PRIVACY POLICY
Aspiring Lawyers Limited t/a Aspiring Solicitors (“Aspiring Solicitors“, “we“, “our“, or “us“) is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
OUR APPROACH TO PRIVACY
This privacy policy (“Policy”) sets out how we collect, store, process, transfer, share and use data that identifies or is associated with you (“personal information“) when you use our website (https://www.aspiringsolicitors.co.uk), apply to become, and use our services as, a member, professional ambassador (known as a “mentor”) or supporter, carry out or engage in business with us, receive any services we provide or otherwise interact with us (together the “Services”). This Policy also describes your rights in relation to your personal information.
ABOUT US
Aspiring Lawyers Limited (company no. 08754949) is the controller of the personal information we hold about you. We are registered as a controller with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office under registration number ZA312923.
You can contact us or our data protection officer as set out below under “Contacting Us”.
PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU AND HOW WE USE IT
The table set out in the Annex to this Policy sets out the categories of personal information we collect about you and how we use that information.
More generally, you may provide us with personal information when you:
- sign up to become a member, professional ambassador (mentor) or supporter and complete your profile;
- are using our website;
- communicate with us (whether through the website, online or by email); and
- communicate with others via the website.
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
- where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you;
- where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests;
- where we have your consent – for example, to process special categories of personal data (see next section below) or to send direct marketing communications to you via email. You have the right to withdraw consent at any time by contacting using the details at the end of this Policy.
The table in the Annex to this Policy also lists the legal basis we rely on to process your personal information.
Special categories of personal data
Some of the personal information you provide us, including information about race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, disability or health condition (e.g. disability and/or long-term health conditions), sexual orientation, and certain other information you may choose to provide as part of using the Services, is treated as “special categories” of personal data to which additional protections apply under data protection law.
We process special categories of personal data because you have chosen to submit that information to us and have explicitly consented to our processing that information in accordance with this Policy. We will not share this information with anyone other than in anonymised form.
When completing your profile or providing information to us via the Services, you can provide as much or as little detail as you see fit. Whilst you are free to choose not to provide any special categories of personal data, we strongly encourage you to provide this information as it may expand the recruitment and other opportunities that are made available to you. We help our diverse members take key steps into the legal profession – regardless of ethnicity, social background, sexual orientation, disability, or long-term health condition. Without this information, the extent of the Services that we are able to provide to you (such as access to appropriate mentors) will be more limited.
RECIPIENTS OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We may share your personal information with the following (as required in accordance with the uses set out in the Annex to this Policy or as otherwise described below):
- Law firms, legal service providers and/or mentors: if you are a member, we may share your personal information with our professional ambassadors (mentors) or law firm supporters.
- Other service providers: we may share your personal information with third parties and other service providers that perform services for us or on our behalf, which may include providing web and data hosting, data centre and storage facilities, communications, surveys and chat facilities, member relationship management, marketing communications, advertising, payment processing, service optimization, technical support, error reporting and fixing, analytics, verification services and/or fraud prevention.
- Purchasers and third parties in connection with a business transaction: your personal information may be disclosed to third parties in connection with a transaction, such as a merger, sale of assets or shares, reorganisation, financing, change of control or acquisition of all or a portion of our business.
- Law enforcement, regulators and other parties for legal reasons: we may share your personal information with third parties as required by law or if we reasonably believe that such action is necessary to (i) comply with the law and/or the reasonable requests of law enforcement; (ii) detect and investigate illegal activities and breaches of agreements; (iii) enforce our terms and/or (iv) exercise or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Aspiring Solicitors, its users or others.
MARKETING AND REPORTING
Direct Marketing
From time to time, we may contact you by email with information about specific events and opportunities we think you’d like to consider and/or attend and latest news and information from Aspiring Solicitors, including sending you marketing messages and asking for your feedback on our Services.
Most marketing messages we send will be by email. For some marketing messages, we may use personal information we collect about you to help us determine the most relevant marketing information to share with you (for example, to send you specific marketing on mentoring, coaching support, interview assistance and/or vacation placements).
We will only send you marketing messages if we have your consent or, if consent is not required under applicable law, you have not opted out of receiving messages from us. You can withdraw your consent or opt out of receiving further communications at a later date, by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our marketing emails or, if you are logged in, toggling your preferences within your account settings or by contacting us at privacy@apsiringsolicitors.co.uk.
Unsubscribing from marketing emails will not unsubscribe you from system or legal notifications which we may need to send as part of the Services we provide. From time to time, we may need to contact you by email or via our support team.
