Why you should read this policy
We ask that you read this Privacy Policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are, how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and on how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

Who we are
www.hybridlegal.co.uk is brought to you by Hybrid Legal Limited, a company incorporated and registered in England and Wales under company number 08763108 whose registered office address is at 12-14 Carlton Place, Southampton, Hampshire, SO15 2EA.

We take the privacy of our clients and Website visitors very seriously. We ask that you read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information about how we will use your personal data.

Hybrid Legal (‘We’ or ‘us’) collect, use and are responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and the Data Protection Act 2018. We are responsible as a ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

Our collection and use of your personal information
Information that you provide
We will obtain personal information you provide when you send us feedback, submit data via email, on our website or over the phone, post material, complete forms, report a problem with the website, contact us for any reason and by any medium, sign up for a service and when you sign up for our mailing list.

We may collect, store or process data that is labelled as sensitive under the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 (‘GDPR’). If such data is requested, you will be given additional information as to why the sensitive personal data is being requested and how it will be used, often this will be required to provide you with our services.

We may retain a record of any contact you make with us.

The personal information we collect about you depends on the particular activities carried out and the reason for the processing. Such information includes, but is not limited to:

  • your name, address and contact details;
  • details of your employer/business and your role/job title;
  • financial information;
  • details of any contact we have with you; and
  • information about the services we provide to you.

Personal information about other individuals
If you give us information on behalf of someone else, you confirm that the other person has appointed you to act on his/her behalf and has agreed that you can:

  • give consent on his/her behalf to the processing of his/her data;
  • receive on his/her behalf any data protection notices;
  • give consent to any transfer of his/her data.

Information from third parties
Occasionally we may receive information about you from other sources, which will be added to the information already held about you in order for us to help supply our services to you.

Information that will be collected automatically
We may monitor your use of the Website through the use of cookies and similar tracking devices. For example, we may monitor how many times you use the Website, which pages you go to and traffic data.  This information helps to build a profile of users to the Website. Some of this data will be aggregated or statistical, which means that we will not be able to identify you individually. For further information on the use of cookies on the Website, please see the sections on cookies below.

How your personal data will be used
Under data protection legislation, we can only use your personal information if we have a proper reason for doing so, e.g.:

  • 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
  • where 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 and does not infringe those rights and interests.

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

What we use your personal information for Our reasons
To provide our services to you For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract
To prevent and detect fraud against you or Hybrid Legal For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to minimise fraud that could be damaging for us and for you
Conducting checks to identify our clients and verify their identity

Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes

Other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety regulation or rules issued by our professional regulator

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, e.g. policies covering security and internet use For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to protect trade secrets and other commercially valuable information

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Statistical analysis to help us manage our business, e.g. in relation to our financial performance, client base, product range or other efficiency measures For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Updating 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, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our clients about existing services

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, e.g. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you

Marketing our services to:

  • existing and former clients;
  • third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services;
  • third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings.
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to promote our business to existing and former clients
Credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to ensure our clients are likely to be able to pay for our services
We may monitor and record communications with you (such as telephone conversations and emails) for the purpose of quality assurance, training, fraud prevention and compliance. For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to ensure our employees are trained to provide you with the best possible service.
To notify you of changes to the Website or to our services that may affect you For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to ensure you’re up to date with our services and to promote any change.
External audits and quality checks, e.g. for ISO or Investors in People accreditation and the audit of our accounts For our legitimate interests or a those of a third party, i.e. to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Disclosure of your personal data
We may share your personal information with:

  • third parties we use to help deliver our services to you, e.g. payment service providers and our self-employed Associates;
  • other third parties we use to help us run our business, e.g. marketing partners or website hosts;
  • credit reference agencies;
  • our insurers and brokers; and
  • our bank.

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

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 information with other parties, such as potential buyers of some, or all, of our business or during a re-structuring. Usually, information will be anonymized, but this may not always be possible. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.

Transfer of your information out of the EEA
To deliver services to you, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your personal information outside the European Economic Area (EEA), e.g.:

  • with your and our service providers located outside the EEA;
  • if you are based outside the EEA;
  • where there is an international dimension to the services we are providing to you.

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

Non-EEA countries do not have the same data protection laws as the United Kingdom and EEA. We will, however, ensure the transfer complies with data protection law and all personal information will be secure.

Marketing
We may use your personal information to send you updates (by email or post) about our services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new services.

We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal information for promotional purposes. 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 information with the utmost respect and never share it with other organisations outside of Hybrid Legal for their own marketing purposes.

You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by:

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.

Your Rights
Under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), you have the following rights:

  • You have the right to be informed about the collection and use of your personal data.
  • You have the right of access to your personal records or other information that we hold about you. We reserve the right to charge a reasonable fee for our administrative costs involved with providing you with access if we receive a request which is manifestly unfounded or excessive to access personal records. We may also charge a reasonable fee, in relation to administrative costs, if further copies of your data is requested following your initial request.
  • You have the right to rectify any errors in the data we hold about you. If any data or information we hold about you is inaccurate, or out of date, please contact us and we will correct this immediately.
  • You may have the right to have the data we hold about you erased.
  • You have the right to restrict processing.
  • You have the right to ask us to stop processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. You may also specify that you object to direct marketing by particular channels such as by email or telephone. If this is the case, please specify the channels you are objecting to in your communications with us.
  • You have the right to data portability. If you wish to obtain your data for your own purposes across different services, we will provide this information to you in an electronic format such as a PDF file, CSV file or via other electronic means. We reserve the right to charge a reasonable fee for the administrative costs of complying with any requests that are manifestly unfounded or excessive.
  • You have the right not to be subject to automated decision-making, including profiling.

To use any of your rights set out above, you should send your request in writing to us at hy@hybridlegal.co.uk

You may need to provide proof of identity and address (e.g. a copy of your driving licence or passport, and a recent utility or credit card bill).

How long we will store your data
We will keep your personal information while you have an ongoing client account with us or where we are providing services to you. Thereafter, we will keep your personal information for as long as is necessary:

  • 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 personal information for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. Different retention periods apply for different types of personal information.

When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal information, we will delete or anonymise it.

Children
Hybrid Legal Limited only offers services to individuals over the age of 18 and does not actively process the personal data of children. In using our services, you confirm that you have read and consented to this Policy and verify that you are over the age of 18.

Keeping your personal information secure
We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We also confirm that your data will be stored on secure servers.

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.

Description of cookies

This cookie table has been created and updated by the CookieFirst consent management platform.


Use of cookies
A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your computer (or other electronic device) when you access the Website. We use cookies and other online tracking devices on the Website to:

  • obtain information about your website preferences and tailor its operations to your needs;

The information we obtain from the use of cookies will not usually contain your personal data.

In most cases we will need your consent in order to use cookies on this Website. The exception is where the cookie is essential in order for us to provide you with a service you have requested.

How to turn off cookies
If you do not want to accept cookies, you can change your browser settings so that cookies are not accepted. If you do this, please be aware that you may lose some of the functionality of the Website. For further information about cookies and how to disable them please go to: www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.

Changes to this Policy
This privacy notice was last updated on 21/09/2020.

We may change this Policy from time to time. You should check this policy frequently to ensure you are aware of the most recent version that will apply each time you use the Website.

How to contact us
Please contact us if you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information we hold about you.

If you wish to contact us, please send an email to hy@hybridlegal.co.uk.

Concerns and Questions
We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you 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 The ICO or telephone: 0303 123 1113.