INTRODUCTION

AVIOU Law Firm recognizes the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information,
and as lawyers we have a professional obligation to keep confidential all information we
receive within a lawyer-client relationship. We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of
our website visitors and any personal information we may hold. This policy explains how we
treat your personal information.


PERSONAL INFORMATION

For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, personal information should be construed in light of the definition attributed to it in the Data Protection Act 1998. Currently, personal information is understood to be any information which relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data. In general, personal information, does not include information readily available such as your business contact information inclusive of your name, occupation or job title, business address, telephone and facsimile numbers.


REASON FOR COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

AVIOU Law Firm provides legal services and products to a wide range of clients. In doing so, it produces direct marketing materials concerning its services and developments in the law.


COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

AVIOU Law Firm collects information only by lawful and fair means, and not in an unreasonably intrusive way. Wherever possible we collect your personal information directly from you, both at the start of a retainer and during our representation. The types of personal information that we may collect from you include your name, home address, telephone number, personal e-mail address, billing and account information, information about a client’s legal issue and other information incidental to providing legal advice and services, including personal information about witnesses, family members, beneficiaries, directors, officers, employees, adverse parties, parties-in-interest, investigators, decision makers, experts, other professional advisors, and our clients’ business partners, investors, shareholders, comp.0etitors and customers whom are individuals. Sometimes we may obtain information about you from other sources, for example, your insurance company; your real estate agent in a property transaction; from a government agency or registry; your employer, if we are acting for you, at its request; or your accountant.


CONSENT

Generally, we shall ask you to specifically consent, if we collect, use, or disclose your personal information. Normally, we ask for your consent in writing, but in some circumstances, we may accept your oral consent. Sometimes, your consent may be implied through your conduct with us. We will re-obtain your consent where we intend to use your personal information for a purpose, which varies from the purpose for which the personal information was initially obtained.

WITHDRAWAL OF CONSENT

Be advised that you can withdraw your consent subject to reasonable notice, legal and contractual obligations. AVIOU Law Firm will inform you of any implications of your withdrawal of consent.

USE OF YOUR INFORMATION

We use your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you, to administer our client (time and billing databases) and to include you in any direct marketing activities. If you tell us that you no longer wish to receive information about our services, or about new
developments in the law, we will not send any further material.


DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We respect your right to privacy and treat our obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998 ("the Act") very seriously. We will keep your personal information confidential except to the extent that it is necessary to disclose it by law or to comply with a regulatory or legal process or where we need to disclose the information to provide a product or service that you have requested.

Examples of such disclosure include but are not limited to the following: if a court issues a subpoena; when you have consented to the disclosure; when the legal services we are providing to you requires us give your information to third parties (for example a lender in a real estate mortgage transaction) your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise; where it is necessary to establish or collect fees; if we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us (like computer back-up services or archival file storage) and the third party is bound by our privacy policy; if we engage expert witnesses on your behalf; if we retain other law firms at your request, and on your behalf; if the information is publicly available or publicly known personal information.

Aviou Law Firm does not disclose your personal information to any third party to enable them to market their products and services.


UPDATING YOUR INFORMATION AND CORRECTING ERRORS

Since we use your personal information to provide legal services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up-to-date. If during the course of the retainer, any of your information changes, please inform us so that we can make any necessary changes. Further if the information held by AVIOU Law Firm about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, AVIOU Law Firm will endeavour by taking reasonable steps to correct it.


SECURITY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

AVIOU Law Firm takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is
kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification, or disclosure. Among the steps taken to protect your information are premises security; restricted file access to personal information; technological safeguards like security software and firewalls to prevent hacking or unauthorized computer access; as well as internal password and security policies amongst other safeguarding measures.


ACCESSING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Under the Act you have the right to receive details of the personal data we maintain on you. An official fee is payable. If you would like to see the information we hold about you or would like to be removed from our database, you should contact us immediately regarding same at: Privacy Officer, AVIOU Law Firm, 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX. Alternatively, you may wish to contact us via email at info@avioulaw.com.


DENIAL OF ACCESS TO MY PERSONAL INFORMATION

Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute. We may deny access when in several situations such as when it is required or authorized by law (for example, when a record containing personal information about you is protected by solicitor-client privilege); to do so would reveal confidential commercial information, and the personal information cannot be severed from the record; to do so could reasonably be expected to threaten the life or security of another individual, and the personal information cannot be severed from the record; or the information was generated in the course of a formal dispute resolution process. If we deny your request for access to, or refuse a request to correct information, we shall explain why.


COMMUNICATING WITH US

Please note that we cannot guarantee that any email sent from you to us will be received by us or that its contents are or will remain secure during or following transmission. Likewise, we cannot guarantee that emails sent by us to you are secure. If you have any concerns about the security of email transmissions to or from us, you may prefer to telephone or write to us instead.


EMPLOYMENT INQUIRIES

If you apply to AVIOU Law Firm for a job, we need to consider your personal information, as
part of our review process. We normally retain information from candidates after a decision has been made, unless you ask us not to retain the information. If we offer you a job, which you accept, the information will be retained in accordance with our privacy procedures for employee records.


WEBSITE

Our website contains links to other sites, which are not governed by this privacy policy. On our website, like most other commercial websites, we may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information in order to optimize our web service. We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but these statistics do not include any identifiable personal information.


CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

AVIOU Law Firm regularly reviews all of its policies and procedures, and as such we may change our Privacy Policy from time to time.