Reporting
We will collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data to carry out analysis (including analysis of diversity at our participating law firms), in order to promote and encourage diversity within the legal profession, to understand the diversity profiles of our firms and to publish benchmarking reports. Aggregated data may 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.
and. (No personal information about our members will be disclosed to such participating law firms or otherwise included in any reports that are published)
Photography & Video
It is Aspiring Solicitors’ practice to use any photograph or video taken at any Aspiring
Solicitors-related event without permission of those included within the
photograph or video. Aspiring Solicitors may use such content in publications or other
media material produced, used or contracted by Aspiring Solicitors including
social media, our website, brochures and advertising materials.
A person attending an Aspiring Solicitors event who does not wish to have their image
recorded for distribution should make their wishes known to the photographer, videographer, and/or the event organisers, and/or contact Aspiring Solicitors at privacy@apsiringsolicitors.co.uk and include a photograph. Aspiring Solicitors will use the photo for identification purposes and will hold it in confidence. We will then delete the photo when no longer needed.
SECURITY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures, including encryption, to protect your personal information against accidental or unlawful access, destruction, loss, alteration, or damage. All personal information we collect will be stored on our secure servers. Where data processing is carried out on our behalf by a third party, we take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are in place to prevent unauthorised disclosure of personal information.
Despite these precautions, however, we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted over the internet or that unauthorised persons will not obtain access to personal information.
INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS
The personal information we collect may be transferred to and stored in countries outside of the UK or the EU to where our third party service providers have operations.
If your personal information is transferred to a country which is not recognised by the UK or European Commission as ensuring an adequate level of protection for personal data, the transfer will be made pursuant to appropriate safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses adopted by the European Commission or the UK government (as applicable). If you wish to enquire further about the safeguards used, please contact us using the details set out at the end of this Policy.
DATA RETENTION
We will only retain your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, as well as the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or other requirements.
If you are a member, professional ambassador (mentor) or supporter we will keep your personal information for as long as we have a relationship with you, and for a period of three years after the end of that relationship. Please note, however, that we may retain your personal information for a longer period in the event of a complaint or a claim or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of a claim in respect to our relationship with you.
YOUR RIGHTS
In accordance with applicable privacy law, you have the following rights in respect of your personal information that we hold:
- Right of access. You have the right to obtain access to your personal information.
- Right of portability. You have the right, in certain circumstances, to receive a copy of the personal information you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format that supports re-use, or to request the transfer of your personal information to another person.
- Right to rectification. You have the right to obtain rectification of any inaccurate or incomplete personal information we hold about you without undue delay.
- Right to object: you have the right, in certain circumstances, to object to any processing based on our legitimate interests in certain circumstances. You can also object to our direct marketing activities for any reason by clicking the “unsubscribe” link set out in any marketing communication you receive or toggling your preferences in your account settings or by contacting us at privacy@apsiringsolicitors.co.uk.
- Right to erasure. You have the right, in some circumstances, to require us to erase your personal information without undue delay if the continued processing of that personal information is not justified.
- Right to restriction. You have the right, in some circumstances, to require us to limit the purposes for which we process your personal information if the continued processing of the personal information in this way is not justified, such as where the accuracy of the personal information is contested by you.
- Right to withdraw consent. If you have provided consent to any processing of your personal information, you have a right to withdraw that consent (without affecting the lawfulness of our processing prior to you having withdrawn your consent).
Please note that the above rights are not absolute, and we may be entitled to refuse requests, wholly or partly, where exceptions under the applicable law apply.
If you wish to exercise one of these rights, please contact us using the contact details at the end of this Policy. You may also review, remove, and edit some of the personal information you have submitted to us by logging into your account.
COMPLAINTS
Whilst we ask that you attempt to resolve any privacy concerns you have with us in the first instance, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues. Information on how to contact the Information Commissioner is available at www.ico.org.uk.
COOKIES AND SIMILAR TECHNOLOGIES
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to distinguish you from other users of our Services. Please refer to our Cookie Policy for more information as to the way in which we use cookies on our website.
LINKS TO THIRD PARTY SITES
Our website may, from time to time, contain links to and from third party websites, including those of our business partners, sponsors, and/or affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for their policies. Please check the individual policies before you submit any information to those websites.
CHILDREN
You must not use our Services if you are under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information relating to anyone under this age.
CHANGES TO THIS POLICY
We may update this Policy from time to time and so you should review this page periodically. When we change this Policy in a material way, we will update the “last modified” date at the end of this Policy. Changes to this Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.
