Dads’ Consultancy Privacy Policy
Last Updated: 12 May 2025
Introduction
Dads’ Consultancy (“we,” “our,” or “us”) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information (“personal data”). We understand the sensitive nature of family matters and handle your data responsibly and ethically.
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect your personal data when you visit our website (www.dadsconsultancy.co.uk), contact us, or use our consultancy services. It also outlines your rights regarding your personal data under UK data protection laws (including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018).
Lawful Basis for Processing Personal Data
We only collect and process your personal data when we have a legitimate and lawful basis to do so. These bases include:
Contract: Processing is necessary to fulfil our contractual obligations to you when providing our services, or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract (e.g., providing a quote or initial consultation).
Legitimate Interests: Processing is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party), provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. This includes improving our services, website analytics, marketing, and preventing fraud
Consent: Where you have given us explicit consent to process your personal data for a specific purpose (e.g., signing up for marketing emails, use of non-essential cookies). You can withdraw consent at any time.
Legal Obligation: Processing is necessary for us to comply with the law (e.g., financial record-keeping, responding to legal requests).
Information We Collect
We may collect and process the following types of personal data:
Identity and Contact Data: Includes your full name, email address, phone number, postal address.
Consultation and Case Data: Information you provide when contacting us or using our services, including details about your situation relevant to child arrangements and family law matters. This may include sensitive personal data concerning your family life, relationships, and children, which we handle with the utmost confidentiality and care.
Payment and Transaction Data: Details necessary to process payments for our services, such as transaction details. Payments are processed securely via third-party processors (PayPal, Clearpay); we do not store your full card details.
Technical and Usage Data: Information about how you access and use our website and services, including your IP address, browser type and version, time zone setting, operating system, pages visited, time spent on pages, links clicked, and dates/times of visits. This is often collected via cookies and similar technologies (e.g., Google Analytics).
Communication Data: Includes records of your communications with us via email, phone, website forms, or other channels.
Marketing and Preferences Data: Your preferences in receiving marketing communications from us.
How We Use Your Information
We use your personal data for the following purposes, linked to our lawful bases:
To Provide Services: Delivering consultancy, support, and guidance related to child arrangements, mediation, and self-representation in family law cases (Basis: Contract).
To Manage Our Relationship: Communicating with you, responding to inquiries, providing customer support, managing appointments, requesting feedback (Basis: Contract; Legitimate Interests).
To Process Payments: Facilitating secure payment transactions for our services (Basis: Contract).
To Improve Our Website and Services: Analysing technical and usage data to understand how our website is used, identify areas for improvement, and enhance user experience (Basis: Legitimate Interests; Consent for non-essential cookies).
For Marketing and Advertising: Providing information about our services we think may interest you (where consent is obtained or for legitimate interests) and managing our advertising campaigns via platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads (Basis: Consent; Legitimate Interests).
To Comply with Legal Obligations: Meeting legal, regulatory, and compliance requirements, including record-keeping and responding to lawful requests (Basis: Legal Obligation).
For Security: Protecting our website, services, and IT systems against fraud or security threats (Basis: Legitimate Interests).
Information Sharing and Third Parties
We do not sell your personal data. However, to operate effectively and provide our services, we may share your personal data with trusted third-party service providers and partners who act as data processors on our behalf, under strict confidentiality agreements. These include:
IT, Cloud Storage & Communication Providers: We use platforms like Google Workspace (including Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar) for secure internal communication, email services, document creation and storage, and appointment management, which are essential for our operations and delivering services to you. Other communication tools may be used as agreed.
Website Hosting & Development Partners: Providers who host and maintain our website infrastructure.
Analytics Providers: Such as Google Analytics, to help us understand website traffic and user behaviour (data is often aggregated or anonymised).
Payment Processors: PayPal and Clearpay to securely process your payments. They handle your payment data according to their own privacy policies.
Advertising Partners: Google (Google Ads) and Facebook (Facebook Ads) to manage our advertising campaigns and measure their effectiveness. This may involve sharing pseudonymous data or using cookies (subject to your consent).
Professional Advisors: Including lawyers, accountants, or insurers, where necessary for obtaining advice or managing legal/financial matters.
Legal and Regulatory Authorities: If required by law, court order, or other valid legal process.
We only share the minimum information necessary for these third parties to perform their specific services, and we require them to respect the security of your data and treat it in accordance with the law.
Cookies Policy
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies (like pixels) to enhance your experience, analyse site traffic, and assist in our marketing efforts. Cookies are small data files stored on your device.
We use different types of cookies:
Necessary Cookies: Essential for the website to function correctly (e.g., navigation, security).
Analytical/Performance Cookies: Help us understand how visitors interact with our website (e.g., Google Analytics).
Functionality Cookies: Remember your preferences (e.g., language).
Advertising/Targeting Cookies: Used by us and our advertising partners (Google, Facebook) to display relevant ads based on your interests.
We will ask for your consent to place non-essential cookies on your device. You can manage your cookie preferences through our website’s cookie banner or your browser settings. Disabling certain cookies may affect website functionality.
Data Security
We are committed to protecting your personal data and have implemented appropriate technical and organizational security measures to prevent accidental loss, unauthorized access, use, alteration, or disclosure. These measures include:
Use of secure servers and encryption where appropriate (e.g., SSL for website traffic).
Access controls to limit access to personal data to authorised personnel who need it for their job roles.
Regular review of our security practices.
Staff awareness training on data protection.
While we strive to protect your data, please note that no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure.
We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or reporting requirements.
Typically, client case data may be retained for the duration of our engagement with you and for a period afterwards (e.g., 6 years) to address any potential queries, claims, or legal obligations. We may retain data for longer if required by law or for legitimate business needs (e.g., anonymised data for statistical analysis). When data is no longer needed, it will be securely deleted or anonymised.
International Data Transfers
Some of our third-party service providers (e.g., Google, Facebook) are based or operate outside the UK. This means that your personal data may be transferred outside the UK.
When we transfer your personal data out of the UK, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring appropriate safeguards are implemented. This may include relying on adequacy regulations approved by the UK government or using specific contracts approved for use in the UK which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK (such as the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses).
Your Data Protection Rights
Under UK data protection law, you have several rights regarding your personal data:
Right of Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to Rectification: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
Right to Erasure (‘Right to be Forgotten’): Request deletion of your personal data where there is no compelling reason for us to keep processing it.
Right to Restrict Processing: Request suspension of the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
Right to Data Portability: Request transfer of your personal data to you or a third party in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format (applies to data processed by automated means based on consent or contract).
Right to Withdraw Consent: Withdraw your consent at any time where we rely on consent to process your data.
Our services are not directed at individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for legal or regulatory reasons. We will post any changes on this page and update the “Last Updated” date at the top. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.
If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data protection practices, please contact us:
You can also contact the ICO if you have unresolved concerns: Information Commissioner’s Office Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF Helpline number: 0303 123 1113 Website: www.ico.org.uk
