Privacy notices

We are registered with the ICO and provide a privacy notice to every client within our standard terms and conditions to explain how we use their information.  We make use of template privacy notices for this purpose which detail the following information in as clear and transparent a manner as possible:

• who we are;
• the contact details for our information officer;
• how we propose to process the information we are gathering (including identifying the third parties with whom we typically will be sharing information);
• why we are proposing to use it in this way;
• what condition or conditions we are relying upon to use information in this way (see above for the common conditions we rely upon).  Where we rely upon consent we will highlight the right to withdraw consent.  Where we need the information to comply with the law or to deliver the contract for services to the client we will explain that we may not be able to act in the matter without receiving the necessary information.  For marketing which relies upon the ‘legitimate interests’ condition we specifically explain that we make use of established relationships to raise awareness of changes and services which we feel may be of interest;
• whether information is to be transferred outside of the EU and, if so, upon what safeguards or other grounds we rely in order to do this (see above);
• how long their information will be stored for, including our right to retain papers in order to exercise a lien and to demonstrate a legally admissible record at a later date of the work we have performed should it be necessary to do so;
• a reminder of the rights to access information, have it rectified or erased and where applicable to have it delivered in a ‘portable’ format such as a CSV file;
• the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (‘ICO’) about how personal data has been handled;
• details of any automated decision making processes (including profiling) which we make use of (which we do not anticipate currently).

While we acknowledge that under the GDPR privacy notices should also be given to individuals whose personal data we hold because it has been given to us by someone else, generally speaking such information is held confidentially and is privileged.  For example, a client may give us information about other individuals connected to their legal matter but this will typically be confidential and privileged.  As such we would not be required to provide such a privacy notice under the GDPR (Article 14.5(d)).  In other cases we will however take steps to provide the necessary information about how we handle personal data to other individuals within a reasonable time period of receiving it and in any event within one month (Article 14.3).  

Our website

We take care to ensure that our website is secure (see above), up to date, does not infringe copyright and is compliant with SRA requirements and applicable accessibility standards.  Our office manual sets out a procedure for approving web content and the standards expected in this respect.

Our website provides appropriate information to users on privacy and cookies.