Privacy Policy Introduction

Bank House Chambers (‘Chambers’) is a set of barristers’ chambers. Members of chambers (‘Members) are barristers who provide legal and advocacy services as independent self-employed barristers. Those barristers are registered and regulated by the Bar Standards Board.

The General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) gives you rights in relation to the personal information about yourself that you provide to Bank House Chambers and its members. That information is called “personal data” under GDPR. Any use that we make of that personal data is covered by this Privacy Policy. It is in this Privacy Policy that we shall explain in more detail what rights you have in relation to the personal information that you provide to us.

This policy applies to all members, staff (including managers), consultants and any third party to whom this policy has been communicated. This policy sets out the basis upon which any personal data Chambers collect from you, which you provide to us, will be processed. Please read the following carefully to understand our practice when processing personal data and how we will treat it. It is important that you read this Privacy Policy together with any other Privacy Policy or fair processing notice we or one of our members may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This Privacy Policy supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.


Controller

When Chambers collects, use and is responsible for personal information about you it will be the controller of that information for the purposes of GDPR. Chambers may also process personal information on behalf of its Members. When Chambers does this, it is a processor for the purpose of GDPR and the Member is the data controller.

Members have appointed a Data Privacy Manager, who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this Privacy Policy. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the Data Privacy Manager using the details set out below.

Full name of legal entity: Bank House Chambers

Name or title of data privacy manager: Wayne Digby

Email address: W.Digby@bankhousechambers.co.uk

Postal address: Old Bank House, 3 Hartshead, Sheffield, S1 2EL

Telephone number: 0114 2751223

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner, the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). They can be contacted by calling 0303 123 1113. We would, however, like to have the chance to deal with any issues you may have before you contact the ICO—so please do get in touch with us with any queries you may have.


Changes to the Privacy Policy and your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.


Future Processing

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


Changes to this privacy notice

This privacy notice was published on 23rd May 2018.

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


Third-party links

Chambers’ website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.


The data we collect about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, title, date of birth and gender.
  • Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
  • Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
  • Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
  • Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
  • Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, products and services.
  • Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We sometimes collect Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). In the course of providing legal services members of Chambers’ may collect information about criminal convictions and offences.


CCTV

We have installed CCTV systems in our premises used by members of the public, for the purposes of public and staff safety and crime prevention and detection. CCTV is also installed on the outside of our building for the purposes of monitoring building security and crime prevention and detection.

Signs are displayed notifying you that CCTV is in operation and providing details of who to contact for further information about the scheme.

Images captured by CCTV will not be kept for longer than necessary. However, on occasions there may be a need to keep images for longer, for example where a crime is being investigated.

You have the right to see CCTV images of yourself and be provided with a copy of the images.

We will only disclose images and audio to other authorised bodies who intend to use it for the purposes stated above. Images and audio will not be released to the media for entertainment purposes or placed on the internet for public viewing.

We operate CCTV and disclose in accordance with the codes of practice issued by the Information Commissioner and the Home Office.


If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract or agreement we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract or agreement we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with legal services). In this case, we may have to cancel the service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.


How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

  • Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise.
  • Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. Chambers also uses Google analytics: Google utilises the data collected to track and examine the use of www.bankhousechambers.co.uk, to prepare reports on its activities and share them with other Google services. Google may use the data collected to contextualise and personalise the ads of its own advertising network.

The lawful basis for processing your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we may rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

  • where you have given consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more specific purposes;
  • where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you;
  • where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. Legitimate interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data 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). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by Contacting Us; and/or
  • Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation. This means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation to which we are subject.

When we process Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data), we may rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

  • we have the explicit consent from you to process your data for one or more specific purposes;
  • the processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights in the field of employment and social security and social protection law insofar as it is authorised by law;
  • the processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of the data subject or another person;
  • the processing relates to personal data that has already been made public by you; and/or
  • the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or whenever courts are acting in their judicial capacity.

On occasion, processing data related to criminal offences maybe necessary for:

  • The purpose of, or in connection with, any legal proceedings;
  • The purpose of obtaining legal advice; or
  • The purposes of establishing, exercising or defending legal rights
  • Where we have your explicit consent to do so.

The purposes of our processing your personal data

The reason why we may need to process your personal data, and the purpose for us doing so could be for any of the following reasons:

  • because you have applied for a job advertised by Chambers;
  • because you have applied to become a member of Chambers;
  • because you have applied for a pupillage/mini pupillage with Bank House Chambers;
  • because you wish to make a complaint;
  • because you wish to enquire about the services our members may be able to provide;
  • because you are instructing a member of Chambers and have been asked to provide, or you wish to provide, certain personal data so that it can be considered in the course of the member providing legal services to you/acting as arbitrator, expert determiner, early neutral evaluator or mediator;
  • because you are providing payment to one of our members whom you have instructed;
  • because you are currently instructing one of our members and need to contact them;
  • because you have an enquiry about Chambers’ marketing events and you have provided your personal data as part of your enquiry;
  • to make statutory returns as required or communicate with regulators;
  • because you wish to sign-up and/or pay to attend one of Chambers’ marketing events/seminars etc;
  • to assist in practice management and administration including debt recovery, employment matters, and where relevant to conduct anti money laundering, terrorist financing or conflict of interest checks
  • Assist in any other applications for the purpose of professional development or career progression including tendering or panel membership applications;
  • Communicate legal updates and judgments to other legal professionals
  • Communicate with regulators/law enforcement
  • because you have a general enquiry about the conference facilities chambers’ provides;
  • because it is otherwise required or permitted by law.

