Somerset Immigration Services is committed to maintaining the privacy of our clients and website users. We responsibly protect the information that you provide to us and the information that we collect in the course of operating our business. This Privacy Policy describes how we may collect, use, and share information, particularly in association with the operation of our websites. Our websites are https://somersetimmigration.com and https://somersetimmigration.co.uk.
What personal information do we collect?
We collect information that you voluntarily provide to us, including when you communicate with us via email or other channels; when you fill out a form or enter information on our sites, when you sign up for or request that we send you newsletters, alerts, or other materials; and when you respond to our communications or requests for information.
At checkout, we will collect your name, email address, username, and password. This information is used to setup your account for our site. If you are redirected to an offsite payment gateway to complete your payment, we may store this information in a temporary session variable to setup your account when you return to our site.
When logged in, we use cookies to track some of your activity on our site including logins, visits, and page views.
Information we may collect automatically
We use a third party service, Google Analytics, and similar technologies (collectively, ‘Cookies’) to collect and store certain information when you use, access, or interact with our websites.
We may, for example, collect information about the type of device you use to access our websites, the operating system and version, your IP address, your general geographic location as indicated by your IP address, your browser type, the content you view and features you access on our websites, the web pages you view immediately before and after you access our websites, whether and how you interact with our content and the search terms you enter.
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
Do we use ‘cookies’?
Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the site’s or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information.
For instance, we use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart. They are also used to help us understand your preferences based on previous or current site activity, which enables us to provide you with improved services.
We also use cookies to help us compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future.
We use cookies to:
- Understand and save user’s preferences for future visits.
- Keep track of advertisements.
- Compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interactions in order to offer better site experiences and tools in the future.
We may also use trusted third-party services that track this information on our behalf. You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser settings. Since browser is a little different, look at your browser’s Help Menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies. If you turn cookies off, some of the features that make your site experience more efficient may not function properly.
For more information about cookies, you may visit this site.
How we use the information
We may use the information we collect from you when you register, make a purchase, sign up for our newsletter, respond to a survey or marketing communication, surf the website, or use certain other site features in the following ways:
- To respond to your inquiries
- To provide you with legal and other services that you request
- To operate, troubleshoot, and improve our services
- To send you newsletters, legal news, marketing communications, and other information or materials that may interest you
- To maintain our database
- To understand how people use our services, including by generating and analyzing statistics
- For the company’s business purposes, including data analysis; submitting invoices; detecting, preventing, and responding to actual or potential fraud, illegal activities, or intellectual property infringement
- To assess the effectiveness of our events, promotional campaigns, and publications
- To evaluate, recruit, and hire personnel
- And as we believe reasonably necessary or appropriate to: comply with our legal obligations; respond to legal process or requests for information issued by government authorities or other third parties; or protect your, our, or others’ rights.
We may need to collect and use your personal information to enter into a contract with you or to perform a contract that you have with us. For example, when you use our services we will use your personal information to respond to your requests and provide you with such services.
Where required by applicable laws, we will rely on your consent for direct marketing and to collect information from your device or computer. We may use location information as described in this Privacy Policy. You may be able to disable the sharing of location information in your browser or mobile application settings.
How we protect your information
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online. This includes, when required or appropriate and feasible, obtaining written assurances from third parties that may access your data that they will protect the data with safeguards designed to provide a level of protection equivalent to that adopted by Somerset Immigration Services.
However, no information system can be 100% secure. So, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information. Moreover, we are not responsible for the security of information you transmit to us over networks that we do not control, including the Internet and wireless networks.
How we share the information
The company is a provider of legal services. Our offices share information with each other for business purposes such as internal administration, billing, promoting our events and services, and providing you or your organisation with services. We do not sell, rent, or otherwise share information that reasonably identifies you or your organisation with unaffiliated entities for their independent use except as expressly described in this Privacy Policy or with your prior permission. We may share information that does not reasonably identify you or your organisation as permitted by applicable law.
We may also disclose information we collect:
- To our third-party service providers that perform services on our behalf, such as web-hosting companies, mailing vendors, analytics providers, event hosting services, and information technology providers.
- To law enforcement, other government authorities or third parties (within or outside the jurisdiction in which you reside) as may be permitted or required by the laws of any jurisdiction that may apply to us; as provided for under contract; for immigration requirements or as we deem reasonably necessary to provide legal services. In these circumstances, we take reasonable efforts to notify you before we disclose information that may reasonably identify you or your organisation, unless prior notice is prohibited by applicable law or is not possible or reasonable in the circumstances.
Retaining and deleting personal data
This section sets out our data retention policies and procedure, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal data. Personal data that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
The period of retention for clients who have instructed Somerset Immigration Services for services will be determined based upon the duration of the client’s case. We may retain your personal data where such retention is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.
Client inquiries and case files will be retained for a minimum period of 6 years following collection of your personal data and for a maximum period of 15 years.
What are your rights?
You have a right to access your personal information, to object to the processing of your personal information, to rectify, to erase, to restrict and to port your personal information. If you have any concerns about the use of data for these purposes or would like a copy of the data we hold about you, requests can be made by sending an email through our Contact page.
If you no longer wish to receive marketing communications from us, you can let us know by sending us an email via our Contact page. And the electronic marketing communications we send you will contain opt-out mechanisms that allow you to register your marketing preferences.
Subject to applicable laws, you may have certain rights regarding information that we have collected and that is related to you. We encourage you to contact us to update or correct your information if it changes or if you believe that any information that we have collected about you is inaccurate. You can also ask us to see what personal information we hold about you, to erase your personal information and you may tell us if you object to our use of your personal information.
In the UK, you have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). If you would like to discuss or exercise the rights you may have, send us an email via our Contact page.
Further questions?
If you have further questions about how we process individual monitoring data in accordance to our privacy policy, please feel free to get in touch with us using our Contact page.
We welcome inquiries and comments. But please note that if you are not a client, we may not be able to treat the information you send us as confidential or privileged.
Changes to this privacy policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The effective date of the current Privacy Policy is 1 August 2020. We encourage you to periodically review this page. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share the personal information that you have provided, we will notify you by posting notice of the changes in a clear and conspicuous manner on the company website.