Privacy Notice
Overview
This website (www.eversageimmigration.com) is operated by Eversage Associates Limited a company registered in England and Wales, company number 13058718 and with its registered address at Silverstream House, 45 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 6EB, United Kingdrom (Company, we, us, our).
Scope and Purpose
We take the security and privacy of data seriously and are committed to complying with our legal obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018 (the ‘2018 Act’) and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (‘UK GDPR’) in respect of data privacy and security. We respect your Personal Data, and our use of your Personal Data is subject to the relevant data protection legislation.
This privacy notice aims to give you information on how the Company collects and processes your Personal Data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you sign up to our newsletter or contact us by using our enquiry form, by telephone, email or post.
This privacy notice contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share information about you. It also explains your rights in relation to your information and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.
It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notices we may provide on specific occasions. We are required to notify you of this information under the relevant data protection legislation.
This policy applies to all data, whether it is stored electronically, on paper or on other materials.
This website is not intended for children.
The use of the website is subject to our Terms of Use and Cookie Policy.
Changes to this Policy
We will review and update this notice regularly in accordance with our data protection obligations. We will circulate any new or modified policies or notices in relation to your data when it is adopted on our website. It is important that you read and understand this notice before you share any Personal Data with us and that you check our website for updates before you use our website or submit any Personal Data to us.
Data Controller
The Company obtains, keeps and uses information about you for a number of specific lawful purposes. The Company is a ‘data controller’, meaning that we are responsible for deciding how we process personal information about you. The Company is registered with ICO, and our reference number is ZB044614.
Data We Collect
The Company processes information about you (the ‘data subject’) for a number of specific lawful purposes and we seek to ensure that our data collection and processing is always proportionate. Given the nature of our business, we may collect Personal Data, Special Categories of Personal Data and, on some occasions, Criminal Conviction Data. These terms are defined below:
Personal Data is information which relates to a living person who can be identified from that data (data subject) on its own, or when taken together with other information which is likely to come into our possession. It includes any expression of opinion about the person and an indication of the intentions of us or others, in respect of that person. It does not include anonymised data.
Special Categories of Personal Data is sometimes referred to as ‘sensitive personal data’ or ‘sensitive information’ and it includes information about your race, ethnic origin, politics, religious and philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetics, biometrics (where used for ID purposes), health, sex life or sexual orientation.
Criminal Conviction Data is information relating to criminal convictions and offences, including data relating to criminal allegations, investigations and proceedings, information about penalties conditions or restrictions placed on an individual as part of the criminal justice process, and civil measures which may lead to a criminal penalty if not adhered to. Criminal Conviction Data includes information relating to the absence of convictions.
We have further grouped the above data together as follows:
Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
Contact Data includes addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers.
Background Data includes details of your background information that you provide to us when enquiring about our services. This could be information about your nationality and immigration or visa status, your family history and their details, information about your education, work history, travel history and other information that you provide to us. It may include Special Categories of Personal Data and Criminal Conviction Data. It may also include information about third parties.
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 and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
Usage Data includes information about how you use our website e.g. how long you stay on each page and how long you generally visit our website for.
Marketing Data includes your marketing and communication preferences.
Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered Personal Data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.
How We Collect Personal Data
We collect most of this information from you. However, we may also collect information:
From publicly accessible sources, e.g. Companies House;
Directly from a third party, e.g. sanctions screening providers, credit reference agencies, client due diligence providers;
Via our website, as we use cookies on our website (for more information on cookies, please see our Cookies Policy)
Via our information technology (IT) systems, e.g. via our case management, document management and time recording systems, via our website online forms, through automated monitoring of our websites and other technical systems such as our computer networks and connections, and access control systems, communications systems, email and instant messaging systems, as applicable.
Data Protection
The Company will process your Personal Data (including Special Categories of Personal Data and your Criminal Offence Data) in accordance with legal obligations. ‘Processing’ means any operation which is performed on personal data such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaption, alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment, combination, restriction, destruction or erasure.
This includes processing Personal Data which forms part of a filing system and any automated processing.
When processing your data, the Company will comply with the following data protection principles:
We will process personal information lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner;
We will collect personal information for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes only, and will not process it in a way that is incompatible with those legitimate purposes;
We will only process the personal information that is adequate, relevant and necessary for the relevant purposes;
We will keep accurate and up to date personal information, and take reasonable steps to ensure that inaccurate personal information is deleted or corrected without delay;
We will keep personal information in a form which permits identification of data subjects (you) for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the information is processed; and
We will take appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure that personal information is kept secure and protected against unauthorised or unlawful processing, and against accidental loss, destruction or damage.
Basis for Processing Data
We must have a valid lawful basis in order to process your Personal Data. We will generally process your Personal Data in the following circumstances:
We need this information in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you or for the performance of a contract to which you are a party.
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 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). Where we process your information under this lawful basis, we will specify legitimate interests accordingly.
Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.
