DLA Piper Alumni Network

Privacy policy

Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy explains how we handle and treat your data when you participate in our Alumni Network site available at https://alumni.dlapiper.com (“Site”), or such other address as may apply from time to time.

1. Scope and application

DLA Piper is a global law firm operating through a number of separately constituted and regulated legal entities which provide legal and other client services in accordance with the relevant laws of the jurisdictions in which they respectively operate.

The Alumni Network is jointly operated by DLA Piper International LLP (in respect of members from outside of the United States) and DLA Piper LLP (US) (in respect of members from the United States). This Privacy Policy explains how your personal information will be used by DLA Piper International LLP. For information on how your personal information may be used or accessed by DLA Piper LLP (US), please click here.

The Alumni Network is a site where current and former partners, employees and other alumni of DLA Piper have access to benefits, such as alumni news, events, programmes and other information about the DLA Piper global community. In addition to our Privacy Policy, your use of the Alumni Network website is subject to the Terms of Use.

There are many reasons we have an interest in a long-term relationship with you. For example, we may want to rehire you or receive candidate referrals from you, or to do business with you and/or your future employer(s). Also, we hope our Alumni Network will be beneficial to you by making it easy to stay connected with DLA Piper and your former colleagues.

This Privacy Policy will inform you of the nature of your personal information that is processed by us and how you can request that we delete, update, transfer and/or provide you with access to it.

This Privacy Policy is intended to assist you in making informed decisions when using the Site and participating in the Alumni Network and/or to understand how your personal information may be processed by us as a result of providing the Site. Please take a moment to read and understand it.

Please also note that this Privacy Policy only applies to the use of your personal information obtained by us in connection with your participation in the Alumni Network. For current employees, further information about how we use your personal information in the context of your employment can be found in the Privacy Notice available on Pulse.

2. What personal information do we collect?

Personal information you voluntarily provide us

The Site collects personal information when you directly give it to us, such as, when you register. During registration and profile setup, we require that you provide your name and email address. To the extent that we have information relevant to the creation of your Site profile, that information may be automatically added to your profile at this Site. However, this information will not be shared with other members of the Site until you have accepted the Terms of Use. Once accepted, your name appears in the Directory and is visible to other members of the Site.

You have the option to expand your user profile to include a wide range of additional information, including photo, postal address, current occupation, industry, education, skills, and personal and business interests. By providing complete and accurate information in your profile, you enable us to customize your experience and help you get the most from the Alumni Network. However, please supply only information that is relevant for the stated purposes of this Site.

We also collect personal information in the following situations:

  • correspondence between you and the Site including the tracking of clicks, open rates and bounces;
  • information you post on the Site, such as, resumes, job applications, event RSVPs, comments on news articles; and
  • responses to online surveys or forms that we use for feedback, research and product improvement.

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online – in the optional fields in your profile, through email, or in areas of the Site – that information could be accessible to the rest of the members of our Alumni Network and may be made public. Please do not post or add personal information to your profile or elsewhere on the Site that you would not want to be publicly available.

Information we collect automatically

When you use the Site, we collect information about your visit and usage of the Alumni Network services. Some of this information is collected using a third-party tool, Google Analytics. That information may include your IP address, your operating system, your browser ID, and other information about how you interacted with the Site. We use this information to improve our services and the user experience as well as network management and security.

We and Google may use various technologies to collect and store information when you use our Site, including cookies and similar tracking technologies, such as pixels and web beacons, to analyze trends, administer the website, and track users’ movements around the website. Users can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level. For more information about our use of cookies and other tracking technologies, as well as how to opt out of the use of cookies, please refer to our Cookie Policy here. Turning off cookies may result in a loss of functionality when using the Site or potentially the ability to use the Site at all.

Personal information provided by DLA Piper

We may verify that you are a DLA Piper alumnus or current employee by matching your registration information with data previously known about you by DLA Piper. This information may include, but is not limited to, your name, email address, last position, locations, expertise or skills, and university/college.

