Groups of personal information

We collect and use lots of different types of personal data.  Personal data is any information that relates to you and that identifies you either directly from that information or indirectly, by reference to other information that we have access to. The personal data that we collect, and how we collect it, depends upon how you interact with us. Categories of personal data that we collect include:

 7.     HOW WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION OUTSIDE OF THE FIRM

7.1

If you request an estimate for legal services, your personal information may be shared with employees and consultants working on behalf of the Firm, limited to the performance of their duties and the reason for processing. All staff are required to keep that information confidential. Your information may also be disclosed when we believe in good faith that disclosure is:

• required by law or by a regulator of the Firm;
• needed to protect the safety of our employees, the public or our property;
• required to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order or legal process;
• in the event of a merger, asset sale, or other related transaction; or
• for the prevention or detection of crime (including fraud).

We may also share your personal data when you have consented to us doing so, and may disclose it to third-party suppliers or service providers to conduct our business — for example, to assist in managing and storing data, provide data analytics, conduct market research and communicate with you effectively. Where we share your information with third parties, we will, wherever possible, require them to maintain appropriate security to protect it from unauthorised access or processing.

7.2 If you choose not to give personal information

We may need to collect personal information by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you. If you choose not to give us this personal information, it may delay or prevent us from meeting our obligations, and could mean we have no option but to cancel our service to you. Any data collection that is optional will be made clear at the point of collection.

7.3 Our service providers and suppliers

We are based in the United Kingdom. Where we send personal information to countries outside the UK, we rely on one of the following safeguards:

• the destination country or territory has been assessed by the UK government as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data (an “adequacy regulation”); or
• a UK-approved transfer mechanism is in place, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or the provider’s own certification under the UK extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework; or
• your consent, where that is the appropriate basis.

Section 11.2 below lists the specific service providers we use and, where relevant, where their processing takes place.

8. Marketing

8.1 When you’ll hear from us

We may use your personal information to send you marketing by post, phone, social media, email and text, and to help us identify, tailor and package products and services, determine pricing and offer discounts that we believe may be of interest to you. We can only use your personal information for marketing if we have your permission or a legitimate interest as described above.

If you don’t want to receive emails from us, you can notify us by email using the contact details in 8.2 below. If you don’t want to receive texts, you can tell us at any time. You have the right to object to direct marketing and profiling — see “Your rights” below.

8.2 Opting out of or withdrawing your consent in relation to marketing

If you no longer want to hear from us, you can opt out or unsubscribe:

• by email to info@174familylaw.co.uk;
• by phone on 0151 832 3253; or
• by contacting us on the details in “How to contact us” below.

8.3 Third parties and marketing

We might rely on third parties to help us manage our marketing communications, but we won’t share your information with any third parties for their own marketing purposes unless you agree to this.

9. Artificial intelligence

We may use artificial intelligence and machine-assisted technologies — including tools such as ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic) and Microsoft Copilot — to support delivery of our professional services, including document drafting, summarisation, legal and mediation support functions, administrative efficiency and information analysis.

Personal information will only be processed where necessary, proportionate and subject to appropriate confidentiality, security and professional obligations. Where possible, information will be minimised, anonymised or pseudonymised before use. We will not knowingly disclose information to AI systems that use client information for model training or unrelated purposes without informing you and identifying the lawful basis relied on. Where an AI provider is based outside the UK (as ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot are), we rely on the safeguards described in section 7.3.

10. Your rights

10.1 Your data protection rights

Under data protection law you have various rights in respect of the personal information we hold about you, including the right to:

• require us to update or correct inaccurate personal data, or complete incomplete personal data — please tell us if your information changes;
• require us to stop processing your information for direct marketing purposes (if you withdraw consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services);
• object to our use of your personal data more generally.

You may also have the right, in certain circumstances, to:

• be provided with a copy of the personal data we hold about you and related information (a Subject Access Request) — there are exceptions, e.g. where information is legally privileged or disclosure would reveal another person’s data;
• require us, without undue delay, to delete your personal data;
• “restrict” our use of your information so it can only continue subject to restrictions;
• require personal data you provided to us, and which we process by automated means on the basis of consent or a contract with you, to be given to you in a machine-readable format so it can be “ported” to another provider.

We reserve the right to retain certain information for our own record-keeping (for example, to ensure you don’t receive marketing you’ve opted out of) and to defend ourselves against claims. We may also need to send service-related communications even where you’ve opted out of marketing.

10.2 How to exercise your rights

• Contact us using the details in “How to contact us”, or tick the applicable boxes on our forms.
• Unsubscribe from marketing emails using the link at the bottom of the email.
• We will comply with your requests unless we have a lawful reason not to, and may ask for proof of identity to ensure your data is disclosed only to you.

11. How we look after your information

11.1 Security

We are committed to protecting the confidentiality and security of the information you provide to us. We put in place appropriate technical, physical and organisational measures, including:

• physical security of our offices;
• physical and digital security of our equipment, devices and systems (password protection, encryption, access restrictions);
• access controls so information is only available to people who need it for their work;
• internal policies, procedures and data protection training for staff.

No information system can be 100% secure and we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information. We are not responsible for the security of information you transmit to us over networks not under our control, including the internet and wireless networks.

11.2 Links to other sites, and where your data is processed

Our website may from time to time contain content and links to other sites operated by third parties. We do not control these third-party sites or the cookies they operate, and this Privacy Policy does not apply to them — please check their own terms and privacy policies.

