Terms of Use & Privacy

Introduction and General Terms

Excel Solicitors & Advocates is a limited company registered in England and Wales, company registration number 10864306. We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA number 640801). We are subject to the Solicitors Code of Conduct and are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office Data Protection Register under number ZA279446.

At Excel Solicitors & Advocates, we respect the privacy of all personal information we process and are committed to protecting our data. This privacy notice tells you about the information we process as part of providing legal services.

In collecting this information, we can operate in different capacities; as such we may act as data processors or joint-controllers. This Notice sets out relevant information about how Excel Solicitors & Advocates may collect and use your personal data, about why and how we use the data we process, and about the rights you have over your data.

This Privacy Policy is intended to assist you in making informed decisions when using our Services and to understand how we may process your personal information as a result of providing the Services to third parties. Please take a moment to read and understand it.

Please also note that this Privacy Notice only applies to the use of your personal information obtained by us.

The data we collect about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. We collect only that personal data from you that we require to enable us to provide legal services to our clients.

In the field of claims dispute resolution, this could be because you are, but not limited to:

an indemnified policyholder;
a policyholder for whom indemnity has been refused or reserved;
an insured driver;
an uninsured driver;
an employee or representative of an insured or self-insured company;
an employee or representative of a non-indemnified company;
a claimant or prospective claimant;
a third party or prospective third party;
an employee or representative of a claimant or prospective claimant;
an employee or representative of a third party or prospective third party;
a witness, including expert witness;
an external legal service provider, including but not limited to Counsel, Loss Adjusters, or Claims investigators
an employee or representative of an insurer or self-insured client;
a representative of the Court Service; or
any other individual viably connected to a claim upon which we are instructed to act.

Depending on your relationship with us, we may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped as follows:

*Contact Data - includes name, email address, telephone number

*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.

*Usage Data - includes information about your use of our service, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our website (including date and time); elements you viewed or words you searched for; page response times; download errors; length of visits; interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs).

*Communications Data - includes emails, notes of conversations, etc.

Certain categories of data are considered Sensitive Data and are subject to additional safeguards. The categories of Sensitive Data which we may process directly or indirectly relate to the following:

Sensitive Data: includes racial or ethnic origin, political opinion, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, criminal convictions, physical and mental health and/or sexual orientation.

The lists set out above are not exhaustive, and there may be other personal data which Excel Solicitors & Advocates processes in the context of our relationship with you. We will update this Notice from time to time to reflect any notable changes in the categories of data which are processed.

Where your personal data may come from

The personal data which we process will be collected from a number of sources including (but not limited to) the following:

our clients
claimants
insurers or their insureds
defendants
3rd parties
third party data providers/search systems
witnesses
counsel
insurance industry databases
experts
other solicitors
law enforcement agencies
insurance companies
social media
loss adjusters and claims investigators
intermediaries (claims management suppliers etc)
industry regulators, including but not limited to the SRA, FCA, PRA and ICO
fraud prevention agencies and organisations

How we may use your personal data

We will use your personal data only when legally permitted. We may use your data in a variety of ways that enables us to provide legal advice and/or to conduct legal proceedings on behalf of our clients and/or to assist in the prevention of fraud; where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of our clients or a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests; or where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

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

Where ‘legal services’ above includes (but not limited to) the following:

legal advice
legal services including advocacy and representation in Court
claims handling services
advising on and negotiating legal contracts
training and legal updates
day to day operations of our business
managing court or legal proceedings including prospective legal proceedings
Engaging with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies

Again this list is not exhaustive and Excel Solicitors & Advocates may undertake additional processing of personal data in line with the purposes set out above. We will update this Notice from time to time to reflect any notable changes to the purposes for which your personal data is processed.

Sharing your personal data

We may share your personal information with other organisations as required in order to provide our legal services. These may include the following:

other solicitors
Professional Indemnity and other relevant insurers
professional advisers
cost draftsmen
witnesses
Lexcel and other quality accreditation providers
mediators
document processors
printers
translation services
confidential waste disposal
IT systems or software providers
document archiving providers
IT support service providers
experts
fraud prevention agencies
government organisations
regulators (including SRA, FCA, ICO, PRA)
Legal Ombudsman or Financial Services Ombudsman
external legal service providers, including but not limited to Counsel, Loss Adjusters, or Claims investigators
regulators (ICO etc)

We require all third parties to respect the confidentiality and security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the data protection laws. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and by our instructions.

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. 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, for example for the purpose of the detection and prevention of crime.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law or under the terms of a contract for legal services 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. In this case, we may have to cancel our contractual relationship with you, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

Automated decision making

We do not use the information you provide to make any automated decisions that might affect you.

