Privacy Policy
London Mediation Service is part of Mediate UK and uses the same privacy policy and principles. This privacy policy relates to Family Legal Ltd t/as Mediate UK, and it explains how our mediation service uses (or ‘processes’) the personal data you share with us.
Who Is Covered by This Policy?
- People who mediate with us, and their immediate families
- People who contact us to explore the possibility of mediating with us
- People who may be invited to explore the possibility of mediating with us, because someone connected with them has contacted us to explore the possibility of mediating with us
What Personal Data Is Involved?
Our mediation clients (and prospective mediation clients) provide us directly with almost all the data we process. The only exceptions are:
- When data is provided by solicitors or some other professionals (at the clients’ request or with their consent)
- When someone who is interested in resolving an issue by mediating provides us with an email address or other contact information so that we can offer the other person a meeting to explore whether mediation might be a good way forward
How Is the Personal Data Gathered?
We collect and process data when you contact us using an email address or by telephone (unless you block the actual number you are calling on).
We collect and process data while exploring with you whether mediation is a real option for your family.
Also, we collect and process personal data during the mediation process itself, including but not limited to personal financial and health data. The data collected sometimes includes personal data about children over 13 but we consider that it is not proportionate to contact every child over 13 with a separate privacy notice about the limited information we hold about them.
We also collect and process personal data during child-inclusive mediation sessions (during which we meet directly with young people). Our invitations to a child over the age of 13 do include an age-appropriate privacy notice.
What Control Do You Still Have Over Your Data?
Your Data Rights
Your information can only be shared outside the mediation process with your knowledge and prior consent (unless we are required to share it with someone to meet our professional obligations as mediators registered with the Family Mediation Council – this exception is explained in more detail below).
We will handle your personal data only in ways you would reasonably expect, and we will not do anything unlawful with the data.
Right to Access
You are entitled to access the personal data we hold about you, within one month of our receipt of your request. We will provide a copy of the information free of charge, although we are entitled to ask for a reasonable fee or payment to cover the cost of producing such information when a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, particularly if it is repetitive. We may also charge a reasonable fee to comply with requests for further copies of the same information. In all cases any fee charged will be based on the administrative cost of providing the information.
Important: If data contains information about another person, such information cannot be provided without that other person’s permission.
Right to Rectification
You are entitled to have inaccurate personal data rectified.
Right to Erasure
You are entitled to have the information deleted (“erased”). The right to have information deleted applies if the personal data is no longer necessary for its original purpose – if you want us to delete your data, that is very likely to mean that mediation isn’t suitable or is no longer possible.
Right to Restriction and Data Portability
Also, you have a limited right to ‘restriction’ of your data within one month of our receipt of your request, which might for example, permit the data to be held on file for complaints or other purposes, but not used in any other way, for example, by sending you an email. Also, you can ask us to give you a copy of your data in a format that allows you to use it elsewhere – data portability – again, within one month of our receipt of your request.
What Do We Do With Your Data and Why Is It Legal for Us to Use It?
As family mediators, we are ‘processors’ of personal data for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation.
Processing (or using) personal data must be for a legitimate purpose – our purposes all relate to mediation, either providing our mediation services to people who have signed our Agreement to Mediate or giving families the opportunity to find out more about family mediation as a way of resolving a family issue.
To provide these mediation services as accredited family mediators, we must comply with the professional obligations imposed on us by the Family Mediation Council. These include obligations to make your personal data available to other people in certain limited circumstances. Our practice supervisors, a complaints handler or the Legal Aid Agency may have sight of our files (as explained below), but access is strictly controlled and on a confidential basis.
If You Decide to Mediate With Us
If you decide to mediate with us, we ask you to consent to us processing your personal data by signing our Agreement to Mediate. If you sign our Agreement, you consent to us processing your personal data as part of your contract with us – our legal basis for processing your data if you are mediating with us, is contract.
This includes us retaining and storing your personal data for as long as is necessary in connection with the Agreement, to include a period of two years after the mediation concludes, in case of complaint. It also includes giving us permission to share your personal data with our practice supervisors and/or any person appointed by the Family Mediation Council to consider a complaint about the mediation. We may retain data for research and statistical purposes, but only on the understanding that if used for this purpose all identifying details will have been removed. We will not process your data for any other purpose.
Before You Decide to Mediate
Before this, while you and we are working out whether mediation is a good option for your family, we will usually process a very limited amount of your personal data, for example your contact details, so that we can communicate with you and assess your suitability for family mediation. We include brief information about this in our emails.
If you have contacted us, we are able to process your personal data for the limited purpose of exploring with you whether mediation is a good way forward for your family. Because you have contacted us, asking us to do this, our legal basis for processing the very limited personal data that you give us is still contract (even though you have not yet signed the Agreement).
If You Have Not Contacted Us
If you have not contacted us, we are only able to process your contact details (usually an email address) to offer you the opportunity to explore family mediation as an option. In this case our legal basis for processing your personal data is the public task of giving families access to mediation as an alternative to litigation. The Children and Families Act 2014, s10, introduced a mediation information and assessment process and requires most people to show that they have attended a mediation information and assessment meeting (MIAM), and have considered family mediation as an option, before they ask the court to decide about their family. Contacting someone to give them access to this mediation information and assessment process is therefore a way to protect their legal rights within the family justice system.
Gathering and Sharing Data
In Terms of Gathering Data
- All data gathered by our mediators is considered relevant, adequate, and limited to what is necessary
- If you utilise a Mediate UK package, the Business Support team will require two pieces of ID from you which will be retained by us. This goes to the solicitor acting for you
- We may contact you during and after the mediation process to inform you about our services, mediation, and legal information we consider relevant to your situation
- We may contact you to review the service you have received from Mediate UK
- Your details will never be sold to a third party for marketing purposes or commercial gain
When We Share Information With Third Parties
We do not share any information with third parties unless:
- We consider a child to be at significant risk of harm
- The mediator believes that you are the recipient of proceeds from crime
- You have agreed to a package that requires the involvement of a solicitor or barrister
- You have agreed to a referral to one of our approved service providers
Last Updated: November 2025
Company Details: Family Legal Ltd t/as Mediate UK
Access Business Centre, Willoughby Road, Bracknell, RG12 8FB
Company Registered in England & Wales No. 16431127