Privacy and Cookie Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

Last updated 30 June 2023.

LAWorld Ltd, 18 Eastern Road, Romford, Essex RM1 3PJ, ENGLAND (registered number 03444906) (“us”, “our”, “we”, “LAWorld”) is a non-exclusive international legal network of more than 50 independent mid-sized law firms covering most of the major commercial centres around the world, with more than 1350 lawyers across 100 cities. Its central purpose is to provide the clients of its members with instant access to quality legal advice anywhere in the world.

This privacy policy (the “Policy” or “Privacy Policy”) sets out the types of personal data we collect, store and use when you access and visit the Website, where we otherwise obtain or collect data about you and how we may use that data.

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy explains who we are, why and how we process personal data collected through your use of the Website and, if you are the subject of any of the personal data concerned, what rights you have and how to get in touch with us if you need to.

When you supply any personal data to us, we have legal obligations towards you in the way we use that data. For ease of reading, we have divided this Policy into several sections:

1. Introduction
2. What information can we collect?
3. How is your personal information collected and why might it be shared?
4. For how long do we keep your personal information?
5. Security
6. International Data Transfers
7. Your Rights
8. Contact Details

It is important that you read this Policy together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notices that we may provide on the Website at or around the time that we collect or process personal data about you (for example, fair processing notices that we may display to you at the time that you sign up to receive e-mail updates from us) so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using that data.

This Policy supplements other notices on the Website and is not intended to override or replace them.

By visiting or otherwise using the Website, you agree to its terms (including as amended from time to time) and this Privacy Policy. If, for any reason, you do not agree to the terms of this Policy, please stop using this Website.

We reserve the right to revise or amend this Policy at any time to reflect changes to our business or changes in the law. Where these changes are significant we will endeavour to let users of the Website know. However, it is your responsibility to check this Policy before each use of the Website – for ease of reference the top of this Policy indicates the date on which it was last updated.

Please note that our Website is not directed at children under the age of 13 (each “Child” together “Children”) and we do not knowingly collect personal data about Children via the Website. If you believe we have collected personal data about your Child, you may contact us at mail@laworld.com and request that we cease processing data about your Child.

2. What information can we collect?

What is personal data?

Where this Policy refers to ‘personal data’ it is referring to data about you from which you could be identified – such as your name, your date of birth, your contact details and even your IP address.

By law, all organisations who process your personal data in the UK are obliged to process your personal data in certain ways and to ensure that you are given an appropriate amount of information about how they use it. You also have various rights to seek information from those organisations about how they are using your data, and to prevent them from processing it unlawfully. For more information about these rights, please see the ‘Your Rights’ section of this Privacy Policy.

What types of data we collect from you when you register for membership

The personal data we collect from you may include:

Identification data, such as name, membership status
Contact details, such as email address, address, telephone number, social media usernames
Employment details, such as place of work/study, job title, type of law firm, practice
area
Financial data, such as bank account details, status of payment
Any additional membership data collected
Any food dietary requests
Photos taken at events

Voluntary Provision of Data

When you voluntarily supply your personal data to us, for example where you use the Website to upload or send personal data (by contacting us via our Website about our professional services, or similar activities in which your volunteer data about yourself) contact us by post, telephone, email or SMS, report a problem with a Website, we may collect, store and use the personal data that you disclose to us.

The personal data we collect from you may include your title, name, address, e-mail address, company, job title, employment history and phone number– but will depend on precisely what details you volunteer to us as you interact with the Website.

By way of illustration, such data may include:

Identification data, such as name and membership status
Contact details, such as email address, address, telephone number, and social media usernames
Any food dietary requests if you use the website to book attendance at an event
Photos taken at events

Automated Collection of Data

We may also collect personal data about you when you visit the Website through the use of technologies such as cookies. The following are examples of data we may collect:

information about your device, browser or operating system
your IP address
information about links that you click and pages you view on our Website
length of visits to certain pages
subjects you viewed or searched for
page response times
records of download errors and/or broken links
page interaction information (such as details of your scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs)
methods used to browse away from the page
the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from this Website (including date and time)

We use the data described above for several different reasons. Firstly, we use it to ensure that the Websites work properly and that you are able to receive the full benefit of them. Second, we use the data to monitor online traffic and audience participation across the Website. We undertake both of these activities because we have a legitimate interest in doing so.

