MILDRED BREAKEY SOLICITORS, GDPR Privacy Notice Effective from 25th May 2018

Under the new General Data Protection Regulations, we are obligated to provide you with a clear and concise policy on how we deal with the information provided to us. 

We appreciate our client’s trust in instructing us and allowing us to use, store and share their information. In the following privacy notice, we will outline how we use your information and how you can ensure that same is being utilised appropriately and professionally. 

This notice has been drafted simply and concisely, however if you do not understand anything, or wish to know anything further, please do not hesitate to contact us on info@breakeysolicitors.co.uk, or by calling us on 028 9266 9566 and we will be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

1. WHO WE ARE

In this notice, ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ refers to Mildred Breakey Solicitors. Mildred Breakey Solicitors isa private practice law firm based at 52 Bachelors Walk, Lisburn, BT28 1XN. As a Solicitors firm, we are regulated by the Law Society of Northern Ireland (www.lawsoc-ni.org) and under the new EU General Data Protection Regulations we are defined as a data controller of the personal data we hold and process. In other words, we decide how we utilise the information you provide to us within the scope of our instructions from you.

Your information will be shared with the employees of Mildred Breakey Solicitors in order to allow us to provide you with a full, professional legal service.

2. DATA PROTECTION OFFICER

Our Data Protection Officer oversees how we collect, use, share and protect your information to ensure your rights are fulfilled. As proprietor of the firm, Mildred Breakey holds this role and will be able to answer any queries you may have regarding the information this office may hold on you. 

3. HOW WE COLLECT INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

We collect personal information from you, for example, when you instruct us to provide a legal service. The type of information required will vary depending on the matter in which we are instructed, 

We also collect information through our website, yell.com page, facebook page and CCTV footage. We take detailed attendance notes of any telephone calls, or consultations held with any member of our team for lawful business purposes so as to ensure clarity of the instructions provided to us. 

Like any other website you may visit, our website uses ‘cookie’ technology which is essentially a piece of text that our server places on your device when you visit our website or apps so that our IT teams can ensure the website is working for us and our clients. 

When our clients, or any one acting in connection with our clients instruct us to provide a legal service, we will carry out information searches to verify your identity. We do this by obtaining suitable photographic and geographic identity proofs as well as sending and receiving information about you to and from third parties, this may include fraud prevention agencies where necessary. We and these agencies may keep records of our searches whether or not the legal service goes ahead.

4. HOW WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE

We protect your information with security measures under the laws that apply and we meet UK standards. We keep our computers, files and buildings secure.

When you contact us to ask about your information, we may ask you to identify yourself. This is to help protect your information.

5. HOW LONG WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION

To meet our legal and regulatory obligations we hold your information while you are a client and for a period of time after that. We do not hold it for longer than necessary. The length of time in which information will be held at the office, or placed in secure storage will depend on the matter to which your file relates as each area of law has a different limitation for holding information. 

6. MEETING OUR LEGAL AND REGULATORY OBLIGATIONS

To use your information lawfully, we rely on one or more of the following legal bases as provided for under the GDPR: performance of a contract; legal obligation; protecting the vital interests of you or others; public interest; our legitimate interests; and your consent.

To meet our regulatory and legal obligations, we collect some of your personal information, verify it, keep it up to date through regular checks and delete it once we no longer have to keep it. We may also gather information about you from third parties to help us meet our obligations. If you do not provide the information we need, or help us keep it up to date, we may not be able to provide you with our legal services.

7. CONSENT

Sometimes we need your consent to use your personal information. We, for example, need your consent to make you aware of legal services which may be of interest to you. We may do this by our client care letters, terms of business, phone, post, email, or through other digital media.

You can decide how much of this information about our other legal services you want to accept when you apply for new legal services. If we ever contact you to get your feedback on ways to improve our legal services you have the choice to opt out.

When we use sensitive personal information about you we ask for your consent. Before you give your consent, we tell you what information we collect and what we use it for. 

In some instances we may need to provide some of your information to third parties such as Barristers, Valuers, other Solicitors, the Council or other relevant departments depending on the legal service that is being afforded to you. Before doing so we will seek your consent. 

