Privacy policy

1. Overview

This Privacy Policy explains what personal information Aaine (“Aaine,” “we,” “us”) collects when you use the platform, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. It applies to clients booking consultations, lawyers listing profiles, and visitors browsing the site.

2. Data we collect

Account details — name, email or phone number, password hash, role (client or lawyer), preferred language.
Profile data (lawyers) — bar registration details, practice areas, languages, experience, fees, chamber address, references, professional photo.
Verification data (lawyers) — identity documents, bar identification, and the outcomes of our checks.
Booking and matter context (clients) — the short matter description you share when booking, scheduling preferences, and consultation channel choice.
Payment data — billing details and transaction records (card numbers and bank credentials are handled directly by our payment processor and never stored on our servers).
Usage data — pages viewed, searches run, device and browser metadata, IP address, and timestamps.
Reviews and messages — content you publish or send through the platform.

3. How we use your data

To operate the platform — let you sign in, search, book, pay, and communicate.
To verify lawyer credentials before listing a profile, and to re-verify standing periodically.
To hold consultation payments in escrow and release them at the right time.
To handle disputes against the consultation record, and to refund where warranted.
To protect users from fraud, abuse, and impersonation.
To improve the product — diagnose issues, measure feature usage, and prioritise work.
To send service messages (bookings, disputes, account changes) and, with consent, occasional product updates.
To meet legal, regulatory, and tax obligations.

4. Legal bases for processing

Where applicable, we process personal data under one or more of the following legal bases: performance of a contract (operating your account, completing bookings), legitimate interests (verification, fraud prevention, product improvement), legal obligation (tax, regulatory reporting), and consent (marketing emails, optional analytics).

We share personal information only when needed to run the service or when required by law. Categories of recipients include:

The other party to a booking — clients see lawyers’ public profile data; lawyers see the matter context the client chose to share at booking.
Service providers — hosting, payment processing, email and SMS delivery, customer support tooling, error monitoring. These vendors are bound by contracts that limit how they can use the data.
Verification sources — bar associations and law societies we contact to confirm a lawyer’s standing.
Authorities — where we have a legal obligation or a good-faith belief that disclosure is necessary to protect a user’s safety or our rights.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not let advertisers use your information to target you across the web.

6. Identity documents

Identity documents uploaded by lawyers during verification are encrypted at rest in our database, accessible only to the verification team, never shown to clients, and removed from active storage 90 days after verification completes. We retain a hash and a verification record for audit purposes only.

7. Cookies and analytics

We use a small set of cookies and similar technologies: strictly necessary cookies for sign-in and session security, and aggregate analytics that help us understand which pages people find useful. We do not run advertising cookies or cross-site tracking pixels. You can clear or block cookies via your browser settings; doing so may break sign-in.

8. Data retention

We keep account and booking records for as long as the account is active and for a reasonable period afterwards to handle disputes, comply with tax and regulatory requirements, and defend legal claims. Identity documents are removed 90 days after verification completes. You can request deletion of your account at any time — see Your rights.

9. Security

We use industry-standard safeguards — encryption in transit and at rest, access controls, audit logging, and regular reviews of our infrastructure. No platform is perfectly secure; if we ever detect a breach that materially affects you, we’ll notify you and the relevant authorities as required by law.

10. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export, restrict, or delete your personal data, and to object to certain processing. You can exercise most of these directly from your dashboard, or by contacting us — see Contact. We’ll respond within a reasonable timeframe and free of charge, unless your request is manifestly excessive.

11. International transfers

Aaine operates across multiple jurisdictions. Where we transfer personal data internationally, we use safeguards such as standard contractual clauses and equivalent protections to keep the data secure regardless of where it’s processed.

12. Children

Aaine is not directed at children under 18. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we’ll remove it.

13. Changes to this policy

If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we’ll surface them on the platform before they take effect and, where you’ve given us one, email you a summary.

14. Contact

Privacy questions or rights requests? Reach the privacy team through the Contact page.

Privacy policy.