3. How do we use your personal information?

The Alumni Program and related Services will use your personal information for the following purposes:

  • Primarily, to provide our members with a customized experience on our Site, including personalization services, such as suggested contacts, news, events and interactive communications.
  • To enable other users to search for and locate you via the directory.
  • To research and analyze our users’ demographics, interests and behavior to better understand and serve our users and improve our Site and its offerings.
  • Depending on your preferences (which you can change at any time within your account), to contact you periodically with communications about DLA Piper announcements, seminars, events, memoranda, publications or employment opportunities with DLA Piper, affiliates or partners, which we feel might interest you. You will have an opportunity to opt out of receiving further messages.
  • To get your feedback and viewpoints through polls and surveys conducted by us and others. You are not obligated to respond to polls and surveys and can choose the information you provide.
  • To contact you with professionally relevant information.
  • To fulfill our legal obligations, including contractual, regulatory, and reporting obligations, and obligations in connection with potential or actual legal or regulatory proceedings or investigations.
  • To provide you and other members of the Site with resources for professional/career development and related support.
  • To maintain and improve the Site, including auditing and monitoring its use so as to understand Site users’ demographics, interests, and content preferences.
  • To provide information requested by you, including in connection with opting in for our blogs.
  • In connection with the administration of events.
  • To analyze whether event invitations and other emails sent by DLA Piper have been successfully sent or have been opened.

We may also use data for other purposes, which we would always describe to you when we collect the information. However, we will not rent or sell your personal information to others.

4. Who has access to your personal information?

When you register and set up your profile, your name and the other information you provide will be placed in the Member Directory. Unless you request otherwise through the opt-out mechanism provided on the Site, your name, profile picture, current and past professional data, degrees, and social media links will be accessible to other members of the Site. The rest of the information you provide for your profile will not be shared with other members of the Site until you provide consent for such sharing by clicking on the “Share My Profile With Other Site Members” icon within the Site. Once you provide such consent, all the information in your profile will be in the Alumni Directory and will be accessible to other members of the Site. You have control over this access through the privacy settings in your Profile. Click on the profile picture in the upper right corner of any page on the Site and select “Privacy”.

Other than with Site members, we will share your personal information in the following situations.

  • With our service providers, including but not limited to PeoplePath (who host the Site on our behalf) and other service providers who support and maintain our IT infrastructure.
  • With advisors, including attorneys and accountants, to help us with legal, accounting and security requirements.
  • When required to comply with court orders, valid discovery requests, valid subpoenas, and other appropriate legal mechanisms.
  • To a third-party acquirer if we sells or liquidates all or any part of its business or assets. In that event, any acquirer will be subject to our obligations under this Privacy Policy and you will have the same rights with respect to your personal information.

We do not rent or sell any of the personal information we collect through the Site, nor do we share such information with any unaffiliated third-party to use for such party’s own marketing purposes.

5. How do we safeguard your personal information and how long do we retain your data for?

We implement security safeguards designed to protect your data, such as data encryption in transit and at rest. We regularly monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks. However, we cannot warrant the security of any information that you send us. There is no guarantee that data may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards.

Your user account information is password-protected so that only you, PeoplePath and DLA Piper have access to this personal information. Do not divulge your password to anyone. Also remember to sign out of your account and close your browser window when you have finished using the Site, particularly if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place like a library or Internet cafe.

Our Site may, from time to time, contain links to other sites. If you follow a link to any of these sites, please note that these sites have their own privacy statements and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these statements or sites. Please check these privacy statements before you submit any personal information to these sites.

We will retain your personal information only as long as you have a user account on the Site. If you decide to delete or transfer your user account, we will retain your data in data backups and logs for 90 days after we receive your request to delete or transfer, or longer if that is legally required.

6. How can you update your personal information and exercise your other rights?

You can access, edit or correct the information in your profile at any time. Log in to the Site and click on Profile. If you have forgotten your password, click on the Forgot Password link and we will send an email to your primary email address. Finally, you can ask us to deactivate, delete or transfer your personal information, but then you may not be able to access any members-only areas of the Site.

