Privacy Notice

EmploymentBuddy is operated by Clarkslegal LLP.  Clarkslegal LLP (“we”) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

We have a Privacy Notice which covers all our processing on our Clarkslegal’s website, however, for ease, this Privacy Notice has been tailored to focus only on personal data processed in relation to EmploymentBuddy.

This Privacy Notice (together with our website Terms of Use and any other documents referred to in it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

This Privacy Notice is non-contractual, regularly reviewed and may be amended by us from time to time.

The Type of Data We Hold

We may collect and process the following data about you:

• Information that you provide by filling in forms on our site www.employmentbuddy.com (our site). This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our site, subscribing to our service, posting material or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our site. 
• If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
• We may also ask you to complete surveys that we use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them.
• Details of transactions you carry out through our site and of the fulfilment of your orders.
• Details of your visits to our site including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, whether this is required for our own billing purposes or otherwise and the resources that you access.
• We also collect technical data via Google analytics, however, these reports do not contain any personal data.  

You are not obliged to provide this information, however, if you do not do so we may not be able to provide the services requested (for example, to receive legal updates, we would need a valid email address).  Data relating to visits to our sites (including location data) are automatically collected when you access our site and so you are obliged to provide this data. 

Cookies and Log Files

When you access our website, cookies will be created.

Cookies are pieces of data created when you visit a site, and contain a unique, anonymous number. They are stored in the cookie directory of your hard drive, and do not expire at the end of your session.  These help us to estimate our audience size, speed up searches, recognise when you return to our site and help is to make improvements to our content.

Cookies do not contain any personal information about you and cannot be used to identify an individual user. If you choose not to accept the cookie, this will not affect your access to the majority of facilities available on our websites.

Although your browser may be set up to allow the creation of cookies, you can specify that you be prompted before a site puts a cookie on your hard disk, so that you can decide whether to allow or disallow the cookie. Alternatively, you can set your computer not to accept any cookie.

Log files are also created when you visit our site. They allow us to record visitors` use of the websites and include IP addresses. We put together log file information from all our visitors, which we use to make improvements to the content and layout of the websites and to the information in it, based on the way that visitors move around it.

Your IP address is recorded automatically when you access our website to assist us in monitoring and improving content and for security reasons.  You are, therefore, obligated to provide this when accessing the website.  

Purpose of Processing

We may process this personal data:

• to send you marketing updates by email such as legal news, new services and event invitations that we believe may be of interest to you or that you have expressly requested;
• to register you as a new subscriber and provide services to you as requested
• to be able to contact you in relation to the service and effectively manage our relationship with you;

• to enable us to ensure efficiency and security of our systems (e.g. prevention of unauthorised access) and make improvements where necessary, including for user experience of the website;
• to make business decisions about the provision of services and our website

Please note that if we intend to further process your personal data for a purpose other than that for which it was collected, we shall provide you with information on this other purpose and all other information as set out in this notice.   

Opting Out of Marketing

You may opt out of marketing communications by emailing marketing@clarkslegal.com.  Alternatively, each of our marketing communications contain an ‘opt out’ hyperlink so that you can opt out easily at any time.

Please note, if you have opted out of marketing updates, we may retain your personal data as a record of those who have opted out to ensure that we do not contact you further for these purposes.

Legal Basis for Processing

We process this data on the basis of consent and/or as it is necessary for our legitimate interests, namely to keep records of user experiences, provide the information you have requested, improve our services, ensure our services remain accurate and up to date, study how our website is used and popular content, for marketing strategies/communications and to maintain and grow our business.

We also process data as required by law, including, to comply with legal obligations such as security obligations in data protection legislation (such as prevention of unauthorised access).

Consent

We do not rely solely on consent to process your data, however, where you have signed up for services we may also process your data on the basis of your consent.

Where we rely on consent to process your personal data, you have a right to withdraw your consent at any time.  This will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

You can withdraw your consent to our processing at any time by contacting data@clarkslegal.com. Please specify the type of processing that you are withdrawing your consent to in your email. If your withdrawal is specific to email marketing and you simply wish to opt out of future marketing emails please, instead, email marketing@clarkslegal.com. 

Data Sharing

We will always treat your personal data securely and with respect and do not share this with other organisations save where you have expressly asked us to do so. 

Your personal data may be shared internally with lawyers/fee earners (and their subordinates and support staff where appropriate), our Marketing team and IT team.  In many cases this data will be anonymised and used for statistical purposes.  We may use external marketing companies for marketing purposes, however, we do not envisage needing to share your personal data with them and will only do so if it is necessary for particular tasks assigned to them pursuant to their role.  Where fees are charged for a service, our Finance team will also have access to your personal data to the extent necessary to recover payments from you and record your payment record and financial details.

Where you sign up to attend events ordinarily a badge stating your name, job title and organisation (and/or a sign in sheet stating the same) will be on display at the event which others attending the same event may have sight of.

We will not transfer your personal data to any country outside the European Economic Area without your consent.  Information about any such transfer and any relevant safeguards will be provided to you in advance of you giving consent.

Please note that our website contains links to third-party websites.  Clicking on those links may allow third parties to collect your personal data.  We do not have control over such websites and would encourage you to read the privacy notices for websites you visit.

The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Retention Periods

We will not keep your data for longer than is necessary. When deciding how long to hold your data we have regard to the purposes for which this is processed, legal and regulatory requirements (including any contractually agreed periods) and statutory limitation periods (under which it is prudent for us to retain records for longer periods).

Your Rights

You have a number of rights in relation to the personal information that we process about you. You: 

• Have the right to be informed about your data (as set out in this Privacy Notice)
• Can request access to your personal data
• Can request that your personal data be rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete
• Can request that the processing of your personal data be restricted or erased in certain circumstances, for example, where the data is no longer necessary to meet its purpose
• Can object to processing in certain circumstances, for example where this is based on legitimate interests or involves direct marketing.
• Can request to receive personal data that you have provided in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and can request to have this transmitted without hindrance where the data is processed on the basis of consent or performance of a contract
• Can lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office

Automated Decision Making (“ADM”)

ADM occurs when decisions are made about you by a computer or some other information analysing machine. Examples of this include the machine scanning of CVs, computer processed aptitude or personality tests and website profiling. We do not use ADM. 

Contact Details for Data Controller and Enquiries

EmploymentBuddy is operated by Clarkslegal LLP (registered in England and Wales with company no. OC308349).  Clarkslegal LLP is the data controller and can be contacted at 5^th Floor, Thames Tower, Station Road, Reading, RG1 1LX, Tel: 0118 958 5321, Fax: 0118 907 4070.  

If you have any enquiries re data protection or wish to exercise any of your rights please do contact our dedicated team at data@clarkslegal.com.