Where you have provided us consent. Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your Personal Data but may in certain circumstances request for your explicit consent to process your data. If we do so, we will advise you on the purpose of that data collection, how we will process it and will request your explicit and clear consent for us to process that data for that purpose. Where we rely on your consent to process your data, you will be able to withdraw your consent at any time.
It is important that you are aware that where we process your data for the purposes of entering into a contract with you, pursuant to our legitimate interests, or to comply with our legal obligations once you have submitted your data to us, we can process your data for these purposes without your consent (without prejudice to your other rights).
Please 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.
Special Categories of Personal Data
The Company may need to process Special Categories of Personal Data about you. We may only use Special Categories of Personal Data where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations, provided we do so in line with our Data Protection Policy.
We will only process Special Categories of Personal Data if:
We have a lawful basis for doing so; and
One of the special conditions for processing Special Categories of Personal Data applies.
The lawful bases for processing Special Categories of Personal Data are to take steps before entering into a contract with you, to comply with our legal obligations and legitimate business interests (to show we have treated you fairly, to grow our business, to see whether we have expertise to assist you). For example, we may process your Special Categories of Personal Data:
As part of the background information that you provide to us when seeking our services;
Your health information so that we can make reasonable adjustments;
Your ID for verification purposes to comply with our legal obligations, e.g. by carrying out anti money laundering checks or conflict checks or to verify your age and confirm that you have capacity to instruct us.
The relevant special conditions are:
Processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; and/or
Processing is necessary for the purposes of preventing fraud.
If we have lawful basis to collect such information and you refuse to provide it, we may be unable to enter into a contract with you or provide you with services (for example if you refuse to provide us with a copy of your ID).
We have an Appropriate Policy Document, a copy of which can be obtained from us, and have put safeguards in place which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data.
Criminal Conviction Data
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 Data Protection Policy.
We will only collect information about criminal convictions as part of your background information. We will process your Criminal Conviction Data if:
We have a lawful basis for doing so; and
One of the special conditions for processing Criminal Conviction Data applies.
The lawful basis of processing Criminal Conviction Data is so that we can ensure that we can enter into a contract with you (e.g. to ensure that we have a fee earner with expertise in the relevant area of law), to comply with our legal obligations and for our legitimate business interests (to grow our business, to maintain appropriate records, to offer you services).
The special conditions are:
Processing is necessary for the purpose of, or in connection with, any legal proceedings (including prospective legal proceedings);
Processing is necessary for the purpose of obtaining legal advice; and/or
Processing is otherwise necessary for the purposes of establishing, exercising or defending legal rights.
If we have lawful basis to collect such information and you refuse to provide it, we may be unable to enter into a contract with you or provide you with services.
We have an Appropriate Policy Document, a copy of which can be obtained from us, and have put safeguards in place which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data.
Clients & Candidates
If you instruct us to act for you or if you apply for a job with us, you will be provided with a separate Privacy Notice. This privacy notice posted on our website supplements the other notice(s) and is not intended to override them. We are required to notify you of this information under data protection legislation.
Website Users
When you use our website we may automatically collect Technical Data and Usage Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this data by using cookies, and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data and Usage Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. We will:
Obtain this information from you or third parties such as analytics providers;
Collect this information for the purpose to administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data);
Collect this data as it is necessary for our legitimate interests (e.g. for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise);
Share the information we receive with relevant personnel within company (e.g. those responsible for the IT aspect of the business and third-party service providers such as those responsible for our website maintenance);
Collect this information automatically when you use our website. If you do not wish for this information to be collected, please do not use our website.
Prospective Clients
You may give us your Identity, Contact and Background Data by filling in forms on our website, by corresponding with us by post, phone or email and during face-to-face meetings. This includes Personal Data you provide when you enquire about our legal services.
We will collect this information for the purpose of determining if we are able to provide you with legal services, to decide whether we have enough expertise and capacity to provide the services, for operational reasons such as maintaining records, recording transactions, training and quality control, for marketing and business development, to increase our service offering, to allocate your query to the appropriate personnel, and to respond to concerns or to show that we have treated you fairly.
We will collect this data as it is necessary in order for us to enter into a contract with you, for our legitimate interests (e.g. to grow our business, maintain appropriate records, determine if we can provide you with services, for monitoring purposes, to study how customers use our services, to develop our services, to improve our marketing strategy and to provide training to our personnel) and to comply with our legal/regulatory obligation (e.g. to carry out conflict checks or to verify your ID for anti-money laundering purposes).
We will share the information we receive with relevant personnel within company (e.g. pass messages or information so that relevant personnel may respond to your enquiry, make appointments or forward your enquiry to the relevant department). We may also share this information with third parties responsible for the IT aspect of the business and third-party service providers responsible for our website maintenance or functionality support (e.g. any integrated chat system).
We may be unable to contact you or enter into a contract with you if you fail to provide necessary information.
Third Parties
We may be provided information about you by a prospective client or our client within the Background Data (which may include Special Categories of Personal Data or Criminal Conviction Data). We may not be able to notify you that we hold this data about you due to our professional legal privilege owed to prospective clients and clients.
