Version 1.1 – updated July 2026
We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.
We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). We are also subject to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) in relation to services we may offer to individuals in the European Economic Area (EEA).
It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this policy:
| We, us, our | Tallents Solicitors | |
| Our Data Protection Officer | Vili Chung | |
| Personal data | Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual | |
| Special category personal data | Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership
Genetic and biometric data (when processed to uniquely identify an individual) Data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation |
|
| Data subject | The individual who the personal data relates to | |
| You, Your | As the context dictates, our clients and individuals associated with them, contacts, suppliers and any individuals whose personal data we receive in the course of providing our services |
The table below sets out the personal data we will or may collect in the course of providing legal services. This may include special category personal data.
| Personal data we will collect | Personal data we may collect depending on why you have instructed us |
| Your name, address and telephone number
Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, eg your date of birth or passport details Electronic contact details, eg your email address and mobile phone number Information relating to the matter in which you are seeking our advice or representation Information to enable us to undertake a credit or other financial checks on you Your financial details so far as relevant to your instructions, eg the source of your funds if you are instructing on a purchase transaction Information about your use of our IT, communication and other systems, and other monitoring information Payment details (including card or bank information for transfers and direct debits) Audio recordings, eg calls Video recordings, eg of virtual meetings
|
Your National Insurance and tax details
Your bank and/or building society details Details of your professional online presence, e.g. LinkedIn profile Details of your spouse/partner and dependants or other family members, e.g. if you instruct us on a family matter or a will Your employment status and details including salary and benefits, e.g. if you instruct us on matter related to your employment or in which your employment status or income is relevant. Your nationality and immigration status and information from related documents, such as your passport or other identification, and immigration information, e.g. if you instruct us on an immigration matter. Details of your pension arrangements, e.g. if you instruct us on a pension matter or in relation to financial arrangements following breakdown of a relationship Your employment records including, where relevant, records relating to sickness and attendance, performance, disciplinary, conduct and grievances, e.g. if you instruct us on matter related to your employment or in which your employment records are relevant. Your racial or ethnic origin, gender and sexual orientation, religious or similar beliefs, e.g. if you instruct us on discrimination claim. Your trade union membership, e.g. if you instruct us on a discrimination claim or your matter is funded by a trade union. Personal identifying information, such as your eye colour or your parents’ names, e.g. if you instruct us to incorporate a company for you. Your medical records, e.g. if we are acting for you in a personal injury claim. |
We collect and use this personal data to provide legal services. If you do not provide personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing those services.
We collect most of this information from you, direct. However, we may also collect information:
Under data protection law, we can only use personal data if we have a proper reason, e.g.:
A recognised legitimate interest is a pre-approved public-interest purpose for processing data, e.g. detecting, investigating or preventing crime.
A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. We will carry out an assessment when relying on legitimate interests, to balance our interests against your own.
You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests or a recognised legitimate interest. We must then stop the processing unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds which override your interests, rights and freedoms or the processing is required to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why:
| What we use personal data for | Our reasons |
| Providing legal services to our clients | To perform our contract with you or to take steps at our client’s request before entering into a contract |
| Preventing and detecting fraud (or other crimes) against you or us | Depending on the circumstances, for:
– the recognised legitimate interest of preventing, detecting or investigating crimes – our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to minimise fraud that could be damaging for you and/or us |
| Conducting checks to identify our clients and verify their identity
Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes Other activities necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety law or rules issued by our professional regulator |
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
For our legitimate interests |
| Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies | Depending on the circumstances:
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations For our legitimate interests |
| To check whether there is any conflict of interest between us and you and/or between you and another client | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Ensuring business policies are adhered to, e.g. policies covering security and internet use | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you |
| Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price |
| Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to protect our intellectual property and other commercially valuable information
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Statistical analysis to help us manage our practice, e.g. in relation to our financial performance, client base, work type or other efficiency measures | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price |
| Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you and/or us
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Updating and enhancing client records | To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our clients about existing and new services |
| To deal with Complaints or Claims | Depending on the circumstances:
– to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations – for our or your legitimate interests, e.g. to make sure any potential claim is reported to our insurer |
| Statutory returns | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you |
| Marketing our services to:
—existing and former clients —third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services |
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to promote our business to existing and former clients |
| Credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. for credit control |
| External audits and quality checks, eg for Lexcel, ISO or Investors in People accreditation and the audit of our accounts | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| To deal with complaints or claims | Depending on the circumstances:
—to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations —for our or your legitimate interests, e.g. to make sure any potential claim is reported to our insurer |
| Voluntarily sharing relevant personal data with public authorities, regulators or other bodies exercising official functions in response to written requests where we consider disclosure is necessary and appropriate | For a recognised legitimate interest, namely to respond to a request from another organisation that needs the personal data for the purposes of carrying out its task in the public interest or exercising its official authority |
Where we process special category personal data, we will also ensure we are permitted to do so under data protection laws, e.g.:
We may use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text message, telephone or post) about legal developments that might be of interest to you and/or information about our services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new services
We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data for promotional purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal data’). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you marketing information. However, where consent is needed, we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.
