Chambers Privacy Notice

Chambers Privacy Notice - General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”)

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The purpose of this privacy note is to explain to you the information collected, stored and otherwise processed about you and the reasons for the processing. It also tells you who Chambers shares this information with, the security mechanisms Chamber has put in place to protect your information and how to contact Chambers in the event you need further information.

Who are we?

Mortimer Court Chambers (“Chambers”) is a set of barristers’ chambers. Members of Chambers are barristers who provide legal and advocacy services as independent, self-employed barristers.

If you need to contact Chambers about your data or the processing carried out you can use the contact details at the end of this document.

What do we do with your information?

Information collected

Chambers collect some or all of the following personal information that you provide:

  • personal details
  • family details
  • lifestyle and social circumstances
  • goods and services
  • financial details
  • education, training and employment details
  • physical or mental health details
  • racial or ethnic origin
  • political opinions
  • religious, philosophical or other beliefs
  • trade union membership
  • sex life or sexual orientation
  • genetic data
  • biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person
  • criminal proceedings, outcomes and sentences, and related security measures
  • other personal data relevant to instructions to provide legal services, including data specific to the instructions in question.

Information collected from other sources.

The same categories of information may also be obtained from third parties, such as other legal professionals or experts, members of the public, your family and friends, witnesses, courts and other tribunals, investigators, government departments, regulators, public records and registers,

How Chambers may use your personal information: Purposes

Chambers may use your personal information for the following purposes:

  • to promote and market the services of the Barristers
  • to train barristers
  • to recruit staff and pupils
  • to assess applications for tenancy, pupillage, mini-pupillage and work shadowing opportunities
  • to fulfil equality and diversity and other regulatory requirements
  • to procedure goods and services
  • to manage matters relating to employment, including payroll
  • to respond to requests for references
  • to publish legal judgments and decision of courts and tribunals
  • to respond to potential complaints or make complaints
  • to carry out anti-money laundering and terrorist financing checks
  • as otherwise required or permitted by law

Marketing and Promotion

In relation to personal information collected for marketing purposes, the personal information consists of:

  • names, contact details, and name of organisation
  • the nature of your interest in Chambers’ marketing
  • your attendance at Chambers’ events.

This will be processed so that you can be provided with information about Chambers and its Barristers/Mediators/Arbitrators and to invite you to events.

You may contact Chambers using the contact details at the end of this document if you no longer wish to receive such invitations or information

Whether information has to be provided by you, and why

If you apply to Chambers for a position or are seeking a reference or are a member of staff your personal information has to be provided to Chambers, so that your application/reference can be properly assessed, your employment records, pay and pensions can be administered, and to enable Chambers to comply with its regulatory obligations, and to keep accounting records.

If you are offering or providing Chambers with goods or services your information may be processed in relation to such offers or contracts.

The legal basis for processing your personal information

Chambers relies on the following as the lawful bases to collect and use your personal information:

  • If you have consented to the processing of your personal information, then Chambers may process your information for the Purposes set out above to the extent to which you have consented to Chambers doing so.
  • In relation to information in categories (g) to (o) above (these being categories which are considered to be particularly sensitive information and include information about criminal convictions or proceedings), Chambers  is entitled by law to process the information where the processing is necessary for legal proceedings, legal advice, or otherwise for establishing, exercising or defending legal rights.
  • In relation to information which is not in categories (g) to (o) above, Chambers relies on its legitimate interest and/or the legitimate interests of a third party in carrying out the processing for the Purposes set out above.
  • In relation to information which is in categories (g) to (o) above (these being categories which are considered to include particularly sensitive information and which include information about criminal convictions or proceedings) Chambers relies on your consent for any processing for the purposes set out in purposes (i), (ii), (vi) and (viii) above. However, if you do not consent to processing for the purpose of providing a reference Chambers will be unable to take or provide a reference. This is because Chambers need to be able to retain all the information about you to provide an informed and complete reference.
  • The processing is necessary for the purposes of performing or exercising obligations or rights which are imposed or conferred by law on Chambers or you in connection with employment, social security or social protection.
  • The processing is necessary for the assessment of your working capacity or health or social care purposes
  • The processing of information in categories (g),(h)(j) and (i) is necessary for the purposes of identifying or keeping under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity or treatment between members of staff, tenants, pupils and mini-pupils with a view to enabling such equality to be promoted or maintained.
  • The processing is necessary to prevent or detect unlawful acts where it is in the substantial public interest and it must be carried out without consent so as not to prejudice those purposes.
  • In certain circumstances processing may be necessary in order that Chambers can comply with a legal obligation to which it is subject (including carrying out anti-money laundering or terrorist financing checks).

