Laura Devine Immigration, and our business in the United States, Laura Devine Attorneys (‘the company’, ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’) are committed to compliance with relevant data protection laws, including the Data Protection 2018, the retained UK GDPR, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.  This Privacy Notice describes how we collect, use, and share personal information (data) about individuals (‘you’, ‘your’) in connection with our business, including our website at www.lauradevine.com and our provision of legal services to our clients.

Scope of this Privacy Notice
This Privacy Notice applies to your use of our services, including when you request information from us; when you engage our legal services; and as a result of your relationship with one of our clients.

This Privacy Notice describes:

• the types of information we process
• how we use the information
• how long we retain information
• how we share the information
• protection and storage of the information
• you and your rights
• how to contact us
• changes to this Privacy Notice
• how we collect and use information about candidates and job applicants

The types of information we process
We will process personal information we receive directly from you, or indirectly, depending on the circumstances of your interaction with us.

In connection with our provision of legal services, we may collect current and historical personal information including/relating to: your name, contact details, identification, any information included in correspondence between us and you (e.g. about an enquiry), your payment/billing data, transactional data, and your matter data (i.e. any personal data connected with your instructions to us, correspondence with us, notes of calls and meetings and third party information about your matter).

Depending on the nature of our instructions, we may collect, store and use any of the following special categories of personal information about clients, prospective clients and/or about related parties to a matter:

• physical or mental health, including any medical condition or disability;
• race or ethnicity;
• political opinions;
• religious or philosophical beliefs;
• trade union membership;
• sexual orientation or sex life;
• genetic information and biometric data.

How we use your information
Our legal basis for collecting and using your personal information will depend on the context in which we collect it.  We will only process your personal information in the ways described in this Privacy Notice or in the ways that we otherwise indicate to you at the time your information is collected.  In connection with our provision of legal services, we will typically process personal information where:

• it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you or for pre-contractual steps at your request (e.g. when we are providing our services to you as envisaged by our Terms of Business);
• it is necessary in connection with a legal obligation (e.g. when we are providing you with a quote or carrying out client due diligence and conflict checks);
• it is necessary to pursue our legitimate interests or those of a third party, where such use is not overridden by your own interests or legal rights;
• you have provided your consent to such use (e.g. you have approved the disclosure of your personal information to a specific third party to assist on your matter); or
• we are otherwise required or authorised by law.

We have set out below ways in which we may collect and use personal information, which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity and Contact Data includes your name (and any previous names), marital status, title, date of birth and gender, address, email address and telephone numbers;
• Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details;
• Transaction Data includes details about payments from you and other details of services you have engaged us to provide;
• Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, browser type, and version, time zone setting and location, and similar types of information;
• Usage Data includes information about how you interact with and use our website and services;
• Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences.

 

Purpose/Use	Type of data	Legal basis
To register you as a new client and respond to your enquiries	Identity and Contact	Performance of a contract with you
To provide and improve our services to you	Identity and Contact Technical	Performance of a contract with you Necessary for our legitimate interests
To maintain and develop our relationship with you (including notifying you of changes to our terms and privacy notice)	Identity and Contact Technical Financial	Performance of a contract with you Necessary to comply with a legal obligation Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and manage our relationship with you)
To fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations (including in relation to anti-money laundering)	Identity and Contract Usage	Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
Unless you have opted-out, to send you marketing communications, including legal updates and information on relevant events	Identity and contact Usage Device Marketing and Communications	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy) Consent (where required)
To monitor and analyse our business	Technical Usage Device	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our services and to study how our services are used, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To administer our business and website, including detecting and protecting against fraud and security risks	Identity and Contact Technical Usage Device	Compliance with our legal obligations Necessary for our legitimate interests in safeguarding our business
To protect and exercise our legal rights	Identity and Contact Technical Financial Usage Device	Our legitimate interests in protecting our business

How long we retain your information
We only retain your personal information for as long as is required by law or we consider reasonably necessary to fulfil the purpose for which we collected it, after which we will destroy it or otherwise put it beyond use.

Due to the nature of immigration services, a full record of information obtained from you, third parties and our advice to you will typically be retained for a maximum of 15 years. This is because we consider that it is in your best interests that we retain a full history of data which may be relevant to future matters you instruct us to deal with. Such data can also be relevant to your immigration position should there be any dispute with the authorities or for us to be able to provide you with a record should you misplace important immigration documents/information.

If you would like us to rectify or erase your personal information, please refer to the section on ‘Your choices and rights’ below and the contact details for our Data Protection Manager.

How we share your information
We may share your information with the following categories of recipients:

• with Laura Devine Attorneys, in order to provide legal services to you and otherwise in accordance with this Privacy Notice;
• UK and overseas government and related independent organisations, including in connection with immigration applications on your behalf;
• representatives for submission of applications to immigration authorities;
• service providers who allow us to deliver our services to you, including accountants, legal advisers, banking and payment service providers, couriers, information security, website hosting and analytics services;
• law enforcement, regulatory or governmental bodies, or courts, where we are required by law or by regulation to do so, in order to establish, defend or otherwise our legal rights, or to protect your vital interests or those of another person;
• with other third parties, where we obtain your consent for doing so;
• if, in the future, we re-organise or transfer all or part of our business, we may need to transfer your information to new entities from which our business will be carried out.

In connection with any proposed incorporation, purchase, merger or acquisition of any part of our business; we inform the potential buyer (and its agents and advisers) that it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Notice.

