Information we collect and hold about you:
We collect personal information about our clients when you contact us about providing legal services to you. This could be at any stage in proceedings from the police station to conclusion of your case and anywhere in between.
The kind of information we collect about you will be things like your name, home address, email address, telephone number and any other information necessary for us to do our job professionally and properly. This will usually be information relating to the case against you.
We may also collect and use special categories of personal data about you for example, information about your health, ethnic origin or about your criminal case. This will depend very much on the nature of the case against you.
We may also collect information about other people that you tell us about such as witnesses in your case or as appropriate, medical professionals and the like.
We will only use your data to advise and represent you professionally and properly and to comply with our contract with the Legal Aid Agency.
We will only share your information with third parties with your agreement and strictly when it is necessary to assist in your case by instructing a barrister on your behalf or the like or with the Legal Aid Agency, as appropriate.
If you contact us via our website, contact page and we will collect the information that you have voluntarily provided to us.
How we use your information:
We will only ever use your personal data if we are satisfied that it is lawful and fair to do so and it in accordance with the following criteria:
- You have given us your consent to use your information for the specific purposes described in this privacy notice or otherwise is consented to by you.
- It is necessary to enter into or perform any contract with you.
- To comply with any legal obligation that we have.
- For our own or third parties’ legitimate interests provided your rights do not override these interests.
We will only use special categories of personal data relating to you or to third parties you tell us about where we have your explicit consent and/or where it is necessary to use the information for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or is otherwise authorised by legislation.
We will never sell your personal data or share it with any third party might use it for their own purposes.
Sharing your information:
We will not disclose any information you provide to any other third parties other than:
- Where you have given us consent to share this information, for example, if you specifically asked us to tell a family member about your case.
- Where we instruct professional advisers on your behalf such as barristers, medical professionals, or other experts.
- Other third parties where necessary to carry out your instructions, for example, the probation service if they want information to help them prepare a report on your behalf.
- The technical organisations responsible for case management, document management, time recording email systems so that we can win your case efficiently.
- If we are under a legal or regulatory duty to disclose or share your personal information, for example, if required to do so by a court order or in furtherance of our professional obligations.
- To protect our rights, property, safety, or the rights, property, and safety of others, for example, exchanging your information with our insurers and regulators.
Data security:
We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in unauthorised way or altered or disclosed.
We hold data electronically in a case management system who hold data in their secure and backed up and compliant servers.
We store papers in lockable rooms in our offices when not being actively used.
As appropriate, we dispose of or delete your data securely.
We ensure that our employees, agents, and contractors are aware of their privacy and data security obligations, and we take reasonable steps to ensure that employees of third parties work on our behalf are aware of their privacy and data security obligations.
We limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a need to know about you. We may give third parties access to personal information we hold about you in order to comply with our regulatory obligations, for example, to The Solicitors Regulation Authority, our auditors, or to our professional indemnity insurers.
The transmission of information via the Internet is never completely secure although we do our best to protect your personal data. This means that we cannot guarantee the security of any electronic information transmitted to us and any such transmission is always at your own risk.
We have put in place procedures to do with any suspected data security breaches and will notify you and any applicable regulator of any suspected breach, where we are legally required to do so.
Data retention:
We will hold information relating to you and your case for as long as required by law or our regulatory obligations. Our default retention period personal data six years from the conclusion of your instructions to us.
The retention period may be extended or reduced if we deem it necessary, for example, to defend legal proceedings or where there is any ongoing investigation relating to your information.
We review the personal data and the special categories of personal data we are holding on your behalf on a regular basis to ensure the data we are holding is still relevant to our business and is accurate. If we discover that certain data, we are holding is no longer necessary or accurate, we will take reasonable steps to correct or delete this data as may be required.
Your rights:
Under certain circumstances by law, you have the right to:
- Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a data subject access request). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
- Ask us to correct any information we hold about you which is incorrect, incomplete, or inaccurate.
- Ask us to raise your personal information from our files and systems where there is no good reason for us continuing to hold it.
- Object to us using your personal information to further our legitimate interests, all those of third party, or where we are using your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
- Ask us to restrict or suspend the use of your personal information, for example, if you want to establish its accuracy or our reasons for using it.
- Ask us to transfer your personal information to another person or organisation.
Queries and complaints:
If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information then please contact Mark Turnbull at mturnbull@hamerchilds.co.uk.
Data protection is governed by the information Commissioner’s office (ICO) which is the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.
For more information or if you wish to make a complaint to the ICO about data handling issues then please follow this link https://ico.org.uk/concerns/