The materials contained in the The Banks Law Firm website, Blog and all associated social network and internet sites (“BLF Blog”) are provided by The Banks Law Firm and may be used for informational purposes only.
These materials are intended to provide general information only concerning our firm and legal developments that may be of interest to our visitors. The information provided does not constitute legal advice, and should not be relied upon in connection with specific legal problems. Legal advice may be given only by one of our qualified attorneys who is personally familiar with your particular legal situation. The information contained in this web site may not reflect the most current legal developments. This web site is not intended to be advertising and The Banks Law Firm does not by this web site seek to represent anyone who desires representation based upon viewing this web site in a state where this web site fails to comply with all laws and ethical rules of that state.
The information contained in this site is copyrighted and may not be distributed, modified, or reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written permission of The Banks Law Firm. The images from this site may not be reproduced in any form without the prior written consent of The Banks Law Firm.
The Banks Law Firm will not collect any personally identifiable information about you (that is, your name, address, telephone number, or e-mail address) unless you provide it to us voluntarily. If you do not want your personally identifiable information collected, please do not submit it to us. If you have already submitted this information and would like for us to remove it from our records, please contact us at the e-mail address or phone number listed on our contact page. We will use reasonable efforts to delete your information from our existing files. When you do provide us with personally identifiable information, we may store and process that information to better understand your needs and to improve our services. The Banks Law Firm is not responsible and disclaims liability for any errors or omissions on the BLF Blog and for any resulting action taken in reliance of the BLF Blog. The Banks Law Firm reserves the right to modify and revise BLF Blog entries. BLF Blog entries may include links to other websites or materials. The Banks Law Firm has no control over these websites or materials and makes no representation as to the accuracy or content contained therein. Reader may opt to use these links but does so at his or her own risk.
Types of Data collected
Among the types of Personal Data that this Application collects, by itself or through third parties, there are: Cookies, Usage Data, first name, last name, phone number, company name, profession, address and email address.
Complete details on each type of Personal Data collected are provided in the dedicated sections of this privacy policy or by specific explanation texts displayed prior to the Data collection.
Personal Data may be freely provided by the User, or, in case of Usage Data, collected automatically when using this Application.
Unless specified otherwise, all Data requested by this Application is mandatory and failure to provide this Data may make it impossible for this Application to provide its services. In cases where this Application specifically states that some Data is not mandatory, Users are free not to communicate this Data without consequences to the availability or the functioning of the Service.
Users who are uncertain about which Personal Data is mandatory are welcome to contact the Owner.
Any use of Cookies – or of other tracking tools – by this Application or by the owners of third-party services used by this Application serves the purpose of providing the Service required by the User, in addition to any other purposes described in the present document and in the Cookie Policy, if available.
Users are responsible for any third-party Personal Data obtained, published or shared through this Application and confirm that they have the third party’s consent to provide the Data to the Owner.
Mode and place of processing the Data
Methods of processing
The Owner takes appropriate security measures to prevent unauthorized access, disclosure, modification, or unauthorized destruction of the Data.
The Data processing is carried out using computers and/or IT enabled tools, following organizational procedures and modes strictly related to the purposes indicated. In addition to the Owner, in some cases, the Data may be accessible to certain types of persons in charge, involved with the operation of this Application (administration, sales, marketing, legal, system administration) or external parties (such as third-party technical service providers, mail carriers, hosting providers, IT companies, communications agencies) appointed, if necessary, as Data Processors by the Owner. The updated list of these parties may be requested from the Owner at any time.
Legal basis of processing
The Owner may process Personal Data relating to Users if one of the following applies:
- Users have given their consent for one or more specific purposes. Note: Under some legislations the Owner may be allowed to process Personal Data until the User objects to such processing (“opt-out”), without having to rely on consent or any other of the following legal bases. This, however, does not apply, whenever the processing of Personal Data is subject to European data protection law;
- provision of Data is necessary for the performance of an agreement with the User and/or for any pre-contractual obligations thereof;
- processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the Owner is subject;
- processing is related to a task that is carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the Owner;
- processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the Owner or by a third party.
In any case, the Owner will gladly help to clarify the specific legal basis that applies to the processing, and in particular whether the provision of Personal Data is a statutory or contractual requirement, or a requirement necessary to enter into a contract.
Place
The Data is processed at the Owner’s operating offices and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located.
Depending on the User’s location, data transfers may involve transferring the User’s Data to a country other than their own. To find out more about the place of processing of such transferred Data, Users can check the section containing details about the processing of Personal Data.
Users are also entitled to learn about the legal basis of Data transfers to a country outside the European Union or to any international organization governed by public international law or set up by two or more countries, such as the UN, and about the security measures taken by the Owner to safeguard their Data.
If any such transfer takes place, Users can find out more by checking the relevant sections of this document or inquire with the Owner using the information provided in the contact section.
Retention time
Personal Data shall be processed and stored for as long as required by the purpose they have been collected for.
Therefore:
- Personal Data collected for purposes related to the performance of a contract between the Owner and the User shall be retained until such contract has been fully performed.
- Personal Data collected for the purposes of the Owner’s legitimate interests shall be retained as long as needed to fulfill such purposes. Users may find specific information regarding the legitimate interests pursued by the Owner within the relevant sections of this document or by contacting the Owner.
The Owner may be allowed to retain Personal Data for a longer period whenever the User has given consent to such processing, as long as such consent is not withdrawn. Furthermore, the Owner may be obliged to retain Personal Data for a longer period whenever required to do so for the performance of a legal obligation or upon order of an authority.
