Brookson Legal Services Limited of Brunel House, 320 Firecrest Court, Centre Park, Warrington, WA1 1RG is a “data controller” in relation to data we hold and process relating to our employees and customers.

As a Data Controller, this means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this Privacy Notice.

This notice applies to prospective, current and former customers of the entity referenced above. This notice does not form part of any contract for the provision of services and we may update this notice at any time.

It is important that you read this notice, together with any other Privacy Notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

DATA PROTECTION PRINCIPLES

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
4. Accurate and kept up to date.
5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
6. Kept securely.

THE KIND OF INFORMATION WE HOLD 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).

Due to the services we offer, we are unlikely to hold any “special categories” of more sensitive personal data about you, but if we are provided with any such data we will ensure it receives a higher level of protection.

We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

• Name
• Home address
• Residential address
• Work location
• Date of birth
• Title
• IP address/location
• Financial details

In the unlikely event that the services we offer to you require us to collect, store and use “special categories” of more sensitive personal information, we would expect this to include the following information:

• Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records from any Sick Note, Fit Note or other note or records provided by your doctor or medical professional from time to time, in order to assist you with any legal advice / legal services or relating to state benefits which you may be claiming.
• Information about criminal convictions and offences which you may inform us about from time to time which may be used to provide advice to you in connection with the matter on which we are instructed to provide advice.

In some circumstances we will act as a Data Processor (we will be processing strictly on the instructions of a controller). As they decide what is being done with your personal information it is for them to ensure you are notified that this processing will take place via their own privacy notice.

Whilst there is no requirement on us to incorporate our processing activities within a privacy notice where we are acting as a Data Processor and not a Data Controller, for completeness and our commitment to being open and transparent with how we use personal information, we have included these activities within this notice.

HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED?

We collect personal information about customers throughout our engagement, starting with our initial contact via our website, email or telephone conversation. Such information being provided by you either directly from you (over the telephone), or by you submitting information to us via email. We may also collect additional information from third parties including credit reference agencies or other background check agencies to confirm your identity and suitability for our services, or from your use of services provided by other Brookson Group companies (including but not limited to Brookson Limited, Brookson Financial Limited, InTouch Accounting Limited, Brookson Solutions Limited, Boomerang Support Services Limited and/or 1 st Option Consulting Limited).

We will also collect additional personal information in the course our engagement relating to the services which we provide.

We will collect this data from the following sources:

· E-mail
· Instant messaging
· Letters
· Online data capture forms
· Telephone calls (these may be recorded)
· Information from received directly from end clients
· Information received from recruitment businesses

All data received and recorded will only be used in accordance with the purposes set out below and where we have a legal basis for processing this data.

IP addresses and cookies

As is the case with most websites, we may obtain information about your usage of our web services through the use of cookies on our website. A cookie is a small piece of data placed on your hard drive in order to assist us in ensuring that your experience of using our website is optimised for your personal circumstances. Cookies cannot pass on computer viruses, retrieve other data from your computer’s hard drive or capture your email address. Cookies can be used to save users time on the site, by securely storing a user’s ID and password, personalise web pages and identify visited parts of a site and keep track of user’s selections. We use cookies to estimate our audience size, usage pattern, interest in services being offered by us, to speed up your searches and to collect information about your browsing habits and tailor our content, support and advertising in a manner relevant to our users. The data may then be used to track the user’s sites, via third-party vendors such as Google and may show adverts from us or other parts of the Brookson Group on those internet sites.

You have the option to opt-out and manage the cookies by altering the “help” settings on their browser. However, if you choose to disable the cookies, this can impair the functionality of our website and web services being used.

Where we are acting as a Data Processor we will receive personal information from the Data Controller.  You should be notified by the Data Controller that the information is being sent to us, usually this will be contained within their privacy notice.

HOW WE WILL USE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

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

We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:

1. Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
2. Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.

We will use information about you for the following purposes:

• Advising and assisting you to make decisions about the legal or moral issue on which we are instructed to provide you with advice, guidance or support.
• Providing legal advice and support services to you and/or your business.
• To provide you support and advice in relation to the completion, and filing, of relevant forms (including benefits forms and claim forms where appropriate).
• Making decisions about your continued engagement with us.
• Making arrangements for the termination of our working relationship.
• Education and training on relevant information applicable to you/your business.
• Dealing with disputes involving you.
• Ascertaining your fitness to act as a director of your business in compliance with legislation.
• Analysing assignment information which you are engaged on our behalf (including location of work, duration of working time, income, timesheet and invoicing information).
• Understanding and analysing working patterns to provide advice and guidance with legal (including tax) obligations.
• To prevent fraud.
• To provide you with assistance in relation to complying with obligations under the Pensions Act 2008.
• Analysing and processing eligibility for, and making payment in respect of, legal advice.
• To monitor your use of our information and communication systems.
• To ensure network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access to our computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution.
• To conduct data analytics studies to review and better understand our customer base, remuneration, retention and attrition rates.
• To provide you with information and guidance on anything which may impact on your business, your working in the recruitment/temporary worker sector (such as legislative changes, government consultations, sourcing statistical information to support our contribution to this sector of society) or which may otherwise affect the legal services being provided to you.
• To provide you with information and guidance on considerations for working via a personal service company, as sole trader/self-employed worker, working in the construction sector and/or other models/vehicles available in the market.
• To enable other businesses within the Brookson Group to notify you of support services which may be of interest to you or your business.
• To notify you of offers, promotions, which may interest you or your business should you wish to refer a friend to instruct us for legal advice, guidance or support.
• To provide you with updates, guidance, general and tailored advice which is (or may be in the future) relevant to you or your business.
• To enable third parties (such as insurance providers), to offer you products or services to enable you to comply with your legal obligations or otherwise support your business.
• Equal opportunities monitoring in relation to providing access to our services.

