At CA Legal Advice Services (CLAS) we are committed to protecting your personal data and respecting your privacy at all times. We will explain why we need your information and treat it as confidential.

The data we collect

We will need to obtain your personal information to enable us to deliver our services to you. That may include information in relation to the following:

Your name and date of birth

Your address, email address and telephone number(s)

Information to enable us to verify and confirm your details. E.g. Birth certificate or passport details, proof of address/residency

Your communication preferences from us and our third parties

Any additional information that we may require to provide and deliver a service to you

We collect most of this information from you in direct communication via face-to-face interviews, over the telephone or by email

However, we may also collect information from:

• Publicly accessible sources
• Via a third party with your consent

How we use your data

The law requires that we have a legal basis to use and store your information. Most commonly, we will use your data:

• Where we need to perform the contract, we are about to enter or have entered into with you
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. We ensure that we balance any potential impact on you and your rights before we process your information for our legitimate interests. We do not use your information for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you. (Unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law)
• When we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
• Where we use information relating to a child under 13 years of age, we will require the consent of the child’s parent or guardian

Purposes for using your personal information

We may use your personal information to inform you of any of our services that may be of interest to you. 

We will not share your information with any third party without obtaining your express permission to do so.

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.

Disclosures of your personal data

We may have to share your information with third parties such as:

• Professional advisers who we instruct on your behalf or refer you to e.g. barristers, medical professionals, tax advisors or other experts
• Other third parties where necessary to carry out your instructions e.g. your mortgage provider or Companies House
• Credit reference agencies
• The Legal Aid Agency, in cases where you are eligible for public funding (Legal Aid)
• Our banks
• In litigation matters, courts and others arising out of court orders, rules or procedures

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal information and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow third-party service providers to use your information for their own purposes and only permit them to use your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instruction.

Data security and retention

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees and third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have robust procedures in place to deal with any suspected data breach. We will notify you and the applicable regulatory bodies of any suspected data breach where we are legally required to do so.

We will only retain your data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your information, the purposes for which we process your information and whether we can achieve those purposes via other means, and the applicable legal requirement. 

Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under the data protection legislation in relation to your personal information, including the right to:

Request access to your personal data: Commonly known as a subject access request (SAR). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to establish that we are lawfully processing it.

Request a correction to your personal data: This enables you to have any inaccurate or incorrect data we hold about you corrected.

Object to processing of your personal data: at any time your personal data being processed for direct marketing or where we are relying on a legitimate interest and you feel it impacts your fundamental rights and freedoms.  In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your data which override your rights and freedoms.

Request erasure of your personal data: This enables you to ask us to remove or delete any personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to use it. Please note however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons. We will notify you, if this is appliable at the time of your request.

Request restriction of processing your personal data: this enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data.

Request transfer of your personal data: note that this only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent: Where we are relying on your consent to process your personal data. Please note, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent we may not be able to provide our services to you. 

If you wish to exercise any of the rights detailed above, please: 

• email us at compliance@calegaladvice.co.uk
• provide enough information to identify you (e.g. provide your full name, address and client or matter reference number
• provide us with proof of your identity and address (e.g. a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill); and
• inform us of which right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (Submit a SAR) or to exercise any of the other rights. However, we may charge a reasonable fee is clearly repetitive, unfounded or excessive.  Alternatively we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

We will try and respond to all requests within one calendar month from the date of the request.    If we believe the request is going to take longer than the one calendar month, we will notify you at the earliest opportunity and keep you updated.

Complaints

In the first instance, if you have a complaint in relation to your personal data, we would like the opportunity to address your concerns. Please contact us at:

complaints@calegaladvice.co.uk

If you remain dissatisfied with our response you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO is the UK supervisory body for all data protection issues. The ICO can be contacted at www.ico.org.uk  or via the ICO Telephone Helpline: Tel No: 0303 1231113. They can also be contacted at the address below:

Information Commissioners Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5A