Privacy Statement

Sterling & Law Group plc is committed to protecting your personal information and we ask that you read this Privacy Statement carefully as it contains important information on:

• The personal information we collect about you
• What we do with your information
• Who your information might be shared with
• Your rights with regard to your personal data

Who we are

In this policy ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ refer to Sterling & Law Group plc.

Where we collect your information

We may collect your personal information directly from you and/or from a variety of sources including:

• Website enquiry forms
• Phone conversations with us
• Emails or letters you send to us
• Fact-finding meetings with one of our financial advisers
• Our online services such as websites and social media

If you have a financial adviser and/or are/have been a member of an employer’s or previous pension scheme, we may collect information from them about you.

We may also collect personal information on you from places such as business directories and other commercially or publicly available sources – for example, to check or improve the information we hold (such as your address) or to give better contact information if we are unable to contact you directly.

What information do we hold on you?

Information that we hold on you includes:

• Information about who you are – for example, your name, date of birth and contact details
• Information connected to your product or service with us – for example, your bank account details
• Information about your contact with us – for example, we may record and hold virtual or face to face meetings, phone calls, emails/letters
• Information that is automatically collected – for example, via cookies when you visit one of our websites
• Information if you visit one of our offices – for example, visual images collected via closed-circuit television (CCTV)
• Information classified as ‘sensitive’ personal information – for example, relating to your health, marital or civil partnership status. This information will only be collected and used where it’s needed to provide the product or service you have requested or to comply with our legal obligations.
• Information you may provide us about other people – for example, joint applicants or beneficiaries for products you have with us.
• Information on children – for example, where a child is named as a beneficiary on the policy taken out by a parent or guardian on their behalf. In these cases, we will collect and use only the information required to identify the child (such as their name, age, gender)

What do we do with the information?

We use information about you to:

• Provide relevant financial advice, products and services
• Identify ways we can improve our relationship, products and services
• Maintain and monitor the financial advice we have given you together with products and services
• Protect both our interests
• Meet our legal and regulatory obligations
• Decide and recommend how our financial advice, products and services might be suitable for you

To provide financial advice, products and services under the terms and conditions we agree between us, we may need to collect and use personal information about you. If you do not provide this personal information, we may not be able to provide you with our financial advice, products and services.

We analyse the information that we collect on you. This helps us understand your financial behaviour, how we interact with you and our position in a marketplace. Examples of how we use this information includes helping protect you and others from financial crime, offering you financial advice, products and services and personalising your experience.

We sometimes use technology to help our third-party product providers make decisions automatically. For example, when we help you apply for a mortgage or credit agreement online. Before our third-party product providers make a decision, they may automatically score the information provided, any information we already hold about you, and any information we may get from other sources.

Disclosure of your information to third parties

This may include the following in order to:

• Provide financial advice, products, services and information
• Analyse information
• Research your experience in dealing with us
• Prevent financial crime
• Trace information
• Protect both our interests

In order to provide mortgage services to you, we may supply your personal information to credit reference agencies (CRAs) and they will give us information about you, such as about your credit history. We do this to assess creditworthiness and product suitability, check your identity, manage your account, and prevent criminal activity.

The personal information we have collected from you may be shared with fraud prevention agencies, which will use it to prevent fraud and money-laundering and to verify your identity. If fraud is detected, you could be refused certain services.

We expect these third parties to have the same levels of information protection that we have.

We also have to share information with third parties to meet any applicable law, regulation or lawful request. When we believe we have been given false or misleading information, or we suspect criminal activity, we must record this and tell law enforcement agencies, which may be either in or outside the UK.

International transfers of data

If we need to transfer your personal information outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) to help us provide you with financial advice, products and services, we would endeavour to ensure that the same standards of data protection are applied to these transfers and the use of the information, and to ensure that your rights are protected.

Social networking sites

We maintain an online presence on popular social media websites including (but not limited to) Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and Google Plus. We use these websites to share our news, upcoming events and to celebrate our culture. By engaging with us on these sites, you are accepting that the webpages are available to the general public and agree to the following:

1. Social media webpages or apps may not always be private. Please do not share your personal account information on any of the websites, including through the use of private messages.
2. Although we always try to read every message sent to us on social media, we cannot guarantee a response to every message.
3. Any information you provide us with on social media webpages may be retained by the webpage for longer than your relationship with us.

How we keep your information safe

We protect your information with security measures under the laws that apply and strive to comply with our obligations at all times.

We keep your information, our computers, files and buildings secure.

How long we keep your information

To meet our legal and regulatory obligations, we hold your information while you are a customer and for a period of time after that. We do not hold it for longer than necessary.

Your individual rights

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have a number of rights with regard to your personal data.

1. You have the right to request from us access to and rectification or erasure of your personal data, the right to restrict processing, object to processing as well as in certain circumstances the right to data portability.
2. If you have provided consent for the processing of your data, you have the right (in certain circumstances) to withdraw that consent at any time, which will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before your consent was withdrawn.
3. You have the right to lodge a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you believe that we have not complied with the requirements of the GDPR with regard to your personal data. 

The lawful basis we rely on for processing this information is because we have a legitimate interest. 

SSL certificates/Green bar

Sterling & Law uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption to protect all network traffic between your PC and our systems. All information travelling to and from our website is safe against interception by third parties who might otherwise use that information without your consent.

SSL also protects you by confirming that you are looking at Sterling & Law’s website and not a fraudulent site designed to trick you into disclosing your personal information.

The use of cookies

Cookies are small text files that ask permission to be placed on your computer by websites you visit. Your web browser may allow you to erase the cookies, block all cookies, or receive a warning before a cookie is stored. Please refer to your browser instructions for guidance. However, in some instances, unless the cookies are accepted, parts of our application may not function fully or at all.

If you do allow cookies to be used, when you view our website or applications, we will store some cookie files, which will enable us to measure the use of the pages and features on our application and allow you to use some of its functions. The cookie is used to store the IP address of your machine and will not contain any data personal to you. We do not make any attempt to find out, by means of the cookies, the identities of those visiting our website or applications. For further information, please visit www.allaboutcookies.org.

Updates to this privacy policy

We will make changes to this statement from time to time, particularly when we change how we use your information and change our technology and products.

How to contact us

Sterling & Law Group plc is the Controller and Processor of Data for the purposes of the GDPR.

If you have any concerns as to how your data is processed, you can contact:

The Data Protection Officer

Sterling & Law Group plc,

1 Royal Exchange,

London,

EC3V 3DG

info@sterlingandlaw.com

Tel: 020 7291 4567