No.8 Chambers Privacy Policy

1. We are No.8 Chambers, Fountain Court, Birmingham B4 6DR. We are registered on the Information Commissioner's Office Register of Data Controllers under registration number ZA074755, and act as a data controller. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you.

2. The purpose of this policy is to explain your rights and our obligations in relation to data processing and personal information, and how we ensure your privacy is protected. It is also to comply with our legal obligations under the Data Protection Act and Regulation (EU) 2016/679, which is referred to as the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’).

3. We may ask you to provide personal information when you provide us with instructions or sign up to receive any marketing communications from us, including registering for events (such as seminars run by Chambers). We will not collect personal details from you without your knowledge and consent. The information you provide to us may be used to contact you through post or email.

4. Chambers collects a variety of personal information, including:

• Personal details (such as your name, address and telephone number), social circumstances;
• Data that is referred to, under Article 9 of the GDPR, as “special category” data (in other words, data on a person’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data, health, sex life or sexual orientation);
• Official documents, as and when required, such as passports, identity cards, official decisions by government bodies relating to your case (such as, for example, home office decision letters);
• Bank details;
• Computer details, such as IP addresses;
• Criminal records, including convictions; and
• Other personal information required for our provision of legal services, including personal data that is specific to the individual case concerned.

5. The same types of data may also be obtained from third parties, such as courts and tribunals, other members of Chambers, individuals involved with your case (such as your solicitor or experts), government departments and regulators.

6. Additionally, our website uses cookies which are small text files which are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. The table below explains the cookies we use and why.

7. In using the No.8 Chambers website, you are consenting to the use of cookies. You are of course able to change your cookie settings within your browser at any time. If you do not know what cookies are, or how to control or delete them, we recommend you visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org for guidance. To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

8. No.8 Chambers website may occasionally link to other sites which we deem relevant to our users. We are not responsible for the accuracy or reliability of the content on third party websites, nor do we necessarily endorse the sites and their content.

9. We take your privacy, and the need to protect it, very seriously. We will never, unless required to do so by law, disclose, share or sell your personal information without your explicit consent. We will process the personal information about you that we collect, store and use for the following purposes:

• to enable us to comply with our contractual, legal and regulatory obligations;
• in the case of data that is not special category data under Article 9 of the GDPR, to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided that your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests;
• to allow us to provide legal services to you;
• to carry out identity verification checks (for example, in direct access cases);
• to update and enhance our client records; and
• to send you publications, event information and marketing communications.

10. We will only use your personal information for the purpose(s) for which it was originally collected, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use this data for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose(s). If we need to use your personal information for a different purpose we will notify you and explain the legal basis which allows us to use the data for that alternative purpose.

11. You are not obliged, in any way, to provide your personal information to us. However, given that this information is required for us to provide you with our services, or to fulfil our legal obligations, we will not be able to provide you with our services without this information.

12. The personal information we obtain may be disclosed to our employees, members of chambers, or agents, only in so far as it is reasonable to do so and for the purposes of this policy. In addition, we may disclose your personal information:

• If we are required to do so by law;
• If such disclosure is, of course, in connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings (for example, courts and tribunals in which your case might be heard), and such disclosure is reasonably required;
• In order to establish our legal rights, or to exercise or defend those rights.

13. Except as provided in this privacy policy, we will not provide your personal information to third parties.

14. We will take all reasonable, and proportionate, organisational and technical measures to prevent the misuse, loss or alteration of your personal information.

15. We will only retain your personal information for as long as is necessary, and to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it (including for the purposes of satisfying any legal or regulatory obligations to which we are subject). Various retention periods can apply for different categories of case depending upon the law and issues involved. We will retain you data taking into account:

• the nature of the data, including its sensitivity;
• any appropriate legal requirements, including regulatory obligations and limitation periods (for example, relating to professional negligence claims);
• the risk of retaining the data – including from potential unauthorised use or disclosure; and
• whether there are any other means of fulfilling our legal and regulatory obligations which do not involve unnecessary processing of your data.

16. Where you have consented to us using your details for direct marketing, we will keep such data until you notify us otherwise, or you withdraw your consent.

17. Chambers will not process your data outside of the EEA unless such processing is in compliance with the GDPR, for example, that there is specific consent from you, and the processing is subject to an agreement specifically approved by the EU Commission, such as the EU-US Privacy Shield. Chambers is currently reviewing its policy on instructions received from locations outside of the EEA, and we will update this section in due course.

18. By law you have the following rights.

• You can be informed of:
a) the personal information we hold about you;
b) the purposes of the processing;
c) the categories of personal information concerned;
d) the recipients to whom the personal information has, or will, be disclosed;
e) how long we intend to store your personal information for;
f) if we did not collect the information directly from you, details about the source.

• You can request access to your personal information (generally referred to as “data subject access request”). This will enable you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• You can request correction of any of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables, for example, correction of any inaccurate or incomplete information.
• You can request erasure of your personal information. In other words, you can ask us to delete personal information (including all of your data), provided that there is no good reason for us continuing to process that data (such as a legal obligation under which we are bound).
• You can object to the processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest, and there is something about the specific situation which makes you want to object to processing on this basis. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
• You can request the restriction of processing of your personal information. In other words, you can ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
• You can request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
• You can complain to us, or to a supervisory authority.

19. If you would like to request to access the personal information we hold about you, or to exercise any of your rights under this policy, we will not charge you a fee for so doing. However, if your request is excessive or clearly unfounded then we may charge a reasonable fee, or simply refuse to comply with that request. If we receive a request from you then we may need to require you to verify your identity before acting on the request (to ensure that your data is protected and kept secure). If you wish to exercise any of your rights as a data subject please do not hesitate to contact Chambers’ Clerks (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

20. We reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy at any point in time. Should such revisions take place an updated policy will be uploaded to our website.

21. Any legal issues arising out of, or in connection with, this policy are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales. The applicable law is also, exclusively, that of the law of England and Wales.

22. Copyright of all information published on our website, including photographs and images, belongs to No.8 Chambers.