You also have the following rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you:

  • Your right of access - If you ask us, we'll confirm whether we're processing your personal information and, if necessary, provide you with a copy of that personal information (along with certain other details). If you require additional copies, we may need to charge a reasonable fee.
  • Your right to rectification - If the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you are entitled to request to have it rectified. If you are entitled to rectification and if we've shared your personal information with others, we'll let them know about the rectification where possible. If you ask us, where possible and lawful to do so, we'll also tell you who we've shared your personal information with so that you can contact them directly.
  • Your right to erasure - You can ask us to delete or remove your personal information in some circumstances such as where we no longer need it or if you withdraw your consent (where applicable). If you are entitled to erasure and if we've shared your personal information with others, we'll let them know about the erasure where possible. If you ask us, where it is possible and lawful for us to do so, we'll also tell you who we've shared your personal information with so that you can contact them directly.
  • Your right to restrict processing - You can ask us to 'block' or suppress the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances, such as where you contest the accuracy of that personal information or you object to us. If you are entitled to restriction and if we've shared your personal information with others, we'll let them know about the restriction where it is possible for us to do so. If you ask us, where it is possible and lawful for us to do so, we'll also tell you who we've shared your personal information with so that you can contact them directly.
  • Your right to data portability - You have the right, in certain circumstances, to obtain personal information you've provided us with (in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format) and to reuse it elsewhere or to ask us to transfer this to a third party of your choice.
  • Your right to object - You can ask us to stop processing your personal information, and we will do so, if we are:
    • relying on our own or someone else's legitimate interests to process your personal information, except if we can demonstrate compelling legal grounds for the processing; or
    • processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
  • Your right to withdraw consent - If we rely on your consent (or explicit consent) as our legal basis for processing your personal information, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
  • Your right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority - If you have a concern about any aspect of our privacy practices, including the way we've handled your personal information, you can report it to the relevant supervisory authority.

Please note that some of these rights may be limited where we have an overriding interest or legal obligation to continue to process the data or where data may be exempt from disclosure due to reasons of legal professional privilege or professional secrecy obligations.

7. Our lawful basis to use your personal information

It is necessary for us to use your personal information;

  • To perform our obligations in accordance with any contract that we may have with you.
  • It is in our legitimate interest or a third party's legitimate interest to use personal information in such a way to ensure that we provide the Services in the best way that we can.
  • It is our legal obligation to use your personal information to comply with any legal obligations imposed upon us.

For details of the specific lawful basis relied upon to use your personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, please contact us using the details at the end of this Privacy Policy.

8. Sensitive/special categories of personal information

We do not generally collect sensitive personal information through this Site. In the limited cases where we may collect such data, we will do this in accordance with applicable law. If you choose to provide us or members of the Site with unsolicited sensitive personal information, you consent to our using the data, as described in this Privacy Policy and in compliance with applicable law. The term “sensitive personal information” refers to the various categories of personal information identified as such by the EU GDPR and UK GDPR (as applicable).

9. Transfers outside the UK and the EU

While the personal information collected from you in connection with your participation in the Alumni Network will be hosted within the European Economic Area, we may transfer your personal information from the European Economic Area (EEA) to countries outside of the EEA and the UK (including the United States) in accordance with this policy and applicable laws. Any transfer of personal information to a location outside of the UK and the EEA will at all times be subject to the implementation of appropriate safeguards (which may include the use of the standard contractual clauses).

10. Cookies Policy

This Site uses cookies and clear GIFs to store and sometimes track information about you. Please see our Cookie Policy to find out more about the cookies we use and how to manage and delete cookies.

11. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time. To ensure that you are always aware of how we use your personal information we will update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect any changes to our use of your personal information. We may also make changes as required to comply with changes in applicable law or regulatory requirements. Where it is practicable, we will notify you by email of any significant changes. However, we encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to be informed of how we use your personal information.

12. How to contact us

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, please email us at privacyteam@dlapiper.com.