PRIVACY STATEMENT

HR Legal is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Statement sets out the types of personal data we collect, how we collect and process that data, who we share it with in relation to the services we provide and certain rights and options that you have in this respect.

1. Who is responsible for your personal data?

HR Legal is responsible for your personal data.

2. What personal data is collected?

We collect and process the following personal data from you:

- Contact information: name, address, email address, phone number, contact message, company name

- Personal information: presence on events, forwarded resumes

- Profession and/or education: function, title, education

- Technical information: IP address

- History and logs: logins of user accounts

- Cookies: see our cookie policy

3. How do we collect your personal data?

The circumstances in which we can collect personal data about you include:

• when you or your organization seek legal advice from us or use any of our online client services;
• when you or your organization offer to provide, or provides, services to us;
• when it is provided to us by a third party because you are the subject of, or your data is otherwise included in, legal advice we are asked to provide to that third party client (for example, where we are asked to provide advice in an employment dispute)
• when you correspond with us by phone, email or other electronic means, or in writing, or when you provide other information directly to us, including in conversation with our lawyers, consultants and staff;
• when you or your organization browse, complete a form or make an enquiry or otherwise interact on our website or other online platforms;
• when you attend our seminars or other events or sign up to receive personal data from us, including training;
• by making enquiries from your organization, other organizations with whom you have dealings such as former employers and educational institutions, or from third party sources such as government agencies, a credit reporting agency, information service providers or from publicly available records.

4. How will we use your personal data?

We use your personal data only for the following purposes:

• To fulfil a contract, or take steps linked to a contract, with you or your organization. This includes:
  • to register you as a client of Bird & Bird;
  • to provide and administer legal services or other services or solutions, as instructed by you or your organization;
  • to process payments, billing and collection; and
  • to process applications for employment.

• As required to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, in particular:
  • to administer and manage our relationship with you, including accounting, auditing, and taking other steps linked to the performance of our business relationship including identifying persons authorized to represent our clients, suppliers or service providers;
  • to carry out background checks, where necessary and permitted;
  • to analyze and improve our services and communications and to monitor compliance with our policies and standards;
  • to manage access to our premises and for security purposes;
  • to protect the security of our communications and other systems and to prevent and detect security threats, frauds or other criminal or malicious activities;
  • for insurance purposes;
  • to exercise or defend our legal rights or to comply with court orders;
  • to provide legal advice and legal services to our clients;
  • to communicate with you to keep you up-to-date on the latest developments, announcements, and other information about our services and solutions (including briefings, newsletters and other information), events and initiatives; to send you details of client surveys, marketing campaigns, market analysis, or other promotional activities; and
  • to collect information about your preferences to personalize and improve the quality of our communications with you.

Please note that we will only provide you with marketing related information when we have a previous contractual relationship or a business relationship with you and provided you do not opt-out to receive those communications. You have the opportunity to opt-out at any time.

• For purposes required by law, including maintaining records, compliance checks or screening and recording (e.g. anti-money laundering, financial and credit checks, fraud and crime prevention and detection, trade sanctions and embargo laws). This can include automated checks of personal data you provide about your identity against relevant databases and contacting you to confirm your identity, or making records of our communications with you for compliance purposes.

We will not use your personal data for taking any automated decisions affecting or creating profiles other than as described above.

5. Disclosure of your personal data

HR Legal will always share your personal data in a minimal way. However, we may share your personal data, in the following circumstances:

• with courts, law enforcement authorities, regulators, government officials or attorneys or other parties where it is reasonably necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim, or for the purposes of a confidential alternative dispute resolution process;
• with third parties, for sending newsletters, storing and processing your personal data, responding to your queries, sending content to you, and for optimizing our website.

HR Legal will never share or sell your personal data with or to commercial enterprises.

6. Information we transfer

In general, HR legal does not transfer your personal data to countries outside of the EEA.

When we transfer your information to other countries, we will use, share and safeguard that information as described in this Privacy Statement and we will ensure that the same level of protection is achieved.

7. Security of your personal data

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorized way, altered or disclosed.

We have also put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Despite the above measures, you should be aware that there are always risks associated with sending personal data over the internet. The security and protection of your personal data can never be fully guaranteed.

Under no circumstances does HR Legal accept responsibility for any direct or indirect damage resulting from faulty or unlawful use of the personal data by a third party.

8. Updating personal data about you

If any of the personal data that you have provided to us changes, for example if you change your email address or if you wish to cancel any request you have made of us, or if you become aware we have any inaccurate personal data about you, please let us know by sending an email to thomas@hrlegal.be or use our contact form. We will not be responsible for any losses arising from any inaccurate, inauthentic, deficient or incomplete personal data that you provide to us.

9. Your rights

You have various rights with respect to our use of your personal data:

- Access: You have the right to request a copy of the personal data that we hold about you. There are exceptions to this right, so that access may be denied if, for example, making the information available to you would reveal personal data about another person, or if we are legally prevented from disclosing such information. You are entitled to see the personal data held about you. If you wish to do this, please contact us using the contact details provided below.

- Accuracy: We aim to keep your personal data accurate, current, and complete. We encourage you to contact us using our contact form to let us know if any of your personal data is not accurate or changes, so that we can keep your personal data up-to-date.

- Objecting: In certain circumstances, you also have the right to object to processing of your personal data and to ask us to block, erase and restrict your personal data. If you would like us to stop using your personal data, please contact us using our contact form.

- Porting: You have the right to request that some of your personal data is provided to you, or to another data controller, in a commonly used, machine-readable format.

- Erasure: You have the right to ask/require us to erase your personal data when the personal data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or when, among other things, your personal data have been unlawfully processed.

- Complaints: If you believe that your data protection rights may have been breached, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the applicable supervisory authority (i.e. Data Protection Authority in Belgium), or to seek a remedy through the courts.

You may, at any time, exercise any of the above rights, by contacting thomas@hrlegal.be or using our contact form together with a proof of your identity, i.e. a copy of your ID card, or passport, or any other valid identifying document.

10. How long do we keep your personal data?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements and, where required for HR Legal to assert or defend against legal claims, until the end of the relevant retention period or until the claims in question have been settled.

Upon expiry of the applicable retention period we will securely destroy your personal data in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

11. Changes to our Privacy Notice

We reserve the right to update and change this Privacy Statement from time to time in order to reflect any changes to the way in which we process your personal data or changing legal requirements. Any changes we may make to our Notice in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our Notice.

12. Contact Details

Questions, comments and requests regarding this Privacy Statement are welcomed and should be addressed to thomas@hrlegal.be, or send a letter to HR Legal BV, Brusselstraat 51, 2018 Antwerp.