This privacy policy sets out how DD Law Ltd t/a Distinct Law (“Distinct Law” / “us” / “we”) use and protect any information that you give us. This policy applies to all personal information that we collect, use and otherwise process in relation to your use of our website, your contact with us and the provision of immigration law advice and assistance to our clients and potential clients.

The policy applies whether this information is given or collected when you use this website, in subsequent communications with us, or through any other means.

We are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide or collect certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

Any personal information processed by Distinct Law in connection with this Privacy Policy is controlled by Distinct Law, which is considered the legal “data controller” of your personal information. DD Law Ltd t/a Distinct Law is a company registered in England & Wales . Registered number: No. 16236784.

Demetris Demetriou is our data protection officer.

We may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

What is personal information

Personal information means details which identify you or could be used to identify you, such as your name and contact details and your immigration history. It may also include information about how you use our website and mobile applications, if the information is capable of identifying you.

How we use your information

We will collect information about you and keep this on our computers, in our email, in cloud storage and on paper for a certain period of time. The main reasons for this are to:

• deliver the legal services we have agreed in contract to provide to you. For example, we may use your information to write letters on your behalf or prepare legal documents to help you with your matter;
• comply with the law. For example, as solicitors we have to perform ‘conflicts of interest’ checks for new cases against a list of current and former clients. We also have a legal duty to report suspicious activity to the National Crime Agency (‘NCA’) if we suspect money laundering. 
• improve our services, including this website;
• provide information requested by you;
• manage and administer our relationship with you and our clients;
• provide legal services to you and to our clients;
• for internal record keeping and to fulfil our legal, regulatory and risk management obligations, including establishing exercising or defending legal claims;
• for the purpose of recruitment;

In some cases, we may hold more ‘sensitive’ information about you such as about health. This may be necessary to pursue your legal matter. We are permitted to use such information to provide legal advice to you or in connection with equality legislation.

As a client we may also in the future send you a newsletter or similar and find that most clients find this helpful. We rely upon the ‘legitimate interest’ we have in maintaining contact with former clients to do this in data protection law and your agreement for the purposes of the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations (which can be implied under these Regulations). However, we will never share your information with third parties to market to you and will not contact you about non-legal services. We will make it quick and easy to ‘opt out’ of future communications in every communication sent. If you already know that you don’t want to receive these messages then you can opt out now by emailing [email protected]

Your information may be kept on computer servers within the European Union. If at any point information is stored on computer servers outside of the EU, we have selected countries which are either approved for this purpose (under Article 45 of the data protection rules) or are located where we are happy that the safeguards in place in that country to protect your information are appropriate (under what was Article 45 of the data protection rules).

We do not use your personal information to make ‘automated decisions’ which affect you.

What personal information do we collect and process about you?

When you view our website or associated social media, we may collect high level information about the pages that you have viewed and your country of origin. We do not collect or retain information that is capable of identifying an individual simply from viewing our website or blog.

When you contact us, via our website, email or over the telephone, we may collect the following information:

• Name and job title;
• Contact information including email address and phone number;
• Demographic information such as postcode;
• Basic information about your employment, job title and your relationship to a person;
• Basic information about your immigration status or the nature of your legal issue;
• Any other information or documentation that you choose to provide when you tell us about your immigration issues using our web enquiry form.

When you engage our services we may collect and process additional information such as:

• Further information and documentation relating to your identification and background checks, required as part of our client acceptance process;
• Information you provide for the purpose of attending meetings with us, such as your dietary and travel needs;
• Financial information relating to payment of fees;
• Personal information provided by or on behalf of you (as a client) or generated in the course of providing our legal services to you. This may include special categories of data;
• Any other information relating to you which you may choose to provide to us.

Sometimes, assisting a client will also involve the client providing personal information to us about another individual. This personal information will also be received, retained, processed, stored and destroyed in accordance with this policy. We will only hold such indirectly received personal information and documentation relating to individuals other than our clients insofar as it is lawful and reasonably necessary to do so and in order to provide the legal service contracted for with our client.

Will you share my information with anyone else?

Generally speaking, we will not share your information with third parties unless this is part of the work on your legal matter. For example, we may need to send certain information about you to other lawyers working on the case, to Court or to government bodies such as the Land Registry or the Home Office. In rare circumstances we sometimes need to make reports of suspicious activity to the NCA. We do also work with some trusted contractors or consultants who may have access to your information such as service providers or copiers.  All contractors have a contract with us which requires that your information is accessed appropriately and kept confidential (among other data protection requirements). A full list of the providers with whom we may share your personal information in order to run our business is maintained, reviewed and updated regularly. This list is available to clients upon request.

We will never sell, lease or hire any of your personal information to any third party for marketing or any other purpose.

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 of every website you visit.

How long will you keep my information?  

Generally speaking, files are destroyed after 6 years. Certain original documents or files may need to be kept longer if there is a big risk of destroying something which is needed. We will also always keep a small amount of information after file closure to do conflicts of interest searches in the future to comply with our professional duties.

What can you do to help?

We take great care to keep your information safe. Here are some of the things you can do to keep your information secure as well :

• If you are contacting us via email, ensure that the devices that you use are pin-locked and securely encrypted
• Ensure that you have a good level of encryption and virus protection on your computers, iPad, phones and any other electronic devices
• Keep any log-in details confidential
• Be vigilant and alert in relation to unsolicited emails that ask you to confirm any passwords or bank details or ask you to send money to a third party. These are likely to be fraudulent ‘phishing’ emails which is the illegal gathering of personal information by deception.
• Use our secure portal to exchange confidential information and documents containing personal data

Can I see what information you hold about me?

We do normally have a right to payment of any outstanding costs before releasing a whole file, but you do have a separate right under the data protection rules to access your ‘personal data’ without charge. This may include having it in a particular electronic format (‘portable’ format). Please contact Demetris Demetriou on [email protected]  if you would like to request a copy of your personal data.

Please note, if you are requesting personal information held about you that has been provided to us by one of our clients in connection with their legal matter, it is unlikely that we will be permitted by law to provide this to you. Such material would be covered by legal professional privilege.

What if I have other questions or concerns or want to withdraw my consent?

Our general contact details are set out in our communications and on our website. Our data information officer is: Demetris Demetriou, email: [email protected]

Please contact him if you want to exercise one of your data protection ‘rights’ and in particular if you:

• wish to complain about how your personal data is being used;
• wish to request that our records about your personal information be corrected or deleted;
• wish to withdraw your consent or restrict our processing of your personal information

If you have a complaint about how your personal information is being used which we have not been able to address, please note that you may be able to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) directly.

You have the right to request that personal information that we hold about you is rectified. If you believe that any information that we hold about you is incorrect, please contact us straight away to put this right.

You have the right to request that we delete the personal information that we hold about you. This is often referred to as the right to be forgotten. This will be subject to any regulatory or legal requirements that we may have to retain a copy of your personal data for a specified period.

You have the right to restrict our processing of your personal information, to stop unauthorised transfers to a third party and (in some circumstances) the right to have personal information that we hold transferred to another organisation.

If you object to the processing of your personal information, or if you have provided your consent to processing and you later choose to withdraw it, we will respect that choice in accordance with our legal obligations.

Please note, that your objection or withdrawal of consent could mean that we are unable to continue to provide our services to you. Further, even after you have withdrawn consent, we may still be permitted or required to process your personal information in connection with our legal and/or regulatory obligations and in connection with exercising and defending our legal rights.

We will respond to all requests for personal information to be provided, rectified, deleted, processing restricted or the data transferred within 14 days of receiving the written request by email or letter. If we are unable to comply with a request within 14 days, we will explain that to you and the reasons why, and tell you how long we need to comply with your request.