Who will Chambers share your personal information with?

It may be necessary to share your information with the following:

  • data processors, such as my Chambers staff, IT support staff, email providers, data storage providers
  • other legal professionals
  • experts and other witnesses
  • prosecution authorities
  • courts and tribunals
  • the staff in my chambers, including secretaries and paralegals
  • trainee barristers
  • lay and professional clients of Members of Chambers
  • family and associates of the person whose personal information Chambers is processing
  • in the event of complaints, the Head of Chambers, other members of Chambers who deal with complaints, the Bar Standards Board, and the Legal Ombudsman
  • other regulatory authorities
  • current, past or prospective employers
  • in the case of recruitment of barristers to or from other chambers, your current, past and prospective chambers
  • education and examining bodies
  • business associates, professional advisers and trade bodies, e.g. the Bar Council
  • the intended recipient, where you have asked Chambers to provide a reference
  • the general public in relation to the publication of legal judgments and decisions of courts and tribunals

Chambers may be required to provide your information to regulators, such as the Bar Standards Board, the Financial Conduct Authority or the Information Commissioner’s Office. In the case of the Information Commissioner’s Office, there is a risk that your information may lawfully be disclosed by them for the purpose of any other civil or criminal proceedings, without my consent or yours, which includes privileged information.

Chambers may also be required to disclose your information to the police or intelligence services, where required or permitted by law.

Sources of information

The personal information Chambers obtain may include information which has been obtained from:

  • other legal professionals
  • experts and other witnesses
  • prosecution authorities
  • courts and tribunals
  • trainee barristers
  • lay and professional clients of Members of Chambers
  • family and associates of the person whose personal information Chambers is  processing
  • in the event of complaints, the Head of Chambers, other members of Chambers who deal with complaints, the Bar Standards Board, and the Legal Ombudsman
  • other regulatory authorities
  • current, past or prospective employers
  • education and examining bodies
  • business associates, professional advisers and trade bodies, e.g. the Bar Council
  • the intended recipient, where you have asked Chambers to provide a reference.
  • the general public in relation to the publication of legal judgments and decisions of courts and tribunals
  • data processors, such as my Chambers staff, IT support staff, email providers, data storage providers
  • public sources, such as the press, public registers and law reports.

Transfer of your information outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

This privacy notice is of general application and as such it is not possible to state whether it will be necessary to transfer your information out of the EEA in any particular case or for a reference. However, if you reside outside the EEA or your case or the role for which you require a reference involves persons or organisations or courts and tribunals outside the EEA then it may be necessary to transfer some of your data to that country outside of the EEA for that purpose. If you are in a country outside the EEA or if the instructions you provide come from outside the EEA then it is inevitable that information will be transferred to those countries. If this applies to you and you wish additional precautions to be taken in respect of your information please indicate this when providing initial instructions.

Some countries and organisations outside the EEA have been assessed by the European Commission and their data protection laws and procedures found to show adequate protection. The list can be found here. Most do not. If your information has to be transferred outside the EEA, then it may not have the same protections and you may not have the same rights as you would within the EEA.

Chambers may transfer your personal information to the following which are located outside the European Economic Area (EEA):

  • cloud data storage services based in the USA who have agreed to comply with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, in order to enable me to store your data and/or backup copies of your data so that I may access your data when they need to. The USA does not have the same data protection laws as the EU but the EU-

U.S. Privacy Shield has been recognised by the European Commission as providing adequate protection. To obtain further details of that protection see https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/data-transfers-outside- eu/eu-us-privacy-shield_en.

