“Introduction
Please read the following information carefully.
This Privacy Notice contains information about what data I collect and store about you and why. It also tells you with whom I share this information, how to contact me if you have a complaint, and how I retain your information.
I am a “data controller” for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other applicable data protection laws. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Your privacy
I am committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. When we conduct business together, I will collect personal information about you. I use that personal information in accordance with the law, particularly with regards to data protection and privacy law including the General Data Protection Regulation.
I take your security very seriously and I have security measures in place to ensure appropriate security for your personal data. Only authorised Nexus Chambers staff and third parties processing data on my behalf have access to your personal data, and then only to the data necessary for the purposes for which they have been given access.
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;
Ask for correction of mistakes in your data or to complete missing information held about you;
Ask for your personal information to be erased, in certain circumstances;
Receive a copy of the personal information you have provided to us, 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 the processing of your personal information for direct marketing;
Object in certain other situations to the continued processing of your personal information;
Restrict processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;
Request not to be the subject to automated decision-making which produces legal effects that concern you or affects you in a significant way.
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.
What information does Andrew collect from you?
In the course of my business, which is the provision of legal services, I process personal data of many different types which may include:
Your personal details;
Your family details;
Your lifestyle and social circumstances;
Your financial details;
Your education, training, and employment details;
Your physical or mental health details*;
Your racial or ethnic origin*;
Your political opinions*;
Your religious, philosophical, or other beliefs*;
Trade union membership details*;
Sex life or sexual orientation*;
Criminal proceedings, outcomes and sentences, and related security measures*; and/or,
Other personal data relevant to instructions to provide legal services, including data specific to the instructions in question*.
*This is an example of a type of “special category” or a sensitive class of personal data.
How does Andrew obtain my information?
The vast majority of the personal data that I collect is provided to me by or on behalf of my clients to provide legal services to them and/or to consider whether I am in a position to provide legal services to them.
Whose Personal Data does Andrew Process?
I process personal data about my lay and professional clients, potential clients, and individuals who feature in the matters in respect of which I am asked to provide legal services (including but not limited to: witnesses and experts, legal professionals representing other parties, other barristers with whom I am working, court staff and members of the judiciary, and other ancillary to actual or potential proceedings).
Why does Andrew need my information?
(These are the legal bases for Andrew processing your personal information)
In order to perform and fulfil my contractual duties to you or to take steps to enter into a contract with you;
For my legitimate business purposes which include but are not limited to:
Providing you with legal services including advice and representation services to you as my client;
Dealing with complaints or concerns;
Dealing with legal or regulatory action;
For my accounting and banking purposes;
For administration purposes;
For carrying out billing and fee collection including those which are carried out on my behalf by Nexus Chambers staff;
To assess and improve my services;
Where you are not my client, in order to provide legal services, including advice and representation services to the client from whom or on whose behalf I have collected your data;
For marketing purposes. I will not share information from which you can be identified unless you have consented to me doing so or unless it is already in the public domain.
For Compliance purposes so that I can comply with applicable laws such as for tax purposes or to comply with my professional and regulatory obligations.
Occasionally I will carry out data processing that is necessary for the administration of justice and is in the public interest.
I may also process your personal data with your consent. If this relates to an item marked with * above, I will ensure that I have obtained your explicit consent to process this information. You will have provided this consent when you agreed that I would provide you with legal services.
Please note you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time, but this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing activity that I have carried out prior to you withdrawing your consent. However, where I rely on other bases apart from consent for processing your information, you may not be able to prevent processing of your data. The withdrawal of your consent will also not affect the lawful retention of your information for the purposes of a potential complaint or appeal or for regulatory purposes.
Who has access to my information?
I do not sell or rent your information to third parties. I also comply with my professional duties including my duties to you which I take very seriously. Subject to my duties and to legal professional privilege, it may be necessary to share your personal data with:
Other legal professionals including instructing solicitors, other barristers, legal representatives or experts with whom I am working, and opposing legal representatives;
Nexus Chambers’s IT providers and staff;
Experts and other witnesses;
Trainee barristers including pupils and mini-pupils;
Other regulatory authorities, for instance in the event of a dispute or other legal matter;
Judges and Court Staff;
Where required certain third parties to meet my legal obligations, law enforcement officials, and government authorities;
My accountant and my bank;
Please note that Andrew does not use automated decision making in the processing of your personal data.
How long will my information be kept?
Andrew will normally only store your information for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it is being used and in order to fulfil Andrew’s legal and regulatory obligations. Generally this will be around seven years after the end of the case, or seven years after the date of the last payment or the date of writing off fees.
How do I make a complaint?
Andrew is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. Andrew is also committed to providing you with the best possible service and hopes that you will be satisfied with the way in which he approaches and uses your personal data.
However, the General Data Protection Regulation also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners’ Officer 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 (subject to the outcome of “Brexit”). The Information Commissioner’s Officer can be contacted at http://ico.org.uk/concerns/.
In the first instance if you have a complaint about the way that I handle your personal data, I hope that you will contact me so that I have an opportunity to resolve it.
Changes to this privacy policy
I will occasionally change this Privacy Notice as I continually review my privacy practice or if the law changes.”