International transfers

We do not knowingly transfer any personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

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. Also, 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.

Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including to satisfy any legal, accounting, 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.

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

This version of our privacy policy was last updated on 24 May 2018.

We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time. We may make changes as required to comply with changes in applicable law or regulatory requirement and we encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to be informed of how we use your personal information.

It is vital 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.

Your rights over your information

By law, you can ask us what information we hold about you, request to have access to it, and you can ask us to correct it if it is inaccurate. In those cases where we process your information for contractual reasons, you can ask us to give you a copy of the information.

If you believe we are not using your information lawfully, you can ask us to stop using it for a period. In some circumstances, you may have the right to ask us to erase your personal data.

To submit a request by email, post or telephone, please use the contact information provided below

Contacting us

Any enquiries about our use of your personal data should be addressed to the contact details below.

Phone: 0161 401 4009

Email: solutions@excelsolicitors.co.uk

Address: Data Protection Officer, Excel Solicitors & Advocates, Suite 80, 792 Wilmslow Road, Manchester M20 6UG

Your right to complain

If you have a complaint about our use of your information, we would prefer you to raise it with us in the first instance to give us the opportunity to put it right, but you can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office as below:

Address: ICO, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF

Website: www.ico.org.uk/concerns

Cookie Policy

Information About Our Use of Cookies:

We use cookies to make our website easier for you to use
We use cookies to monitor usage so we can spot trends and make improvements
We do not use cookies to identify individuals (and never will)
We do not store personal information in cookies

We do not believe that cookies pose any threat to your personal privacy or online security and recommend that you "allow" cookies. If you "disable" cookies, you may not benefit from the full use of our website.

What Are Cookies?

A cookie is used by a website to send 'state information' to a Users' browser and for the browser to return the state information to the website. The state information can be used for authentication, identification of a User session, User preferences, or anything else that can be accomplished through storing text data on the User's computer.
Cookies cannot be programmed, cannot carry viruses, and cannot install malware on the host computer. However, they can be used to track users' browsing activities.
Cookies are used by most websites for a variety of reasons - often very practical reasons to do with the operation of the website. However, they are also used to monitor how people are using the website (which pages are visited and how long is spent on each page). Each "visitor session" is tracked even though no effort is made to try to identify them in person.
The new legislation now states that you must be able to opt-out from having cookies stored on their computer.

What Happens If You Opt-Out

If you decide to disable cookies we record this so you don't get asked the question again. You will find that most of the website works as expected although functions that rely on cookies are obviously disabled. These functions include using online forms (e.g. our enquiry form). We use a cookie to remember your cookie preferences, this has a couple of consequences:

If you delete all your cookies, you will have to tell us your preference again
If you use a different device, computer profile or browser you will have to tell us your preference again

Cookies That Are Strictly Necessary

"Strictly Necessary" cookies let you move around the website and use essential features. These cookies don't gather any information about you that could be used for marketing or remembering where you've been on the internet.

Performance Cookies

"Performance" cookies collect information about how you use our website e.g. which pages you visit, and if you experience any errors. These cookies don't collect any information that could identify you – all the information collected is anonymous and is only used to help us improve how our website works.
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics to monitor usage of the website. Google Analytics collects information anonymously. It reports website trends without identifying individual visitors (not by name or IP address).

These cookies are used to store information, such as what time your current visit occurred, whether you have been to the site before, and what site referred you to the web page. These cookies contain no personally identifiable information but they will use your computer’s IP address to know from where in the world you are accessing the Internet. Google stores the information collected by these cookies on servers in the United States. Google may transfer this information to third-parties where required to do so by law, or where such third-parties process the information on Google’s behalf.

Opt-out

In order to provide website visitors with more choice on how data is collected by Google Analytics, Google has developed the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to stop data being sent to Google Analytics. The Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on does not affect usage of the website in any other way. A link to further information on the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on is provided below for your convenience.

http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=None

For more information on the usage of cookies by Google Analytics please see the Google website. A link to the privacy advice for this product is provided below for your convenience.

http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/privacy.html

Disabling Cookies

If you would like to restrict the use of cookies you can control this in your Internet browser. Links to advice on how to do this for the most popular Internet browsers are provided below for convenience and will be available for the Internet browser of your choice either online or via the software help (normally available via key F1).

Internet Explorer - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/Block-enable-or-allow-cookiesGoogle
Chrome - https://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en-GB&answer=95647&p=cpn_cookiesMozilla
Firefox - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences
Safari - https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201265