Your data is valuable!
Who’s using it?
We are Family First Solicitors Limited (registered office 5 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HA) and we are the “data controller” for the purposes of processing your data. You can contact us on 01865 311 112 and the best person to talk to is Ursula Rice. Ursula is the person who is in charge of data protection in our firm.
Where does it go?
We have an audit of our data every year and we “map” it on a spreadsheet. You can have a copy if you want one. However, the short answer is lots of it goes into our online, cloud based system, which is called SOS Virtual practices. This is where we store our details about you and your letters or documents and other legal work. Other places we ask to hold your data for you include on our password protected hard drives, our chosen barristers or other software systems. All the people who processed your data for us have confirmed to us that they also comply with GDPR or are in the process of doing so.
What are my rights?
The GDPR provides the following rights for individuals:
- The right to be informed. We have to tell you what we do with your data, hence this notice!
- The right of access. You are allowed access to your data – just ask.
- The right to rectification. We need to make sure it is right.
- The right to erasure. Tricky. We erase what we can but we cannot forget you completely, see below
- The right to restrict processing. You can ask us to handle your data in a very selective way.
- The right to data portability. We can transfer your data somewhere if you wish.
- The right to object. You can object (it will mess up us acting for you though)
- Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling. We don’t do this. No Robot lawyers here!
We made a decision when the GDPR legislation came in that there are two lawful bases for processing your data.
1. Performance of a contract:
By coming to see us on a first appointment we assume you wish to enter a contract that, for £120, you would like us to take your personal circumstances and give you legal advice about them. We think that this is a very simple contract and to perform it, we need to take some very personal information from you.
2. Compliance with a legal obligation:
We have to advise you in accordance with our regulatory rules (which are based in law). For this reason and, especially considering our sensitive work around your family, we can’t do that without knowing and recording private personal things about you. This obviously includes things you tell nobody else. Our duties include confidentiality to you, acting in your best interests and our advice is legally privileged. That means no one else can make us tell them what you told us.
Why do we process data?
Aside from the obvious answer (“so we can give you legal advice”) we are heavily regulated by the Solicitor Regulation Authority. One of the things we do, to protect you, is that we NEVER act for the other side (your husband/wife/ex-girlfriend /boyfriend). To NEVER act for the other side, we need to keep your name and basic details in our system FOREVER.
This is so we can screen out accidentally acting against you by becoming their lawyer. This is a very important legal duty we have towards you. We usually destroy lots of your data after 6 years have passed from the closing of your case, but we always keep the most basic details in our system.
What about super-duper private “don’t let anyone find out now or ever” type data?
Often, people tell us relevant things about say, their sexual orientation, a criminal offence they have or their state of health. If you tell us this kind of data, then we need to write it down in order to do our job properly. So our position is that we rely on the reasons above to process this kind of data as well.
What about marketing?
When you fill in a form or make an enquiry on our website, your name and email address is added to our email mailing list (which is stored safely online). That was made clear when you signed up. From time to time we’ll send you emails informing you of things we think you’ll find useful. Each email you receive will have a clear “Amend My Details” link and an “Unsubscribe” link, so you always have full control over the details we keep and can stop receiving email from us at any time.
We can’t sell your data to people or we get struck off, so your data is never going to go to some ghastly PPI company.