Privacy Policy

Overview

Secerna is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.

Please read this policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are, how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information.

This notice applies to Secerna LLP who we also refer to as “we”, “us” or “our”.

Secerna LLP is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which is the UK’s independent body set up to enforce information rights. As a data controller we are responsible for ensuring that we process personal information in accordance with EU and UK data protection laws and use it only in accordance with our clients’ instructions and our professional duty of confidentiality.

If you have any questions about this notice, please get in touch with your usual contact at Secerna LLP or see the Contact Information section below.

Secerna may change this policy from time to time in response to legislative changes and/or ICO guidance and will notify you of any amendments by updating this page on our website.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 29 November 2019.

What personal information do we collect and use?

In the course of our business as Patent Attorneys, we need to collect certain personal information. The type of personal information we collect will depend upon our relationship with you and the context in which the information is obtained and used. We may collect at least the following information:

Relationship	Personal information we collect
Business Clients	Business information such as name, address, telephone number - to enable us to contact you to conduct our business; Contact details for any contacts within the business who we may need to liaise with to process your matter; Information to verify the identity of the business such as information available via Companies House.
Individual Clients	Your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address to enable us to contact you to conduct our business; Financial details relevant to your instruction only, such as bank details for payment of our invoices; Information to verify your identity such as passport details or utility bills.
Job Applicants	Your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address, education and employment history, information about your current salary including benefits; Information to verify your entitlement to work in the UK; We may also collect personal data from third parties, such as referees (e.g. former employers).
Employees	Job application including CV, interview notes and references; Contract of employment and amendments to it; Correspondence passing between yourself and Secerna; Financial information needed for payroll and benefits purposes; Contact and emergency contact information; Personnel records of holiday, sickness and other absence; Records relating to career history including but not limited to, training records, appraisals, disciplinary and grievance records where appropriate.

What we do with the information we gather

If you are a client we require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular, for example, internal record keeping. We may use the information to improve our products and services. We may periodically send promotional emails about special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided. From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by email, telephone or mail. We may use the information to customise the website according to your interests.

If you are a job applicant we will only use the information you supply us to process your job application. We will not contact you for any other purpose and will securely delete your information in line with our Data Retention Policy.

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement.

Supplying personal data

We will only supply personal information provided by you to another organisation or individual in the following circumstances:

Where the sharing of this information is required in order to provide the product or service that you have requested. Any information provided to individuals who work for us will be used for the sole purpose of providing the service or products that you have requested.
Where personal information is provided to parties who do not work for us, we will ensure that appropriate measures are taken to protect this information.
In addition, we may supply personal information where the supply of such personal information is required by law or a regulatory authority.

Retention of personal data

We will only retain personal information for as long as is necessary to fulfil our requirements. Please see our separate Data Retention Policy for more information.

Correcting or deleting personal data

If you believe that any information we are holding relating to you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to us or e-mail us as soon as possible, at data@secerna.com. We will seek to promptly correct any information found to be incorrect and notify you that we have done so.

Contact Information

Please contact Charlotte Watkins, who is the partner responsible for data protection, by post, e-mail or telephone if you have any queries about this privacy policy or any of the information we hold about you.

Charlotte Watkins
The Old Fire Station
18 Clifford Street
York
YO1 9RD

Telephone: +44 (0)1904 202900
E-mail: data@secerna.com