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

Where are acting as a data processor:

1. To fulfil our contractual obligations with the Data Controller (in these situations the Controller will be required to identify their legal basis for processing)
   • Providing advice to our clients on the IR35 / off-payroll rules in relation to a contract which you are party to.

Data Security

Where we are acting as Data Processors we will only use the information for the purpose set out in our contractual agreement with the Data Controller. Steps have been taken to limit the information we require to fulfil this purpose and, if we receive any information we do not require, this will be deleted and/or returned to the Data Controller securely. We and the Data Controller both have a requirement to put in place appropriate security measures to protect the information that has been shared.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as providing our services to you or your business), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal or regulatory obligations (such as to report financial impropriety in relation to anti-money laundering),

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.

HOW WE USE PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION

“Special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information with your explicit written consent.

Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public. We may also process such information about members or former members in the course of legitimate business activities with the appropriate safeguards.

Our obligations as a Legal Services Provider

We will use information relating to leaves of absence, which may include sickness absence or health, or disability status, to advise you in relation to statutory/state benefits to which you may be entitled and/or to assist you with any legal rights or obligations you may be required to comply with.

Do we need your consent?

Usually, we will approach you for your explicit consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. We will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent.

INFORMATION ABOUT CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS

We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations and provided we do so in line with our privacy policy.

Less commonly, we may use information relating to criminal convictions where it is necessary in relation to legal claims, where it is necessary to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

We may also process such information about customers or former customers in the course of legitimate business activities with the appropriate safeguards.

We do not envisage that we will hold information about criminal convictions unless there are exceptional circumstances.

We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the services we provide and where we are legally able to do so. Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of the initial engagement process or otherwise throughout our engagement. We will use information about criminal convictions and offences to provide legal advice to you/ your business in accordance with the terms of our engagement and/or your ongoing instructions to us.

We are allowed to use your personal information in this way to carry out our obligations during our engagement and in compliance with legal obligations.

AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING

Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. We are allowed to use automated decision-making in the following circumstances:

1. Where we have notified you of the decision and given you 21 days to request a reconsideration.
2. Where it is necessary to perform the contract with you and appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.
3. In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent and where appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.

If we make an automated decision on the basis of any particularly sensitive personal information, we must have either your explicit written consent or it must be justified in the public interest, and we must also put in place appropriate measures to safeguard your rights.

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.

We may use some automated decision making in order for us to understand the information required from you in order for us to comply with our anti-money laundering obligations as we will use online search tools to assist us in the performance of Know Your Client and Identity Checking activities from time to time.

DATA SHARING

We may share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in the Brookson Group.

We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.

We may transfer your personal information outside the EU in some circumstances which will be explained to you ahead of data being transferred.

If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

”Third parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents) and other entities within our group. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: accountancy and tax advice, payroll, pension administration, benefits provision and administration, IT services, financial services. The following third-party service providers process personal information about you for the following purposes:

Brookson Limited:

All of our back office functions are performed by Brookson Limited.

Brookson Financial Limited:

Auto enrolment and pension compliance activities. Mortgage advice and/or protection (life assurance or critical illness protection) advice.

SRA

For audit and regulatory compliance activities

Credit Safe

To assist us with our anti-money laundering checks

Kingsbridge Risk Solutions Limited

To support your business with insurance requirements in order for you to comply with best corporate governance or legal obligations

How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other entities in our group?

All our third-party service providers and other entities in the group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. 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 specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

When might you share my personal information with other entities in the group?

We will share your personal information with other entities in our group as part of our regular operations, to provide information about services and support available to you or your business and reporting activities on company performance, in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise, for system maintenance support and hosting of data, for back office support and legal support.

What about other third parties?

We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the Brookson Group; and regulatory compliance activities (as a member of Solicitors’ Regulation Authority).

DATA SECURITY

We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information. Details of these measures are available upon request.

Third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have agreed to treat the information confidentially and to keep it secure.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. Details of these measures may be obtained from our Group Data Protection Officer.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

DATA RETENTION

How long will you use my information for?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal or reporting requirements. Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal information are available in our data retention policy which is available from our Group Data Protection Officer by emailing dpo@brookson.co.uk. 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.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. Once you are no longer an employee, worker, contractor or customer of the company we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with our data retention policy or applicable laws and regulations (where appropriate).

RIGHTS OF ACCESS, CORRECTION, ERASURE, AND RESTRICTION

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 if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.

Your rights in connection with personal information

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

• Request access  to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction  of the personal information to ensure it remains accurate and up to date.
• Request erasure  of some or all of your information which we hold on you, subject to us complying with our legal and regulatory obligations which may override your right to request erasure.
• Right to request that we cease processing  some or all of your information, in whole or in part, subject to our legal and regulatory obligations which may override your right to request that we either pause our processing activities or cease processing your personal data entirely.
• Right to request that your data is transferred to a third party  (portability) in the event that you look to use the services of a third party (such as if you chose to use another accountant or apply for a mortgage), we will share data relating to your engagement with us with such third party (for example, your new accountant or mortgage provider), upon request.
• Right to object  to some or all of your data no longer being processed by us (either temporarily or permanently). This will be subject to our legal and regulatory obligations which may override your right to request this, but we will ensure that such obligations and or/legitimate interest or ours (or others) are sufficiently compelling in order to override you rights in this regard.
• If we use automated decision making or profiling  you will be able to request manual/human intervention to ensure appropriate decisions are taken or advice provided.

No fee usually required

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 your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such 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 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 the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please email contact@brooksonlegalservices.co.uk. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

DATA PROTECTION OFFICER

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the DPO by emailing dpo@brookson.co.uk. 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.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please do not hesitate to contact your legal advisor.