Introduction

Fox & Partners respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data.

Fox & Partners (referred to as “we”, “us” or “our”) is a controller which means we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal data about you.

“You” and “your” means you as an individual in one of the categories referred to in Section 1 below.

We have appointed a data privacy manager who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the data privacy manager using the details set out below.

Contact details

Name of data privacy manager: Ivor Adair.

Email address: GDPR@foxlawyers.com

Postal address: The Data Privacy Manager, Fox & Partners, 4-6 Throgmorton Avenue, London EC2N 2DL

Telephone number: +44 207 618 2400

This privacy notice is provided in a layered format so you can click through to the specific areas set out below. Alternatively you can request a copy of the policy by contacting us. Please also use the Glossary to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this privacy notice.

  1. IMPORTANT INFORMATION
  2. ENQUIRIES AND COMPLAINTS
  3. THE DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
  4. HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED
  5. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA
  6. DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA
  7. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS
  8. DATA SECURITY
  9. DATA RETENTION
  10. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
  11. GLOSSARY

Important Information

Purpose of this privacy notice

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how we collect your personal data, how we intend to use it, the legal basis for processing your personal data, retention of your personal data and to tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

Your provision of information to us constitutes your acknowledgement of the terms of this privacy policy. Please do not send us any of your information if you do not want it to be used in the ways described in this privacy policy.

Who this privacy policy applies to

This privacy policy applies when we receive any personal information from you, our clients or other third parties in respect of all persons whose personal information we collect and use (except as set out below). This includes individuals in the categories below or who work for the following:

  • current, past and prospective clients;
  • other lawyers and law firms, including co-counsel and barristers, solicitors and barristers on the other side and other lawyers to whom we make or receive referrals;
  • people who are involved in court or other proceedings or the provision of related legal advice, including: claimants, defendants, witnesses, experts, and service providers, for example, mediators and cost lawyers;
  • job applicants who do not progress beyond an initial enquiry stage;
  • our business contacts;
  • people who attend our seminars, we meet at events, complete application forms on our website or are entered onto our mailing lists to receive marketing materials, interest in hearing about our events, updates and news which we believe is of relevance to them (see section “How we use your personal data” below);
  • service providers, for example, recruitment consultants, general office services and IT service providers; and
  • our regulators, insurers, auditors and professional advisers.

This policy does not apply to:

  • our employees, as the way we collect and use their personal data is governed by the privacy policy in our employee handbook; and
  • candidates when they progress beyond an initial enquiry.

Enquiries and Complaints

  • 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 (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

  • This version was last updated on 26 August 2021 and historic versions can be obtained by contacting us.
  • 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.

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 includes first name, maiden name, last name, marital status, title, date of birth, gender, nationality, employment, position held, special categories of data (such as race and ethnicity, information about health or political opinions and religious or other beliefs).
  • Identity Verification Date includes results of due diligence carried out on individual clients and on officers and beneficial owners of our corporate clients, for example, passport or other identification and address verification.
  • Applicant Data includes information typically provided in a CV and covering letter.
  • Contact Data includes organisation, home and work address, email address and telephone numbers.
  • Matter Data includes personal data we collect in relation to client matters about you or other individuals we are told about in the course of acting for you which may include your or employees/members’ Identity and Contact Data, sickness records, disciplinary records, grievance records, references, appraisals, payslips or other financial information and medical information. This may also include complaint details.
  • Financial Data includes bank account details.
  • Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of services you have purchased from us.
  • Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform on the devices used when using our website.
  • Usage Data includes information about how our website is used from behaviours associated with IP addresses only. Technical and Usage Data is aggregated and anonymous and therefore not personal data.
  • Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences. From time to time we may record details of our interactions with you, past work and work opportunities.

We will only use your special category data if, in addition to the lawful bases for processing discussed in “How we use your data” below, additional conditions are met.

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 our services). In this case, we may have to terminate our agreement with you. We will notify you if this is the case at the time.

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, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by providing your passport, driver’s licence and proof of address, or corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

  • request our services and as your matter progresses;
  • apply for a position with us;
  • are engaged by us to provide services to us or our clients, or are notified as acting on the other side to us on a client matter;
  • subscribe to our service or publications;
  • attend our events;
  • request marketing to be sent to you; or
  • give us some feedback

Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.

Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties such as your employer, other organisations with whom you have dealings and public sources, including as set out below:

  • Usage Data from analytics providers such as Google.
  • Identity and Contact Data from co-counsel or referrers of work based inside or outside of the EU.
  • Identity and Contact Data from publicly available sources such as your website or Companies House based inside the EU.
  • Identify, Contact and Applicant Data from recruitment consultants or other contacts, usually based inside the EU.

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. For example, we may use your personal data to comply with fraud or crime prevention and for our network and information security measures, for any purpose required by law or our regulatory authority.
  • Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

Click here to find out more about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data.

Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending marketing communications to you via email where you are not an existing or former client of the business and we do not have a record of your expression of interest in our legal updates, news or events. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

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. We will only retain your personal information for as long as is reasonably necessary in the circumstances. Personal information provided in connection with the provision of our legal services will be retained in accordance with the firm’s retention policies unless we agree otherwise with you in writing.

If you wish to know more about the firm’s different retention policies, please contact GDPR@foxlawyers.com.

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/ActivityType of dataLawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest
Prospects
1.To deal with a prospective client’s interest in our services(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Matter

(i) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to investigate our suitability to provide the services you require and provide information to you)
(ii) Necessary to comply with legal obligations
Clients
2.To register you as a new client and carry out due diligence(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Identity Verification Data

(i) Performance of a contract with you

(ii) Necessary to comply with legal obligations

3.To carry out conflict checks against a conflict database of current and former clientsIdentityNecessary to comply with our legal obligations
4.To process and deliver services to our clients including maintaining your records and archiving data after closing your file.(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Matter

(d) Financial

(e) Transaction

(i) Performance of a contract with you

(ii) Necessary to comply with legal obligations on behalf of our clients

(iii) Necessary to meet the legitimate interests of our clients (to investigate their claims and conduct subsequent litigation)

5.To manage payments, fees and charges and collect and recover money owed to us.(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Matter details (limited to narrative contained on billing guides about work undertaken)

(d) Financial

(e) Transaction

(i) Performance of a contract with you

(ii) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)

6.To process queries or complaints about provision of our services and respond to you.(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Matter details

(i) Performance of a contract with you

(ii) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to protect the reputation of our business)

(iii) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

Candidates
7.To register you as a candidate and undertake an assessment of suitability for any current vacancies(a) Identify

(b) Contact

(c) Applicant

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to carry out our recruitment process)
Suppliers
8.To communicate with you in relation to our service and product requirements from you and process payments to you.(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Financial

(i) Performance of a contract with you.

(ii) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to make enquiries about and obtain products and services for the efficient operation of our business).

General
9.To administer and protect our business and our website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data).(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Matter

(d) Transaction Data

(e) Technical

(i) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provisions of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of business organisation).

Processing of Matter and Transaction Data for this purpose will be limited to providing access to our files for audit, review or other quality assurance checks by regulators, auditors and professional advisers.

(ii) Performance of our contract with you.

(iii) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation.

10.To identify usage trends and for data analytics to improve our website services, marketing and customer experiences(a) Technical

(b) Usage

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy).
Marketing
11.To maintain a customer/contact relationship database to manage our relationship with you, including:

· Notifying you about changes to our privacy policy

· Make suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you, provide email updates and news, invitations to events and festive greetings.

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Marketing and Communications Data

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to market our services to interested persons, to grow our business, to manage our client and other relationships)

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing. All communications include an opt-out mechanism. If you would prefer not to be
included in our marketing database or you would like to ensure your details are up to date, please contact us.

We may use your Identity, Contact, Marketing and Communications Data to form a view on what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services, updates, news and events may be relevant for you.

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have purchased services from us or expressed an interest in such services, consented to our marketing to you or you have provided your details to us and it is clear this is your expectation, for example, where you provide your business card to us at a networking event and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Opting out

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, we will cease processing your personal data for this purpose. It will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of your position as a client of the firm or in relation to other transactions.

Disclosures of your personal data

We will not disclose any information you provide to any third parties other than:

  • when you have given us consent to share the information;
  • to the External Third Parties as set out in the Glossary for the purpose set out in the table at paragraph 4 above or as referred to in the Glossary;
  • Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, we will always notify our clients and suppliers in advance and aim to ensure that your privacy rights will continue to be protected and that your personal data will be processed in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

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

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA), save in relation to client matters where there is a transfer outside the EEA where we instruct other law firms or professional service firms as part of the work we have been asked to do and as agreed with you.

