Last updated September 2026.
Privacy Notice
This Privacy Notice explains how lifesmiths LLP collects, uses, stores and protects your personal information.
If you would like this document in larger print or in another format, please contact us.
What information do we collect about you?
We collect information about you when you engage us for financial planning. This information will relate to your personal and financial circumstances. It may also include special categories of personal data such as data about your health, if this is necessary for the provision of our services.
We may also collect information when you voluntarily complete client surveys or provide feedback to us.
Enquiries through this website
If you contact us using the enquiry form on this website, we collect your name, email address, telephone number and anything you choose to tell us about your circumstances. We use this only to respond to your enquiry and to arrange an initial conversation if you would like one. Our lawful basis for this is legitimate interest, namely responding to someone who has asked us to get in touch.
If you do not go on to become a client, we will keep your enquiry for no longer than we need to and will then delete it. We do not use enquiry details for marketing unless you have separately agreed to that.
Information about connected individuals
We may need to gather personal information about your close family members and dependants to provide our service to you effectively. In such cases it will be your responsibility to ensure that you have the consent of the people concerned to pass their information on to us. We will provide a copy of this privacy notice for them or, where appropriate, ask you to pass the privacy information to them.
Why do we need to collect and use your personal data?
We must have a lawful basis to process your personal data. Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:
We have a contractual obligation
This is the primary legal basis that we intend to use for processing your data. The personal information that we collect about you is essential for us to be able to effectively carry out the services that we have agreed to deliver to you.
We have a legal obligation
Sometimes, collecting personal data is needed to meet our legal and regulatory obligations. For example, UK anti money laundering legislation may require us to collect personal information to verify your identity.
We will obtain your consent
Special category data, such as that relating to health matters, is often required to provide our services. When this is required, we’ll obtain your explicit consent to collect and process this information.
From time to time, we may wish to contact you to offer additional products or services which may be of interest to you. To do this, we will obtain your consent.
You may withdraw your consent at any time by notifying us at our main business address
lifesmiths, 78 The Broadway, Loughton, Essex IG10 3ST.
We have a legitimate interest
We rely on legitimate interest to retain relevant data for the purposes of assessing the appropriateness of our services, defending future complaints and meeting our Professional Indemnity Insurer’s expectations.
How will we use the information about you?
We collect information about you in order to provide you with the services for which you engage us.
Who might we share your information with?
If you agree, we may email you about other products or services that we think may be of interest to you.
We won’t share your information for marketing purposes with other companies.
To deliver our services to you effectively we may send your details to third parties such as those that we engage for professional compliance, accountancy or legal services as well as product and platform providers that we use to arrange financial products for you.
Where third parties are involved in processing your data, we will have a contract in place with them to ensure that the nature and purpose of the processing is clear, that they are subject to a duty of confidence in processing your data and that they’ll only act in accordance with our written instructions.
Where it is necessary to share your personal data with third parties, we apply appropriate technical and organisational security measures to protect your information while it is being transferred. This may include the use of encrypted email services, secure file transfer platforms, password-protected documents, access-controlled client portals, and secure cloud-based systems. Passwords and access credentials are shared separately wherever possible to reduce the risk of unauthorised access. We only transfer data to trusted third parties who are required to maintain appropriate security standards in line with UK GDPR requirements.
To fulfil our obligations in respect of prevention of money-laundering and other financial crime, we may send your details to third party agencies for identity verification purposes.
How long do we keep hold of your information?
During our relationship with you, we will retain personal data which is necessary to provide services to you. We’ll take all reasonable steps to keep your personal data up to date throughout our relationship.
We are also subject to regulatory requirements to retain your data for specified minimum periods. These are, generally:
Five years for investment business
Three years for mortgage business
Indefinitely for pension transfers and opt-out business
Three years for insurance business
Copies of documents and information obtained to verify your identity for the purposes of UK anti money laundering legislation will be retained for a minimum of five years after our relationship with you has ended.
These are minimum periods, during which we have a legal obligation to retain your records.
We reserve the right to retain data for longer where we believe it’s in our legitimate interests to do so. In any case we will not retain your personal data for longer than seven years after the end of our relationship, unless a longer period is required by law or regulatory requirements, including pension transfer records which may be retained indefinitely.
You have the right to request deletion of your personal data. We will comply with this request, subject to the restrictions of our regulatory obligations and legitimate interests as noted above and in line with our data retention policy.
How can I access the information you hold about me?
You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all your personal information please email or write to us using the contact details noted below.
When your personal data is processed by automated means, you have the right to ask us to move your personal data to another organisation for their use.
We have an obligation to ensure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. Please ask us to correct or remove any information that you think is incorrect.
Automated decision making and profiling
If you use our Personal Finance Portal your personal information will be gathered through the information that you input onto the system. Your data is collected for us to carry out the service for which you engage us. If you are unsure about the outcome of the automated process you can contact us to discuss or to challenge the outcome.
We take measures to ensure the security of your data by using secure messaging platforms and encrypted devices. We don’t use any special category data (such as data about your health) in the automated process unless it’s strictly necessary to deliver our service and we have obtained your explicit consent to do so.
We regularly check our systems for accuracy and bias and feed any changes back into the design process.
Marketing
We would like to send you information from time to time about our products and services which may be of interest to you. If you have currently agreed to receiving marketing information, you may opt out at a later date.
You have a right at any time to stop us from contacting you for marketing purposes.
Cookies
Our website does not use cookies. For more detail, please see our Cookie Policy.
Other websites
Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.
What can you do if you are unhappy with how your personal data is processed?
You also have a right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority for data protection. In the UK this is:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Our ICO reference is: Z5361010
Changes to our privacy policy
We keep our privacy policy under regular review, we will place any updates on our website and Personal Finance Portal and we will inform you of any changes when they occur. This privacy policy was last updated: January 2026
How to contact us
Please contact us on 0208 508 0156 if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information, we hold about you. Or write to us at: lifesmiths, 78 The Broadway, Loughton, Essex IG10 3ST.
A chartered, independent financial planning firm. Helping people in and around retirement see what’s possible with what they’ve built.
Get in touch
hello@lifesmiths.co.uk
78 The Broadway, Debden, Loughton, Essex, IG10 3ST
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© lifesmiths 2026. lifesmiths LLP is registered in England and Wales, number OC303848. Registered office: 78 The Broadway, Debden, Loughton, Essex, IG10 3ST. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, firm reference number 221278. General information only. Not personal financial advice. The value of investments can fall as well as rise.