If you have any further questions about theses purposes, or the legal basis upon which we process your data, please contact Chambers’ Data Protection Officer using the details above.


Change of purpose

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. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please Contact Us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.


Disclosures of your personal data

We may have to share your personal data with the following categories of people—

  • the Clerks and other members of staff who are employed by Bank House Chambers;
  • courts or other tribunals to whom documents are presented;
  • other parties and their legal representatives in any proceedings to which the agreement relates;
  • potential witnesses, in particular experts;
  • ombudsmen and regulatory authorities;
  • current, past or prospective employers;
  • education and examining bodies;
  • business associates, professional advisers and trade bodies;
  • other people with whom you give us your explicit consent on a case by case basis for us to share your personal data with, such as friends or family;
  • the email provider that we use to communicate with you;
  • In the event of a complaint, the Head of Chambers, other members who deal with complaints, arbitrators, the Bar standards Board, ICO and/or Legal Ombusdman.
  • The general public in relation to the publication of legal judgments and decisions of courts and tribunals.
  • members, including trainees called pupils or mini-pupils from time to time who assist them with their practice and with whom they may share your personal data. The pupils and mini-pupils are bound by written confidentiality obligations not to disclose any material about cases that a member may share with them;
  • an individual member may use other software and programmes from time to time to process your personal data—they will inform you if this is the case.
  • Legal directories, for the purpose of professional development;
  • Any relevant panel or tendering committee, for the purpose of professional development;

Bank House Chambers has an agreement with an IT provider which manages Chambers’ IT services, including email, and provides Chambers with secure servers to process and store the personal data that you provide to us. Chambers also uses software which allows Clerks and Staff to manage members’ diaries, store information relating to cases, and coordinate billing. Your personal data will also be stored on this system.

Under no circumstances will search terms entered by users, or search reports generated by users, be disclosed to any third party except where disclosure is required by law or is necessary for the performance of a search. Where terms are supplied to third parties (e.g. Google) to enable the performance of a search, they are not accompanied by any information which would enable that third party to identify the user/organisation who/which has submitted them to.

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

We 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. We may also be required to disclose your information to the Police or Intelligence services where required by law or pursuant to a court order.


International transfers

Personal data that we collect from you when you access the Bank House Chambers website, apply for a position within Chambers (including pupillage/mini-pupillage), enquire about our services/facilities or complain about any services provided to you, is not transferred outside the United Kingdom.

Personal data which you provide to us in the course of using our other services may be transferred outside of the UK to third countries (including all EEA states); for example, when instructing one of our members. Any such transfer of your personal data outside of the UK will be governed by the agreement we have in place with you to provide you with legal services (or any other services) and will comply with the relevant provisions of the UK GDPR.


Data Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.  Chambers can be contacted for a copy of it’s data protection policy.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.


Data retention—how long will you use my personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it, 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 personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see below for further information on the “right to erasure”.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.


Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”) This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
  • Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for our continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request to erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes (You may opt out of receiving emails and other messages from my practice by following the instructions in those messages). In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
  • Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (1) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (2) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (3) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (4) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right 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 at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, 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 certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please Contact Us by using the details provided above.

For more information about your rights in relation to the way in which we process your personal data, please see the following link:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/

No fee usually required

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


What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.


Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.


GDPR Joint Controller Responsibilities

Individual members of Bank House Chambers recognise their role as a joint data controller within the meaning of Art. 26 of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) when accepting instructions from solicitors (who are also data controllers).

Joint controllers are required to come to a transparent arrangement which determines each of their responsibilities for complying with the GDPR. Such an arrangement must in particular:

  1. Cover responsibilities for assisting data subjects to exercise their rights under the GDPR.
  2. Outline the joint controllers’ respective duties to provide information in the form of Privacy Policies under Arts. 13 and 14 of the GDPR.

In the absence of an alternative arrangement to the contrary, the following principles represent the way in which Bank House Chambers barristers will—in the course of their instructions—fulfil their responsibilities as joint controllers under Art. 26 of the GDPR, alongside instructing solicitors.

Chambers as a whole and individual Bank House Chambers barristers have taken into account the nature of the processing normally undertaken by them and have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to comply with their obligations under the GDPR. They are in particular ready to assist instructing solicitors, insofar as this is possible, to respond to requests for exercising data subject’s rights laid down in the GDPR.

Instructing solicitors will also take into account the nature of the processing normally undertaken and implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to comply with their obligations under the GDPR. They will, in particular assist Chambers and Bank House Chambers barristers, insofar as this is possible, to respond to requests for exercising data subject’s rights laid down in the GDPR.

Chambers has as a whole ratified and published this Privacy Policy to comply with Art. 13 of the GDPR on its website. This Privacy Policy is shared with instructing solicitors at the outset of any instructions.

It is the instructing solicitor’s responsibility to read this Privacy Policy and share it with their clients.

Where personal data has not been obtained from the relevant data subject it is the instructing solicitor’s responsibility to ensure that the relevant information, as required by Art. 14 of the GDPR, is provided to the data subject.

Anyone who has any questions about the arrangements outlined above should not hesitate to get in touch with Chambers’ Data Protection Manager (Wayne Digby) by email.