General

Alps Legal Practice Limited (“Alps Legal”) is a law firm in the UK specialising in claims management, personal injury and litigation.  Alps Legal is part of a group of companies and whose registered office is:

Alps Legal Practice Limited, Sunnyside Mill, Highfield Road, Congleton, Cheshire CW12 3AQ

Alps Legal is a company registered in England & Wales, company number: 07876048, and is authorised and regulated by the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority (SRA).  Its SRA number is 592327.  You can check this on the SRA Register by visiting the website www.sra.org.uk/consumers/register

As an essential part of our business, we collect and manage client and non-client data.

Alps Legal takes data protection very seriously and is committed to protecting and respecting the privacy of our clients and website visitors.  Alps Legal is a ‘data controller’ for the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

This Privacy Policy explains how we use any Personal Data we may collect about you.

What information do we collect?

We collect and process information about you when you register your claim with us and as we progress your claim.  Personal Data includes your name, date of birth, address, telephone number, email address, identification documents and other information provided by you.

We will collect your personal data when you apply for a job or work placement with us or when you provide us with services or when you are representing your organisation for the tendering of services.

We record all telephone calls with us when you contact our team.

Why do we process your data and how will we use the information about you?

Personal information which you supply to us will mainly be used for the provision of legal advice and this is necessary to comply with our contractual obligations towards you and to be able to pursue a claim for your losses arising from a road traffic accident.

To pursue your claim we will disclose your information and details of the accident with witnesses, third parties and/or their insurers or representatives, your own motor insurers and legal expense insurers.

To recover compensation for your losses from your accident claim and to provide you with any other services which you may find beneficial as a result of the accident, for example car hire, we will disclose your information to loss adjusters, engineers, repair and car hire networks.

If you are claiming compensation for lost earnings we will disclose your employment information and salary details/wage slips (including financial accounts, bank statements, and tax returns if self-employed) with third parties and/or their insurers

or representatives, legal expense insurers and accountants instructed for the purpose of progressing your claim.

If you are claiming compensation for personal injury we will provide your information, (including your medical records where required), to medical agencies, medical experts and rehabilitation providers.

Before we process sensitive or ‘special category’ data in relation to your claim we will seek your explicit consent. As far as a claim is concerned this may be data in relation to physical or mental health and driving convictions.

Should we be unable to achieve an amicable settlement with the other driver’s representatives we will have to disclose your details to the court and possibly to a barrister to litigate your claim.

We may also use it for the following reasons:

  • Disclosing information to our Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) provider;
  • Fraud prevention;
  • Auditing purposes;
  • Legal and regulatory compliance purposes;
  • Our own legitimate purposes, for example, debt collection;
  • Statistical analysis;
  • Responding to applications or information requested by you;
  • To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so;
  • Keeping people and buildings safe – for e.g. CCTV is present at our premises to ensure security and crime prevention;
  • Make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our site about goods or services that may interest you or them.

We may share your personal information with any member of our group, which means our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.

Website data collection

When you visit our website we may automatically collect the following information:

  • Technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform;
  • Information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) click stream to, through and from our site (including date and time); services you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.
  • Information we receive from other sources. We are also working closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies) and may receive information about you from them.
  • Cookies. Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie policy.  No Cookies are used for contact forms.  You will still be able to use the contact forms if you disable cookies.  Some of the cookies used on our website are provided by third parties (such as Google Analytics).  You can refuse to accept the cookies.  You can find out how to do that on your own device in the operating system pages or go to www.allaboutcookies.org

By using our website you are accepting and consenting that your Personal Data may be used in the ways described in this policy.  In the event that you wish to withdraw consent please contact us by way of the contact details shown in the Contact Us section below.

Marketing

Please be assured that we will not pass your data onto any other organisations for research or marketing purposes.

Where we store your personal data

We do not transfer your personal data outside of the European Economic Area.  Our data is normally stored in the UK.  All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers.

How we protect your information

All information we collect will be in accordance with our internal data protection policies.  Our staff are trained in the data protection principles.  We employ robust information security measures and review our security arrangements regularly. 

Deleting data

We have a data retention policy and will delete old data in accordance with that policy.

We will retain:

  • Client file documentation for 6 years after the file has closed
  • Contracts with suppliers/third parties six years after expiry of the contract
  • Complaints correspondence and statistics six years following closure of the complaint
  • Data and correspondence relating to PII notifications and claims for six years following conclusion of the claim

Your rights

You have a series of rights under the Data Protection Act 2018, namely:

  • The right to be informed about the personal data being processed;
  • The right of access to your personal data;
  • The right to object to the processing of your personal data;
  • The right to restrict the processing of your personal data;
  • The right to rectification of your personal data;
  • The right to erasure of your personal data;
  • The right to withdraw your consent if we are processing on that basis;
  • The right to data portability (to receive an electronic copy of your personal data);
  • Rights relating to automated decision making including profiling (although we do not currently do this);
  • The right to ask us to stop contacting you with direct marketing.

Individuals can exercise their Individual Rights at any time.  As mandated by law we will not charge a fee to process these requests, however, if your request is considered to be repetitive, wholly unfounded and/or excessive, we are entitled to charge a reasonable administration fee.

We aim to respond to any rights you exercise within 30 days of receiving your request, however, the flow of data within the insurance and legal sectors is complex and we ask you to bear this in mind when exercising your rights of access to your information, as we may be reliant on other organisations to help satisfy your request and this may impact on timescales. If we need to alter our standard response time, we will notify you.

Contact us

If you have any questions, comments or require further information on your Individual Rights or wish to exercise one of them a request can be made in writing to The Data Privacy Representative, Alps Legal Practice Limited, Sunnyside Mill, Highfield Road, Congleton, Cheshire, CW12 3AQ. Alternatively, you can also exercise your right by emailing enquiries@alpslegal.co.uk. You will be required to confirm your identity.

To help us deal with your request please provide as much information as possible about the type of Personal Data you would like to obtain or have removed.

Complaints

Should you be unhappy with how we have handled your personal data initially you should contact the Data Privacy Representative (as detailed above).

If your complaint remains unresolved then you can raise the matter with the Information Commissioner’s Office at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.  Further details are available at www.ico.org.uk.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. You should check this Privacy Policy occasionally to ensure you are aware of the most recent version. This privacy policy was last updated on 18/10/2024.