HAMILTON, BROOK, SMITH & REYNOLDS, P.C.
PRIVACY POLICY
Hamilton, Brook, Smith & Reynolds, P.C. (HBSR) respects each individual’s right to privacy and to the appropriate, consensual use of personal data. We acknowledge our responsibility to secure your personal information and use your personal information for the limited purpose for which it was obtained.
PERSONAL DATA
Personal data means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’). An identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.
HOW WE COLLECT AND PROCESS PERSONAL DATA
Clients and Prospective Clients
HBSR may collect personal data when you initiate an engagement for our legal services for you or your organization. HBSR will use personal data which it collects in order to provide to you or your organization the legal services you request. This may entail sharing certain of your personal data with other law firms, government agencies or other organizations in providing those requested services. We may also be obligated to share your personal data if we need to comply with a legal obligation.
HBSR also collects personal data from individuals who register for our live or on-line educational or networking events. We may use your personal data to email you regarding upcoming events, current developments in patent law or other services that we think might be of interest to you. For E.U. citizens, we will send those emails with your agreement. HBSR will not sell or otherwise share your personal data with other organizations for marketing purposes.
Employees
In the case of EU citizens who are employees of the firm, we collect detailed information necessary to comply with U.S. federal and state reporting requirements to process payroll transactions and to enroll the employee in the firm’s benefit programs.
Vendors
We will retain your details for as long as they are required to support our working relationship. We may be required to provide your personal information to third parties such as our accountants or bankers.
Job Applicants
If you provide personal information to our firm as a job applicant, we will retain that information as a part of our recruitment process.
Website Visitors
We do not collect personally identifiable information about visitors to our website.
We do not use personal information for profiling or any automated decision making. We do not participate in large scale data analytics.
YOUR RIGHTS REGARDING YOUR PERSONAL DATA
You have the right to decline to share some, or all, of the personal data we request. Without the necessary information however, we may not be able to accept an engagement for our services or provide information requested of us.
If you have provided your consent for our collecting, processing or transferring of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw your consent partially or fully. To withdraw your consent, please contact info@hbsr.com.
You have the right to:
- Request access to your personal data and request certain information in relation to its processing
- Request correction of your personal data
- Request erasure of your personal data.
- Request restriction of processing of your personal data.
- Object to processing of your personal data.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact info@hbsr.com and reference “Personal Data” in the subject line of the message.
PERSONAL DATA SECURITY
The safety and security of your personal data is important to us. We have adopted internal policies and procedures through which all of our employees are sensitized to the importance of maintaining control of personal data. Our electronic environment uses firewalls and intrusion protection technology to secure all of our personal data. However, the transmission of information over the Internet is not absolutely secure. While we take prudent measures to protect your personal data, absolute security cannot be guaranteed.
RETAINING PERSONAL DATA
We will retain your Personal Data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected and processed, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, accounting or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for your Personal Data, we will consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the Personal Data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your Personal Data, the purposes for which we process your Personal Data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
Upon expiry of an appropriate retention period, we will securely destroy your Personal Data in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.