AdvocatesConnect is a professional legal services platform that facilitates the interaction of service users and providers, bringing them closer within time and budget. Because our clients expect service absent the red tape bureaucracy that tends to underline conventional fora, we provide this platform as an appropriate and more user-friendly forum for practitioners to provide services and obtain instruction from clients who would otherwise be out of reach, as well as a tool to broaden one’s understanding of ever evolving areas of the law.
Mission: Our mission is to connect Uganda’s legal advocates to prospective clients, the world over, while enabling and facilitating their professional growth and ultimately, for them to be more productive and successful. In keeping with our ethos of transparency and accountability, we work to advise as to your privacy and how we handle your information.
Who we are
This directory is hosted on the servers at advocates-connect.com, maintained by AdvocatesConnect, Uganda, a private firm involved in the provision of legal practice support and market consultation.
Our correspondence address for any related matters pertaining to services derived or procured through this platform is as below:
AdvocatesConnect, Central Inquiries,
c/o. Patrick K. Muwanguzi, Esq.
Level 1, 94A Fay Road,
Framingham, MA 01702.
Email: [email protected]
Our website address is: https://advocates-connect.com
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
If and when in the course of browsing this website and the pages contained herein, you may be prompted to enter personally identifying information. This may include personal data, such as name, email address, personal account preferences; transactional data, such as purchase information; and technical data. This may especially be the case when in the process of creating an account, or placing a request for services or purchasing a subscription or product where you will need to provide data including your name, email address and/or mobile number, and a password. If you register for a subscription based Service, you will need to provide payment (e.g., credit card) and billing information.
Such information as may be collected, shall be used within the confines of the purposes related to your use of the AdvocatesConnect platform, and no other. Where use of this data is perceived to be necessary and ancillary to your primary use of the AdvocatesConnect platform, authorisation shall be obtained, appropriately – where it is to be used by a third party. Under NO circumstances will AdvocatesConnect divulge your data to any third party, absent your consent, other than in the limited circumstances above.
Such personal data may be extrapolated from technical processes such as contact forms, comments, cookies, analytics, and third party embeds.
By default AdvocatesConnect does NOT collect any personal data about visitors, and only collects the data shown on the User Profile screen from registered users. However, where information is transmitted through third party plugins, such as log in information, we may collect personal data.
Comments
When You leave a comment on the the AdvocatesConnect platform or any of the pages contained herein, we may collect the data shown in the comments form, and also your IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to a third party plugin, the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. Where this is the case, the The Gravatar service privacy policy located at the server at: https://automattic.com/privacy/ would apply. Upon approval of your comment, your profile picture will be visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
This section pertains to any media information that you may voluntarily upload on to this platform, including, although not limited to your pictures, video clips, or such related information.
If and where you upload images to the AdvocatesConnect platform, it is our recommendation, and we strongly urge that you avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included as these can be downloaded and any location and additional identifying meta data extracted therefrom.
Contact forms
By default, If and when you use any of the forms contained on the AdvocatesConnect platform, such as the case with the advocate verifier, or the contact us form on the contacts page, all personal contact information submitted to us, will be stored on our servers for the use of the specific service, or inquiry, for which the data is submitted, and such ancillary purpose, by AdvocatesConnect.
Cookies
This section refers to the cookies we use in the extrapolation and storage of personal data.
If and when you leave a comment on the AdvocatesConnect platform or any of the pages contained thereon, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again the next time you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to the AdvocatesConnect platform, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on the AdvocatesConnect platform may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from third party websites behaves in the exact same way as if you visited the other website.
Where this is the case, such third party websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to such other third party website.
Analytics
AdvocatesConnect employs the use of Google analytics, which enable us to track our platform interactions, based on geographic variables. Although no content based scrutiny is employed by the use of this tool, you are welcome to opt out of analytics tracking, by sending email to: [email protected]. This is particularly the case with some tools on the AdvocatesConnect platform that you may come to use, especially if and where you subscribe to our newsletter, or any of the listing subscription packages.
Who we share your data with
AdvocatesConnect is under and ongoing obligation to treat your data with the utmost confidentiality, in keeping with legal and other regimes – although this is only secondary to our general ethos that dictate respect of your personal and other data. While this is the case, certain situations may require us to divulge personal and other data transmitted through us, or stored with us on our servers, in keeping with the law or such other international convention, including but not limited to contracts with third party partners, cloud-based services, payment processors, and third party service providers. This may include although not be limited to your identity, services requested, as well as any requisite information for which any inquiry may require. Where this is the case, use and access thereto will be made in line with the appropriate third party privacy policies – if any. As a default setting, however, AdvocatesConnect does NOT share any personal data with anyone, absent any necessity.
How long we retain your data
In reference to the data that we store on our servers as may be submitted to us by yourself;
If and where you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained and stored on our servers indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on the AdvocatesConnect platform, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. This information can always be accessed, viewed, edited, or deleted at any time with the exception of the username. This information is also, and will be accessible to our website administration team, including managing and maintaining it.
What rights you have over your data
If and when you have an account on AdvocatesConnect platform, or have left comments, you are welcome request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided over our platform. You are also welcome to request that we erase any personal data AdvocatesConnect may hold about you. This however, does NOT include any data we are obligated to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where we send your data
If and where you are a European based user, under present European legal regime, AdvocatesConnect is under an obligation to safeguard all and any data about European residents, transferred outside the European Union to be safeguarded to the same standards as if the data was in Europe. Given that the AdvocatesConnect platform presently focuses its primary market to the Ugandan advocates, any and all such information pertaining to residents within the European Union is covered under the GDPR and such protection transposed into any underlying contracts between AdvocatesConnect and individual legal practitioners or law firms listed on the AdvocatesConnect platform or their constituents, to ensure the protection thereof. As a listing practitioner or law firm, you undertake that these standards are met either by yourself or by your third party providers, and shall at all times be observed, whether that is through an agreement such as Privacy Shield, model clauses in your contracts, or binding corporate rules.
Suggested text:Â Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Your contact information
In this section you should provide a contact method for privacy-specific concerns. If you are required to have a Data Protection Officer, list their name and full contact details here as well.
Additional information
If you use your site for commercial purposes and you engage in more complex collection or processing of personal data, you should note the following information in your privacy policy in addition to the information we have already discussed.
How we protect your data
In this section you should explain what measures you have taken to protect your users’ data. This could include technical measures such as encryption; security measures such as two factor authentication; and measures such as staff training in data protection. If you have carried out a Privacy Impact Assessment, you can mention it here too.
What data breach procedures we have in place
In this section you should explain what procedures you have in place to deal with data breaches, either potential or real, such as internal reporting systems, contact mechanisms, or bug bounties.
What third parties we receive data from
If your web site receives data about users from third parties, including advertisers, this information must be included within the section of your privacy policy dealing with third party data.
What automated decision making and/or profiling we do with user data
If your web site provides a service which includes automated decision making – for example, allowing customers to apply for credit, or aggregating their data into an advertising profile – you must note that this is taking place, and include information about how that information is used, what decisions are made with that aggregated data, and what rights users have over decisions made without human intervention.
Industry regulatory disclosure requirements
If you are a member of a regulated industry, or if you are subject to additional privacy laws, you may be required to disclose that information here.