FLC is committed to respecting the privacy rights of all visitors to our website. We comply with data protection laws at all times and have set out this Privacy Notice to explain what personal data we collect, why we collect it, how we protect it and explain your rights.

We collect the following data about you:

• Your name, e-mail address, contact details and communication preferences when you complete forms on our website;
• Your online browsing activities, your IP address (computer internet address) and your approximate location (as determined by your IP address) in conjunction with Google Analytics (more details below). 

Our website is not intended for use by children and as such we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

How we protect your data

We are committed to keeping your data secure. We use encryption for web traffic to and from our website and we store any data provided over our website in secure computer systems that only authorised staff and volunteers have access to. Our data is backed up and we have secure systems in place to prevent hackers, viruses and similar from accessing our systems and data. We also have a range of policies and procedures for our staff and volunteers, with ongoing training, to ensure your data is kept safe and only used in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

How we use your data

We use your data for the following reasons:

• to provide legal advice, guidance, information, support and services to you (please note that no solicitor/client relationship is formed as a consequence of using FLC’s website or any of the website functions, or any material produced by FLC for the purposes of publicity, education, training or for the purposes of responding to enquiries about legal services);
• to manage our interactions with you, including responses to requests for legal services;
• to triage your circumstances and sign post/refer to appropriate partner agencies (the latter is done with your consent only);
• to subscribe you to our mailing list and send you relevant information by e-mail;
• to analyse how our website is used, so that we can improve it and report anonymised visitor numbers and analysis for performance reporting and to funders.

When and how we might share your data

We will never sell your personal data. We share limited data for limited purposes. There are different sets of data sharing involving personal data collected through our website as follows:

1. Cookie/visitor behaviour – we share this information with Google Analytics (see further details below);
2. Contact information you provide to seek legal advice and representation/provide feedback/make a complaint – we store this in computer systems provided by third parties for processing, storage and archive purposes. We use Microsoft to provide technical support. The agreement we have in place with them prevents them from using your personal data for any purpose.

How long we keep your data

We only keep your data for as long as we need to. More specifically:

• enquiry information – we will retain this for not more than 2 years after you last contacted us – we only keep data for the current financial year and the previous financial year.

• we will retain this for no more than 10 years.

Legal basis for using your data

We generally rely on your consent to use your personal data in relation to monitoring website usage and sending you direct e-mails through our mailing list, or providing legal information or support and onward referrals should you choose to contact us directly through our website.

We also process your data because it is in our legitimate interests that we do so, namely:

• promoting, marketing and advertising our products and services;
• sending information to you by e-mail or text message about our products and/or services;
• collating website usage figures and analysis (which are entirely anonymised) for performance reporting and reporting to our funders;
• understanding the behaviour of visitors to our website so that we can improve our website and/or the products and/or services we provide;
• protecting the Organisation, our employees, volunteers, funders, partners and clients/customers/service users by taking appropriate legal action against third parties who have committed criminal acts;
• fulfilling our duties to our clients, partners, funders and other stakeholders.

Cookies

We use cookies on our website to collect information from visitors. We collect information on pages viewed. Cookies are small text files stored by an internet browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Safari, Google Chrome etc). They process your personal data so that we can understand how visitors access and use our website. Cookies resemble a ‘memory’ for the website, enabling it to recognise a user and respond appropriately. You may disable and enable cookies on our website at any time.

You have the following rights:

• the right to ask what personal data we hold about you including the right to ask for copies;
• the right to ask us to update and correct any out-of-date or incorrect personal data that we hold about you;
• the right to opt out of any marketing communications that we may send you.

To exercise any of the above rights please contact Sam Johnston, Principal Solicitor, at the registered office detailed above. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (the supervising authority for data protection in the UK). To do that please visit their website.

Reviewing and changing how we use data

This privacy notice was updated on 10 February 2026.

We regularly review our use of personal data to ensure that what we do continues to be fair, transparent, safe and legal. As an organisation we sometimes change software or technologies, or how we work, and this may result in us changing what data we collect and/or how we use it. We will only use your data for the purposes set out above. If we want to use your data for any other purpose, we will contact you and seek your express permission before we conduct any such processing.

If a link to an external webpage appears on our website, emails or other communications, FLC provides no warranty or guarantee in relation to it or any information, services or other features appearing there.

We will always seek to minimise the amount of data we collect and use, and to keep it for only as long as we need to.

Whenever any change in how we collect or use personal data occurs, we will update this Privacy Notice and any other relevant policies.

How to find out more or to make a complaint

We have endeavoured to make this Privacy Notice clear, informative and understandable, but if it is not then please contact us and we shall provide further information as required. We will also look to improve the wording of this Privacy Notice, based on feedback.

To provide feedback, ask for more details or to make a complaint about our collection or use of your personal data then please contact Sam Johnston, Principal Solicitor at the registered office details above.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office in Scotland; details are available on their website.