You can remove your consent at any time by contacting us.

8. HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

We use information about you to: provide the relevant legal services for which we have been instructed; identify ways we can improve our legal services; maintain and monitor our legal services; protect both your & our interests & the interests of others; meet our legal and regulatory obligations; and decide and recommend how our legal services might be suitable for you.

To provide our legal services under the terms and conditions we agree between us we need to collect and use personal information about you. If you do not provide this personal information, we may not be able to provide you with our legal services.

We analyse the information that we collect on you through your use of our legal services and on our website. This helps us understand how we interact with you and our position in the market place. Examples of how we use this information include helping protect you and others from financial crime, offering you legal services and personalising your experience.

9. YOUR INFORMATION AND THIRD PARTIES

Sometimes we share your information with third parties. For example to: provide services and information; analyse information; research your experiences dealing with us; collect debts; sell whole or part of our business; prevent financial crime; trace information; protect both your & our interests; the general public if you contribute to a public forum; our business partners such as our IT providers, search agents, Barristers, and experts advising on aspects of your case; and law enforcement officials, government authorities and other third parties to meet our legal obligations.

In order to process your instructions we will need to verify the information we hold about you. We do this to check your identity, prevent criminal activity and speed up the services we provide.

Your data will also be linked to the data of your spouse, any other persons or parties who jointly instruct us or relatives or friends who you, or they, have recommended our legal services and to your financial associates.

The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with fraud prevention agencies who will use it to prevent fraud and money-laundering and to verify your identity. If fraud is detected you could be refused certain services. Further details of these agencies and how they process your information can be found online. We expect these third parties to have the same levels of information protection that we have.

We also have to share information with third parties to meet any regulatory or lawful request. When we believe we have been given false or misleading information, or we suspect criminal activity, we must record this and tell law enforcement agencies, which may be either in or outside the UK.

10. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS OF DATA

We may transfer your personal information outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). If, for example, you are purchasing property from a USA company that is governed by USA or local stock exchange regulation we must pass information verifying your identity to the seller’s solicitor who will pass it on to their USA client. We expect the same standard of data protection is applied outside the EEA to any such transfer and the use of the information to ensure your rights are protected.

11. YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION RIGHTS

You will find information about your rights, when they apply and our responsibility to you on our websites 

You can exercise your rights by calling into our offices, using email, or phoning or writing to us. Please make your instructions clear when exercising your rights. Further information and our contact details are available on our website at www.mildredbreakeysolicitors.co.uk

We can help you with accessing your personal information if you ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold. You can ask us about how we collect, share and use your personal information, as well as updating and correcting your personal details.

You can change your mind at any point after providing us with your consent, however this may affect the legal service that we can provide to you. You also have the right to restrict or object to us using your personal information for certain uses such as marketing analysis.

Under the GDPR, you may have the right to be forgotten, in other words, you may be able to request that we delete your personal information. 

At the end of the day, your information is just that, yours, therefore you have the right of portability of your information and can request that we transfer such information to you, or another organisation chosen by you. 

We generally do not charge you when you contact us to ask about your information. If requests are deemed excessive or manifestly unfounded we may charge a reasonable fee to cover the additional administrative costs or choose to refuse the request. There will be a charge for accessing historic information which is held in secure storage, this is to cover the administrative costs involved in seeking out such files. You will be advised of such fees upon any request. 

12. MAKING A COMPLAINT

If you have a complaint about the use of your personal information, please let a member of staff in our office know, giving them the opportunity to put things right as quickly as possible. If you wish to make a formal complaint you may do so by addressing your concerns to Mildred Breakey so as to allow for rectification of any issues. Please be assured that all complaints received will be fully investigated. We ask that you supply as much information as possible to help our staff resolve your complaint quickly.

You can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk.

13. UPDATES TO THIS NOTICE

We will make changes to this notice from time to time, particularly when we change how we use your information, and change our technology and services.

You can always find an up-to-date version of this notice on our website at www.mildredbreakeysolicitors.co.uk