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Website Terms of Use

French Law Matters is the trading name for the sole practitioner Lauren Annicchiarico who is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under registration number 296484. The office address Suite1, First Floor, Richmond House, Richmond Hill, Bournemouth BH2 6EZ. All communications regarding this website should be addressed to: French Law Matters at the office address shown above.

Lauren Annicchiarico trading as French Law Matters is not VAT registered.

Disclaimer

We hope that you find this website interesting and informative. This website contains general information based on French law and although all endeavours are used to ensure that the contents are accurate and up to date, no representation or warranty, either express or implied, is made relating to its accuracy or completeness, and the information on the website should not be relied upon. Users of this website should always seek appropriate legal advice in relation to their specific situation. The contents of this website should not be treated as legal or other professional advice and French Law Matters do not accept any responsibility for any loss caused arising either directly or indirectly from any reliance placed upon any information on this website or in connection with the use of, or the lack of availability of this website or its content or as a result of withdrawing and/or screening, editing or removing any materials or content on the website or otherwise.

Viruses

We do not warrant (either expressly or impliedly) that the function, operation or accessibility of this website will be uninterrupted or error-free, that defects will be corrected, or that the website or the server that makes it available will be free of viruses or other harmful elements. It is your responsibility to virus check all materials before downloading them from this site for any purpose.

Links

Links made to other websites are made entirely at your own risk and French Law Matters accepts no liability for any linked sites. Any linked sites listed in our website have been put together for the ease of reference of the user of the French Law Matters website and French Law Matters do not accept any form of responsibility for the content, protection and privacy of any information which you may provide in these linked sites. You therefore visit these linked sites at your own risk.

Copyright

The pages of this website are subject to copyright. You may access or download the contents of any pages and store them on a temporary basis for the purpose of using the pages.

Privacy Policy

We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

Our use of your personal data is subject to your instructions, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), other relevant UK and EU legislation and our professional duty of confidentiality.

Key terms

It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this document:

We, us, our	French Law Matters THIS Workspace, 18 Albert Road, Bournemouth, BH1 1BZ
Our data protection officer	Lauren Annicchiarico lauren@frenchlawmatters.co.uk or 01202 355480
Personal data	Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual
Special category personal data	Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership Genetic and biometric data Data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation

Personal data we collect about you

The table below sets out the personal data we will or may collect in the course of advising and/or acting for you.

Personal data we will collect

Personal data we may collect depending on why you have instructed us

Your name, address and telephone number Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, eg your date of birth or passport details Electronic contact details, eg your email address and mobile phone number Information relating to the matter on which you are seeking our services Information to enable us to undertake a credit or other financial checks on you Your financial details so far as relevant to your instructions Passwords and login details in relation to encrypted emails, dropbox etc

Your National Insurance and tax details Your bank and/or building society details Details of your spouse/partner and dependants or other family members, Your employment status , personal assets and investments worldwide Details of your accountants , mortgage broker, surveyor, estate agents

This personal data is required from you to enable us to provide our service to you. If you do not provide personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.

How your personal data is collected

We collect most of this information from you direct. However, we may also collect information:

• from publicly accessible sources, eg Companies House or HM Land Registry;
• from a third party with your consent, eg:
  • - your bank or building society, another financial institution or advisor;
  • - consultants and other professionals we may engage in relation to your matter;

How and why we use your personal data

Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason for doing so, eg:

• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
• for our legitimate interests or those of a third party; or
• you have given consent.

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.

The table below explains what we use (process) your personal data for and our reasons for doing so:

What we use your personal data for	Our reasons
To provide legal services to you	For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract
Conducting checks to identify our clients and verify their identity Other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, eg Anti Money laundering Regulations	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Ensuring business policies are adhered to, eg policies covering security and internet use	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Statistical analysis to help us manage our practice, eg in relation to our financial performance, client base, work type or other efficiency measures	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Updating and enhancing client records	For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations For our legitimate interests or those of a third party
Statutory returns	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations For our legitimate interests or those of a third party
Marketing our services and those of selected third parties to: —existing and former clients; —third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services.	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party
External audits and quality checks and the audit of our accounts	For our legitimate interests or a those of a third party To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

The above table does not apply to special category personal data, which we will only process with your explicit consent.

Promotional communications

We may use your personal data to send you updates (by email, telephone or post) about legal services we offer that might be of interest to you and/or information about our services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new services.

We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data for promotional purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal data’). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you promotional communications. However, where consent is needed, we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.

We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.
You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by:

• contacting us by letter to THIS Workspace, 18 Albert Road, Bournemouth, BH1 1BZ
• contacting us by email to lauren@frenchlawmatters.co.uk

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.

Who we share your personal data with

We only share personal data with your express consent and in compliance with our legal obligations of confidentiality but this may be shared in order for us to perform the services you have instructed us to do. We may therefore share your data with the following:

• other legal professional advisers who we instruct on your behalf or refer you to, eg notaires, avocats, translators, accountants, mortgage brokers, banks, tax advisors or other experts;
• other third parties where necessary to carry out your instructions eg mortgage provider or HM Land Registry in the case of property transactions or Companies House
• our insurers and brokers;
• external auditors, eg in relation to the audit of our accounts;

We only allow our service providers to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers relating to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.

We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

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.

Where your personal data is held

Information may be held at our offices and those of our third- party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see ‘Who we share your personal data with’).

Some of these third parties may be based outside the European Economic Area. For more information, including on how we safeguard your personal data when this occurs, see below: ‘Transferring your personal data out of the EEA’.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will keep your personal data after we have finished advising or acting for you. We will do so for one of these reasons:

• to respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;
• to show that we treated you fairly;
• to keep records required by law.

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.

Transferring your personal data out of the EEA

To deliver services to you, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA), eg:

• with your and our service providers located outside the EEA;
• if you are based outside the EEA;

These transfers are subject to special rules under European and UK data protection law.

If you would like further information, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).

Your rights

You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:

Access	The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data (the right of access)
Rectification	The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data
To be forgotten	The right to require us to delete your personal data—in certain situations
Restriction of processing	The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data—in certain circumstances, eg if you contest the accuracy of the data
Data portability	The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party—in certain situations
To object	The right to object: —at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing; —in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, eg processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests.
Not to be subject to automated individual decision-making	The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you

For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

• email, call or write to our Data Protection Officer—see below: ‘How to contact us’; and
• let us have enough information to identify you (eg your full name, address and client reference number);
• let us have proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill); and
• let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.

Keeping your personal data secure

We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.

How to complain

We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you may raise about our use of your information.

The General Data Protection Regulation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or European Economic Area) state where you work, normally live or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at or telephone: [0303 123 1113].

Changes to this privacy policy

This privacy notice was published on 4th May 2018.
We may change this privacy notice from time to time, when we do we will inform you via email.

How to contact us

Please contact our Data Protection Officer by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you.

Our contact details are shown below:

Our contact details	Our Data Protection Officer's contact details
THIS Workspace, 18 Albert Road, Bournemouth, BH1 1BZ Tel: 01202 355480 Fax: 01202 355 479 Email: Lauren@frenchlawmatters.co.uk	THIS Workspace, 18 Albert Road, Bournemouth, BH1 1BZ Tel: 01202 355480 Fax: 01202 355 479 Email: Lauren@frenchlawmatters.co.uk

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