We collect your personal data or information to operate the firm effectively and provide you with a high-quality service. We may use your information:
- To deliver legal services to you on your instruction.
- To answer enquiries that you make prior to any formal instruction.
- To avoid any conflict of interest as we represent you
- To process a job application
- To fulfil our obligations as an employer
- To provide benefits to you as an employee
- To adhere to regulations set out by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority
- To adhere to quality standards as set out under the Lexcel Standard.
- To maintain security of our office and IT infrastructure
- To invoice you, and to track payments you make or payments made to you
We believe that all these purposes are justified on the basis of our legitimate interests in running and promoting the firm, our contractual requirements to deliver the agreed legal services to you, and our legal obligations, both as an LLP and responsible employer. If you would like to know more, please read below:
- Clients
- Prospective Clients
- Job Applicants, Our Current and Former Employees
- External Experts
- Suppliers
Clients
As a client, we may hold the following information about you:
- Name, date of birth, and contact information.
- National insurance number
- Information relating to your legal matter
- Financial details
- Information and documents relating to the service we are providing, including communications with you.
- Billing and payment information.
We store your information in our practice management system on our secure servers based in the UK. We also hold paper copies of your information in the client matter files, stored in our London office and in a secure, offsite storage archive.
We occasionally use third-party online tools:
- “Safe-4 to share documents electronically with you with your agreement. Safe-4 uses servers which are based in the United Kingdom and so do not transfer your data to outside the EEA and to jurisdictions which may not be subject to the same level of data protection. Safe-4 UK advises that its UK data centres comply with the key information security standard ISO 27001.” Safe-4’s Privacy Policy.
- Brookland Computer Services – hosted IT platform;
- Mimecast – email archive;
- Morae Global Corporation (formerly Phoenix) – iManage; and
- Tresorit – secure file sharing.
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We will retain your client matter file for the duration of our relationship with you, then for a minimum of 7 years after, and a maximum of 12 years, if required for audit purposes. We will retain financial records for 6 years, following the end of the current financial year.
Prospective Clients
As a prospective client, we may hold the following information about you:
- Name, date of birth, and contact information.
- National insurance number
- Brief information relating to your legal matter
We store your information in our practice management system on our secure servers based in the UK. Communications with you relating to your initial enquiry may also be stored in our email system for a period of 6 months. If you do not become a client of the firm we will retain any personal information about you that was used to conduct a conflict of interests check (as required by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority) for a period of 6 months.
Job Applicants
When you apply for a job with us, we may hold the following information about you:
- Name, date of birth, and contact information.
- Information relating to your qualifications and experience
- References where we take them up
- Information and documents relating to the review, interview and selection process, including communications with you.
We store your information in our practice management system on our secure servers based in the UK. We will also store communications with you relating to the interview process on our email server, based in the UK. We will retain your personal data relating to the review, interview and selection process for a period of 6 months after the interview date unless we have agreed to retaining your details for a further period.
Current and Former Employees
When you work for us, we may hold the following information about you:
- Name, date of birth, and contact information
- National insurance number and Unique Tax Reference (UTR)
- Information relating to your qualifications and experience
- Information and documents relating to your performance and supervision as an employee of the firm, including communications with you
- Your photograph, including Building Pass, Passport and Driving Licence
- Financial information, such as bank details, pension scheme and salary details
- Information about your next of kin
- Health information
We store your information in our practice management system on our secure servers based in the UK and in hard copy in a secure filing cabinet in the office. We will also store communications with you on our email server, based in the UK. We will retain your personal data for the duration of your employment and for a period of 6 years after you leave the firm. Beyond this point, we may retain only minimal information about you to confirm the period of time you were employed by the firm for reference purposes. We share your information with HMRC, and our chosen pension / benefits providers
External Experts
When you work with us to provide expertise to matters we are working on, we may hold the following information about you:
- Name and contact information.
- Information relating to your qualifications and experience
- Information and documents relating to the service you provide us with, including communications with you.
- Feedback about your performance
We store your information in our practice management system on our secure servers based in the UK. We will also store communications with you on our email server, based in the UK. We will retain your personal data for the time you are available as an expert and for a maximum of 1 year after you are no longer available.
Suppliers
When you work with the firm as a supplier, we may hold the following information about you:
- Name and business contact information.
- Information relating to your qualifications and experience
- Information relating to your business activities
- Information and documents relating to the services or products you offer, including our communications with you.
- Financial information
We store your information in our practice management system on our secure servers based in the UK. We will also store communications with you on our email server, based in the UK. We will retain your information for the duration of our relationship with you and for 7 years after the last purchase we made from you.
Marketing/Business Development
We should like to send information about our services that we believe may be of interest to you. If you have consented to being contacted on this basis we will store your information in our practice management system on our secure servers and on our email server based in the UK. We may contact you by mail, telephone, email or text. We will keep the personal information you have provided for any marketing or business development purpose for as long as is necessary or until you have advised us that you have changed your mind, wish to opt out and want us to delete the information. If you wish to opt out and want us to delete the information please either write to our Data Protection Compliance Programme Manager, Nick Ractliff at nractliff@pcb-byrne.com or send an email to datacontroller@pcb-byrne.com with “Stop Marketing” in the subject line. Alternatively you may click the unsubscribe button in an email we send to you with marketing or business development information and follow any further instructions.