This notice tells you what to expect when we collect information about individuals.
This notice describes:
This Notice is primarily for the benefit of our clients or potential clients or for related third parties whose data we may process as part of the provision of legal services. We maintain and will provide separate privacy notices in relation to the collection and use of personal information about our staff and employees, including potential employees, during and after their working relationship with us.
This firm processes your data in accordance with the terms of the Data Protection Act 2018, the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and the relevant provisions relating to the General Data Protection Regulation contained within the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (UK GDPR). This Data & Privacy Notice explains, in detail, the types of personal data we may collect about you when you interact with us. It also explains how we will store and handle that data and keep it safe. Unless otherwise indicated, references in this Data and Privacy Notice to the GDPR refer to the UK GDPR.
We know that there’s a lot of information here, but we want you to be fully informed about your rights, and how our firm uses your data. We hope the following sections will answer any questions you have but if not, please do get in touch with us.
We are only entitled to hold and process your data where the law allows us to. The current law on data protection (Article 6 GDPR) sets out a number of different reasons for which a law firm may collect and process your personal data. These include:
The main purpose for our holding your data is to provide you with legal services under the agreement we have with you. This agreement is a contract between us and the law allows us to process your data for the purposes of performing a contract (or for the steps necessary to enter in to a contract). We may also need to process your data to meet our contractual obligations to the Legal Aid Agency where you receive legal aid to fund your case or advice.
In specific situations, we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and which does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests. This may include to satisfy our external quality auditors or our Regulators.
If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data. For example, we can pass on details of people involved in fraud or other criminal activity.
In some situations, we can collect and process your data with your consent. For example, when you tick a box to receive email newsletters. When collecting your personal data, we’ll always make clear to you which data is necessary in connection with a particular service.
We normally collect your data when you provide it to us or when it is provided to us by others (your opponent’s solicitors for example) during your case. You may give us your data by email; through an online web form; over the telephone; face to face; or by post.
We also collect data automatically with regard to each of your visits to our website including technical information.
You voluntarily give us your personal information for instance when:
Where we request information from you, we will collect the information set out in the relevant web pages, or as explained to you over the telephone or face to face.
We may collect personal data as follows:
We may gather details of your age; ethnicity; gender etc. if required to do so by the Legal Aid Agency where you are in receipt of Legal Aid. Where you have Legal Aid, we may also gather financial information from you.
We also collect and hold information about your case or legal problem.
Depending on the circumstances of their legal matters, for some clients, we may have access to or process personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences or related security measures. The special condition for processing this data (pursuant to Schedule 1 and Article 10 of the GDPR) is because it is necessary for, connected to and/or or relates to legal claims including for the purposes of assisting with legal proceedings, obtaining legal advice and/or establishing, exercising or defending legal rights. We have considered the risks and impact associated with the processing of criminal offence data not least with regard to data minimisation, security and transparency. All such data is processed in line with the commitments and policies within this Privacy Notice.
Depending on the circumstances of their legal matters, for some clients, we may have access to or process special category data including:
In addition to contract lawful condition for processing under Article 6 of the GDPR (see above), Article 9(2)(f) of the GDPR) permits us to process this data where it is necessary for, connected to and/or or relates to legal claims including for the purposes of assisting with legal proceedings, obtaining legal advice and/or establishing, exercising or defending legal rights. We will only process this specific data if it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend a client’s legal rights. We will ensure that the use of this data is relevant and proportionate and that we do not hold any more data than is needed. All such data is processed in line with the commitments and policies within this
We collect certain related technical information including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, logs (including, where available, the IP address and location of the device connecting to the online services and other technical information and identifiers about the device and the nature of the visit such as clickstream to, through and from our website) and other communication data, and the resources that you use.
On occasions, we acquire information from other companies, to collect information about how visitors to our website use the site. Information is also collected about how you arrived at our websites in the first place, including what links or adverts you have viewed or clicked on to reach us, or any search terms you have used. We do this to maintain and improve our website, getting a better understanding of visitor and client profiles and ultimately delivering a better experience. Information may be collected through the use of cookies or pixels.
We have CCTV systems in some parts of our offices and on the outside of the buildings and personal data in form of images or CCTV footage may be recorded.
We operate CCTV in accordance with the ICO CCTV Code of Practice and are processing CCTV data in order to pursue our legitimate interests of:
CCTV is never used for any automated decision taking.
Signs are displayed notifying individuals that CCTV is in operation. Images captured by CCTV will not be kept for longer than is necessary and ordinarily, will not be retained for more than 30 days. However, on occasions, there may be a need to keep images for longer such as where a crime is being investigated.
We will only disclose images and audio to other authorised bodies such as the police or other law enforcement agencies for the purposes set out above.
We record some telephone calls with the exception of calls (or parts of those calls) where payment is taken. Your personal data may be collected as a result.
