Privacy
- We are committed to respecting the privacy of all our clients.
- What information do we process: – as a client of ours we will ask you to provide certain information about yourself including name, title, postal address, telephone number and/or email address. We will also need information about your matter and circumstances as well as contact information for you and other parties to this matter. The information that we need will be explained to you by our lawyers and/or be set out in our letter of engagement but may include both personal data and special categories of data see section 9.9 below.
- We may also receive information about you from third parties such as estate agents, accountants, banks, surveyors, medical professionals, courts, regulatory bodies and other advisers and specialists related to your matter. You may also provide us with additional information that you consider relevant as part of your instruction.
- By signing our terms of business you consent to the processing of your personal data (including special categories of personal data, defined in 9.9 below, to enable us to perform our contract to provide you with legal services in accordance with your instructions.
- If you are a client, processing of personal data is necessary for the performance of our contract to provide legal services and/or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into such a contract. The solicitor-client relationship is a contractual one, and to perform our contract, it is unavoidable that this requires us to process personal data.
- We are permitted by law to process personal data where this is necessary to comply with our legal duties. We have legal and regulatory duties to process certain personal data, including ID and other information we require to conduct due diligence enquiries.
- We are permitted by law to process personal data where this is necessary for the purposes of pursuing legitimate interests, whether our own or those of third parties such as our clients. We and our clients have a legitimate interest in giving and receiving legal advice and assistance and in processing personal data in connection with the provision of those services and for the purposes described below.
- For special categories of personal data, we are permitted to process personal data (e.g. health records) where it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
- How we will use your personal data – we will use your information for the specific purpose(s) for which it has been provided to or collected by us e.g.:
- to provide information that you may request regarding the services that we offer;
- to contact you to introduce you to our lawyers;
- to carry out checks in relation to conflicts of interests;
- to provide you with legal services including referring you to other specialist advisers both in the UK and overseas;
- to comply with our statutory and regulatory requirements;
- to verify your identity and check any relevant background circumstances for anti-money laundering and “know your client” purposes;
- to deal with your feedback, query or complaint; or
- to contact you for your views on our services, and also to administer, support, improve and develop our business generally and enforce our legal rights.
- If we process any special categories of information i.e. information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership, genetic data, processing of biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying individuals, health data, or data concerning your sex life or sexual orientation, we must have a further lawful basis for the processing.
- As a controller of personal data we are under an obligation to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) 2018 and any other regulations made under that Act. By giving us your personal information, you consent to us processing and storing your information so that we may provide you with legal services and generally administer and take care of our relationship with you. We may disclose your information to our third-party service providers or agents for these purposes.
- In providing legal services to our clients, we may need to share personal data with our staff, clients, other professionals who we instruct (e.g. barristers), third parties who are vital to a transaction (e.g. mortgage providers, the courts, witnesses), other parties with an interest in a particular legal matter (and their representatives) and providers of services that are necessary to progress a legal matter (e.g. to perform our client due diligence checks on you). In the case of personal data of clients, our clients may instruct us to share their personal data with third parties (such as estate agents, family members or other representatives).
- Withdrawal of consent: – you have the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal data at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of any processing carried out prior to the withdrawal of your consent. However, where we also rely on other bases for processing your personal data, you may not be able to prevent processing of your data on those bases.
- Storage of personal data: – your data will be stored on our IT equipment and in files on secure premises, or where your information is shared with a third party, at their premises or on their IT equipment.
- We are required by our insurers and regulators to keep your file and personal data for minimum periods. We retain personal data because, in particular, it may be required in the event of a later complaint or claim. We are not however permitted to keep your personal data indefinitely or for longer than is necessary.
- Retention of personal data: – our retention policy is that the minimum period we will keep files and other personal date relating to a legal matter is 7 years after the date of the last work carried out on it. We may keep the file for longer than that if it is necessary to do so such as files relating to property or children or where you request us to do so.
- All our files and other documents containing personal data are destroyed securely.
- We may also need to share your personal data with our regulators, insurers, and law enforcement agencies.
- Where we share your personal data with third parties, we will ensure that they have appropriate data protection arrangements in place.
- Rights of access to data – You have a right of access under data protection legislation to the personal data we hold about you. Subject to certain exceptions, you may have the right, free of charge, to:
- access your personal data (known as a subject access request)
- seek rectification of any mistakes
- request for your personal data to be erased by us or restrict the way we process your personal data (subject to certain conditions)
- transfer your personal data to another provider
- object to us using your personal data for direct marketing. You will always have the option of unsubscribing from our emails
- not be subject to “automated processing” (often referred to as “profiling”).
If you wish to exercise any of the above rights, please contact Sylvia Haigh.
- In addition we may contact you from time to time to let you know about our services which may include sending you newsletters and news on training events or changes in the law which may affect you. Please remember that you can elect not to receive such marketing material at any time by contacting the person responsible for your work.
- Where we use third party IT services (e.g. cloud-based software) we shall ensure that their data centres are either within the UK or that there are lawful safeguards in place to protect your personal data to the same standard as if it were held within the UK.
- Sylvia Haigh is the firms COLP (Compliance Officer for Legal Practice) who will be responsible for the implementation of our data protection policies and procedures. For the purpose of Data Protection legislation, the data controller is Haigh Law Ltd.
- If you have a complaint or question about our use of your personal data, please contact Sylvia Haigh in the first instance. You may also make complaints direct to the Information Commissioner’s Office its website is www.ico.org.uk/concerns its telephone number is 0303 123 1113.