This website is the property of Higgins & Co Lawyers Limited. We take the privacy of all visitors to our website very seriously and provide this Privacy Policy to help you understand how we process personal information for the provision of legal services. We are committed to conducting our business in accordance with these principles to ensure that the confidentiality of personal information is protected. This policy covers all data that is shared with us by a visitor directly through this website or by email.
This policy tells you:
- What personal information we collect about you
- How the information we collect is used
- Who we may share your personal information with
- Cookies
- Your Rights
- About our security and links to other websites
- Who to complain to if you are unhappy.
- If you do not provide the personal information we request to provide our service, it may affect our ability to provide the service we offer. You will be informed of this at the appropriate time
- We do not solicit or provide our service to people under the age of 16 and therefore do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under the age of 16
You may contact us if you have any questions about our Privacy Notice or practices at info@higginssolicitors.co.uk or at our mailing address below:
Higgins & Co Lawyers Limited
10/12 Whetstone Lane
Birkenhead
CH41 2QR
Section 1 – Customer Information We Hold
Higgins & Co Lawyers Limited provides legal services. The Customer Data the we collect may include:
Your name, address, contact number, IP address, date of birth, banking provider, bank account information, advisor details, medical details, email address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit to our website and pages viewed. We may also require other information such as information about your health or your personal finances. This list may not include all the information we may require to provide our service/s.
If you contact us other than via our website, we may keep a record of that correspondence. We only collect Customer Data by lawful and fair means with the knowledge of consent of the individual.
If you decide to use our claims service, you will be provided with our terms and conditions of our service, details of our complaints procedure and how to cancel our service. You will also be able to access details of any regulator applicable to the service/s we provide as we work within a regulated industry.
We collect and process personal information from you at various stages to respond to your enquiries, to ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer, to notify you of changes to our websites, to provide you with specific advice, and to carry out our obligations in respect of any contract you enter into with us.
To provide our service we may also collect and receive the following information:
a) Complaint Information relating to the nature of a complaint or claim such as a pension
provider, investment company, insurer, administrator.
b) Billing and other information. Customer payment information for processing the collection of a fee along with a billing address retained securely only until the appropriate payment of the fee has been made.
The information we ask for will be relevant to the service provided or the enquiry. Where possible the information will be accurate, complete and up to date.
Section 2 – Use of Your Information
We use your information to provide our claims service and to improve our web-based service to our clients (see our Cookies below). The information we collect about you is used solely for the purposes for which it is provided and will be shared with our employees to provide our legal service.
We may access and use Customer Data as reasonably necessary and in accordance with your instructions, to manage our service, security and any technical issues. We will also use your data at your request on customer support matters and when we are legally obliged to do so, such as for fraud prevention purposes or in connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk) and as provided by our agreement with you. This includes:
a) Communicating with you by responding to your queries or requests, to allow you to use the services available on our website and to provide third parties with statistical information only about our users which is done on an anonymised basis only.
b) Sending service and administrative emails and messages to inform you about changes in
our Services, our Service offerings, and important Service related notices, such as
security and fraud notices. These emails and messages are considered part of the Services and you may not opt-out of them.
c) Sending emails about new product features or other news relating to our business where you have specifically agreed to this, by text message, email, telephone or by post. You can opt out of these at any time using the unsubscribe link within our newsletter email or emailing info@higginssolicitors.co.uk .
d) Communicating with you about billing, invoicing, account management and the management of billing and payments.
e) To deal with enquiries and complaints made by or about us relating to our website.
f) To contact you via text message, email or by post as determined by your preferences. Where you have indicated that you wish to be contacted by email you should ensure that you add info@higginssolicitors.co.uk to your email contact list.
g) Investigating and preventing fraud to keep our service secure and to prevent abuse and fraud.
We will only use your data for additional purposes such as marketing where we have received specific consent to do so and, from May 2018 you will only be contacted where you have specifically opted in to be contacted and only on products and services you have specifically agreed to be contacted about.
Section 3 – Who we share your information with
To provide our service we share your information with insurance companies, medical agencies, engineers, sign-up agents, hospitals and doctors, barristers that we instruct on your behalf, care agencies, the Court service, defendants and defendants’ solicitors, costs draftsmen, banks, investment companies, administrators of pensions/investments and regulatory bodies such as the Financial Ombudsman Service, Financial Services Compensation Scheme, Pension Ombudsman and with our regulator.
