Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

 

Last updated: 24 May 2018

 

Identity of the controller

The controller of the processing of personal data that may be submitted by you or collected from you is the law firm MVVP advocaten / avocats, a civil cooperative limited liability corporation under Belgian law, registered in the Register of Legal Entities in Brussels under number 0829.955.160, having its registered office at Tervurenlaan 270 Avenue de Tervueren, 1150 Brussels, Belgium (hereafter: “MVVP”, “we” or “us”).

 

General

In order to conduct its activities as a law firm, it is necessary for MVVP to be able to process your personal data.

This is the privacy policy of MVVP, governing any form of data processing performed by MVVP relating to you and your personal data.

MVVP processes your personal data in full compliance with all applicable personal data protection and privacy laws and regulations, including the “GDPR” – General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, as set out in this privacy policy.

 

The personal data we collect

MVVP may process any information about you that you yourself provide to us, for example when you contact us directly by e-mail. Such personal data includes, but is not limited to, your name, home and business mailing addresses, telephone number, email address, certain data about your professional activities, and any other information that you submit to us.

MVVP will also process certain indirectly identifying information when you visit our website, such as the type of browser or the operating system you are using, your IP-address, etc.

 

The purposes of processing your personal data

As a law firm MVVP processes personal data for different purposes in the context of its professional relationship with you, such as handling (court) files and MVVP business development.

MVVP may therefore use your personal data to:

  • conduct operational and administrative services within our firm;
  • perform (legal) services for you, process and answer your questions, deal with your requests and exchange information with you, whether or not in relation to the handling of a (court) file;
  • maintain our business relationship with you;
  • keep you informed of our services and activities and to keep you up-to-date with our events and (legal) news;
  • make contact in the context of a selection and recruitment process;
  • comply with our legal and regulatory requirements (including regarding money laundering).

 

The legal bases for processing your personal data

The legal bases for the processing are the following:

  • The processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract (art. 6, §1, (b) of the GDPR);
  • The processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which MVVP is subject (art. 6, §1, (c) of the GDPR);
  • The processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by MVVP or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms which require protection of personal data, in particular where the processing concerns data relating to a child (art. 6, §1, (f) of the GDPR).
  • Our legitimate interests include: the good management of our law firm in compliance with applicable laws and the best practices of the law industry; the implementation of measures to protect our systems, files and data bases, as well as our rights and belongings; ensuring the best quality of our services.

We may also process special categories of (sensitive) data, in strict compliance with article 9 and 10 of the GDPR (processing necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or for the execution of our normal activities as a law firm).

 

Transfers and sharing of personal data with third parties

MVVP may be required to share your information with associated firms in the world  and with any third party that provides services on behalf of or to MVVP or when it is required to do so by law, or where it is necessary for the purpose of or in connection with the handling of a (court) file or in order to exercise or defend legal rights. To the extent required by law and to the extent possible, we seek guarantees from any such party with whom your personal data is shared that your personal data is kept confidential and secured and only used for the purposes that we have specified. MVVP does not share your personal data with any other third party.

Due to the global nature of our business, for the purposes set out above, we may transfer personal data to parties located in other countries even outside the European Economic Area (including the United States and other countries that have a different data protection regime than is found in the country where you are based).  In such case, we procure that such transfer is done only if necessary for the conclusion or performance of contract concluded with you or in your interest or for the establishment, exercise or defense of a legal claim (if and when no other appropriate safeguard apply conforming to article 46 of the GDPR). If nothing of the above applies to your situation, we always seek your specific consent (after informing you of the possible risks of such transfers.

 

Security

MVVP has appropriate and up-to-date security measures in place to protect your personal data against unauthorized access, modification, use or disclosure, unlawful destruction or accidental loss and any other unauthorized processing. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or data storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

 

How long we keep your personal data

The personal data that MVVP holds about you is not kept longer than necessary for the purposes for which it was collected. In the event of a contractual relationship between you and MVVP, for example when you have instructed MVVP to perform legal services, your personal data will be kept throughout the relationship and up to 5 years after the relationship has ended. The information that we have collected from you in the context of MVVP business development will be kept until you have notified us that you no longer want to be contacted by MVVP in accordance with the sections ‘Your rights as a data subject’ and ‘Contact’ below.

 

Your rights as a data subject

Within the limits of applicable law, you have the right to access, correct, object to the use of, or request deletion or suppression of Personal Data, as well as to ask a restriction of processing. Under certain conditions, you also could have a right to data portability. Please contact us as set out in the “Contact” section below with any requests or if you have any questions or concerns about how we process personal data. Please note that some personal data may be exempt from access, correction, objection, deletion, suppression and portability rights in accordance with the applicable data protection law or other laws.

 

Changes to this privacy policy

We review this privacy policy regularly and reserve the right to make changes at any time to take account of changes in our business and legal requirements. To inform you of the changes, we will place updates on our website.

Please take a look at the “Last updated” date at the top of this privacy policy to see when it was last revised.

 

Contact

For further information about this privacy policy and for any request based on your rights mentioned above, you can contact us at:

MVVP advocaten / avocats

Tervurenlaan 270 Avenue de Tervueren

1150 Brussels

+32 2 285 01 00

info@mvvp.be

 

Complaints

If you are not happy with our processing of your personal data and if you feel that contacting us could not solve the issue, the applicable data protection law provides you with a right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority.