About Us
We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.
Our Privacy Policy
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). We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint. Unless otherwise indicated, references in this Data and Privacy Notice to the GDPR refer to the UK GDPR.
We know that there is 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.
Key terms
It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this policy:
We, us, our | These expressions refer through the document to Johnson Astills |
Our Information Compliance Manager | Our Information Compliance Manager is Emma Mitchell who can be contacted at our Leicester office or by email legal@johnsonastills.com |
Personal data | Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual |
Special category personal data | Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership
Genetic and biometric data
Data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation |
Personal data we collect about you
The table below sets out the personal data we will or may collect in the course of advising and/or acting for you.
Personal data we will collect | Personal data we may collect depending on why you have instructed us |
Your name, address and telephone number
Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, e.g. your date of birth or passport details (including keeping a copy)
Electronic contact details, e.g. your email address and mobile phone number
Information relating to the matter in which you are seeking our advice or representation
Information to enable us to undertake a credit or other financial checks on you
Your financial details, including bank derials, so far as relevant to your instructions, e.g. the source of your funds if you are instructing on a purchase transaction | Your National Insurance and tax details
Your bank and/or building society details
Details of your spouse/partner and dependants or other family members, e.g. if you instruct us on a family matter or a will
Your employment status and details including salary and benefits, e.g. if you instruct us on a matter in which your employment status or income is relevant such as determining eligibility for funding or exemptions from payment of fees
Your nationality and immigration status and information from related documents, such as your passport or other identification, and immigration information, if you instruct us on a matter to which this is relevant
Details of your pension arrangements, e.g. if you instruct us in relation to financial arrangements following breakdown of a relationship
Your employment records including, where relevant, records relating to sickness and attendance, performance, disciplinary, conduct and grievances (including relevant special category personal data), e.g. if you instruct us on a matter in which your employment records are relevant
Your racial or ethnic origin, gender and sexual orientation, religious or similar beliefs, e.g. for Legal Aid Application data
Your trade union membership, e.g. if you instruct us on a matter funded by a trade union
Personal identifying information, such as your hair or eye colour or your parents’ names, e.g. hair strand testing for forensic reports
Your medical records, e.g. if we are acting for you in a matter where they are required.
Your social services records, e.g. if you instruct us in relation to a family matter
Police records e.g. in relation to Criminal matters/convictions. 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.
Financial details relevant to completion of tax returns and other documents, e.g. in trust matters. |
This personal data is required to enable us to provide our service to you. If you do not provide personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.
How your personal data is collected
You voluntarily give us your personal information for instance when:
You may give us your data by email; through an online web form; over the telephone; face to face; or by post.
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.
However, we may also collect information:
How and why we use your personal data
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.
Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason for doing so, e.g.:
A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.
The table below explains what we use (process) your personal data for and our reasons for doing so:
What we use your personal data for | Our reasons |
To provide legal services to you | For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract |
Conducting checks to identify our clients and verify their identity
Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes
Other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety regulation or rules issued by our professional regulator | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
Ensuring business policies are adhered to, e.g. policies covering security and internet use | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you |
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price |
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to protect our intellectual property and other commercially valuable information
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
Statistical analysis to help us manage our practice, e.g. in relation to our financial performance, client base, work type or other efficiency measures | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price |
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
Updating and enhancing client records | For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our clients about existing and new services |
Statutory returns | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you |
Credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies | For our legitimate interests or a those of a third party, i.e. for credit control and to ensure our clients are likely to be able to pay for our services |
External audits and quality checks, e.g. for Lexcel, CQS or other accreditations and the audit of our accounts | For our legitimate interests or a those of a third party, i.e. to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
The above table does not apply to special category personal data, which we will only process with your explicit consent.
We may use your data to notify you of our other services but only where we have your express consent to do so.
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 Privacy Notice.
If the firm processes special category data then an appropriate notice will be needed – this may be on a client by client basis
Regulatory
We also use data to communicate with our regulators or legislators and to obey laws, regulations and codes of conduct that apply to us.
Website enhancement and business development
We also use data to develop our business and services. In particular:
We routinely share personal data with:
Who we share your personal data with
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 provide only the information they need to perform their specific services. We only allow our service providers to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.
If we stop using their services, any of your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous.
We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
We may also need to share some personal data with other parties, say if there were potential buyers of some or all of our business or during a merger or re-structuring. Usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
We will not share your personal data with any other third party.