Once the retention period expires, Personal Data shall be deleted. Therefore, the right to access, the right to erasure, the right to rectification and the right to data portability cannot be enforced after expiration of the retention period.
The purposes of processing
The Data concerning the User is collected to allow the Owner to provide its Services, as well as for the following purposes: Analytics, Platform services and hosting and Contacting the User.
Users can find further detailed information about such purposes of processing and about the specific Personal Data used for each purpose in the respective sections of this document.
Detailed information on the processing of Personal Data
Personal Data is collected for the following purposes and using the following services:
The services contained in this section enable the Owner to monitor and analyze web traffic and can be used to keep track of User behavior.
Google Analytics (Google Inc.)
Google Analytics is a web analysis service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google utilizes the Data collected to track and examine the use of this Application, to prepare reports on its activities and share them with other Google services.
Google may use the Data collected to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network.
Personal Data collected: Cookies and Usage Data.
Place of processing: United States – Privacy Policy – Opt Out. Privacy Shield participant.
These services have the purpose of hosting and running key components of this Application, therefore allowing the provision of this Application from within a unified platform. Such platforms provide a wide range of tools to the Owner – e.g. analytics, user registration, commenting, database management, e-commerce, payment processing – that imply the collection and handling of Personal Data. Some of these services work through geographically distributed servers, making it difficult to determine the actual location where the Personal Data are stored.
WordPress.com (Automattic Inc.)
WordPress.com is a platform provided by Automattic Inc. that allows the Owner to build, run and host this Application.
Personal Data collected: various types of Data as specified in the privacy policy of the service.
Place of processing: United States – Privacy Policy.
SiteGround.com
Siteground.com is a web hosting service provider.
Personal Data collected: various types of Data as specified in the privacy policy of the service.
Place of processing: United States – Privacy Policy.
By filling in the contact form with their Data, the User authorizes this Application to use these details to reply to requests for information, quotes or any other kind of request as indicated by the form’s header.
Personal Data collected: address, company name, email address, first name, last name, phone number and profession.
The rights of Users
Users may exercise certain rights regarding their Data processed by the Owner.
In particular, Users have the right to do the following:
- Withdraw their consent at any time. Users have the right to withdraw consent where they have previously given their consent to the processing of their Personal Data.
- Object to processing of their Data. Users have the right to object to the processing of their Data if the processing is carried out on a legal basis other than consent. Further details are provided in the dedicated section below.
- Access their Data. Users have the right to learn if Data is being processed by the Owner, obtain disclosure regarding certain aspects of the processing and obtain a copy of the Data undergoing processing.
- Verify and seek rectification. Users have the right to verify the accuracy of their Data and ask for it to be updated or corrected.
- Restrict the processing of their Data. Users have the right, under certain circumstances, to restrict the processing of their Data. In this case, the Owner will not process their Data for any purpose other than storing it.
- Have their Personal Data deleted or otherwise removed. Users have the right, under certain circumstances, to obtain the erasure of their Data from the Owner.
- Receive their Data and have it transferred to another controller. Users have the right to receive their Data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and, if technically feasible, to have it transmitted to another controller without any hindrance. This provision is applicable provided that the Data is processed by automated means and that the processing is based on the User’s consent, on a contract which the User is part of or on pre-contractual obligations thereof.
- Lodge a complaint. Users have the right to bring a claim before their competent data protection authority.
Details about the right to object to processing
Where Personal Data is processed for a public interest, in the exercise of an official authority vested in the Owner or for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the Owner, Users may object to such processing by providing a ground related to their particular situation to justify the objection.
Users must know that, however, should their Personal Data be processed for direct marketing purposes, they can object to that processing at any time without providing any justification. To learn, whether the Owner is processing Personal Data for direct marketing purposes, Users may refer to the relevant sections of this document.
How to exercise these rights
Any requests to exercise User rights can be directed to the Owner through the contact details provided in this document. These requests can be exercised free of charge and will be addressed by the Owner as early as possible and always within one month.
Additional information about Data collection and processing
Legal action
The User’s Personal Data may be used for legal purposes by the Owner in Court or in the stages leading to possible legal action arising from improper use of this Application or the related Services.
The User declares to be aware that the Owner may be required to reveal personal data upon request of public authorities.
Additional information about User’s Personal Data
In addition to the information contained in this privacy policy, this Application may provide the User with additional and contextual information concerning particular Services or the collection and processing of Personal Data upon request.
System logs and maintenance
For operation and maintenance purposes, this Application and any third-party services may collect files that record interaction with this Application (System logs) use other Personal Data (such as the IP Address) for this purpose.
Information not contained in this policy
More details concerning the collection or processing of Personal Data may be requested from the Owner at any time. Please see the contact information at the beginning of this document.
How “Do Not Track” requests are handled
This Application does not support “Do Not Track” requests.
To determine whether any of the third-party services it uses honor the “Do Not Track” requests, please read their privacy policies.
Changes to this privacy policy
The Owner reserves the right to make changes to this privacy policy at any time by giving notice to its Users on this page and possibly within this Application and/or – as far as technically and legally feasible – sending a notice to Users via any contact information available to the Owner. It is strongly recommended to check this page often, referring to the date of the last modification listed at the bottom.
Should the changes affect processing activities performed on the basis of the User’s consent, the Owner shall collect new consent from the User, where required.
Updated on May 23, 2018