3. How is your personal information collected and why might it be shared?

Sharing your personal data

Depending on how and why you provide us with your personal data we may share it in the following ways:

we may share your personal data with any member of LAWorld, which means all independent law firms listed on the Website
with selected third parties who we sub-contract to provide various services and/or aspects of the Website’s functionality, such as where third party plugins provide functionality such as image hosting services (see “Service Providers” below)
with analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of this Website as described above

We will not share your personal data with other third parties in order for that third party to provide direct marketing communications to you, unless it relates to a specific activity which we are undertaking with a third party and you have provided your consent for that use. Such activity may have its own terms and conditions relating to the way in which your personal data may be used, which you will be notified of at the relevant time.

We may also disclose your personal data to third parties in the following events:

if we were to sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we might disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets as part of that sale
if LAWorld or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by us about our clients and Website users may be transferrable assets
if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation (or a regulatory obligation imposed upon us by a relevant regulator), or if we are asked to provide your details to a lawful authority in order to aid in the investigation of crime or disorder
if we are obliged to do so as part of a court imposed disclosure exercise which relates to the legal services that we may provide to you from time to time
in order to enforce or apply our Website’s terms of use or terms and conditions; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our firm, our clients, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction

Service Providers

Our service providers provide us with a variety of administrative, statistical, and technical services. We will only provide service providers with the minimum amount of personal data they need to fulfil the services we request, and we stipulate that they protect this data and do not use it for any other purpose. We take these relationships seriously and oblige all of our data processors to sign contracts with us that clearly set out their commitment to respecting individual rights, and their commitments to assisting us to help you exercise your rights as a data subject. In particular, we may share your personal data with our website developers who assist us in maintaining and updating this Website.

Links to third party sites

Where we provide links to third party websites that are not affiliated with www.laworld.com such sites are out of our control and are not covered by this Information. If you access third party sites using the links provided, the operators of these sites may collect personal data from you that could be used by them, in accordance with their own privacy policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to those websites.

4. For how long do we keep your personal data?

We will hold your personal information on our systems only for as long as required to provide you with the services you have requested, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation with respect to our relationship with you.

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, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

By law we have to keep basic information about our members (including contact, identity, financial and transaction Data) for six years after they cease being members for compliance purposes. In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see ‘Your Rights’ below for further information, although this may not always be possible if we are obliged to retain the data for compliance purposes.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

We may also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated data could be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data will 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.

5. Security and International Transfers

LAWorld takes the protection of your information very seriously. We have put in place technologically and organisationally appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.

LAWorld may store your personal data on secure servers either on our premises or in secure third party data centres.

Please note that some of our service providers may be based outside of the European Union (the “EU”) or the European Economic Area (the “EEA”). These service providers may work for us or for one of our suppliers and may be engaged in, among other things, the provision of support services. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. Where we transfer your data to a service provider that is outside of the EU/EEA we seek to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to make sure that your personal data is held securely and that your rights as a data subject are upheld. Where an international transfer of your personal data occurs, we will ensure that an adequate safeguard is in place to ensure that transfer is secure and lawful – this will usually be the ‘Standard Contract Clauses’. If you would like more information about how the mechanism via which your personal data is transferred, please contact mail@laworld.com.

6. Your Rights

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator 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 mail@laworld.com.

As a data subject you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. Below, we have described the various rights that you have, as well as how you can exercise them.

Right of Access

You may, at any time, request access to the personal data that we hold which relates to you (you may have heard of this right being described as a “subject access request”).