Where your personal data is processed
Your data is stored and processed within the United Kingdom (UK). If we ever have to share your personal data with third parties and suppliers outside the UK we will seek your specific consent to do so.
Where typically data is may be transferred outside the UK
We may transfer personal data overseas. In particular, where a client matter involves obtaining legal or other professional advice from another country, our firm may need to transfer details about the client matter, including personal data, to a third party in that country.
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:
How long your personal data will be kept
We only keep your data for as long as is necessary for the purpose(s) for which it was provided. We will keep your personal data after we have finished advising or acting for you. We will do so for one of these reasons:
This also protects you should you be unhappy with our services and want to complain or even contact us after your case ends.
We will not retain your data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. Normally this is for six years after your case or matter ends – we will notify you if we believe that it is necessary for your data to be retained for longer than six years. Different retention periods apply for different types of data (for instance, the information is required for another or related case or matter or where the person is currently under the age of eighteen, in which case data will need to be held for six years after they reach the age of eighteen).
Any complaints files for six years after the complaint is concluded (with the associated matter file(s).
Data obtained for compliance with crime or fraud prevention has to be retained by us to meet our legal or regulatory obligations for five years from the close of the individual matter or the end of our business relationship with a relevant person, whichever is later.
Financial information and any financial transactions will be kept for a period of 7 years to comply with HMRC requirements except for cardholder data which will generally be destroyed immediately after the transaction is processed.
Enquiries where we do not take on your case are kept for only 90 days.
Further details on this are available in our Client Care Guide. When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal data, we will delete or anonymise it.
Your rights
You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:
| To be informed | The provision of clear and concise information about what we do with your personal data, as outlined within this Privacy Notice |
Access | The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data to understand how and why we are using your data, and to check we are doing so lawfully – commonly referred to as a ‘data subject access request’ – this is free of charge in most cases. If we choose not to action your request, we will explain to you the reasons for our refusal. |
Rectification | The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data or, in specific circumstances dependent on the purposes for our processing of your data, the ability to have incomplete personal data completed |
To be forgotten | The right to require us to delete your personal data — in certain situations, for instance, if the information is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected This only applies to data we hold at the time your request is received and does not apply to any data that may be obtained in the future Please note that this is not an absolute right and only applies in certain circumstances. We may have overriding duties to retain some data which you cannot ask to be erased immediately or at all. For instance, once you become a client of our firm or you are an interested party in a case, we will be required by our regulators and for legal purposes to retain some of your personal data and other information within casefiles for a certain period |
Restriction of processing | The right to require us temporarily to restrict processing of your personal data — in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data The right to require us to stop or restrict any consent-based processing of your personal data after you have withdrawn consent, or object and we have no legitimate overriding interest, or once the purpose for which we hold the data has come to an end In cases where we are processing your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you can ask us to stop for reasons connected to your individual situation. We must then do so unless we believe we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue processing your personal data |
Data portability | The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party — in certain situations |
To object | The right to object:
This request may relate to all of your personal data we hold or only certain information |
Not to be subject to automated individual decision-making | The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you. It is unlikely that our firm will use automated decision making and profiling |
To withdraw consent | The right to change your mind at any time and withdraw consent that was previously given for us to use your personal data |
For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the UK GDPR.
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:
For further details on your rights, please visit the Information Commissioner’s Office at https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/.
Keeping your personal data secure
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 appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully (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 limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
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.
Cyber Essentials is a Government backed scheme which helps organisations protect themselves against common online threats through a set of basic technical controls. Cyber Essentials ensures the Firm has sufficient security controls in place. With the assistance of the Firm’s external IT support, the Firm have been successfully awarded with the accreditation. The Firm’s Cyber Essentials certificate number bf0fcf46-cec0-454f-a11b-84b2cb446ab1 can be viewed on https://www.cyberessentials.ncsc.gov.uk.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.
Website or third party sources
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.
CCTV
We have installed CCTV systems in some of our offices 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.
In all locations, 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.
Telephone call recording
We do not record any incoming or outgoing telephone calls.
Questions or Complaints
We hope that our Information Compliance Manager can resolve any query or concern you may raise about our use of your information. However, legal rights regarding privacy are the remit of the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) and you will find more information about how to complain here: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ (opens in a new window; please note we can't be responsible for the content of external websites). You can also contact them by calling 0303 123 1113.
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