Communications over the internet, such as email, are not secure unless encrypted.

Most of your information is held on UK or EU-based servers. Some of our service providers process data outside the UK, as set out below; where they do, we rely on the safeguards described in section 7.3.

We use a number of software products for practice and case management, stored on our main server (in-house or in the cloud); even where in-house, the provider may occasionally need remote access to our account, and so to your personal data:

• LEAP — our case and practice management software, used for all Matters and accounts management. Cloud-based. More information: leap.co.uk; LEAP’s privacy policy: leap.co.uk/privacy.
• Progress Mediation — case management and document production for our mediation department. Cloud-based. More information: progressmediation.co.uk; their privacy policy: Progress Mediation – Privacy.
• WhatsApp (Meta) — where you or we choose to communicate by WhatsApp, messages pass through Meta’s WhatsApp service. Message content is end-to-end encrypted, but Meta processes certain metadata (e.g. phone numbers, timestamps), which may be transferred outside the UK; see WhatsApp’s privacy policy
• Where your data is stored on paper, it is retained in-house until your retainer concludes, when your file is closed and digitally uploaded to LEAP’s archiving system.

We use Mailchimp as our email marketing provider. Your contact information is stored in our Mailchimp account, which has data centres in the USA; Mailchimp holds a UK extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework certification covering this transfer. Marketing emails are sent from our Mailchimp account, and we track engagement (e.g. which links are clicked, or when you unsubscribe).

We use Worldpay and Rapidpay to process payments to the practice. Personal data you share when using these services is not transferred to 174 Family Law and is handled under their own privacy policies.

The transmission of information via the internet can never be completely secure. Although we use reasonable endeavours to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee its security in transit. Once received, we use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

12. Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies on our website. A cookie is a small file stored on your device that helps our site work properly, helps us understand how it is used, and, where you agree, lets us tailor content or marketing to you.

12.1 Categories of cookies we use

• Strictly necessary cookies — required for the website to function (for example, security, load balancing, or remembering form entries during a session). These do not require your consent, but we still tell you about them here.
• Functional cookies — remember your preferences and improve your experience (for example, previously viewed pages).
• Analytics/performance cookies — help us understand how visitors use the site and where to improve it (see “Google Analytics” below).
• Marketing cookies — used to measure the effectiveness of our marketing, or to show you relevant content elsewhere.

12.2 Getting your consent

Before any cookie other than a strictly necessary one is set, we ask for your consent through a cookie banner and preference centre when you first visit our site. You can:

• accept all non-essential cookies;
• reject all non-essential cookies — just as easily as accepting them; or
• choose which categories of non-essential cookie to allow, rather than only an all-or-nothing choice.

We will not set a non-essential cookie on your device unless you have actively opted in to that category, and your choice is remembered and applied on later visits unless you change it.

12.3 Changing or withdrawing your consent

You can change your cookie preferences, or withdraw your consent, at any time via [CONFIRM: “Cookie settings” link/mechanism on the new site]. You can also manage or delete cookies through your browser settings; doing so may affect how parts of the site work.

12.4 Full list of cookies

A full list of the cookies we use, including their name, purpose and how long each one lasts, is available at via our Cookie policy Link here :-

This section reflects the UK’s cookie rules under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and current ICO guidance, which require your prior, informed and freely given consent before non-essential cookies are set, with rejecting made no harder than accepting.

13. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics service provided by Google. Google uses the data collected to track and examine use of this site, prepare activity reports, and share them with other Google services; Google may also use the data to contextualise and personalise its own advertising network.

Personal data collected: cookie and usage data. Place of processing: USA, under Google’s UK extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework certification. You can find Google’s privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy. You can opt out of Google Analytics for Display Advertising and customise Google Display Network ads using Google’s Ads Settings.

14. WordPress

We use a third-party service, WordPress.com (run by Automattic Inc.), to publish our blog and some conference microsites. We use a standard WordPress service to collect anonymous information about visitor activity — for example, the number of users viewing pages — to monitor and improve the site. WordPress requires visitors who want to post a comment to enter a name and email address. For more information about how WordPress processes data, see Automattic’s privacy notice.

15. How long we keep your information for

We do not keep your personal data for longer than necessary to fulfil the purpose we collected it for, or to comply with legal, regulatory or reporting obligations, or to assert or defend legal claims. We will generally keep client file data for at least six years in line with our Data Retention Policy, to:

• comply with our legal and/or regulatory obligations;
• respond to any questions or complaints;
• show that we treated you fairly;
• maintain records in line with rules that apply to us.

We will also generally keep data about people who are not our clients for six years where they are another party to a matter we have acted on, or otherwise where it is in our legitimate interest to do so (for example, a prospective client enquiry or a job application) — these retention periods are set out in more detail in our internal Data Protection and Retention Policy. We may keep data for longer than six years where we cannot delete it for legal or technical reasons, or for research or statistical purposes, in which case we will ensure your privacy is protected and use it only for those purposes.

16. How to contact us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information, or want to make a Subject Access Request, please contact us at:

The Data Protection Manager 174 Family Law The Lauries 142 Claughton Road Birkenhead CH41 6EY

Email: hpittard@174familylaw.co.uk Telephone: 0151 832 3253

If you remain dissatisfied with our response, you have the right to take the matter up with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights. You can contact the ICO via ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.

LAST UPDATED: 05.10.2026