Privacy Notice
- This notice tells you what to expect when we collect information about individuals. If you need further information or have any questions or complaints about our privacy notice or privacy practices please contact our Data Protection Manager using the details below:
- Mark Linehan, Data Protection Manager, Allen Hoole Limited, 5 Portland Square, Bristol, BS2 8RR
- Email: DPO@allenhoole.co.uk
2. This notice describes:
- The personal information that we collect
- How we obtain personal information
- How we use personal information
- The basis upon which we use personal information
- How long we keep personal information
- Who we share personal information with
- Which countries we transfer personal information to
- How we protect personal information
- The legal rights of individuals whose personal information we process
The personal information that we collect
- Personal information (personal data) means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.
- Because of the wide ranging nature of our work, and the different reasons why we need to use personal information, what we collect is very varied and includes:
- Identity and contact data – including name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone numbers, national insurance number, and information provided or collected as part of our client take on or employee recruitment processes
- Financial and transaction data – including bank account details, payment card details and details of payments from and to individuals
- Technical and usage data – including information about how individuals use our website
- Information used to provide our services – including information provided to us by or on behalf of our clients or otherwise provided to us or generated by us in the course of providing services to our clients
- In particular in order to provide our services, we collect special category data and personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences. Special category data includes personal data which reveals racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, data concerning health and data concerning a person’s sex life or sexual orientation.
How we obtain personal information
- We obtain personal information in different ways, including through:
- Direct contact – individuals may give us their personal information by corresponding with us by post, email or telephone or otherwise.
- Clients – our clients may give us personal information of individuals (for example a client’s employees) to enable us to provide our services
- Third parties or publicly available sources – we may receive personal information of individuals from third parties (for example disclosure by the police or CPS in connection with a prosecution) in connection with the provision of services by us to our clients. We may also receive information from agents who act on our behalf.
- Our website – we use cookies to help us to provide users with a good experience when browsing the website and allow us to improve the site. Details of the cookies we use, the information we gather and how cookies can be blocked can be found in our Cookie Policy on our website.
How we use personal information
- We use personal information in a variety of ways including:
- To provide our services to our clients
- To recruit employees
- To manage and supervise our employees and partners
- To promote our services
- To meet our legal and regulatory obligations
- To meet our audit and insurance obligations
The basis upon which we use personal information
- We will only use personal information (including special category data and data relating to criminal convictions and offences) when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use personal data in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to do so to perform a contract we are about to enter into or have entered into – for example a contract of employment
- Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party such as one of our clients) and the interests and fundamental rights of the individual whose personal information we are using do not override those interests
- Where it is necessary to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation
- When we use special category data and data relating to criminal convictions and offences it will normally be when this is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or where we need to do so as an employer
- Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing personal information other than in relation to sending direct marketing communications. Consent to receiving direct marketing communications can be withdrawn at any time
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 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. In general we retain client data for 10 years unless the client is a child or the case is deemed high risk in which case a longer period is required. Please contact dpo@allenhoole.co.uk for more information on how long we will keep your personal data.
Who we share personal information with
- We may share personal information with third parties including:
- In the course of providing services to our clients – for example when instructing a medical expert to produce a report or counsel to provide advice
- When we outsource certain support services – for example photocopying or IT services
- Our professional advisers – for example our auditors, bankers and insurers
- To regulatory authorities, courts, tribunals and law enforcement agencies – for example our regulator the Solicitors Regulatory Authority
- Third parties to whom we transfer personal information are required to respect the security of the information and treat it in accordance with the law. We do not sell personal data to third parties.
Which countries we transfer personal information to
- In the course of providing services to our clients we may need to transfer personal information outside the European Economic Area (EEA), for example when instructing an expert based outside the EEA.
- Whenever we transfer personal information outside the EEA, we implement at least one of these safeguards or ensure 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
- If transferring personal information to the US, by transferring to organisations that are part of the Privacy Shield
- By using adopted or approved (by 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
How we protect personal information
- We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. We have put in place appropriate measures to inform our staff about how we collect, handle and keep information secure.
- We have put in place measures to deal with any suspected personal information breach and will notify relevant individuals and the Information Commissioner of a breach when we are legally required to do so.
The legal rights of individuals whose personal information we process
- Individuals have the rights set out below. If you wish to exercise any of these rights please contact our Data Protection Manager using the contact details given above.
- Request access to their personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables individuals to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about them and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
- Request correction of the personal information that we hold about them. This enables individuals to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold, though we will need to verify the accuracy of the new information provided to us.
- Request erasure 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 (see below), where we may have processed their information unlawfully or where we are required to erase their personal information to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with a request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to the individual, if applicable, at the time of their request.
- 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 individual’s particular situation which makes her/him want to object to processing on this ground as she/he feels it impacts on her/his fundamental rights and freedoms. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process the information which overrides those rights and freedoms. Individuals also have the right to object where we are processing their personal information for direct marketing purposes.
- 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; or (d) the individual has objected to our use of their information but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it
- 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
- Individuals have a right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.co.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with any concerns before the ICO is approached so please contact our Data Protection Manager, using the contact details given above, in the first instance.
Storage of your file and how you can retrieve your papers
You are entitled to a copy of your papers. If you would like a copy, please contact our reception staff and they will help.
In cases where you are responsible for our fees, after completing the work we will be entitled to keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owing to us for fees and expenses.
We will ordinarily keep our digital file of your papers for six years including personal data retained in the proper performance of our contract of service. We will keep the file on the understanding that we have the authority to destroy it six years after the date of the final bill we send to you. The exceptions will be
a) where there is a realistic prospect of a dispute on the matter after 6 years in which case the file will be retained for up to 15 years, and/or
b) we will always retain minimal information after 6 years including name / date of birth / last known address to enable us to perform regulatory checks for example if there is a conflict of interest.
If we retrieve papers or documents from storage in relation to continuing or new instructions to act for you we will not normally charge for such retrieval. However, we may charge you for time spent producing stored papers requested; reading, corresponding or other work necessary to comply with your instructions in relation to the retrieved papers.
Changes to this privacy notice
We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 21st April 2021.