CONTACTING US
If you have any questions, comments, and requests regarding this Policy, you can contact us:
By post:
FAO The Privacy Team
Aspiring Solicitors
9 Park Lane Business Centre
Langham
Colchester
Essex CO4 5WR
By email: privacy@aspiringsolicitors.co.uk
This Policy was last modified on 14 September 2023.
ANNEX – PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT
| Category of personal information | How we use it | Legal basis for processing
|
| Contact details including username, full name, email address and phone number.
Profile details including date of birth, gender, education background (e.g. type of school attended, scholarships) personal background (e.g. whether time spent in care, asylum seeker/refugee status), family details (e.g. first-generation university student, family income threshold), caring responsibilities, photo, and additional information volunteered. Communications data including with Aspiring Solicitors and/or Aspiring Solicitors mentors. |
To assist you in creating a profiling.
To register you with the Services. To enable you to use our Services, including:
To administer your account, provide and personalise our services, carry out associated administration, record keeping and accounting and comply with our professional, legal and regulatory obligations. |
Where applicable, the performance of a contract made or to be made with you.
Otherwise, such processing is necessary for our legitimate interests in delivering our Services to you, giving you opportunities in the field of career assistance, responding to your queries and providing any information and materials requested in order for you to have a positive experience with us and to maintain good relations. (See row below regarding special categories of personal data).
|
| Special categories of personal data (race, ethnicity, disability, religious beliefs, disability or health condition (e.g. disability and/or long-term health conditions), sexual orientation and certain other information you may choose to provide as part of using the Services). | To enable you to use our Services, to administer your account and to provide our services as per above row. | Your explicit consent
(either via exercising options when completing your profile or voluntarily submitting such information to us or the Services). |
| Photos and videos (i.e. captured at events by our marketing team).
Note, you can opt-out of having you image recorded or used for distribution by contacting us at privacy@apsiringsolicitors.co.uk |
Marketing and advertising. | It is in our legitimate interests to use content gathered from our events in order to market and grow our business. |
| Business contact details (including full name, role, employer details, work email address and work telephone number). | To engage in, and carry on, business with you.
To provide our services and carry out associated administration, record keeping and accounting and to comply with our professional, legal and regulatory obligations. |
Where applicable, the performance of a contract made or to be made with you.
Otherwise, it is in our and your legitimate interests for us to provide our Services. |
| Contact details
Marketing details (such as your marketing preferences) |
Contact you with marketing and offers relating to services offered by us and/or our law firm/legal team partners (unless you have opted out of marketing, or we are otherwise prevented by law from doing so).
Personalise the marketing messages we send you to make them more relevant and interesting. |
Consent (for unsolicited marketing emails if required by law)
Where consent is not required by law, it is in our legitimate interests to market our business and review how users use our Services. |
| Contact details
Profile details Communications data |
To respond to queries and complaints and provide you with information and materials that you request from us.
To carry out surveys and/or ask for feedback with a view to improving our Services. |
It is in our legitimate interests to respond to your queries and provide any information and materials requested in order for you to have a positive experience with us and to maintain good customer relations.
It is in our legitimate interests to understand how our users feel about our Service so we can take steps to improve this. |
| Contact details
Profile details Communications data Marketing details |
To enable you to partake in a competition or similar promotional event. | It is in our legitimate interests to study how users use our Services and to grow and market our business. |
| Technical information (IP address, browser type, internet service provider, device identifier, your login information, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, preferred language, activities, operating system and platform, and geographical location).
Usage data (including clickstream to, through and from the Services, pages you viewed and searched for, page response times, length of visits to certain pages, referral source/exit pages, interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, views and mouse-overs), date and time Services are accessed, and Services navigation and search terms used). |
|
Consent (if required by law).
Where consent is not required by law, it is in our legitimate interests to study how users use our Services and to market and develop our business. |
| Contact details
Profile details Communications data Technical and Usage data |
To administer and protect our business and our Services (including troubleshooting, fraud prevention, IT security, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data). | Where applicable, to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations under applicable law.
Otherwise, it is in our legitimate interests to monitor the Services and resolve errors to ensure that everything functions properly. It is also in our legitimate interests to protect systems and data and to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us. |
| Contact details
Profile details Communications data Technical and Usage data Marketing details |
To comply with our internal business policies.
For operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control. |
It is in our legitimate interests or those of a third party to adhere to our own internal procedures so that we can deliver an efficient service to you. |