  • cloud data storage services based in Switzerland, in order to enable me to store your data and/or backup copies of your data so that I may access your data when I need to. Switzerland does not have the same data protection laws as the EU but has been recognised by the European Commission as providing adequate protection; see https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data- protection/data-transfers-outside-eu/adequacy-protection-personal-data-non- eu-countries_en.

Chambers may decide to publish a judgment or other decision of a Court or Tribunal containing your information.

Chambers will not otherwise transfer personal information outside the EEA except as necessary for the conduct of any legal proceedings.

If you would like any further information please use the contact details at the end of this document.

How long will Chambers store your personal data?

Chambers will normally store all your information:

  • until at least 1 year after the expiry of any relevant limitation period, for example the date on which your employment terminates, the date of the last provision of service or goods, the date of the last payment made or received or the date on which all outstanding payments are written off (whichever is the latest). This is because it may be needed for potential legal proceedings. At this point any further retention will be reviewed and the data will be marked for deletion or marked for retention for a further period. The latter retention period is likely to occur only where the information is needed for legal proceedings, regulatory matters or active complaints. Deletion will be carried out (without further notice to you) as soon as reasonably practicable after the data is marked for deletion.
  • Equality and diversity data may be retained for 10 years in pseudonymised form for the purpose of research and statistics and complying with regulatory obligations in relation to the reporting of equality and diversity data.
  • Names and contact details held for marketing purposes will be stored indefinitely or until Chambers becomes aware or is informed that the individual has ceased to be a potential client.
  • Personal information held for recruitment purposes or in relation to pupillage or mini-pupillage will be stored as for at least 3 years so that it can be referred to by Chambers should the individual make a further application.

Consent

As explained above, Chambers relies on your explicit consent to process your information in categories (g) to (o) above. You provided this consent when you applied to become a member of staff, tenant, pupil or mini-pupil or when you asked Chambers to provide a reference.

You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time, but this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing activity carried out prior to you withdrawing your consent. However, where Chambers also relies on other bases for processing your information, you may not be able to prevent processing of your data.

If there is an issue with the processing of your information, please contact Chambers using the contact details below.

Your Rights

Under the GDPR, you have a number of rights that you can exercise in certain circumstances. These are free of charge. In summary, you may have the right to:

  • Ask for access to your personal information and other supplementary information;
  • Ask for correction of mistakes in your data or to complete missing information Chambers holds on you;
  • Ask for your personal information to be erased, in certain circumstances;
  • Receive a copy of the personal information you have provided or have this information sent to a third party. This will be provided to you or the third party in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, e.g. a Word file;
  • 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 my processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;

If you want more information about your rights under the GDPR please see the Guidance from the Information Commissioners Office on Individual’s rights under the GDPR.

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

  • Use the contact details at the end of this document;
  • Chambers may need to ask you to provide other information so that you can be identified;
  • Please provide a contact address so that you can be contacted to request further information to verify your identity;
  • Provide proof of your identity and address;
  • State the right or rights that you wish to exercise.

Chambers will respond to you within one month from when it receives your request.

Marketing Emails

Please note if you wish to unsubscribe from any marketing emails from Chambers, you can do so by emailing info@mortimercourt.com (subject line ‘unsubscribe’). It may take up to one weekfor this to become effective.

How to make a complaint?

The GDPR also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with the Information
Commissioners’ Office if you are in the UK, or with the supervisory authority of the Member State where you work, normally live or where the alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The Information Commissioner’s Office can be contacted at http://ico.org.uk/concerns/.

Future Processing

Chambers does not intend to process your personal information except for the reasons stated within this privacy notice. If this changes, this privacy notice will be amended.

Changes to this privacy notice

This privacy notice was published on 25th October 2019 and last updated on 26th October 2019.

Chambers continually review its privacy practices and may change this policy from time to time. When it does, an amended privacy note will be placed on the Chambers’ website.

Contact Details

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information Chambers holds about you, please contact the Senior Clerk  using the contact details below.

Mortimer Court Chambers
33 Broadwick Street
London
W1F 0DQ

Email address: info@mortimercourt.com.