Privacy Policy
General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”)
Please read the following information carefully. This privacy notice contains information about 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 Chambers has put in place to protect your information and how to contact Chambers in the event you need further information.
Who Are We?
Spire Barristers – (“Chambers”) – collects, uses and is responsible for personal information about you. When Chambers does this it is the ‘controller’ of this information for the purposes of the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.
If you need to contact Chambers about your information or the processing carried out you can use the contact details at the end of this document.
Coronavirus Temporary Measures
For the duration of the Coronavirus pandemic, visitors to chambers will be asked to provide contact details limited to their mobile phone number, their vehicle registration and their employer.
This information will be used solely for the purposes of assisting with the NHS Track and Trace when asked. The information will be kept for a maximum of three weeks and then confidentially shredded.
What information do Chambers collect and how is it used?
Categories
Chambers collects some or all of the following personal information that you provide:
- personal details
- family details
- lifestyle and social circumstances
- financial details
- education, training and employment details
- physical or mental health details
- racial or ethnic origin
- religious, philosophical or other beliefs
- sex life or sexual orientation
- criminal proceedings, outcomes and sentences, or related security measures
- other personal information relevant to instructions to provide legal services, including information specific to the instructions in question.
Sources of information
The personal information Chambers obtains may include information obtained from:
- 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 IT support staff, email providers, data storage providers.
- public sources, such as the press, public registers and law reports.
Information collected from other sources.
The same categories of information may also be obtained from third parties, such as members of Chambers, experts, members of the public, your family and friends, witnesses, courts and other tribunals, suppliers of goods and services, investigators, regulators, public records and registers.
How Chambers uses 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 procure goods and services,
- to manage matters relating to employment, including payroll and pensions
- to respond to requests for references
- to publish legal judgments and decisions 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 the barristers 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. An ‘opt out’ is provided with each and every marketing email. It may take up to 24 hours to be removed from our marketing 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 or reference can be properly assessed and your employment records, pay and pensions can be administered and to enable Chambers to comply with its regulatory obligations, and to keep accounting records.
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 (f) to (j) above (these being categories which are considered to include particularly sensitive information and which 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 the establishment, exercise or defence of legal rights.
- In relation to information which is not in categories (f) to (j) above, Chambers relies on its legitimate interests 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 (6) to (10) above (these being categories which 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 (1), (2), (6) and (8) 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 needs to be able to retain all 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 (6), (7), (8) and (9 ), 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:
- information processors, such as IT support staff, email providers, information storage providers.
- in the event of complaints, the Head of Chambers and members of Chambers who deal with complaints, the Bar Standards Board and the Legal Ombudsman
- other regulatory authorities
- current, past or prospective employers or employees
- in the case of recruitment of barristers to or from other chambers, your current, past and prospective chambers
- education and examining bodies
- legal professionals
- experts and other witnesses
- prosecution authorities
- courts and tribunals
- Chambers’ staff
- trainee barristers
- lay and professional clients of Members of Chambers
- family and associates of the person whose personal information Chambers is processing
- 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.
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 Chambers’ consent or your consent, 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.
How long will Chambers store your personal information?
Chambers will normally store all your information:
- until at least 1 year after the expiry of any relevant limitation period, from, for example, the date on which your employment terminates, the date of the last provision of service, 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 or for Statutory record keeping provisions. At this point any further retention will be reviewed and the information 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 as soon as reasonably practicable after the information is marked for deletion.
- Equality and diversity data may be retained for four 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 will be held for a maximum of 12 months for potential employment opportunities; for mini-pupillage for a period of up to 3 years where it will only be used in support of a subsequent application for full pupillage if any; and for pupillage where applications will only be kept until the end of the recruitment cycle except for successful candidates where application forms will be incorporated into the data subject’s pupil records.
Consent
As explained above, Chambers is relying on your explicit consent to process your information in categories (6) to (10) above. You provided this consent when you applied to become a member of staff, tenant, pupil or mini-pupil.
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 information.
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 information 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 to Chambers 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 the 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.
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 U.K., or with the supervisory authority of the Member State where you work, normally live or where the alleged infringement of information protection laws occurred. The Information Commissioner’s Office can be contacted at http://ico.org.uk/concerns/.
Changes to this privacy notice
This privacy notice was published on 16 May 2018 and was last updated on 17 November 2020.
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 and placed on the Chambers’ website at https://spirebarristers.co.uk/privacy-cookie-policy/
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.
Marketing Emails
Please note if you wish to unsubscribe from any marketing emails that you have signed up for, you can do so by emailing news@spirebarristers.co.uk and mark your subject line ‘Unsubscribe’. It may take up to 24 hours for this to become effective.
Contact Details
If you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information Chambers holds about you, please contact Chambers using the contact details below.
The best way to contact Chambers is by email to cphilpott@spirebarristers.co.uk or by post to:
Spire Barristers
3 St. David’s Court
David Street
Leeds
LS11 5QA