Pinsent Masons and its business partners and service companies may use your personal information together with other information for providing legal services, marketing, administration, and training, and we may disclose your information to our service providers and agents for these purposes. We may also keep your information for a reasonable period for marketing purposes in order to contact you about our services, but you can choose not to receive such marketing material at any time. Occasionally the marketing material concerns the provision of services by third parties, for example where Pinsent Masons’ staff are speaking at a conference organised by someone else.  Pinsent Masons also performs some processing of personal data for purposes which are required by law (e.g. money laundering) and for commercial purposes (e.g. creditworthiness checks).

To help us make credit decisions about clients, to prevent fraud, to check the identity of new clients and to prevent money laundering, we may, where necessary and appropriate, search the files of credit reference agencies who will record any credit searches on your file. That information may be used by other credit grantors for making credit decisions about you and the people with whom you are financially associated, for prevention of fraud and money laundering, and occasionally for tracing debtors. Information used for these purposes will include publicly available information such as the electoral roll, county court judgements, bankruptcy orders or repossessions.  For the protection of all our clients we operate a money laundering reporting procedure. We may, in certain circumstances, disclose information to the appropriate authorities in relation to any suspicion of money laundering. Note that the checks outlined in this paragraph normally apply only where the client is instructing Pinsent Masons in an individual capacity, as a partner in a business, or where the individual concerned is a senior officer in a company. 

For marketing purposes Pinsent Masons may share your information with organisations who are our business partners. We or they may contact you by mail, telephone, fax, e-mail, or SMS to let you know about any legal services, events, or seminars which may be of interest to you. If you do not wish to receive such information from us or our business partners, please contact our data protection officer at any time (sue.cullen@pinsentmasons.com).  No further action is necessary if you have previously indicated to us that you do not want to receive such marketing material.

In some cases, Pinsent Masons needs to process sensitive personal data, such as special dietary requirements for reasons of health or religion, for the above purposes. If you are a client of Pinsent Masons, your continuing relationship with us demonstrates your consent to this processing.

Sometimes we may need to transfer your personal information to countries which do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK.  If we do have a need to make such a transfer then we will put a contract in place to ensure that your information is adequately protected and your privacy respected.

When you give us information about another individual for business purposes, you do so on the basis that the other individual has agreed, and has consented to the processing of his or her personal data, including sensitive personal data, and to the transfer of his or her information abroad and to your receiving on his or her behalf any data protection notices. 

To make sure that we follow your instructions correctly and to improve our service through training of our staff, we may monitor any communication between you and Pinsent Masons. 

You are entitled to ask for a copy of your information (for which we may charge a small fee) and to correct any inaccuracies.