Privacy Policy

NSS Legal Limited Privacy Policy

NSS Legal Limited is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our office or website, when we provide legal services or when we undertake recruitment activity. 

This version of our privacy policy was published in April 2020. 

1. Important information and who we are 

Purpose of this privacy notice 

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how we collect and process your personal data in connection with any:

• Client Services: the provision of legal services by us to prospective clients or clients;
• Website activity: when you visit our website ; and
• Recruitment activity: provision of the personal data of a candidate (whether by such candidate or by a third party, such as a recruitment agency) for a position at NSS Legal Limited. 

It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. 

NSS Legal Limited is a Data Controller 

NSS Legal Limited is a data controller for the purposes of data protection legislation and is responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “NSS Legal Limited”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice). 

Oliver Sloam is a director of NSS Legal Limited and deals with all queries about data protection issues. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, or you wish to exercise your rights under the data protection legislation, please contact Mr Sloam using the following contact details. 

Contact details 

• Full name of the data controller: NSS Legal Limited
• Address: Roman House, 296 Golders Green Road, London, NW11 9PY
• Email: info@nsslegal.co.uk
• Telephone number: 020 8209 1222

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). You have a right to complain to the ICO if you feel that we have not protected your data. We would request that you contact us with your concerns  in the first instance so that we can look into your enquiry before you contact the ICO. 

Your duty to inform us of changes 

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. 

Website third-party links 

Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit. 

2. The data we collect about you 

We collect personal data which  means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified such as your name, address and personal email address.

Special categories of personal data might also be collected. This includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data. 

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you for the following reasons: 

• for legal and regulatory purposes
• to provide you or our clients with legal services
• technical data (includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data etc)

3. How is your personal data collected? 

• Direct from you:  You may give us your personal by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise, or whilst visiting our offices. This includes, for example, personal data you provide when you enquire about our client services, provide us with personal data necessary for a specific client service , when we are performing for you, or for the purposes of our anti-money laundering and other background checks (including credit reference checks), when you personally give us your personal data (for example, by leaving your contact details at the reception of one of our offices or with our switchboard); participate in recruitment, marketing or other promotional events

• Automated technologies or interactions:  as you interact with our website, we may automatically collect technical personal data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy for further details

• Third parties sources:  we may receive personal data about you from various third parties such as our clients when we are providing legal services to them; when we conduct our anti- money laundering and other background checks (including credit reference checks); when we take up references  etc

Publicly available sources: including from public registers of companies, charities, law firms, chartered accountants and other entities; public registers of individuals (for example, electoral registers); public registers of sanctioned persons and entities (for example, HM Treasury in the United Kingdom); other public sources (including any services accessible on the Internet) 

4. How we will use your personal data

We only use your personal data when there is a legal ground which we are entitled to rely on. The following table provides further information. 

We use your personal data in the following circumstances: 

• Performance of a contract - where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you to provide legal services
• Legitimate interests - where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) such as in connection with legal services we provide to our clients
• Legal or regulatory obligation - where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation such as when we need to comply with anti-money laundering legislation
• Consent - where you have provided your consent to processing your personal data. Please note that with some exceptions, such as in relation to some of our electronic marketing), we generally do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data. Privacy Policy 

Purposes for which we will use your personal data 

We have set out below a description of all the ways we might 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. 

Marketing 

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. 

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have consented to receive marketing communications or if you have requested information from us or obtained services from us and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing. 

Third-party marketing 

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside of NSS Legal Limited for marketing purposes. 

Opting out 

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

Cookies 

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our cookies policy. 

Change of purpose 

We will only use your personal data 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 you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us. 

If we need to use your personal data 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 data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law. 

5. Processing your personal data if you are not our client 

There may be circumstances where you are not our client but we need to process your personal data in order to provide legal services to our client (including when providing legal advice). In this case, your personal data may be used in legal proceedings on behalf of our client. We will process such personal data on the basis that: 

• it is in our legitimate interests, our client’s legitimate interests or those of another third party, to do so; and/or
• it is required in order to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations. 

If you have any queries about how we process personal data in these circumstances, please contact us. 

6. Processing your personal data for recruitment purposes 

If your personal data is collected or passed to us for recruitment purposes, we will only use this personal data in order to contact you about recruitment and other opportunities you may have requested or expressed an interest in. 

7. Disclosures of your personal data 

We may have to share your personal data with certain parties, such as: 

External Third Parties such as:

Service providers based in who provide IT and system administration services.

• Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, accountants, auditors and insurers based who provide consultancy, legal, banking, accounting, audit and insurance services to us.
• Any entity or person to whom we are requested or obliged to make such disclosure by any court of competent jurisdiction or by any governmental, law enforcement, regulatory, taxation or other authorities (for example, HM Revenue & Customs or the Solicitors Regulation Authority or the Law Society in the United Kingdom)
• 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, then the new owners may use your personal data 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. 

8. International transfers 

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area. 

9.  Data security 

We have put in place 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 have 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. 

10. Data retention 

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, regulatory, accounting, or reporting requirements. 

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. 

We retain personal information we collect from you where we have an ongoing legitimate business need to do so (for example, to provide you with a service you have requested or to comply with applicable legal, tax or accounting requirements). 

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymise it or, if this is not possible, then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible. 

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you. Privacy Policy 

11. Your legal rights in respect of your personal data

You have certain rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. 

• 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 discontinue 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. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• 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 products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent. 

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

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.  

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.