We record conversations for the following reasons:
Call recordings are destroyed in accordance with the retention information in this Notice. If the recording is available, you can submit a request a copy of your call by making a data subject access request to our DPO (as set out below).
We only use your data for the purposes of providing you with legal advice, assistance and where appropriate, representation and for reasons directly associated with those services (i.e. providing information to quality auditors; the Legal Aid Agency etc.).
In particular:
We also use data to communicate with our regulators or legislators and to obey laws, regulations and codes of conduct that apply to us.
For example, we will process your data to enable us to identify and/or verify your identity and conduct fraud, credit and anti-money laundering checks in accordance with anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing legislation and regulation.
We may use your data to notify you of our other services but only where we have your consent to do so.
We also use data to develop our business and services. In particular:
to respond to individual experiences shared with us and for editorial content
to enhance your online experience
to conduct research and surveys
to develop and manage our services including marketing of new or enhanced services
to research your views and experiences for research and editorial purposes, including through requests for feedback on our services
to understand your website journey, including what pages you have viewed and for how long
to administer and keep safe and secure our website and for internal operations, including data analysis, testing, statistical purposes.
A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site.
You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.
By law, we may not place cookies on your computer without your consent, unless they are strictly necessary to the operation of the service that we provide on the Website.
We use Google Analytics to monitor how our website is being used so we can make improvements. Our use of Google Analytics requires us to pass to Google your IP address (but no other information) – Google uses this information to prepare site usage reports for us, but Google may also share this information with other Google services. In particular, Google may use the data collected to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network. Related information:
How Google uses this information.
If you have any queries about the cookies that we use, or would like more information, please contact [insert firm email address].
We take protecting your data very seriously. The data you give us may be subject to Legal Professional Privilege and is often extremely sensitive and confidential.
With this in mind we will treat your data with the utmost care and take all appropriate steps to protect it. We have clear data protection and information security policies and procedures in place (along with Regulatory and other legal obligations to keep your data safe) and these are regularly assessed as part of our Quality Standards and compliance processes.
We protect our IT system from Cyber Attack. Access to your personal data is password-protected, and sensitive data is secured by encryption.
We regularly monitor our system for possible vulnerabilities and attacks, and we carry out penetration testing to identify ways to further strengthen security.
We only keep your data for as long as is necessary for the purpose(s) for which it was provided.
We use the following retention periods and review these periodically to make sure we are only keeping personal data and other data for as long as is needed:
For some data we may decide that it is proper and appropriate to keep data for longer than the above, but we will notify you if we believe that your case falls into this category or there is another reason your data has to be retained.
We sometimes share your personal data with trusted third parties. We only do this where it is necessary for providing you legal services or for the effective operation of our legal practice.
For example, we may share your data with barristers; experts; translators; costs draftsmen; process servers; secure file storage and destruction companies; auditors; the company that securely hosts our off-site cloud storage servers.
We apply a strict policy to those recipients or data processors to keep your data safe and protect your privacy. In particular:
We provide only the information they need to perform their specific services.
They may only use your data for the exact purposes we specify in our contract with them.
We work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected at all times.
If we stop using their services, any of your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous.
We may transfer personal data overseas. In particular, we use wordpress, and data storage facilities and so we may store, process and transmit data in locations outside the UK
Whenever we transfer any data out of the UK, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it and treated with the same security measures regardless of location, and in accordance with our internal processes and policies as well as regulatory and legal obligations. In particular, we ensure that at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:
You have the following rights under the UK GDPR:
For further details on your rights, please visit the Information Commissioner’s Office at https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/.
For information on how your information is used, how we maintain the security of our information, and to exercise your rights to access information we hold on you, please contact us. Similarly, if you believe that the information, we hold is wrong or out of date, please let us know and we will update it. The person in this firm responsible for data protection is Mr Akhtar Ahmad and enquires and requests can be sent to him by 0344 587 9996 or by emailing DPO@abvsolicitors.co.uk or in writing to Mr Akhtar Ahmad, ABV Solicitors 252-254 Blythe Road, Hayes, Middlesex, UB3 1AN
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this policy. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement or policy applicable to the website in question.
If you feel that your data has not been handled correctly, or you are unhappy with our response to any requests you have made to us regarding the use of your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
You can contact them by calling 0303 123 1113.
Or go online to www.ico.org.uk/concerns (opens in a new window; please note we can’t be responsible for the content of external websites).
We do not intend to process a client or related third party’s personal information for any reason other than stated within this privacy notice. If this changes, we will update this privacy notice on this webpage and in any documentation that we will send to you. However, internet and data privacy best practice and acceptable standards are developing. We therefore reserve the right to revise this Notice at any time. If this Notice changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this webpage. For all other clients with ongoing instructions, we will provide a copy directly. Continued instructions to us will signify that you agree to any such changes.
03445879996
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