International data transfers
When we collect your personal information, it may be processed by our US office, Laura Devine Attorneys.  We may also use third party service providers in the course of providing services to you, which are based outside the UK and the EEA.  We may transfer your personal information to countries which have been recognised formally as providing an adequate level of protection for personal information, such as where an adequacy finding by the UK Secretary of State.

Where we transfer personal information to a country not subject to an adequacy finding, we adopt appropriate safeguards to seek to ensure that the personal information will be subject to a similar degree of protection to that applicable in the UK.  Those safeguards may include contractual protections and approved data transfer mechanisms such as the UK ICO’s International Data Transfer Agreement; where we rely on such mechanisms, we will make a copy available upon request.

If you have any questions in relation to the transfer of your personal information, please contact us using the details below for our Data Protection Manager.

Cookies and similar technologies
We use cookies and similar technologies to support the functioning and security of our website, and to understand how it is used.  You can find details of our use of those tools in our Cookie Policy.  

Protection and storage of the information
We take steps to hold information securely in electronic or physical form and to prevent unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

You and your rights
Individuals in the UK have the following rights under data protection law.  To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details set out below under ‘How to contact us’.

• request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.
• request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances.
• object to processing of your personal data or ask that we restrict processing of it.
• you have the right to opt-out of receiving any direct marketing communications from us at any time. You may do so by using the opt-out or unsubscribe options contained within any email marketing message that we may send to you.
• request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format (your right to ‘portability’).
• withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent.
• you have the right to make a complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (www.ico.org.uk).  We would, however, appreciate if you would first raise any concerns with us so that we might seek to address them.

How to contact us
If you would like to contact us with questions about our privacy practices, please send us an email via our Contact page or contact our Data Protection Manager, Natasha Chell at natasha.chell@lauradevine.com

Changes to this Privacy Notice
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. The effective date of the current Privacy Notice is 23 December 2025. We encourage you to periodically review this notice. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share the personal information that you have provided, we will take appropriate steps to bring those changes to your attention, including by updating the Privacy Notice on our website.

Candidate and applicant Privacy Notice
We are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you when you apply for a job or other role with us (whether as an employee, worker or contractor).  This Privacy Notice sets out how and why your personal information will be used for the purposes of recruitment, and how long it will usually be retained for.  If you have any questions about the how your we use your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Manager at the address set out above.

Personal information collected from you
In connection with your application to work with us, we will collect and process information about you including:

• information you have provided to us in your curriculum vitae and covering letter;
• information you have provided on our application form, including name, address, telephone number, personal email address, education history, qualifications and employment history;
• any information you provide to us during the interview process.
• your immigration status;

We may need to collect, or request, the following types of more sensitive personal information, including:

• information about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, sexual orientation and political opinions;
• information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records;
• information about criminal convictions and offences.

Personal Information collected from other sources

• Information received from recruitment agencies;
• Information from background check providers and third party database holders including credit reference agencies, professional regulatory bodies;
• Criminal records data through Disclosure and Barring Service and similar checks;
• References from your referees;
• Information from publicly accessible sources including social media platforms.

How we will use information about you
We will use the personal information we collect about you to:

• assess your skills, qualifications, and suitability for the role(s) for which you are applying;
• carry out background and reference checks, where applicable;
• communicate with you about the recruitment process;
• keep records related to our hiring processes;
• comply with legal or regulatory requirements.

It is in our legitimate interests to decide whether to appoint you to a role within our business.  We also need to process your personal information to decide whether to enter into a contract with you.

We will typically process the information described above to decide whether you meet the basic requirements to be shortlisted for the role.  If you do, we will then decide whether your application is strong enough to invite you for an interview.  If we decide to call you for an interview, we will use the information you provide to us at the interview to decide whether to offer you a role.  If we decide to offer you the role, and you accept our offer, we will then complete checks which may include obtaining references and carrying out a criminal record check before confirming your appointment, and your personal information will be processed in accordance with our Employee Privacy Notice.

Automated decision-making
You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making.

How we share your information
We will only share your personal information with third parties where necessary for the purposes of processing your application, such as:

• recruitment advisers involved with your application;
• background checking and other screening service providers.

All our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. They are permitted to process your personal information only for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

If you fail to provide personal information
If you fail to provide information when requested, which is necessary for us to consider your application (such as evidence of qualifications or work history), we will not be able to process your application successfully. For example, if we require a credit check or references for this role and you fail to provide us with relevant details, we will not be able to take your application further.

How long we keep your information
If you are offered and take up a role with us, your information will form part of your employee records and will be processed in accordance with our Employee Privacy Notice.  We will otherwise retain your personal information for a period of up to 12 months after we have communicated to you our decision about whether to appoint you to a role within our business.  We retain your personal information for that period so that we can show, in the event of a legal claim, that we have not discriminated against candidates on prohibited grounds and that we have conducted the recruitment exercise in a fair and transparent way. After this period, we will securely delete or put beyond use your personal information in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

Your rights in connection with personal information
You have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

• request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.
• request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances.
• object to processing of your personal data, or ask that we restrict processing of it.
• you have the right to opt-out of receiving any direct marketing communications from us at any time. You may do so by using the opt-out or unsubscribe options contained within any email marketing message that we may send to you.
• request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format (your right to ‘portability’).
• withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent.
• you have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (www.ico.org.uk).  We would, however, appreciate if you would first raise any concerns with us so that we might seek to address them.

If you wish to exercise any of your rights, or have a question or wish to make a complaint about the processing of your personal data, please contact our Data Protection Manager, Natasha Chell at natasha.chell@lauradevine.com.