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Privacy policy

Your privacy

This notice explains when and why we collect personal information about you, how we use it, when we may disclose it and how we keep it secure.

For clients of this firm, please read this notice alongside our general terms and conditions, which provide further information on confidentiality and data privacy. This notice does not apply to any websites that may link to ours.

Who we are

Data is collected, processed and stored by Vale Solicitors Ltd, the ‘data controller’ of the personal information you provide to us. Vale Solicitors Ltd is a limited company authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under number 463355.

Our Data Protection Officer is Michael Morgan, who can be contacted at 1 Boverton Road, Llantwit Major, CF61 1XZ, on 01446 792535, or through our contact page.

Children

Our website and services are not aimed specifically at children because in legal work children are generally represented by their parents or guardians. If you are a child and need further advice or explanation about how we would use your data, please contact our Data Protection Officer.

What we need

The exact information we request depends on what you have asked us to do or what we are contracted to do for you. There are two types of personal data you may provide:

  • Personal data: general information about yourself, such as your name, address, gender, date of birth, contact details and financial information.
  • Sensitive personal data: by its nature more sensitive, and may include your racial or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, political opinions, health data, trade union membership, philosophical views, and biometric and genetic data.

In the majority of cases personal data will be restricted to basic information and information needed to complete ID checks. However, some of our work may require us to ask for more sensitive information.

Sources of information

  • You may volunteer information about yourself
  • You may provide information relating to someone else, if you have the authority to do so
  • Information may be passed to us by third parties so that we can undertake your legal work, typically banks or building societies, panel providers who allocate legal work to law firms, organisations that have referred work to us, and medical or financial institutions who provide your personal records

Why we need it

The primary reason for asking for your personal data is to allow us to carry out your requests, which will ordinarily be to represent you and carry out your legal work. Examples include verifying your identity and source of funds, communicating with you, establishing funding of your matter, obtaining insurance policies on your behalf, processing your legal transaction (advice, litigation, hearings, preparing documents, completing transactions), keeping financial records, seeking advice from third parties such as legal and non-legal experts, and responding to any complaint or allegation of negligence against us.

Who has access to it

We have a data protection regime in place to oversee the effective and secure processing of your personal data. We will not sell or rent your information to third parties, and we will not share it with third parties for marketing purposes.

Generally we only use your information within Vale Solicitors. In carrying out your legal work we may need to disclose some information to third parties, for example HM Land Registry, HM Revenue & Customs, a court or tribunal, solicitors acting on the other side, an independent barrister, non-legal experts, translation agencies, contracted suppliers, external auditors or our regulators (for example LSC, SRA, ICO), banks or other financial institutions, insurance companies, providers of identity verification, any disclosure required by law or regulation (such as the prevention of financial crime and terrorism), or if there is an emergency and we think you or others are at risk.

Where your information is shared with these third parties, we ensure they comply strictly and confidentially with our instructions and do not use your personal information for their own purposes unless you have explicitly consented. Where a use of personal data requires your specific consent, we will contact you separately; you are free to withdraw consent at any time.

How we protect your personal data

We take all reasonable measures to protect your information while it is in our care, using technology and operational security to protect personally identifiable data from loss, misuse, alteration or destruction. Internal and external parties have agreed to protect the confidentiality of all information. We use computer safeguards such as firewalls, data encryption and annual penetration testing, and we enforce, where possible, physical access controls to our buildings and files.

How long we keep it

Your personal information is retained only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, as required by law, or as set out in any relevant contract with us. For example:

  • As long as necessary to carry out your legal work
  • For a minimum of 7 years from the conclusion or closure of your legal work, in case you or we need to re-open your case to defend complaints or claims
  • For the duration of a trust
  • Some matters may be kept for 16 years, such as commercial transactions, sales of leasehold purchases and matrimonial matters (financial orders or maintenance agreements)
  • Probate matters where there is a surviving spouse or civil partner may be retained until the survivor has died, to deal with the transferable inheritance tax allowance
  • Wills and related documents may be kept indefinitely
  • Deeds relating to unregistered property may be kept indefinitely as they evidence ownership
  • Personal injury matters involving lifetime awards or PI trusts may be kept indefinitely

Your rights

Under the GDPR you are entitled to access your personal data (the ‘right of access’). To make a request, please write to our Data Protection Officer, Michael Morgan, or contact the person dealing with your matter. A request for access means you are entitled to a copy of the data we hold on you, but not to the documents that contain it. In certain circumstances you also have:

  • The right to be informed, fulfilled by this privacy notice
  • The right to rectification of inaccurate or incomplete personal data
  • The right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’) where there is no compelling reason for continued processing: where the data is no longer necessary for its original purpose, where you withdraw consent relied on as the lawful basis, where you object and there is no overriding legitimate interest, where the data was unlawfully processed, or where you object to processing for direct marketing
  • The right to object to processing based on legitimate interests and to direct marketing. An objection to direct marketing is absolute. Otherwise we must stop processing unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
  • The right to restrict processing where you contest the accuracy of the data, where you object and we are considering whether our legitimate grounds override yours, where processing is unlawful and you request restriction, or where we no longer need the data but you require it for a legal claim

Complaints about the use of personal data

If you wish to complain about how we have handled your personal data, please contact our Data Protection Officer, who will investigate. If you are not satisfied with our response, or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Marketing data

We may contact you for direct marketing about our services or events which we feel may interest you, by social media, email or post. We will never send marketing communications by SMS or call you without your specific consent, and we never pass on or sell your details to a third party.

Whenever we collect your personal data you will be given the opportunity to opt in to marketing communications; choosing not to has no effect on accessing our legal services. For prospective clients, consent is recorded before any marketing. For fixed fee and retainer clients, legitimate interest is the legal basis, and relevant email communications may be sent during and after the case. You can opt out at any time using the unsubscribe link in our emails, by telephone, or by contacting us. Contacts who have not engaged by opening an email over a period of 6 months are removed from marketing communications.

How we may use your details

For our legitimate business interests, we may use your personal information for fraud prevention, direct marketing, network and information systems security, improving our services, identifying usage trends and determining the effectiveness of promotional campaigns. You have the right to object to this processing by contacting our Data Protection Officer.

We will only ever use non-sensitive personal information (such as name, address, telephone, email and job description) to target marketing; sensitive information will never be used for this. Once unsubscribed, you may still receive transactional emails regarding your legal matter.

Enquiry forms on this website

When you send a message, appointment request or quotation request through this website, the details you enter are sent to us by email so that we can respond. Our forms are protected by Google reCAPTCHA, which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.