Privacy Policy

Luqmani Thompson & Partners (LTP) is committed to safeguarding the privacy of individuals who visit our website, our clients and contacts. The purpose of this policy is to provide information to help you understand how we use and protect the information you provide us and to set out your rights in relation to that information. The policy is set out in the following sections:

• Scope of our policy
• Information we process
• How we use information
• Disclosure of your information
• Protection of information
• Your rights
• Revisions to this policy
• How to contact us

SCOPE OF OUR POLICY

Our policy applies:

• When you request information from us
• When you visit our website and online services
• When you engage our services
• When you apply for a job, work experience or work placement

INFORMATION WE PROCESS

We obtain information in a number of ways and for a number of specific reasons. How we use information is linked to how and why it is received by us.

Through our website

Our website enables visitors to make enquiries of the firm and to pass on information to us. When you use our website we collect data in a number of ways: from information you may provide, automatically from our Web server logs such as your IP address and information about your visit, and finally through cookies or other technologies

Information from you- If you provide information through the Web form we require limited information only. Please do not submit any confidential, proprietary or sensitive personally identifiable information (e.g. national insurance number, bank details). If you do submit this information you do so at your own risk.

Web server logs– The information we collect in the web server logs helps us to administer the site, analyse its usage, protect the website and its content from inappropriate use and improve the user’s experience. Examples of the information we may collect include your unique Internet service provider, the place from which you are accessing our website, the kind of browser or computer you use, the date and time of your visit, the web page from which you arrived at our site, the pages you viewed or searches conducted.

Cookies – We use cookies in order to offer and provide a store and help track information about you. Cookies are small pieces of data that are sent to your browser from a Web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. We use cookies to help remind us who you are and to help you navigate our sites during your visits. If you wish to disable cookies from our site, you can do so using your browser. For more information about using browsers to manage cookies, please see All about cookies.

Third-party Services– We may use services hosted by third parties, including Adobe® Site Catalyst®, to assist in providing our services and to help us understand the use of our site by our visitors. These services may collect information sent by your browser as part of a web page request, including your IP address or cookies. If these third-party services collect information, they do so anonymously and in the aggregate to provide information helpful to us such as website trends, without identifying individual visitors. Please see “Cookies” in the section above for more information on how you can control the use of cookies on your computer.

For our legal services

We obtain information directly and indirectly from prospective clients and clients for the purpose of delivering our legal services.

From third parties

We may receive information from third parties. This may include from referral agencies, medical professionals, courts, regulatory bodies or the Home Office.

For recruitment, employment and work experience purposes

If you apply for a job for work experience or work placement, you may be required to provide information, for example about your education or previous employment.

HOW WE USE INFORMATION

We must have a lawful basis for processing information which will be linked to the circumstances in each case, for example:

• If it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you or necessary in connection with a legal or regulatory obligations to which we are subject
• Where you have provided consent to such use
• Where we are otherwise required or authorised by law to use or retain the information

We also use information for the specific purpose(s) for which it has been collected, for example:

• To provide information about our services
• To process your enquiry in seeking our services
• In connection with providing legal services, including referring to specialist advisers
• To comply with our statutory and regulatory requirements
• To verify your identity and check for anti-money laundering purposes
• To deal with your application for employment or work experience at LTP
• To deal with any feedback, suggestions or complaint about our services

DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION

Some information provided to us is held on our computers in the UK which are assessed by our staff at our office. In addition some of our data storing and processing facilities rely on third parties or outsourced activities which may include third party IT platforms, suppliers of support and administrative services. Where this occurs we take all reasonable steps to ensure compliance with our legal obligations.

We may share information to third parties where you have consented or requested for us to do so or as part of your case, such as instructing an expert or a barrister or an interpreter or where we are under a legal, regulatory or professional obligation ( including in relevant cases to the Legal Aid Agency or a court).

We are also subject to external audit by accountants, regulators and professional assessors and occasionally files are sampled at random for this purpose that may mean disclosing data solely for the purposes of such assessment

PROTECTION OF INFORMATION

We take reasonable steps to hold information securely in electronic or physical format and to prevent unauthorised access, modification or disclosure to minimise the risk of loss, misuse or unauthorised access.

We require our third party data storage providers to comply with appropriate information security industry standards.

All staff have separate logins and passwords to maintain limits to access to confidential information and all are subject to confidentiality obligations.

As part of our duty to take reasonable steps to hold information securely, our policy is not to disclose information relating to you to third parties unless specifically for the purposes of advancing your case. For example, we may not be able to provide copies of any material to a third party supporter (such as a relative or a statutory body such as a local authority) where we have or are able to provide the information to you and where you could choose whether to disclose it and specifically to which body or person.

We will not sell, rent, or lease mailing lists or other user data to others and we will not make your personal information available to any unaffiliated parties except as follows:

• If we are unable to assist with your matter but know a firm that may be able to help you we may refer you and, with your consent, share your information that you have provided to us;
• If required to do so by law, or as a matter of public safety or policy or in connection with the transfer of our business, or if necessary to protect our rights or property

We will retain your personal information only for as long as is reasonably necessary in the circumstances.

• Personal information provided by you in connection with the provision of legal services will be retained for at least six years, or if you are a young person under the age of 18, it will be stored for six years from your 18th birthday. Thereafter, it will be processed to be destroyed confidentially. Case files, including electronic records, are usually destroyed within three months of the file destruction date, a date which is calculated from the date a file is closed. Our system alerts us to when files in storage are due to be destroyed but the process, from retrieving a file from storage to the actual date of destruction, may take time. Our aim is to destroy files as close as possible to the file destruction date but within three months of that date. Although case records will be destroyed please be aware that some limited electronic information will be retained after this time about a person’s engagement of our services for regulatory purposes only, such as for the purpose of undertaking conflict checks. This information will be strictly limited to what is necessary and will never include case records.
• Information in respect of prospective enquiries (whether by email or using the website or otherwise) would normally not be retained for more than 12 months, either as to employment or as to legal services (save where the employment commences or the provision of legal services begins).

YOUR RIGHTS

You have rights over the information that we collect and process, subject to some limitations built in to the legislation where other imperatives may apply or otherwise place restrictions on your rights. Your rights include:

• Fair processing and transparency over how your data is used
• Access to your personal information
• Requiring us to update information that is out of date or rectify any errors of information
• Requiring the erasure of personal information
• To object to the processing of any personal information which is solely for the purposes of marketing
• To object to our continuing processing of your personal information
• To otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information if required under a change in the law
• To receive the information in an electronic format
• Withdraw consent for any future processing of data
• Complain to the relevant supervisory body for a breach of the General Data Protection Regulation

For more information, to discuss any concerns or make a complaint please contact us. You can also obtain information and advice or make a complaint by contacting the Information Commissioner’s office https://ico.org.uk

REVISIONS TO THIS POLICY

We review the privacy policy from time to time to ensure it us up to date and will revise it where appropriate having regard to changes to regulations or changes in technology. Any changes will not apply retrospectively.

HOW TO CONTACT US

Luqmani Thompson & Partners

77-79 High Road

Wood Green

London N22 6BB

Telephone: 044 0208 365 7800

www.luqmanithompson.com

Enquiries@luqmanithompson.com

The person with responsibility for data protection is Sally Thompson.