Promotional Communications
When you subscribe to our newsletters or publications, request marketing to be sent to you, or enter into a competition, promotion or survey we will collect your Identity Data, Contact Data and Marketing Data for our legitimate business interests (e.g. to keep in touch with you, to study how customers use our services, to develop our services and promote them, to grow our business and to improve our marketing strategy). We will:
Collect this information so that we can send you our newsletters, deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you, notify you of legal updates, send you information on our seminars or invite you to networking or other events, to introduce our new services, and to measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you;
Share this information with relevant personnel within our Company including those responsible for the IT aspect of the business, marketing and business development team and third-party service providers responsible for our website maintenance or providers of functionality support (e.g. Mailchimp).
If you enquire about our services, we have a legitimate interest in processing your Personal Data for promotional purposes. This means we do not usually need your consent to send you promotional communications if you enter into negotiations with us as a consumer or if you are a business or organisation.
We will always treat your Personal Data with the utmost respect and will not share your data other than as set out in this Privacy Notice or with your consent.
When processing your data for promotional purposes, you will be given an option to opt out of receiving promotional information from us at the time when we collect your data and in any future promotional communication you receive from us.
You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by contacting us, using the ‘unsubscribe’ link or ‘opt out’ link in any promotional emails, and/or by updating your marketing preferences.
If we intend to process your information for promotional purposes and we require your consent, we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.
We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you instruct us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
Data Sharing
We routinely share Personal Data with:
Business partners;
Relevant personnel within the Company;
Professional advisers who you may wish us to obtain a quote from;
Our auditors and professional advisers, such as lawyers and consultants;
Our regulators such as SRA, Legal Ombudsman;
Our accreditors;
Our insurers;
External service suppliers, representatives and agents that we use to make our business more efficient (i.e. website developers, our technology, system and software providers);
Third party service providers responsible for our website functionality (e.g. chat system) and marketing or software providers, (e.g. Mailchimp).
We only allow our service providers to handle your Personal Data if we are satisfied that they take appropriate measures to protect your Personal Data. They are only permitted to process your data for the lawful purpose for which it has been shared and in accordance with our instructions. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers to ensure they can only use your Personal Data to provide services to us and to you. We will only share information about you if it is strictly necessary.
We may disclose your data to law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
We may disclose your data in order to enforce our contractual rights against you or to defend legal claims.
We may also disclose your data to protect our rights, property and safety, or the rights, property and safety of others, or to prevent fraud.
We may also need to share some Personal Data with other parties, such as potential buyers of some or all of our business or during a re-structuring. Usually, information will be anonymised, but this may not always be possible. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
We will not share your Personal Data with any other Third Party unless you instruct us to or we are obliged by law to do so.
International Transfers
To deliver services to you, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your Personal Data outside the United Kingdom (UK). We may do so if you are based outside the UK, where there is an international dimension to your matter, or where you grant us express permission. These transfers are subject to special rules under UK GDPR.
Some countries have been assessed by the UK as providing an adequate level of protection for Personal Data, for example, all EEA countries, Andorra, Argentina, Canada (commercial organisations), Faroe Islands, Guernsey, Israel, Isle of Man, Jersey, New Zealand, Switzerland, Uruguay and the US (limited to the Privacy Shield framework). Except for the countries listed above, these countries do not have the same data protection laws as the UK.
Our standard practice is to use standard data protection contract clauses which have been approved by the European Commission and adopted by the UK.
Data Security
Information may be held at our offices and third-party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents. 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.
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
We will not retain your data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. Different retention periods apply for different types of data. We generally keep your Personal Data so that we can respond to complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf, show that we treated you fairly, keep records required by law, prevent fraud, comply with our regulatory requirements or to keep in touch with you and let you know of new positions that have become available, for marketing and business development purposes, for training and monitoring. When it is no longer necessary to retain your Personal Data, we will delete it securely. If you would like more information on exact retention periods, please get in touch.
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 the data, the purposes for which we process the 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.
Your Rights
Under the relevant legislation you may be entitled to the listed rights in certain circumstances as listed below.
The right to be informed about the collection and use of your Personal Data.
The right to access 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. If you wish to exercise this right:
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 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.
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.
Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected. In certain circumstances we may refuse a request for correction.
Request erasure of your personal information. In certain circumstances you have the right to have ask for some but not all of the information we hold and process to be erased (the right to be forgotten). This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information 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 information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
Object to processing of your personal information 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. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
Request restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling: You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making.
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 processing activities. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit as those third parties will be shared data controllers.
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.
Your Queries
Lynn McCloghry, who is our Information Manager, is responsible for overseeing the questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us by emailing to lynn@eversageimmigration.com, by calling us on +1 (310) 776 0622 / +44 (0)7939 116556 or by writing to Eversage Associates Limited, Silverstream House, 45 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 6EB.
We hope that our Information Manager can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information. However, if you feel that we have failed to address your concerns appropriately, you can contact the Information Commissioner at ico.org.uk/concerns/ or telephone: 0303 123 1113 for further information about your rights and how to make a formal complaint.