Privacy Policy – Mediation Consultants

Welcome to the Mediation Consultants Ltd Privacy Policy

Mediation Consultants Ltd respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will inform you how we collect and use any personal information that we obtain about you and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

Please use the Glossary to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this privacy policy.

Important information and who we are
The data we collect about you
How is your personal data collected
How we use your personal data
Disclosures of your personal data
International transfers
Data security
Data retention
Your legal rights
Glossary

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this Privacy Policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how Mediation Consultants Ltd collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, when you sign up to our newsletters or engage Mediation Consultants Ltd for our services or contact us in any other way.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing policy 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. This privacy policy supplements the other policies or notices and is not intended to override them.

Controller

Mediation Consultants Ltd is a trading name. The company’s registered name Mediation Consultants Ltd (Company number 13488350);

This privacy policy is issued on behalf of Mediation Consultants Ltd Company, so when we mention “Mediation Consultants Ltd”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy, we are referring to the relevant company in the Mediation Consultants Ltd responsible for processing your data. We will let you know which entity will be the controller for your data when you engage us for our services. Mediation Consultants Ltd is the controller and responsible for this website.

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using the details set out below.

Contact details

Our full details are:

Full name of legal entity: Mediation Consultants Ltd
Email address: mediationconsultantsuk@gmail.com
Postal address: Pantiles Chambers, 85 High Street, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN1 1XP.
Telephone number: 0800 488 0840 or 0800 488 0850

Our Compliance team and in particular our Data Protection Officer monitors compliance with data protection within Mediation Consultants Ltd. If you have any questions about this notice, including any requests to exercise your rights, please contact our Compliance team using the contact details set out above.

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 (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance using the email address above. Details of our complaints procedure can be found here.

Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

The data protection law in the UK changed on 25 May 2018 as a result of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We will continue to ensure we comply with changes to UK data protection laws.

We reserve the right to amend this policy and will notify you by updating this policy, so please check it from time to time, especially if you have ongoing dealings with us.

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. If you would like to update your personal data, please contact the person handling your matter.

Third-party links

This 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 policy of every website you visit.

2. The data we collect 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).

Special categories of personal data include 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 special categories of personal data about you. Please see below in Section 2 (The data we collect about you) for details of these circumstances and Section 4 (How we use your personal data) for further details.

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

Identity data includes first name/s, maiden name, last name, user name, photographic identification, client matter number or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender. Identity data also includes information about your Professional identity such as your job title, email address, phone number and addresses, your professional experience and previous job roles and responsibilities.
Contact data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone/ mobile numbers.
Financial data includes bank account and payment card details.
Transaction data includes details about payments, invoices and bills to and from you and other details of matters you have engaged us to deal with or goods or services we have purchased from you.
Technical data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, 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.
Profile data includes your username and password, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
Usage data includes information about how you use our website, our local area networking facilities (including WiFi) and other services.
Marketing and communications data includes your preferences in receiving marketing communications and information from us and our third parties and your communication preferences. We also record when you receive and read marketing communications from us and we use this information to improve the quality of our marketing services and provide you with information that is more relevant to you.
Special categories of personal data includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership or information about your health and genetic and biometric data. We only use this data where we are required to do so for legal or regulatory purposes or where it is necessary for a specific service we are providing to you.

We 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 policy.

Our services are not usually aimed at or intended for children. However, we may process children’s personal data when we are working with child arrangement mediation, and Direct Child Consultation for them, they are beneficiaries or under an estate or trust or for you in relation to certain private matters (such as when we are advising you regarding your will, a family matter or other members of your family). We process such personal data only where necessary for the specific client services we are providing. If it is unclear why we need children’s personal data on specific client service, please contact your mediator who will be able to provide further information

3. How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

Direct interactions. You may give us your identity, professional identity, contact, financial, marketing and communications, profile, usage, technical and special categories data by filling in forms, through electronic platforms which we offer or which we have agreed with you to use, by corresponding with us by post, email or otherwise, by speaking to us in person or over the telephone. This includes personal data you provide when you:
Contact us or engage us in relation to our services;
Provide instructions to us for the performance of any contract for our services to you;
Create an account on our website;
Give us your business card at an event or a meeting;
Leave your name and contact details with our switchboard or at the reception of one of our offices;
Give us your personal data via an electronic platform which we offer or which we have agreed with you to use (such as a document sharing platform, telephone conference system or an electronic billing platform);
Subscribe to our communications or publications;
Request specific materials or information to be sent to you, either through submitting an online form or otherwise;
Register to attend a Mediation Consultants Ltd event or otherwise participate in our seminars and other events;
Apply to work at Mediation Consultants Ltd;
Enter a survey; or
Provide us with feedback.
Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect usage, technical and marketing data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive usage, technical and marketing data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
Third parties. We may receive identity, professional identity, contact, financial, usage, marketing and communications, technical and special categories of personal data about you from various third parties as set out below:
When we provide our client services or other parties send us your personal data so that we can provide those services;
Identity and contact data from online service providers for the purposes of carrying out our anti-money laundering and other background checks and confirming your identity;
When you provide your personal data to a recruitment agency or other third parties for the purposes of sharing it with us for recruitment activities;
From analytics providers such as Google and Hubspot;
We receive contact, financial and transaction data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services;
When we communicate with care homes, nursing homes, care agencies or supported living in relation to you or on your behalf;
When we communicate with governmental or regulatory organisations, the Court of Protection, Office of the Public Guardian and Adult Services or Social Services in relation to your case; or
When you provide your personal data for the purposes of sharing it with us so that we can contact you in relation to our services.
Publicly available sources. We may receive identity, professional identity, contact, financial information, technical data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:
Identity and contact data from publicly availably sources such as Companies House, the Land Registry, the Electoral Register, the Office of the Public Guardian, charities, law firms, chartered accountants.
Other public sources, including services that are accessible via the internet which you are using for professional networking purposes such as Linked-In.

