Please read this information carefully…

This privacy notice contains information about what data we collect and store about you and why. It also tells you who we share this information with, the security mechanisms we have put in place to protect your data, and how to contact us if you have a complaint.

Beeston Shenton Solicitors Ltd collects, uses, and is responsible for personal information about you. When we do this we are the ‘controller’ of this information for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation and other applicable data protection laws.

Our Data Protection Officer is Russell Dutton, Managing Director. If you have any questions about this notice or how we process your information you can contact Russell Dutton at russell.dutton@beestonshenton.co.uk or by telephone on 01782 662424 or in writing to 64 King St, Newcastle under Lyme, Staffordshire, ST5 1JB.

 Data Protection Principles…

To comply with data protection law, the personal information we hold about you must be:

  1. Used lawfully, fairly, and in a transparent way.
  2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
  3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
  4. Accurate and kept up to date.
  5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
  6. Kept securely.

The Kind Of Information We Hold About You…

Personal data means any information about you from which you can be identified.  There are also “special categories” of more sensitive personal data, which require a higher level of protection.  We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal data:

  • Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone and mobile numbers, and email addresses
  • Information to enable us to verify your identity and your date of birth, including copies of photographic identification such as passports and driving licence, utility bills and bank statements.
  • Marital status and dependants.
  • Where necessary, details about your personal finances including your bank account details.

The personal information we hold about you as listed above must be provided by you to us, to enable us to process and manager your matter.  When we collect information from you, we will inform you whether you are required to provide this information to us.

Why We Need Your Personal Information…

We will use your personal data for the following purposes (“the/those purposes”) :

  1. To provide you with legal advice, including advising you and keeping you informed of developments in the law and our services which we think will be of interest to you, unless you tell us not to.
  2. To represent you as your solicitors in the matters in which we are instructed.
  3. To respond to, and communicate with clients and third parties regarding the matter in which we are instructed and to respond to your questions and comments.
  4. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation such as client identification and compliance with anti-money laundering legislation and/or other legal regulatory and compliance obligations.
  5. Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
  6. In relation to “special categories” of particularly sensitive information, for example about your health and criminal convictions, with your consent, or, where you are not capable of giving your consent but it is necessary for us to use the information to protect your interests.
  7. Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
  8. Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it and reasons that are compatible with those purposes.

We May Collect Information From Other Sources:

We may also collect information about you and your case from other sources such as third parties who we contact in connection with your case.  This may be, for example, courts, land registry, HM Customs and Excise, other solicitors, and third parties involved in your matter.  Any additional information collected will be for the purposes stated above and will be processed within the data protection and GDPR guidelines stated in this privacy notice.

Data Sharing, Data Security, And Data Retention…

We may have to share your data with third parties, including other professionals involved in our work for you, our regulators (where necessary) and IT service providers.  We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes.  We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.

We do not transfer your personal information outside the EEA or to an international organisation in order to process your matter.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.  In the event that we do share personal data with external third parties, we will only share such personal data strictly required for the specific purposes in which we are instructed and take reasonable steps to ensure that recipients shall only process the disclosed personal data in accordance with those purposes.  They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.  We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of this where we are legally required to do so.

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. The retention policy will be reviewed in line with the requirements of the Law Society of England and any other regulatory body, such as HMRC.  The period of retention varies by type of work but will be for a minimum period of 6 years at the end of the matter we are handling for you.

Rights Of Access, Correction, Erasure, And Restriction…

Under certain circumstances, by law, you have the right to:

  • Transparency over how we use your personal data and fair processing of your information.
  • Request access to your personal information and to receive a copy of it.
  • Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you.
  • Request erasure of your personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to hold it.
  • Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground.
  • Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example, if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

To assert any of these rights please contact our Data Protection Officer in writing.  We will consider your request under the applicable data protection legislation.  You will not have to pay a fee to exercise your rights.  However, we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse to comply with your request if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive.  If you remain dissatisfied you have the right to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk.

Your Consent And Your Right To Withdraw Consent…

We are relying on your explicit consent to collect and process the information that we need to manage your case.  You provided this consent when you signed our terms and conditions of our contract with you.

In limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not effect the lawfulness of any processing activity we have carried out prior to you withdrawing your consent. To withdraw your consent, please contact our Data Protection Officer in writing. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

More Information…

If you want more information about your rights under the GDPR please see the Guidance from the Information Commissioners Office on Individual’s rights under the GDPR.

If you want to exercise any of these rights, please email, call our write to our Data Protection Officer, Leslee Griffiths and note:-

  • We will need you to provide information so that we can identify you;
  • We may need to contact you to request further information to verify your identity;
  • We will need you to let us have proof of your identity and address;
  • You will need to state the right or rights that you wish to exercise;

We will respond to you within one month from when we receive your request.

How To Make A Complaint?

We hope that you are happy with our service and that our Data Protection Officer can resolve any issues or complaints that arise. Please get in touch if you have any concerns.

The General Data Protection Regulation also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or European Economic Area) state where you work, normally live or where the alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The UK supervisory authority if the Information Commissioner’s Office who can be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

This privacy notice was last updated on 1st February 2019.