Cookies and Privacy Statement

You have the right to understand how every organisation uses your data.

Gary Matthews Solicitors respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. In this notice, we explain how we process and use any data we collect, or data you give us, through this website.

If we have sent you any engagement letters, privacy notices, or fair processing notes, please read them alongside this notice. This notice supports those documents and will give you a complete picture of how and why we’re using your data.

Who is this privacy notice for? Any visitors to our site. As a law firm, our intended audience is adults, and so we do not knowingly collect data about children.

Controller

Gary Matthews Solicitors is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “Gary Matthews Solicitors”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice). Our full details are on the contact us page of our website.

You have the right to lodge a complaint at any time with the Data Protection Commission (“DPC”), the Irish supervisory authority for data protection issues. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the DPC so please contact us in the first instance.

Inform us of changes

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links 

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

The Data We Collect About You

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store, and transfer different kinds of personal data about you, which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data includes first name, last name, username or similar identifier, title and gender.
  • Contact Data includes email address and telephone number.
  • Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
  • Profile Data includes your username and password, your interests, preferences and feedback.
  • Usage Data includes information about how you use our website and services.
  • Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

Direct interactions

You may give us your Identity and Contact Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

(a) request our services;
(b) subscribe to our service or publications;
(c) request marketing to be sent to you;
(d) give us some feedback; or
(e) apply for a job with the firm.

Automated technologies or interactions

As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect technical data about your device, browsing actions, and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive technical data about you if you visit other websites using our cookies.

Third parties or publicly available sources

We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources such as Technical Data from the following parties:

  • analytics providers; and
  • social media pages such as our Gary Matthews Solicitors LinkedIn account or Gary Matthews Solicitors FaceBook account.

How We Use Your Personal Data

Purposes

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

  • Where we need to perform the contract, we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
  • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
  • Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data, except when sending third-party direct marketing communications via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground, we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Purpose/Activity Type of data Lawful basis for processing
To manage our relationship with you, including notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy, recruitment, and selection.
  • Identity
  • Contact
  • Profile
  • Application details
  • Marketing and Communications
  • Performance of a contract with you
  • Recruitment and selection processes
  • Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
  • Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how clients use our services)
To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)
  • Identity
  • Contact
  • Technical
  • Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)
  • Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you
  • Identity
  • Contact
  • Profile
  • Usage
  • Marketing and Communications
  • Technical
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how clients use our services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To use data analytics to improve our website, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences
  • Technical
  • Usage
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of clients for our services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To make suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you
  • Identity
  • Contact
  • Technical
  • Usage
  • Profile
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our services and grow our business)

Legal Bases

(a) Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

(b) Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

(c) Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services may be relevant for you (we call this marketing). You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information or services, and you have not opted out of receiving marketing. We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside Gary Matthews Solicitors for marketing purposes.

Opting out

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by contacting us.

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

Disclosures of your personal information

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 5 above.

Internal third parties

Entities within Gary Matthews Solicitors acting as joint controllers or processors and who are based in Ireland, the UK and the US.

External third parties

Service providers acting as processors based in Ireland, the UK and the US.

Third party partners for the purposes of hosting events.

Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

International transfers

We share your personal data within Gary Matthews Solicitors. This may involve transferring your data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

  • Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe.
  • Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the EEA.

Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so

Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements. Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available by contacting us.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see paragraph 10 below for further information.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”).
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.
  • Request erasure of your personal data. We may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
  • Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
  • Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please Contact Us. You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive, or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances. We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response. We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

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