Privacy statement

The controller is Noord & Steen Advocates, Westersingel 42, 3015 LB Rotterdam, company number [DEMO: to be filled in]. Questions about privacy can go to office@noordsteen.example or +31 (0)10 123 45 67.

A matter may require us to process special category data or criminal offence data — in family law or administrative law, for instance. We do that only so far as your matter needs it and the law allows it.

• Contact details, such as your name, address, telephone number and email address.
• What you tell us or send us by email, through the contact form or in conversation.
• Data needed to handle your matter: documents, correspondence and financial details.
• Identification data, so far as the law requires us to establish your identity.
• Details of a legal aid certificate, where you are granted subsidised legal aid.
• Data about use of the website, only where you have given permission for it.

• To answer your question and arrange a first conversation (at your request, in the run-up to an engagement, or on the basis of our legitimate interest).
• To carry out the engagement: advice, representation and litigation (performance of a contract).
• To meet legal obligations, such as client due diligence under anti-money-laundering rules, tax retention duties and the rules governing advocates (legal obligation).
• To apply for a legal aid certificate on your behalf, where you qualify for one.
• To run and secure the website (legitimate interest). Analytics cookies and external content are used only with your permission.

Advocates are bound by a duty of secrecy in law. What you tell us in confidence is not shared with anyone else, unless you give permission or the law obliges us to.

We share data only where your matter needs it or the law requires it — for example with:

• courts and other authorities, the opposing party and their advocate, so far as the proceedings require;
• the legal aid board, where a certificate is applied for;
• your legal expenses insurer, where you choose that route;
• bailiffs, experts and translators engaged for your matter;
• suppliers of IT, email and administration who act as processors for us. We have a processing agreement with each of them.

We keep processing inside the EEA wherever we can. Where a supplier processes data outside it, we put appropriate safeguards in place, such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses. [DEMO: to be checked per supplier.]

• Questions through the contact form or by email that do not lead to an engagement: [DEMO: set a period, for example one year].
• Case files: [DEMO: period according to firm policy] after the file is closed.
• Client due diligence records: five years after the end of the business relationship.
• Financial records: seven years, under tax retention rules.

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against loss and unlawful use: secured connections, access control, and confidentiality undertakings from staff and processors.

Please do not send confidential documents through the contact form. After first contact we will agree a secure way to get them to us.

You have the right of access, rectification, erasure and restriction of processing, the right to data portability, and the right to object. Permission once given can always be withdrawn. Send your request to office@noordsteen.example or +31 (0)10 123 45 67. We respond within a month.

Sometimes we cannot act on a request, or cannot act on it in full — because of a statutory retention duty, say, or our duty of secrecy towards other clients. Where that happens we tell you so, with reasons.

Unhappy with the way we handle your data? Please contact us first. You may also complain to the national data protection authority.

We may amend this statement. The current version is always the one on this page.