4. How we use your personal data

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

Where we need to perform the contract, we are about to enter into or have entered into with you;
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests;
Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation;
Where we need to process personal data where it is necessary to protect vital interests of yourself or another individual; or
Where you have given us your consent or explicit consent to process your data. Where we rely on your consent as the legal basis for processing your personal data you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Please see this Section 4 (Opting out) for information on how to opt-out of receiving marketing communications.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to 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.

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 in the table below.

Purpose/Activity	Type of data	Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest
To register you as a new client	(a) Identity(b) Contact	Performance of a contract with you
To perform contractual obligations for you, manage payments, fees and charges, and collect and recover money owed to us.	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Financial(d) Transaction(e) Special Categories	(a) Performance of a contract with you(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)(c) Explicit consent(d) Necessary to protect the vital interests of the data subject or of another person natural person where the data subject is physically or legally incapable of giving consent.(e) Necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
To comply with regulatory requirements that apply to our business	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Financial(d) Transaction	(a) Performance of a contract with you(b) Necessary to comply with our legal obligations(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)
To manage our relationship with you which will include:(a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy(b) Asking you to leave a review, feedback or take a survey	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Profile(d) Marketing and Communications	(a) Performance of a contract with you(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how clients use our services)
To enable you to partake in a competition or complete a survey	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Profile(d) Usage(e) Marketing and Communications	(a) Performance of a contract with you(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how clients use our services, to develop our services and grow our business)
To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Technical	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (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)(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
To deliver relevant website content, information and publications to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the information and publications we make available to you	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Profile(d) Usage(e) Marketing and Communications(f) Technical	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how clients use our services, to develop our services, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To use data analytics to improve our website, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences	(a) Technical(b) Usage	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of clients for our services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To make suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Technical(d) Usage(e) Profile	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business)
To review any CVs or covering letters you may send to us	(a) Identity (b) Contact	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to decide whether to arrange a job interview or appoint you) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
To deal with your enquiry	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Marketing and Communications(d) Special Categories	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to ensure the relevant department or team is able to contact you in relation to your enquiry) (b) Explicit consent (c) Necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims

Personal data about other individuals collected by you

On some occasions, as part of our providing legal services to you, you may give us data about individuals who are not aware that we are engaged by you or processing their personal data (this may include, for example, data about employees or the target in a corporate acquisition where you are the purchaser). When this happens, we are unlikely to have direct contact with individuals whose personal data we are processing, or there may be other reasons where it would not be appropriate for us to contact them to provide them with information about how we are processing their personal data (such as to maintain confidentiality). Before you pass such personal data to us, you must make sure that the relevant individuals have received any necessary privacy notices in connection with the performance of our services.

Processing your personal data if you are not our client

If you are not our client, we may need to process your data so that we can provide legal services to our client. Where this is the case, your personal data may be used on behalf of our client in legal proceedings. In these circumstances the legal ground we are relying on to process your data:

Necessary for our legitimate interests, our client’s legitimate interests or those of another third party; or
Necessary to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations.

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and providing information relating to our services. We have established a preference centre where you can view and make certain decisions about your personal data.

We may use your identity, contact, technical, usage and profile data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased services from us or if you provided us with your details and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Opting out

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by logging into the website and checking or unchecking relevant boxes to adjust your marketing preferences or by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of any matters you have engaged our services for.

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 cookie 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 would like us to provide 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. Disclosures of your personal data

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above.

Internal third parties.

Other companies in the Mediation Consultants Ltd group acting as joint controllers or processors and who are based in the United Kingdom.

External third parties.

Service providers acting as processors based in the UK who provide IT and system administration services.
Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including accountants, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the UK who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
Third parties providing services for the performance of our contract with you including, Independent Financial Adviseers, Actuary medical experts, professional advisers such as those listed immediately above, agents, barristers, surveyors, and official agencies such as the Courts.
Various third parties and public sources such as Companies House and Land Registry.
Information service providers acting as processors based in the UK who provide identity verification services for anti-money laundering purposes.
Other third-party sub-contractors, not referred to under external third parties, who provide services for us and/or help to provide services to you. In the event that we use sub-contractors who have access to your personal data, we ensure that there are contractual terms in place to ensure that they only process personal data to the extent that we instruct them to do so in writing and there are suitably worded confidentiality and data protection clauses in all such contracts.
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 policy.

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.

6. International transfers

Some of our external third parties are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so their processing of your personal data may involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it 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. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries.
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. For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of perosnal data to third countries.
Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US. For further details, see European Commission: EU-US Privacy Shield.

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

7. 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 of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

8. Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

We will process your data for the duration of the matter and thereafter will retain the data relating to the specific matter, including the personal data within it, for as long as you might legally bring a claim against us. We will retain your personal data after you cease to be a client of the firm based on our legal and regulatory requirements.

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, accounting, regulatory 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.

9. Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Please click on the links below to find out more about these rights:

You have the right to:

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. To comply with anti-money laundering legislation where we have been required to report knowledge or suspicion of money laundering or terrorist activities to the relevant agency we will not normally be able to inform you of the non-erasure of that information as the law prohibits us from doing so.
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 to 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 suspend 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 send us an email detailing your enquiry.

No fee is usually required

You will have to pay a small 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.

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 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.

10. Glossary

Lawful basis

Legitimate interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. 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). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

1 July 2021.