Higgins & Co Lawyers Limited DO NOT sell your data to anyone. Your data is only used to provide you with the provision of legal services or where you have consented to be contacted.
Section 4 – Use of Cookies
A cookie consists of information sent by a web server to a web browser and stored by the browser. The information is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables the web server to identify and track the web browser.
We may use both “session” cookies and “persistent” cookies on the website. We will use the session cookies to: keep track of you whilst you navigate the website; We will use the persistent cookies to: enable our website to recognise you when you visit
Session cookies will be deleted from your computer when you close your browser. Persistent cookies will remain stored on your computer until deleted, or until they reach a specified expiry date.
Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies. (For example, in Internet Explorer you can refuse all cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Internet Options”, “Privacy”, and selecting “Block all cookies” using the sliding selector.) This will, however, have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites, including this one.
Section 5 – Your Rights
You provide us with details of what we ‘can do’ with your Data. You have the right to opt-in and importantly to opt-out at any time. You can be specific about how we can and cannot use your data which means if you have told us that you do not want us to share your data with any third party then we will not. We put you in charge and, you have the following rights:
- To know that your data is being processed.
- To access your personal data Free of Charge from 25th May 2018 *
- To data portability and to have your information corrected if inaccurate (including ensuring any third party puts right any inaccuracy).
- To request that your data be erased, restrict processing and object to processing and;
- To rights relating to automated decision making and profiling.
Unless you have instructed us to provide you with the provision of legal services and have entered into our agreement from May 2018 we will only retain your data for a maximum of 12 months. However, where you have contracted with us to provide a legal service and entered into our agreement, the data is retained within secure electronic archives as required by law but for no longer than 6 years after the conclusion of the service provided, unless your claim is subject to a provisional award and, in which case, we shall retain all data indefinitely. Where reasonably practicable data is minimised so not to be identifiable to the data subject unless required by law or is subject to a Subject Access Request.
*A fee of £10 is only payable until 25th May 2018
Section 6 – How do I know my Information is Secure?
Higgins & Co Lawyers Limited takes security seriously to protect the information you provide to us from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access or disclosure considering the sensitivity of the information we collect, process and store, and the technology resources available. We have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure Data collected via this website.
We will take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information.
We will store all the personal information you provide on our secure (password and firewall protected) servers.
Data transmission over the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet but we carry out due diligence checks on all third parties who ‘touch’ our client data.
This privacy notice does not cover the links within this site linking to other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.
Section 7 – General
You may not transfer any of your rights under this privacy policy to any other person. We may transfer our rights under this privacy policy where we reasonably believe your rights will not be affected. If any court or competent authority finds that any provision of this privacy policy (or part of any provision) is invalid, illegal or unenforceable, that provision or part-provision will, to the extent required, be deemed to be deleted, and the validity and enforceability of the other provisions of this privacy policy will not be affected.
Unless otherwise agreed, no delay, act or omission by a party in exercising any right or remedy will be deemed a waiver of that, or any other, right or remedy.
This Agreement will be governed by and interpreted according to the law of England and Wales. All disputes arising under the Agreement will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English and Welsh courts.
Section 8 – Changes to our Privacy Notice
Higgins & Co Lawyers Limited is the data controller and reserves the right to change this privacy policy as we may deem necessary from time to time or as may be required by law. Any changes will be immediately posted on the website and you are deemed to have accepted the terms of the privacy policy on your first use of the website following the alterations.
Section 9 – Complaints
You have the right to complain about the way we have managed your data. You may do so by writing to us or emailing us using the details below. In the event of a complaint or breach relating to any aspect of our Data Protection our records will be made available to the relevant supervisory authority. If you have a complaint about the service our complaints procedure is available through a link in the footer of our website.
If you have any queries about your information, how we may be using your information, or your rights contact us at info@higginssolicitors.co.uk or write to
Paul Higgins, Higgins & Co Lawyers Limited, 10/12 Whetstone Lane, Birkenhead. CH41 2QR.
If you have made a complaint about any aspect of how your data has been processed and, you are still unhappy you have the right to complain to the If you are still unhappy with any aspect of Data Protection you are entitled to make a compliant to the ICO.
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national rate number
Fax: 01625 524 510