Your personal information

This privacy policy explains how we collect and process your personal data. Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. This includes information that you tell us, what we learn from you and the choices you make about the marketing you want us to send to you. This policy explains how we do this, what your rights are and how the law protects you.

We do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

Changes to data protection law

The law in relation to data protection changed on the 25 May 2018 when the General Data Protection Regulation came into force in the United Kingdom and across Europe.

This privacy policy tells you about most of your rights under the law.

There may be changes which we will be required to make to this privacy policy however we will notify you every time we make any material changes to this policy. We may need to ask you to agree to the changes, or refresh your consent to us using your personal information.

1. Who we are and how you can contact us

We trade as the Office of Gunea Luthra (“we”, “us”, “the office”). Our registered office is at Office of Gunea Luthra, Kemp House, 152 – 160 City Road, London EC1V 2NX. 

You can contact us by email at info@gunealuthra.com or in writing to Office of Gunea Luthra, Kemp House, 152 – 160 City Road, London EC1V 2NX. 

Our representative for all queries in relation to this policy and your data protection rights is Gunea Luthra. 

When we refer to our website, we mean our website at www.gunealuthra.com. 

Where we collect your personal information from

We may collect personal information about you in the following ways:

Data you give to us:

Data you give to us when you become a client of the firm and use our services, or when we work with you in connection with a particular service

When you talk to us on the phone or in person

When you use our website

In emails or letters to us

If you take part in our competitions, events or promotions

When you give us feedback

Data we collect when you use our services:

Payment and transaction data

Profile and usage data, including data we gather from the devices you use to connect to those services such as computers and mobile phones, using cookies (please see our separate cookies policy) and other internet tracking software.

Data from third parties we work with:

Companies and individuals that introduce you to us

Public information sources, such as Companies House

Agents working on our behalf

Government and law enforcement agencies

Professional intermediaries including accountants, corporate finance advisers, other lawyers, property agents, planning consultants, banks and expert witnesses

2. Data we collect about you

We may collect, use, store and transfer many different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

Identity data – name, marital status, title, date of birth and gender

Contact data – billing address, home address, email address or telephone numbers

Financial data – bank account and payment card details

Transaction data – details about payments to and from you and other details of services you have purchased from us

Technical data – 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 our website

Usage data – information about how you use our website, products and services

Marketing and communications data – your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences

Open Data and Public Records – information about you that are in public records, such as Companies House or the Land Registry, and information that is openly available on the internet

We may also collect, use and share 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.

Special Categories of Personal Data

We may also collect any special categories of personal data about you.  This includes details about race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, genetic and biometric data, and information about criminal convictions and offences.

However, we will only process these special categories of personal data in the following exceptional circumstances:

to the extent necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; or

with your explicit written consent which you can withdraw at any time.

3. How we use your personal information

Your privacy is protected by law.

We are only allowed to use personal information about you if we have a legal basis to do so, and we are required to tell you what that legal basis is.  This includes when we share your information with third parties.  The law says we must have one or more of the following legal bases:

to fulfil a contract we have with you; or

when it is our legal duty; or

when it is in our legitimate interest; or

when you consent to it.

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information which, when balanced against your rights, is justifiable.

We have set out in the table below the personal information which we collect from you, how we use it, and the legal basis (or bases) on which we rely when we use the personal information.  If we are relying on our legitimate interests, we have set that out in the table below.

4. Who we share your personal information with

We may share your personal information with any of the following organisations, for the purposes of providing the services which you have requested from us:

Agents and advisers that we use

HM Revenue & Customs and other regulators or authorities

Companies, organisations and individuals that introduce us to you

Companies, organisations and individuals that we introduce you to

Any party linked with you or your business (for example, if we are acting for your company, other directors of your company)

Companies, organisations and individuals that you ask us to share your information with

To our bankers to the extent necessary to comply with anti-money laundering and terrorist financing legislation

Direct marketing companies who help us manage our electronic communications with you

Third party organisations that provide applications/functionality, data processing or IT services to us. (For example, where we use third parties to support us in providing our services and to help provide, run and manage our internal IT systems.  These could include providers of IT services, cloud-based software as a service providers, identity management, website hosting and management, data analysis, data back-up, security and storage services.)