As referred to at section 5 above, from time to time, we may use MailChimp and Survey Monkey (both provide similar protection to personal data shared between the UK and the US) and Campaign Monitor, which is a company based in Australia committed to ensuring compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation. The personal data they store and manage on our behalf is not used by them for their own purposes and is processed in accordance with our instructions.

If you are outside the EEA, your information may be transferred outside the EEA in order to provide you with our services. By submitting your personal information to us in this way you agree to the transfer and accessing of your information outside the EEA.

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 hold data electronically on a private (closed system) network of servers in separate ISO 27001 secure datacentres in the UK. Network infrastructure is protected using firewalls and anti-malware software. We also have back-up servers in a secure location.

We encrypt data leaving the firm on removable media and email, using industry standard encryption methods which encrypt data in transit.

We store papers in lockable cabinets or in passcode protected rooms in our offices when not being actively used and we have a secure off-site document storage facility for archived papers. Our offices are secure and only personnel holding appropriate security access key fobs and passcodes can gain access.

When necessary, we dispose of and delete your data securely.

We ensure that our employees, agents and contractors are aware of their privacy and data security obligations and we take reasonable steps to ensure that employees of third parties working on our behalf are aware of their privacy and data security obligations.

The transmission of information via the internet is never completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your electronic information transmitted to us and any transmission is at your own risk.

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.

Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

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.

Our default retention period for personal data relating to our clients or potential clients is seven years from the conclusion of your instruction to us or, in the event you or we need to reopen your matter, from the date on which the reopened matter came to an end, unless otherwise specified by law.

Personal data held in our client files may be retained for longer periods as it may be necessary to retain data in order to allow our clients or third parties to protect their legal rights and claims. After the initial seven year retention period, we will securely store any personal data which exist in our client files. This data will not generally be accessible by our staff unless it is necessary in the context of a legal claim or there is another overriding reason which justifies access to this data.

These retention periods may be extended or reduced if we deem necessary (for example, to defend legal proceedings or if there is an ongoing investigation relating to the information).

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available in our retention policy which sets out our approach to the retention and deletion of the personal information we hold about you either in computer or manual files. You can request this information from us by contacting us. Some information is set out in the table at paragraph 4.

Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Please click on the links below to find out more about these rights:

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

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 may 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 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.

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

THIRD PARTIES

External Third Parties

  • Where we instruct professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers on your behalf including lawyers (who may be based outside the EEA), barristers, insurers, medical professionals, accountants, tax advisers or other experts.
  • To other third parties where necessary to carry out your instructions (e.g. Companies House).
  • Where information is passed to our third party service providers, who provide operational and technical support for the day-to-day operation of our business and make the delivery of our services more efficient. Operational and technical support we receive includes: information and technology systems, such as case management, document management, time recording and email systems; typing services; general office services; and the monitoring of our website and other technical systems.
  • Where we are complying with our legal obligations or making disclosures to government, regulatory or other public bodies where, in our reasonable opinion, the disclosure is appropriate and permitted by law, including:
    • disclosures required by court order;
    • disclosures to the Police, tax authorities, the National Crime Agency or other public or government authorities;
    • disclosures to our regulators, ombudsman and other government, public or regulatory authorities, including any data protection authority or regulator of legal services.
  • In order to enforce any terms and conditions or agreements between us;
  • To protect our rights, property and safety, or the rights, property and safety of others, including providing information to our brokers and insurers.
  • When providing access to our files for audit, review or other quality assurance checks by our regulators, auditors and professional advisers.
  • We use a third party data processor TEq LOGIC Limited (based in the UK) to host our IT services.
  • We use third party data processors, Carciofino and Great Digital Solutions Limited (based in the UK) to host our website and help maintain security and performance. To deliver this service, it processes the IP addresses and other Technical Data of visitors to the Fox & Partners’ website.
  • We use a third party email processor, Campaign Monitor, and may use other tools, such as Wufoo (part of the Survey Monkey Europe UC Group) to collect personal data from you, as part of our marketing activities. These are data processors for us and only process personal information in line with our instructions. They will not sell your data to anyone.

YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

You have 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.

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.

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.

Object to processing of your personal data 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.

Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party.

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 services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.