Please note that this right entitles you to receive a copy of the personal data that we hold about you in order to enable you to check that it is correct and to ensure that we are processing that personal data lawfully. It is not a right that allows you to request personal data about other people, or a right to request specific documents from us that do not relate to your personal data.

You can exercise this right at any time by writing to us by contacting us and telling us that you are making a subject access request. You do not have to fill in a specific form to make this kind of request.

Your Right to Rectification and Erasure

You may, at any time, request that we correct personal data that we hold about you which you believe is incorrect or inaccurate. You may also ask us to erase personal data if you do not believe that we need to continue processing it including storing it (you may have heard of this right described as the “right to be forgotten”).

Please note that we may ask you to verify any new data that you provide to us and may take our own steps to check that the new data you have supplied us with is correct. Further, we are not always obliged to erase personal data when asked to do so; if for any reason we believe that we have a good legal reason to continue processing personal data that you ask us to erase we will tell you what that reason is at the time we respond to your request.

You can exercise this right at any time by contacting us and telling us that you are making a request to have your personal data rectified or erased and on what basis you are making that request. If you want us to replace inaccurate data with new data, you should tell us what that new data is. You do not have to fill in a specific form to make this kind of request.

Your Right to Restrict Processing

Where we process your personal data on the basis of a legitimate interest (see the sections of this Policy which explain how and why we use your information) you are entitled to ask us to stop processing it in that way if you feel that our continuing to do so impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms or if you feel that those legitimate interests are not valid.

You may also ask us to stop processing your personal data (a) if you dispute the accuracy of that personal data and want us verify that data’s accuracy; (b) where it has been established that our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where we no longer need to process your personal data (and would otherwise dispose of it) but you wish for us to continue storing it in order to enable you to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms., We will tell you what that reason is, either at the time we first respond to your request or after we have had the opportunity to consider and investigate it.

You can exercise this right at any time by writing to us using the contact details set out here and telling us that you are making a request to have us stop processing the relevant aspect of your personal data and describing which of the above conditions you believe is relevant to that request. You do not have to fill in a specific form to make this kind of request.

Your Right to Portability

Where you wish to transfer certain personal data that we hold about you, which is processed by automated means, to a third party you may write to us and ask us to provide it to you in a 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.

Your Right to object to processing

You may object to processing of your personal data where we rely on legitimate interest for processing that personal data. We will comply with your request unless we have a compelling overriding legitimate interest for processing or we need to continue processing your personal data to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.

Your Right to stop receiving communications

Where we send you e-mail marketing communications (or other regulated electronic messages) you have the right to opt-out at any time. You can do this by using the ‘unsubscribe’ link that appears in the footer of each communication (or the equivalent mechanism in those communications).

Alternatively, if for any reason you cannot use those links, or if you would prefer to contact us directly – you can unsubscribe by writing to us at mail@laworld.com. and telling us which communications you would like us to stop sending you.

Your Right to object to automated decision making and profiling

You have the right to be informed about the existence of any automated decision making and profiling of your personal data, and where appropriate, be provided with meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing that affects you.
Withdraw consent, where consent is the lawful basis for processing

You have the right to 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.

Exercising your rights

When you write to us making a request to exercise your rights we are entitled to ask you to prove that you are who you say you are. We may ask you to provide copies of relevant ID documents to help us to verify your identity.

It will help us to process your request if you clearly state which right you wish to exercise and, where relevant, why it is that you are exercising it. The clearer and more specific you can be, the faster and more efficiently we can deal with your request. If you do not provide us with sufficient information then we may delay actioning your request until you have provided us with additional information (and where this is the case we will tell you).

You will not have to pay a 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 could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could 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.

7. Contact Details

If you have any queries regarding this Privacy Policy, if you wish to exercise any of your rights set out above or if you think that the Privacy Policy has not been followed, please contact us by emailing at mail@laworld.com.

You may also lodge a complaint to the supervisory authority about the way we process your personal data. We would however, appreciate the chance to address your concerns before you approach the supervisory authority, so please contact us in the first instance.