Privacy Statement

Who We Are

Gosschalks is a trading name of Gosschalks LLP, a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with number OC431300. Gosschalks' registered office is at Queens Gardens, Hull, HU1 3DZ, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under number 670570. We are registered on the Information Commissioner's Office Register; registration number Z5449877, and act as the data controller when processing your data. Our designated Data Protection team can be contacted at our registered office address below or via email by clicking here.

Gosschalks gather and process your personal information in accordance with this privacy statement and in compliance with the relevant data protection regulations and laws. This statement provides you with the necessary information regarding your rights and our obligations, and explains how, why and when we process your personal data.


Information That We Collect

Gosschalks processes your personal information to meet our legal, statutory and contractual obligations and to provide you with our products and services. We will never collect any unnecessary personal data from you and do not process your information in any way, other than as specified in this statement.

The personal data that we collect from is (but not limited to):

  • Name
  • Date of Birth
  • Home Address
  • Personal and/or Business Email
  • Home Telephone Number and/or Mobile Telephone Number
  • National Insurance Number, Passport Number and/or Driver’s License Number
  • IP Address
  • Special Category Data (i.e. health/medical information, details about religion, sexuality, criminal records, etc.)

We collect information in the below ways:

We may obtain your personal data directly and indirectly. Directly from you during an enquiry by telephone, email, post, or via a contact form on our website or when you visit our premises. We may also obtain your personal data directly during our recruitment process i.e., via your CV and we may obtain your personal data indirectly when acting for our clients in the course of our business relationship or when your personal data is provided to us via a referrer i.e., another law firm or organisation acting on your behalf such as a conveyancer or other professional individual.


How We Use Your Personal Data

Gosschalks takes your privacy very seriously and will never disclose, share or sell your data without your consent; unless required to do so by law. We only retain your data for as long as is necessary and for the purpose(s) specified in this statement. Where you have consented to us providing you with marketing related information etc., you are free to withdraw this consent at any time.

The purposes and reasons for processing your personal data are detailed below:

  • We collect your personal data during the performance of a contract or when providing one or more of our services to you whether remotely or face-to-face.
  • We collect and store your personal data as part of our legal obligation for business accounting, tax purposes and regulatory compliance.
  • We collect and store your personal data when you visit our website or social media e.g., via our cookie management system (consent) on our website and when you send us an enquiry via our contact forms or direct message us through Twitter or Facebook (contractual obligation).
  • We collect and store your personal data which is provided to us by clients or from other professionals during the delivery of a service (contractual obligation).
  • We collect and store your personal data when you apply for, or during employment with Gosschalks (contractual and legal obligation).
  • We will occasionally send you invitations to events such as legal updates, etc., where we have assessed that it is beneficial to you as a client and in our interests. Such information will be non-intrusive and is processed on the grounds of legitimate interests. (See the section on Legitimate Interests below for further details)

Your Rights

You have the right to access any personal information that Gosschalks processes about you and to request information about:

  • What personal data we hold about you
  • The purposes of the processing
  • The categories of personal data concerned
  • The recipients to whom the personal data has/will be disclosed
  • How long we intend to store your personal data for
  • If we did not collect the data directly from you, information about the source

If you believe that we hold any incomplete or inaccurate data about you, you have the right to ask us to correct and/or complete the information and we will strive to do so as quickly as possible; unless there is a valid reason for not doing so, at which point you will be notified.

You also have the right to request erasure of your personal data or to restrict processing (where applicable) in accordance with the data protection laws; as well as to object to any direct marketing from us. Where applicable, you have the right to data portability of your information and the right to be informed about any automated decision-making we may use.

If we receive a request from you to exercise any of the above rights, we may ask you to verify your identity before acting on the request; this is to ensure that your data is protected and kept secure.

If you wish to exercise any of your Rights, you can do this by contacting our Data Protection Officer in any way. Our phone number and email address is publish towards the end of this privacy statement and in the first section above.


Sharing and Disclosing Your Personal Information

We do not share or disclose any of your personal information without your consent, other than for the purposes specified in this statement or where there is a legal requirement.

