLAND, or email data@gentlemathias.com.
If we choose not to action your request we will explain the reasons for our refusal to you.
Your right to withdraw consent
Whenever you have given us your consent to use your personal data, you have the right to change your mind at any time and withdraw that consent.
Where we rely on our legitimate interest
In cases where we are processing your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you can ask us to stop for reasons connected to your individual situation. We must then do so unless we believe we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue processing your personal data.
Checking your identity
To protect the confidentiality of your information, we will ask you to verify your identity before proceeding with any request you make under this Privacy Notice. If you have authorised a third party to submit a request on your behalf, we will ask them to prove they have your permission to act.
12. Contacting the Regulator
If you feel that your data has not been handled correctly, or you are unhappy with our response to any requests you have made to us regarding the use of your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
You can contact them by calling 0303 1231113 or go online to www.ico.org.uk/concerns.
If you are based outside the UK, you have the right to lodge your complaint with the relevant data protection regulator in your country of residence. Details can be found in Section 16.
13. If you live outside the UK
For all non-UK customers
By using our services or providing your personal data to us, you expressly consent to the processing of your personal data by us or on our behalf. Of course, you still have the right to ask us not to process your data in certain ways, and if you do so, we will respect your wishes.
Sometimes we may need to transfer your personal data between countries to enable us to supply the services you have requested. In the ordinary course of business, we may transfer your personal data from your country of residence to ourselves and to third parties located in the UK.
By dealing with us, you are giving your consent to this overseas use, transfer and disclosure of your personal data outside your country of residence for our ordinary business purposes.
This may occur because our information technology storage facilities and servers are located outside your country of residence, and could include storage of your personal data on servers in the UK.
We will ensure that reasonable steps are taken to prevent third parties outside your country of residence using your personal data in any way that is not set out in this Privacy Notice. We will also make sure that we adequately protect the confidentiality and privacy of your personal data.
14. Any questions?
We hope this Privacy Notice has been helpful in setting out the way we handle your personal data and your rights to control it.
If you have any questions that haven’t been covered, please contact our Data Manager who will be pleased to help you:
- Email us at data@gentlemathias.com
- Write to the Data Manager, Gentle Mathias LLP, 59 Charlotte Street, London W1T 4PE ENGLAND