Privacy statement

PwC Legal is strongly committed to protecting personal data. This privacy statement describes why and how we collect and use personal data and provides information about individuals’ rights. It applies to personal data provided to us, both by individuals themselves or by others. We may use personal data provided to us for any of the purposes described in this privacy statement or as otherwise stated at the point of collection.

Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable living person. PwC Legal processes personal data in the context of our different activities.

PwC Legal only processes your personal data where we have a sound legal ground to do so. This can either be:

• the need for the conclusion or execution of an engagement or other contractual relationship,
• the need to comply with our legal or professional obligations,
• the need to safeguard our rights and legitimate interests to improve our services and organisation, to better understand our clients and business contacts and the opportunities that we are presented with, to protect our business, organisation and people as well as the other legitimate interests set forth in this privacy statement;
• your prior informed consent with the envisaged processing.

When collecting and using personal data, our policy is to be transparent about why and how we process personal data. To find out more about our specific processing activities as well as the means of collection, the purpose of the processing, the use, disclosure, and retention periods for each activity, please go to the relevant sections of this statement.

Security

We take the security of all the data we hold very seriously. We have a framework of policies, procedures and training in place covering professional secrecy, data protection, confidentiality and security and regularly review the appropriateness of the measures we have in place to keep the data we hold secure.

When and how we share personal data and locations of processing

We will only share personal data with others when we are legally permitted to do so. When we share data with others, we put contractual arrangements and security mechanisms in place to protect the data and to comply with our data protection, confidentiality and security standards.

We use third party professional service providers located in other countries to help us run our business. As a result, personal data may be transferred outside the countries where we and our clients are located. This includes to countries outside the European Union ("EU") and to countries that do not have laws that provide specific protection for personal data. We have taken steps to ensure all personal data is provided with adequate protection and that all transfers of personal data outside the EU are done lawfully.

Where we transfer personal data outside of the EU to a country not determined by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data, the transfers will be under an agreement which covers the EU requirements for the transfer of personal data outside the EU, such as the European Commission approved standard contractual clauses.  The European Commission approved standard contractual clauses are available here.

Personal data held by us may be transferred to:

• Third party organisations that provide applications/functionality, data processing or IT services to us
  We use third parties to support us in providing our services and to help provide, run and manage our internal IT systems. For example, providers of information technology, cloud based software as a service providers, identity management, website hosting and management, data analysis, data back-up, security and storage services. The servers powering and facilitating that cloud infrastructure are located in secure data centres around the world, and personal data may be stored in any one of them.
• Third party organisations that provide supporting services
• Third party organisations that otherwise assist us in providing goods, services or information
• Auditors and other professional advisers
• Bar associations, law enforcement or other government and regulatory agencies or other third parties as required by, and in accordance with, applicable law or regulation
  Occasionally, we may receive requests from third parties with authority to obtain disclosure of personal data, such as to check that we are complying with applicable law and (professional) regulations, to investigate an alleged crime, to establish, exercise or defend legal rights. We will only fulfil requests for personal data where we are permitted to do so in accordance with applicable law or regulation.

Changes to this privacy statement

We recognise that transparency is an ongoing responsibility so we will keep this privacy statement under regular review.

This privacy statement was last updated on 31 October 2018.

Data controller and contact information

The data controller is PwC Legal (Culliganlaan 5, 1831 Diegem in Belgium)

If you have any questions about this privacy statement or how and why we process personal data, please contact us at:

PwC Legal BV
Culliganlaan 5
1831 Diegem

Email: be.pwclegal.privacy@pwc.com

Phone: +32 (0)2 710 42 11

Individuals’ rights and how to exercise them

As data subject you have certain rights over your personal data and data controllers are responsible for fulfilling these rights. Where we decide how and why personal data is processed, we are a data controller and include further information about the rights that individuals have and how to exercise them below.

Access to personal data

You have a right of access to personal data held by us as a data controller. This right may be exercised by emailing us at be.pwclegal.privacy@pwc.com. We will aim to respond to any requests for information promptly and in any event within the legally required time limits (currently 30 days).

Amendment of personal data

To update personal data submitted to us, you may email us at be.pwclegal.privacy@pwc.com or, where appropriate, contact us via the relevant website registration page or by amending the personal details held on relevant applications with which you registered.

When practically possible, once we are informed that any personal data processed by us is no longer accurate, we will make corrections (where appropriate) based on your updated information.

Withdrawal of consent

Where we process personal data based on consent, you have a right to withdraw consent at any time. We do not generally process personal data based on consent (as we can usually rely on another legal basis). To withdraw consent to our processing of your personal data please email us at be.pwclegal.privacy@pwc.com or, to stop receiving an email from a PwC Legal marketing list, please click on the unsubscribe link in the relevant email received from us.  

Other data subject rights

This privacy statement is intended to provide information about what personal data we collect about you and how it is used. As well as rights of access and amendment referred to above, individuals also have other rights in relation to the personal data we hold, such as a right to erasure/deletion, to restrict or object to our processing of personal data and the right to data portability.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please send an email to be.pwclegal.privacy@pwc.com.

Complaints

We hope that you won’t ever need to, but if you do want to complain about our use of personal data, please send an email with the details of your complaint to be.pwclegal.privacy@pwc.com. We will look into and respond to any complaints we receive.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority. For further information on your rights and how to complain with the Belgian Data Protection Authority, please refer to their website: https://www.dataprotectionauthority.be.