Gosschalks uses some third parties to provide services to our business functions that enable us to deliver our services to you. All third-party processors acting on our behalf only process or access your data in accordance with instructions from us and comply fully with this privacy statement, data protection laws and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

These third parties include our Regulators; accountancy professionals; our networking and infrastructure support providers and web development support, and all third-party processors are governed by a formal Data Processing Agreement.


Safeguarding Measures

Gosschalks takes your privacy seriously and takes every reasonable measure and precaution to protect and secure your personal data. We work hard to protect you and your information from unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or destruction and have several layers of security measures in place, including:

  • SSL, TLS, encryption, pseudonymisation, restricted access, IT authentication, firewalls, anti-virus and malware detection, etc.

Transfers Outside the EU

Gosschalks may from time to time, need to transfer limited personal data to service providers based outside the European Union (EU) or to organisations based within the EU that have parent organisations outside the EU, who transfer personal data within their group internally.

With the ECJ (European Court of Justice ) / CJEU (Court of Justice of the European Union) ruling C-311/18 on 16 July 2020, invalidating the EU-US Privacy Shield as a legal mechanism for such transfers, where these transfers are required to organisations inside the influence of US legal frameworks, they will only be carried out under Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) approved by the EDPB (European Data Protection Board) using secure file transfer systems and in line with personal data transfers to organisations in other countries outside the EU (known as Third countries).

Where these transfers are required, the affected data subjects will be made fully aware under the requirements of EU GDPR Article 13 and the lawful purposes will be either contractual or legal obligation, or the explicit consent of the data subject in line with that required under the EU GDPR.

For transfers of personal data to a ‘natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body’ in a Third country as part of delivering a contracted service on behalf of a client, these will be classed as ‘necessary’ transfers under Article 49 and such transfers will be completed using our secure EU based secure file storage system for the other entity or client to download it for the purpose of fulfilling the contracted service.


Consequences of Not Providing Your Data

You are not obligated to provide your personal information to Gosschalks, however, as this information is required for us to provide you with our services or deliver your legitimate interests, we will not be able to offer some/all our services without it.


Legitimate Interests

As noted in the ‘How We Use Your Personal Data’ section of this statement, we occasionally process your personal information under the legitimate interests’ legal basis. Where this is the case, we have carried out a thorough Legitimate Interests’ Assessment (LIA) to ensure that we have weighed your interests and any risk posed to you against our own interests; ensuring that they are proportionate and appropriate.

We use legitimate interest as a lawful basis for processing personal data for the following purposes:

  • To invite existing clients, professionally referred individuals and persons who have expressed a previous interest, to attend our regular legal update seminars providing updates on current law, case law and practice within their area of commercial operations;

  • To issue invitations to identified individuals to Gosschalks social and celebratory functions as our guest;

Individuals have the right to object to processing, and you can do so by contacting our Data Protection Officer. Individuals receiving communications under legitimate interest can also opt-out via the link within the communication.


How Long We Keep Your Data

Gosschalks only ever retains personal information for as long as is necessary and we have strict review and retention policies in place to meet these obligations. We are required under UK tax law to keep your basic personal data (name, address, contact details) for a minimum of 6 years after which time it will be destroyed. Other purposes for processing your personal data may mean that your personal data is retained for longer or shorter periods, the duration of which is made available to you.

Where you have consented to us using your details for direct marketing, we will keep such data until you notify us otherwise and/or withdraw your consent.


Special Categories Data

Owing to the services we offer, Gosschalks sometimes needs to process sensitive personal information (known as special category data) about you e.g., to comply with our legal obligation to verify your identity, or check for any criminal record in support of your licencing, or understand your medical conditions whilst delivering our services or supporting you in your employment with us. Where we collect such information, we will only request and process the minimum necessary for the specified purpose and identify a compliant legal basis for doing so.


Lodging A Complaint

Gosschalks only processes your personal information in compliance with this privacy statement and in accordance with the relevant data protection laws. If, however you wish to raise a complaint regarding the processing of your personal data or are unsatisfied with how we have handled your information, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority.


Contact

Data Protection Team Gosschalks, Queens Gardens, Hull, HU1 3DZ
Tel: 01482 324252
Send an email to our data protection team.


Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national rate number.
Fax: 01625 524 510
Website Complaint Submission