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When it comes to information about you that we have on file because you are a client or a professional contact, we operate as the “data controller.” “SPIP” stands for Separated Parents Information Programme. Cafcass is the data controller and we are the “data processor” for Cafcass in this case.
From the information you give us when you make an appointment for a mediation information and assessment meeting (‘MIAM’) or mediation services, or fill in a referral form through our website, or by phone, letter or email, or when an interaction from your solicitors (or any organisation you know (such as Cafcass) asks us to contact you about a meeting, we collect your name, date of birth, address and other contact information.
Our vendors’ and contractors’ contact information is also kept on file for future reference. So that we may deliver our services effectively and interact effectively with our customers, which is in line with our legitimate business interests.
To deliver our MIAM or mediation services, we often need you to furnish us with a lot of information about your family, money, your relationship, and the circumstances in which it broke down. Specifically, this is what I’m talking about:
Under the requirements of mediation, you must provide us and the opposing party with necessary financial or other facts, and we must document this in our case file. During financial mediation, you and the other party will be required to provide information about your money to each other. During “shuttle mediation” sessions, we will discuss any financial or other pertinent information that you give us with the other party, even while you are in separate rooms.
We need to collect all of this information so that we may conduct and record our services in accordance with the standards that regulate Legal Aid, SPIPs, or the codes of conduct that govern our mediators. There are a number of ways in which we use the information you provide us, such as creating summaries of your meetings with us, writing up parenting plans, and creating what is called a “open financial statement,” which can be used to form the basis of an amicable settlement agreement or a court order.
In most cases, the legal foundation for MIAM and mediation clients’ personal data processing is that it is required for the fulfilment of our contract with you (or at your request prior to entering into a contract with us).
This service is provided in the public interest for SPIPs clients, and we use your personal information to do so.
Using special-category data for legal or pre-litigation purposes is permitted under the law. Ethnic origin data may be gathered to ensure that services are being provided in an equitable manner for all.
You might not have contacted us about our MIAM and mediation services, but we may need to use your contact information to send you an email once your ex-partner has attended an MIAM with us. Under Family Procedure Rules Practice Direction 3A, we must contact you and discuss your willingness to attend an MIAM as well in order to comply with our legal obligation to do so.
You have the right to revoke your permission to us using your personal information in a specified manner at any time, without impacting the legality of the processing based on the consent prior to its withdrawal. Even if you revoke your consent, we still have a legal obligation to alert authorities for the protection of a vulnerable person in line with our Safeguarding Policy, despite your decision. The legal basis for our processing of your data does not always rely on your particular consent, so please be aware of that.
Website Publishing Financial Mediation is a practise for persons preparing to become mediators. There is an obligation on our trainee mediators to maintain the utmost secrecy. They are only allowed to access our files for educational and development reasons. In order to protect the anonymity of their training experience, individuals must anonymize whatever information they utilise to document their experience. Here, our legitimate business interests necessitate that we treat data in this manner.
We may need to exchange or retain your personal information with other organisations in the United Kingdom for operational reasons, such as our case management database, which is located on a secure, dedicated server. We may also have to share any of your information due to legal or commercial obligations. This policy concludes with a summary of these points. Because it is in our legitimate commercial interests, this is permissible.
The results of customer satisfaction surveys, for example, may be combined with data from other services offered to customers in order to assess our performance, but only if anonymized. Data privacy rules enable us to do this as part of our legitimate interest in knowing our clients and offering the best standards of customer service.
If you are interested in receiving invites to one of our professional training events, you can sign up for our mailing list by providing us with your email address and phone number. As part of our legitimate business interests, we are legally required to save their personal data, and we only use it for this purpose. Our invites to events include reminders that consumers can unsubscribe at any time and we will remove their information from our database.
Zoom or Microsoft Teams will be necessary for online meetings when you consent to participate instead of meeting in person. You should be aware that Webpower Publishing has no control over or responsibility for the use of your data by any third-party service provider. You should check the privacy policies of the relevant service provider on their website.
MIAM and mediation files will be destroyed when the case is over. As a general rule, we’ll hold on to our records for six and a half years afterward. SPIPs clients referred to us by Cafcass are erased from our database one year after the service ends.
We keep people’s contact information in our database for professional training events until they tell us they no longer want to receive invites from us. To comply with Inland Revenue tax records regulations, we save contact information for our suppliers and contractors for the period of their employment and thereafter.
You can make a ‘data subject access request’ (DSAR) by contacting us using the information provided above, and we will respond to your request within 30 days. Before releasing any personal information to you, we may seek further information from you to verify your identity.
You also have the right to have any information about you that is incorrectly stated removed. Your information is important to us and we want to make sure it is current and comprehensive. You have the option of requesting that we amend or remove any information that you believe is out of current. Changes to your personal information can be requested by contacting us at the above-mentioned addresses.
Concerns regarding how we handle your information will be addressed as quickly as possible under our Complaints Policy, which you can read about below. Your personal data can be erased and its processing restricted if you so request in writing, and we must then either comply with your request or explain our reasoning for taking such action in the first place if we believe our actions are appropriate. Please visit the website of the Information Commissioner’s Office at http://www.ico.org.uk or phone their helpline at 0303 123 1113) for further information.
Any objections about our acquisition or use of personal information will be taken seriously. The Complaints Policy is accessible to clients upon request if they do not already have a copy. Your complaint can be taken up with the Information Commissioner’s office if we are unable to address it internally. For more information, please read http://www.ico.org.uk or phone their hotline on 0303 123 1113.
Advertisers and other companies who want to sell you products and services will never get your personal information from us.