We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.
We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).
It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this policy:
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We, us, our |
Gilbert Davies & Partners Limited trading as Gilbert Davies Solicitors |
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Personal data |
Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual |
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Special category personal data |
Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership Genetic and biometric data (when processed to uniquely identify an individual) Data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation |
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Data subject |
The individual who the personal data relates to |
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The table below sets out the personal data we will or may collect in the course of providing [legal services:
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Personal data we will collect |
Personal data we may collect depending on why you have instructed us |
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Your name, address and telephone number Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, e.g. your date of birth or passport details Electronic contact details, e.g. your email address and mobile phone number Information relating to the matter in which you are seeking our advice or representation Information to enable us to undertake a credit or other financial checks on you Your financial details so far as relevant to your instructions, e.g. the source of your funds if you are instructing on a purchase transaction
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Your National Insurance and tax details Your bank and/or building society details Details of your professional online presence, eg LinkedIn profile Details of your spouse/partner and dependants or other family members, e.g. if you instruct us on a family matter or a will Your employment status and details including salary and benefits, e.g. if you instruct us on matter related to your employment or in which your employment status or income is relevant. Details of your pension arrangements, eg if you instruct us on a pension matter or in relation to financial arrangements following breakdown of a relationship Your employment records including, where relevant, records relating to sickness and attendance, performance, disciplinary, conduct and grievances, e.g. if you instruct us on matter related to your employment or in which your employment records are relevant. [our racial or ethnic origin, gender and sexual orientation, religious or similar beliefs, e.g. if you instruct us on discrimination claim. Your trade union membership, e.g. if you instruct us on a discrimination claim or your matter is funded by a trade union. Personal identifying information, such as your eye colour or your parents’ names, e.g. if you instruct us to incorporate a company for you.] Your medical records, e.g. if we are acting for you in a personal injury claim. |
We collect and use this personal data to provide legal services. If you do not provide personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing those services.
We collect most of this personal data directly from you—in person, by telephone, text or email. However, we may also collect information:
- consultants and other professionals we may engage in relation to your matter;
- your employer and/or trade union, professional body or pension administrators;
- your doctors, medical and occupational health professionals;
Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, e.g.:
A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. We will carry out an assessment when relying on legitimate interests, to balance our interests against your own.
The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why.
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What we use your personal data for |
Our reasons |
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Providing services to you |
To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract |
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Preventing and detecting fraud against you or us |
For our legitimate interest, i.e. to minimise fraud that could be damaging for you and/or us
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Conducting checks to identify our clients and verify their identity Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes Other activities necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety law or rules issued by our professional regulator |
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
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To enforce legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings |
Depending on the circumstances: —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations —in other cases, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect our business, interests and rights |
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Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies |
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
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Ensuring business policies are adhered to, e.g., policies covering security and internet use |
For our legitimate interests, i.e. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you |
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Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control |
For our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price |
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Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information |
Depending on the circumstances: —for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect trade secrets and other commercially valuable information; —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
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Statistical analysis to help us manage our business, e.g. in relation to our financial performance, customer base, product range or other efficiency measures |
For our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price |
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Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems |
Depending on the circumstances: —for our legitimate interests, i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us; —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
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Protecting the security of systems and data used to provide the services |
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations We may also use your personal data to ensure the security of systems and data to a standard that goes beyond our legal obligations, and in those cases our reasons are for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect systems and data and to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us |
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Updating and enhancing client records |
Depending on the circumstances: —to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract; —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; —for our legitimate interests, e.g. making sure we can keep in touch with our clients about existing and new services |
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Statutory returns |
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
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Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments |
Depending on the circumstances: —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; —for our legitimate interests, e.g. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you |
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Marketing our services to: —existing and former customers; —third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services; —third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings. |
For our legitimate interests, i.e. to promote our business to existing and former clients |
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Credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies |
For our legitimate interests, i.e. to ensure our customers are likely to be able to pay for our products and services |
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External audits and quality checks, e.g. for ISO or Lexcel accreditation and the audit of our accounts to the extent not covered by ‘activities necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations’ above |
Depending on the circumstances: —for our legitimate interests, i.e. to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards; —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
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To share your personal data with members of our group and third parties that will or may take control or ownership of some or all of our business (and professional advisors acting on our or their behalf) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale, initial public offering or in the event of our insolvency In such cases information will be anonymised where possible and only shared where necessary |
Depending on the circumstances: —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; —in other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect, realise or grow the value in our business and assets |
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More details about how we use your personal data and why are set out in the table below
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Purpose |
Processing operation |
Lawful basis relied on under the UK GDPR |
Relevant categories of personal data |
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Communications with you not related to marketing, including about changes to our terms or policies or changes to the products or other important notices (other than those addressed above) |
Addressing and sending communications to you as required by data protection laws, i.e.: —the UK GDPR or Data Protection Act 2018; |
Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject (Article 6(1)(b)) |
—your name, address and contact information, including email address and telephone number and company details; |
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Addressing and sending communications to you about changes to our terms or policies or changes to the products or other important notices |
Our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)), which is to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you |
—your name, address and contact information, including email address and telephone number [and company details] |
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How and why we use your personal data—Special category personal data
Certain personal data we collect is treated as a special category to which additional protections apply under data protection law.
Where we process special category personal data, we will also ensure we are permitted to do so under data protection laws, e.g.:
See ‘Who we share your personal data with’ for further information on the steps we will take to protect your personal data where we need to share it with others.
We will use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text message, telephone or post) about our services, including new services.
We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data for marketing purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal data’). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you marketing information. If we change our marketing approach in the future so that consent is needed, we will ask for this separately and clearly.
You have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by contacting us at louise.harding@gilbert-davies.com
We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.
We routinely share personal data with:
We only allow those organisations to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data.
We or the third parties mentioned above occasionally also share personal data with:
If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).
Personal data may be held physically at any of our office and/or electronically on our servers
We will not keep your personal data for longer than we need it for the purpose for which it is used. As a general rule, if we are no longer providing services to you, we will delete or anonymise your account data after seven years. However, different retention periods apply for different types of personal data and for different services.
Following the end of the of the relevant retention period, we will delete or anonymise your personal data.
You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:
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Access |
The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data |
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Rectification |
The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data |
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Erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten) |
The right to require us to delete your personal data—in certain situations |
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Restriction of processing |
The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, e.g., if you contest the accuracy of the data |
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Data portability |
The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party—in certain situations |
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To object |
The right to object: —at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling); —in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests unless there are compelling legitimate grounds for the processing to continue or the processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims |
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Not to be subject to automated individual decision making |
The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you |
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The right to withdraw consents |
If you have provided us with a consent to use your personal data, you have a right to withdraw that consent easily at any time You may withdraw consents by emailing louise.harding@gilbert-davies.com Withdrawing a consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn |
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For more information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below) or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights.
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:
We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your personal data will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data (see below ‘How to contact us’). We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner
The Information Commissioner may be contacted using the details at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by telephone: 0303 123 1113.
This privacy notice was published in February 2022.
We may change this privacy notice from time to time—when we do we will inform you via email or post.
You can contact us by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.
Our contact details are shown below:
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Our contact details |
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18 Severn Street, Welshpool, Powys, SY21 7AD Email: louise.harding@gilbert-davies.com Tel: 01938 55 27 27 |
Gilbert Davies is the trading name of Gilbert Davies & Partners Limited (a Company Registered in England & Wales). Company Registration No. 6219846. Authorised & Regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority No. 00465516
