Privacy Notice
This notice tells you what to expect when we collect information about individuals. If you need any further information or have any questions or complaints about or privacy notice or privacy practices please contact our Data Protection Officer using the details below:
Data Protection Officer, Dalton Holmes Gray, 83 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0HW, enquiries@daltonholmesgray.co.uk.
1. This notice explains the personal information that we collect.
2. Ways in which we obtain personal information.
3. Ways in which we use personal information.
4. How long we retain personal information.
5. Who we share personal information with.
6. How we protect personal information.
7. The legal rights of individuals whose personal information we process.
The Personal Information That We Collect
The personal information we collect is varied and will depend on why we need it. It will include:
1. Identity and contact data, for example name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone numbers, and any other identity and contact data collected in the process of taking on clients and employee recruitment.
2. Financial data, this may include bank account details, information relating to welfare benefits etc.
3. Technical and usage data including information about how individuals use our website.
4. Information we collect from our clients in order to provide our legal services. This will include instructions provided to us by our clients and information or material from other criminal justice agencies such as the Police, Crown Prosecution Service, The National Offender Management Service and the Prison Service.
Special Category Data
In order to provide our services it may be necessary to collect “special category data” which includes personal information about an individuals racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, medical information and information about an individual’s sex life or sexual origination. In particular we will collect data relating to our client’s previous convictions.
How We Obtain Personal Information
We obtain personal information in a number of different ways including:
1. Client contact. Our clients may give us personal information about themselves in the course of preparing for a case.
2. Third Parties. We may receive personal information about third parties from other criminal justice agencies in the course of preparation for a client’s case, such as the Police, Crown Prosecution Service and National Offender Management Service.
3. Employee recruitment and Employment process. Individuals may give us their personal information as a part of the recruitment process for employment at this firm.
How We Use Personal Information
We use personal information in a number of different ways including:
1. To provide our services to our clients.
2. In the course of the recruitment/employment process.
3. To fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations.
4. The management, training and supervision of our employees.
How Long We Keep Personal Information
We will keep personal information in accordance with our data retention practices, which apply appropriate retention periods for each category of personal information. In setting retention periods we will take account of the purposes for which the personal information was collected, legal and regulatory obligations on us to retain information, limitation periods for legal action, and our business purposes for example : for clients, we will retain your data for a minimum of 6 years from the conclusion or closure of your case as we may need to re-open your matter for the purposes of defending complaints or claims against this firm.
Who We Share Personal Information With
We may share personal information with third parties including in the course of providing legal services to our client for example:
1. In the course of instructing an expert to produce a report, briefing a barrister on a client’s behalf and submitting representations to the Parole Board.
2. Information may also be shared with other criminal justice agencies including Courts, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Police Service, Probation Service and Co-defending solicitors (subject to consent and/or where there is a legitimate interest in doing so in the preparation of a client’s case).
3. Personal information may also be shared with the Legal Aid Agency and other regulatory authorities in the course of providing legal services to clients and also in the course of regulation and audits.
4. We may need to transfer personal outside the European Economic Area (EEA), for example where we are providing legal services in relation to extradition matters. Whenever we transfer personal information outside the EEA we implement at least one of these safeguards or insure that at least one of these conditions applies:
• By transferring to a country that the European Commission has been decided provides an adequate level of protection for personal information.
• By transferring personal information to the US, by transferring to organisations that are part of the privacy shield.
• By using adopted or approved (via the European Commission) standard data protection clauses.
• The transfer is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
• The transfer is necessary for the conclusion or performance of a contract between us and the individual whose personal information is being transferred.
The Legal Rights of Individuals Whose Personal Information We Process
Individuals have rights in relation to personal information which is collected and held.
1. Request access to their personal information. This is known as a “data subject access request”. This enables the individuals to receive a copy of their personal data we hold about them and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
2. Request correction of the personal information that we hold about them. This enables individuals to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold. We will need to verify the accuracy of the new information provided.
3. Request eraser of their personal information. This enables individuals to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. Individuals also have the right to ask us to delete or remove their personal information where they have successfully exercised their right to object to processing, where we may have processed the information unlawfully or where we are required to erase their personal information to comply with local law. We may not always be able to comply with a request for eraser for specific legal reasons which will be explained to the individual, if necessary, at the time of the request.
4. Object to processing of personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or that of a third party) and there is something about the individuals particular situation which makes him or her want to object to the processing on the ground as he / she feels it impacts on his / her fundamental rights and freedom. In some instances, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process the information which overrides those rights and freedoms.
5. Request restriction of processing of their personal information this enables individuals to ask us to suspend the processing of their personal information in the following scenarios:
a) If the individual wants us to establish the information’s accuracy.
b) Where our use of the information is unlawful but an individual does not want us to erase it.
c) Where the individual needs us to hold the information even if we no longer require it as she/he needs it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
d) The individual has objected to our use of the information but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
6. Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process the personal information. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before consent is withdrawn.
Complaints Notice
We want to give you the best possible service. However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided then you should inform us immediately, so that we can do our best to resolve the problem.
In the first instance it may be helpful to contact the person who is working on your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues at this stage. If you would like to make a formal complaint, then you can read our full complaints procedure below. Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your case.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.
You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
What To Do If We Cannot Resolve Your Complaint
The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case.
Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:
Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint and
No more than six years from the date of act/omission; or
No more than three years from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.
If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them.
Contact Details
Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9am to 5pm.
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
Complaints Procedure
We are committed to maintaining the highest professional standards and providing a high quality legal service to all our clients. A complaint can show us how to do better. If something goes wrong, we want to know about it and put it right as quickly as we can. The aim of the formal complaints process is to resolve a problem to the satisfaction of the person making the complaint. If you have special needs which we should take into account due to language or disability, please let us know. We aim to deal with complaints according to the following timetable:
Complaints Process Timetable:
Action: Acknowledge the complaint in writing and send a copy of the complaints procedure
Timescale: Within two working days
Action: Invite you to a meeting or to discuss the issues by telephone
Timescale: Within two working days
Action: Confirm the outcome of the meeting or telephone conversation in writing
Timescale: Within three working days of the meeting/telephone conversation
Action: Investigate the issues
Timescale: Within 14 days of receiving the complaint
Action: If a meeting/telephone discussion is not possible or required: Investigate the issues and write to you with the outcome
Timescale: Within 21 days
Action: Review and close the complaint
Timescale: Within 8 weeks of receiving the complaint
If we do not investigate your complaint within eight weeks, or if you do not agree with the outcome of our complaints process, you can then complain to the Legal Ombudsman.
Complaints to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of our final response to your complaint.
The Legal Ombudsman can investigate complaints for up to six years from the date a problem occurred or within three years from when you found out about the problem.
The address is PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WVl 9WJ, telephone 0300 555 0333 or email enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk.
Alternative complaints bodies (such as ProMediate) exist which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services should both you and our firm wish to use such a scheme. However, we do not use that scheme as the Legal Ombudsman scheme is free of charge for you to use and we have to abide by its independent decisions.