You can find details of how these third parties use your personal information by looking at their privacy policies, all of which should be available on the relevant websites, or on request.

We request all organisations who we share your data with to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow any of our 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.

We may also share your personal information in the following circumstances:

if we or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party it is very likely that the personal data held by us about our clients will be one of the transferred assets

if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use, or to protect our rights, property, or safety, our clients, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

5. Failing 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 the legal services you have requested). In this case, we may have to cancel a service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

6. 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 or policy of every website you visit.

7. Transferring your personal information outside the EEA

The EEA is the European Economic Area, which consists of the EU Members States, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. If we transfer your personal information outside the EEA we have to tell you.

We will only send your data outside the EEA to:

follow your instructions to us to do so

comply with a legal duty

work with our agents and advisers who we use to help provide our services to you

By way of example, this may happen if one or more of our servers are from time to time located in a country outside the EEA or one of our service providers is located in a country outside the EEA.

If we do transfer your personal information outside the EEA, we will make sure that it is protected in the same way as if it was being used in the EEA by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission.

Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe.

Where we use providers based in the USA, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the EU-US Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the USA.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the EEA.

8. 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 have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator (including the ICO) of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

9. How long do we keep your personal information

We will keep your personal information for as long as you are our client.

After you stop being a client, we will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for one or more of the following reasons:

To respond to any questions or complaints from you

To maintain our records

To comply with laws and rules applicable to us

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 respect of personal data which we receive and process in order to comply with our legal duties to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, we are required by law to retain such personal data for a period of five years from the end of the matter we are handling for you or from the date upon which you cease to be our client.  In most cases we will retain the personal data in accordance with our file retention policy of six years from the date of the file being archived but we may do so for longer if necessary.

Where you have asked us not to send you direct marketing, we keep a record of that fact to ensure we respect your request in future.

10. Marketing

We may use your personal information to tell you about relevant services.

We can only use your personal information to send you marketing messages if we have either your consent or a legitimate interest to do so.

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time – you just need to contact us, or use the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you.

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any other company   for its marketing purposes. You can ask a third party company to stop sending you marketing messages at any time, by adjusting your marketing preferences in relation to that company or by using the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you.

Where you opt out of receiving marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of purchasing our services or any other transaction between you and us.

11. Your rights

You have certain rights which are set out in the law relating to your personal information.  The most important rights are set out below.

Getting a copy of the information we hold

You can ask us for a copy of the personal information which we hold about you, by contacting us using the details set out in section 1 above.   This is known as a data subject access request.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data, unless we believe that your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. In such circumstances we can charge a reasonable fee or refuse to comply with your request.

We will try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month.  Occasionally it may take us longer than a month and in that case we will notify you and keep you updated.

Telling us if information we hold is incorrect

You have the right to question any information we hold about you that you think is wrong or incomplete.  Please contact us using the details set out in section 1 above if you want to do this and we will take reasonable steps to check its accuracy and, if necessary, correct it.

Telling us if you want us to stop using your personal information

You have the right to:

object to our use of your personal information (known as the right to object); or

ask us to delete the personal information (known as the right to erasure); or

request the restriction of processing; or

ask us to stop using it if there is no need for us to use it (known as the right to be forgotten).

There may be legal reasons why we need to keep or use your data, which we will tell you if you exercise one of the above rights.

Withdrawing consent

You can withdraw your consent to us using your personal information at any time.  Please contact us using the details set out in section 1 above if you want to withdraw your consent.  If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide you with certain products or services.

Where we rely on our legitimate interest

In cases where we are processing your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you can ask us to stop for reasons connected to your individual situation. We must then do so unless we believe we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue processing your personal data.

Request a transfer of data

You may ask us to transfer your personal information to a third party. 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.

12. Making a complaint

Please let us know if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal information by contacting us using the details set out in section 1 above.

You also have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.  You can find their contact details at www.ico.org.uk. We would be grateful for the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.