You have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by:
We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other firms for marketing purposes.
We routinely share personal data with:
We only allow such persons or organisations to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. Any such person or organisation will be subject to appropriate duties of confidentiality and data protection obligations. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers relating to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.
We may also need to:
If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below)
Personal data may be held at our offices and those of our third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see ‘Who we share your personal data with’).
Some of these third parties may be based outside the UK. For more information, including on how we safeguard your personal data when this occurs, see below: ‘Transferring your personal data abroad’.
As a general rule, we will keep your personal data for at least 6 years from the conclusion of your matter, in case you, or we, need to bring or defend any complaints or claims. Thereafter, we will keep your personal data for as long as is necessary:
Different retention periods apply for different types of data. Further details on this are available in our Records Management Policy.
When it is no longer necessary to keep your personal data, we will delete or anonymise it.
To deliver services to you, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your personal data outside the UK, e.g.:
This may include countries which do not provide the same level of protection of personal data as the UK. Under data protection law, we can only transfer your personal data to a country or international organisation outside the UK where:
These are explained below.
We may transfer your personal data to certain countries, on the basis of an adequacy decision. These include:
The list of countries that benefit from adequacy decisions will change from time to time. We will always seek to rely on an adequacy decision, where one exists.
Where countries do not have the benefit of an adequacy decision this does not necessarily mean they provide poor protection for personal data, but we must look at alternative grounds for transferring the personal data, such as ensuring appropriate safeguards are in place or relying on an exception, as explained below.
Where there is no adequacy decision, we may transfer your personal data to another country only if we are satisfied the transfer complies with data protection law, appropriate safeguards are in place, and enforceable rights and effective legal remedies are available for data subjects.
The safeguards will usually include using legally-approved standard data protection contract clauses.
To obtain a copy of the standard data protection contract clauses and further information about relevant safeguards please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).
In the absence of an adequacy decision or appropriate safeguards, we may transfer personal data to a third country or international organisation where an exception applies under data protection law, e.g.:
We may also transfer information for the purpose of our compelling legitimate interests, so long as those interests are not overridden by your interests, rights and freedoms. Specific conditions apply to such transfers and we will provide relevant information if and when we seek to transfer your personal data on this ground.
If you would like further information about data transferred outside the UK/EE, please contact us OR our Data Protection Officer (see ‘How to contact us’ below).
You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:
| Access | You have the right to be provided with a copy of your personal data | |
| Rectification | You have the right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data | |
| Erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten) | You have the right to require us to delete your personal data—in certain situations | |
| Restriction of processing | You have the right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data—in certain situations, eg if you contest the accuracy of the data | |
| Data portability | You have the right to ask us to transfer the personal data you have us to another organisation, or to you—in certain situations | |
| To object | You have the right to object:
—at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling); —in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests |
|
| Rights related to automated individual decision making |
Where significant decisions (those which produce a legal or similarly significant effect on you) are made using your personal data and based on solely automated processing with no meaningful human involvement, you have the right to have certain safeguard in place to protect your data subject rights, freedoms and legitimate interests. These safeguards include giving you information about the decision and enabling you to make representations, obtain human intervention and contest the decision. In addition, significant decisions made using special category personal data and baed on solely automated processing are only allowed in certain specified scenarios, e.g. where you have given your explicit consent for the decision to be made using such data. |
|
| The right to withdraw consent | When we use your consent as our lawful basis, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time
Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn |
For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below) or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:
We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.
We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal data remains accurate and up to date. To help us with this, please let us know if any of the personal data you have provided to us has changed, eg your surname or address—see ‘How to contact us’.
Please contact us if you have any query or concern about our use of your information (see below ‘How to contact us’). We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.
We acknowledge that we may not always get things right, so if something has gone wrong, we need you to tell us. You have the right to make a complain to us and our complaints procedure can be found at Complaints. We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner.
The contact details for the ICO are:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
Website: https://www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
This privacy policy was last updated in July 2026.
We may change this privacy policy from time to time, when we do we will inform you in writing.
You can contact us and/or our Data Protection Officer by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.
Our contact details are:
Tallents Solicitors
2 Westgate
Southwell
Nottinghamshire
NG25 0JJ
Telephone: 01636 813411
Email: vili.chung@tallents.co.uk
If you would like this policy in another format (for example audio, large print, braille) please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ above).
