Privacy Policy

We pride ourselves on being a responsible business and this includes our commitment to looking after the personal data you share with us. We respect your privacy and we want you to be confident that any personal data we hold is secure and processed in a lawful and professional way. This privacy policy (the “Policy”) explains how we collect, store and process your personal data, whether it is provided by telephone, via our website, through correspondence, or where you may otherwise communicate with us in the course of the legal services we provide. It also explains the rights you have in relation to your personal data. This Policy applies to anyone whose data we hold (including clients, witnesses, visitors to our website, etc.) but does not apply to:

• Our employees (handling of their personal data is governed by our employee privacy policy); or,
• Services we provide as a data processor, which will be governed by a written agreement with the third party data controller and their own privacy policy.

We may change this Policy from time to time, so please check back regularly to keep informed of any updates. This version of the Policy was updated on 20 March 2019.

About Us

In this Policy we use the terms “we”, “us”, and “our” (and other similar terms) to refer to National Accident Law; we act as a data controller responsible for your personal data. National Accident Law is the trading name of National Accident Law Limited, a company registered in England & Wales (company number 11496339. Our registered office is: 1430 Montagu Court, Kettering Parkway, Kettering, Northamptonshire, NN15 6XR. We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), number: 655606.

1. Confidentiality

Our instructions must come from you personally. We won’t discuss your claim with anyone else or provide any other information about it to a third party, unless you authorise us to do so (or it’s provided for in our Customer Care Terms and Conditions). If your claim was referred to us by a third party, they may periodically require management information from us. This information includes whether or not you have instructed us, when your claim concludes and the amount of damages you receive. By accepting these terms and conditions, you are giving us permission to disclose this information to the third party when they request it. We’re professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However:

• Statute may require us to make a disclosure to the National Crime Agency where they suspect or know that any litigation may involve money laundering or terrorism financing.
• If we make a disclosure relating to your claim, we may not be able to tell you that we have done so. That means we may have to stop working on your claim for a period of time and be unable to tell you why.
• The law may also require us to disclose your details in order to search government-approved databases, such as the CUE PI Database. By accepting these terms and conditions, you are giving us permission to do so.

Please note, we may record telephone calls for training and monitoring purposes. If you have an insurance policy in place to cover legal costs, please do be aware that we are obliged to update your insurers periodically. Specifically, we will notify them at certain times during the course of your claim. This is important as it will ensure that you stay protected from having to pay any legal costs. Typically, we must notify your insurers if and when any settlement offers are made, when court proceedings begin and/or in the event the prospects of success for your claim fall below 50%. Again, by accepting these terms and conditions, you are giving us permission to disclose this information to your legal expenses insurers.

2. Data Protection

Using Your personal information
Protecting Your data is very important to us. Under UK data protection legislation, we are known as the ‘data controller’. We are registered with the ICO (the Information Commissioner’s Office) which is the UK’s data protection regulator. For full details, please see the privacy statement on our website at www.national-accident-law.co.uk. Alternatively, please contact us for a copy. It explains what to expect when We collect Your personal information, including Your rights. We use the information you provide primarily for the provision of legal services to you, to help us improve our services and for related purposes that include:

• Identity verification and fraud prevention (including online verification and credit checks).
• Updating and enhancing your records and analysis to help us manage our practice.
• Legal and regulatory compliance that help us fulfil our legal obligations.
• Checking how happy you are with our services (including customer satisfaction questionnaires).
• Tracing and collecting debts.

Any information you provide us to prevent money laundering or terrorist financing will only be processed for those purposes, unless you give us your permission to use it for other purposes or it is required by law. Our use of this information is subject to your instructions, our duty of confidentiality and the relevant UK data protection legislation. Data protection legislation means we must make sure your personal information is accurate and current. Please tell us promptly if it changes in any way. That legislation also means you have the right of access to the personal information that we hold about you.

Storing Your personal information
We store all information you share with us on our secure servers. Occasionally we may need to store your data on third party servers. Similarly, we may need to use technical software during your claim that’s operated by a third party and where necessary, data is held on secure third party servers based in the internet Cloud.

Sharing Your personal information
Our work for you may require us to give information and data to third parties - such as expert witnesses and other professional advisers. Any information you provide us may also be shared with and processed by our service providers, insurers and regulators. As a rule we don’t generally process personal information outside the European Economic Area (EEA), where the law may provide less protection for personal information. Should we do this at any time, any transfer of information will comply with all relevant data protection legislation.