Privacy Policy

(for clients)

Please read the following information carefully. This privacy notice contains information about what data we collect and store about you and why. It also tells you whom 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.

Who we are?

Clarke & Son Solicitors Limited 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 Privacy Manager (DPM) is Julie McKinney.

What do we do with your information?

Information collected by us

When carrying out the following:

• Filling in Contact Us Forms
• Updating Your Preferences

We collect the following personal information that you provide to us:

• Full Name
• Email Address

When carrying out the following:

• Filling in a Quote Request

We collect the following personal information that you provide to us:

• Full Name
• Email Address
• Phone Number
• Address

When carrying out the following:

Taking or receiving your instructions to act on a matter:

We collect the following personal information that you provide to us:

• Full Name
• Email Address
• Phone Number
• Address
• Documents relating to your identification such as passport, driving licence, bank statement, utility bills etc and the information shown on those documents so we can verify your identity and undertake money laundering checks.
• Information and documentation relating to the matter in hand

Data Protection in Respect of Money Laundering Checks

We may receive personal data from you for the purposes of our money laundering checks, such as a copy of your passport. These will be processed only for the purposes of preventing money laundering and terrorist financing, or as otherwise permitted by law or with your express consent.

You consent to us retaining such data for longer than the five year statutory period, unless you tell us otherwise

We collect the following information from other sources:

• Information relating to your identity (for example where electronic identification searches are undertaken)
• Information from other people which is relevant to your matter.

Data Protection – Your Obligations

If you send us personal data about anyone other than yourself you will ensure you have any appropriate consents and notices in place to enable you to transfer that personal data to us, and so that we may use it for the purposes for which you provide it to us.

We use your personal information for the following purposes:

• Verifying your identity
• Conducting your matter
• Database creation through our Client Relationship Management software
• If you have opted-in, we will also add you to our Email Marketing list through Mailchimp

Who will we share your personal information with?

• For the purposes of identification processes we may share information with the provider we use in order to verify information electronically.
• To providers of outsourced services such as for typing in processing your matter.
• To our auditors and to our compliance adviser, for the purposes of file audit and compliance.
• To Counsel and experts engaged by us in the conduct of your matter.
• To other parties and their representatives in the necessary and appropriate conduct of your matter.
• To our regulators.

We will share personal information with law enforcement agencies if required by applicable law.

We will not share your personal information with any other third parties without your consent.

How long will we store your personal data?  

We will normally store your matter related data for at least 7 years after your matter has closed.  This is for legal compliance obligations and after such period of time, your data will subsequently be deleted. If we need to retain data longer we will tell you.

As noted above, we need to retain data relating to your ID for longer then the 5 years statutory period.

Consent

We are relying on your explicit consent to market to you and inform you about services that we can support you with. With this consent we will add you to the relevant databases you have shown interest in. You provided this consent when you completed the Form of Acceptance at the outlet of your matter.

You have the right to review or withdraw this consent at any time, but this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing activity we have carried out prior to you withdrawing your consent.  You can opt-out here consent@clarkeandson.co.uk or contact our DPM in writing.

Your Rights

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have a number of important rights that you can exercise free of charge. In summary, these rights are:

• Transparency over how we use your personal data and fair processing of your information;
• Access to your personal information and other supplementary information;
• Require us to correct any mistakes or complete missing information we hold on you;
• Require us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances;
• Receive a copy of the personal information you have provided to us or have this information be sent to a third party, this will be provided to you or the third party in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format;
• Object at any time to processing of your personal information for direct marketing;
• Object in certain other situations to the continued processing of your personal information;
• Restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;
• Request not to be subject to automated decision making which produce legal effects that concern you or affect you in a significantly similar way;

If you want more information about your rights under the GDPR please see the Guidance from the Information Commissioners Office at https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/

If you want to exercise any of these rights, please:

• Email, call or write to us (see ‘Get in touch’ below)
• Provide other information so that we can identify you. for example, a copy of your passport or drivers licence may be required. We may need to contact you to request further information to verify your identity;
• State the right or rights that you wish to exercise;

We will respond to you within one month from when we receive your request. Please note if you wish to unsubscribe from any email you can do so by emailing, calling or writing to us (see ‘Get in touch’ below).  It may take 7 days for this to become effective.

How to make a complaint?

We hope that you are happy with our service and that our Data Privacy Manager (DPM), Paul Cowdery can resolve any issues or complaints that arise. Please get in touch if you have any concerns (see ‘Get in touch’ below).

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 is the Information Commissioner’s Office who can be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/.

Our Security

We have antivirus and malware software as well as a firewall in place to prevent unwanted access to the firm’s network and data.  We carry out software updates daily, in respect of electronically stored data.

Future Processing

We do not intend to process your personal information for any reason other than stated within this privacy notice. If this changes, we will inform you by Email.

Changes to this privacy notice

This privacy notice was published on 01/05/2018.

We constantly review our internal privacy practices and may change this policy from time to time. When we do we will inform you by Email.

Get in touch

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information we hold about you, please contact Paul Cowdery our Data Privacy Manager (DPM).

The best way to reach us is to email pcowdery@clarkeandson.co.uk or alternatively, please call 01256 320555.

Alternative formats

If it would be helpful to have this notice provided in another format (for example: in another language, audio, braille) please contact us (see ‘Get in touch’ above).