This privacy notice sets out how Currie Gilmour & Co., Solicitors, 41-43 Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh, EH9 1EU (“Currie Gilmour & Co”/”We”) uses and protects information that we are given by clients and third parties.
We are committed to ensuring that our clients’ information and privacy are protected at all times in accordance with the law. All personal information you provide to us will be used solely in accordance with the terms of this privacy notice.
The privacy policy set out in this privacy notice is effective from 25th May 2018.
What we need
Currie Gilmour & Co will be a “controller” of the personal information that you provide to us when you instruct us to act on your behalf unless otherwise stated in this privacy notice.
When you become a client of Currie Gilmour & Co, we will collect, store and use the personal information that you provide to us in your instructions and during the course of our solicitor/client relationship. We may ask you for additional personal information during the course of our client/solicitor relationship, which shall be collected, stored and used in accordance with this privacy notice.
We may also collect, store and use the following personal information relating to you, when you become our client, from:
- third party agencies, such as professional searchers of records, including personal searches to establish the existence or otherwise of any impediments to completing a transaction in which you have given us instructions, or
- third party agencies engaged to provide additional checks regarding your identity to assist us in complying with our obligations under Anti-Money Laundering legislation.
Why we need your personal information – contractual purposes
We need to collect our clients’ personal information so that we can perform our contract with you for the provision of legal services. We will use our clients’ personal information to:
- provide you with legal advice, including, for example, communicating with you by email, letter and/or telephone, etc.;
- represent you as your solicitors in connection with any proceedings before any court or tribunal in which you are involved and have instructed us to act as your agent;
- respond to and communicate with you regarding your questions, comments, support needs or complaints, concerns or allegations in relation to the work which you have instructed us to carry out in terms of our contract with you for the provision of legal services in the event that we are required to investigate any complaint you may instigate or to take any form of disciplinary action; and
- comply with all administrative and financial legislation and regulations to which we are subject.
If you do not provide us with all of the personal information that we need to collect then this may affect our ability to provide you with legal advice and/or represent you as your solicitors.
Why we need your personal information – legitimate purposes
We also process our clients’ personal information in pursuit of our legitimate interests to:
- promote our services by sending clients communications with information for upcoming events, promotions and legal updates;
- invite our clients as guests to our events, and
- provide clients with information about current legal issues and our services which may be relevant to them as they review periodically their affairs generally and their legal affairs in particular.
Where we process your personal information in pursuit of our legitimate interests, you have the right to object to us using your personal information for the above purposes. If you wish to object to any of the above processing, please contact us by phone on 0131-229 5304; by email on neilcampbell@curriegilmour.co.uk or by post to our office at Currie Gilmour & Co., 41-43 Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh, EH9 1EU. If we comply with your objection, this may affect our ability to undertake the tasks above for the benefit of you as a client.
Why we need your personal information – legal obligations
We are under a legal obligation to process certain personal information relating to our clients for the purposes of complying with our obligations under:
- the Law Society of Scotland requirements for solicitors in relation to record-keeping;
- Anti-Money Laundering legislation;
- other legislation imposing regulatory compliance, including (but not restricted to) legislation relating to the provision of reportable information for tax purposes; business governance and good practice; the letting of residential property, and any investigatory processes initiated under such legislation.
Other uses of your personal information
We may ask if we can process your personal information for additional purposes. For example, if specific health information may be important to the effective completion of the work you have instructed. Where we do so, we will obtain your consent to collect and process such information.
Who we share your personal information with
We may be required to share personal information with statutory or regulatory authorities and organisations to comply with statutory obligations. Such organisations include, for example – the Law Society of Scotland and HMRC – for statutory/regulatory compliance.
We may also share personal data with our professional advisors for the purposes of taking advice.
Currie Gilmour & Co employs third party suppliers to provide services, including IT and payroll services. These suppliers may process personal data on our behalf as “processors” and are subject to written contractual conditions to only process that personal data under our instructions and protect it.
In the event that we do share personal data with external third parties, we will only share such personal data as is strictly required for the specific purposes and will take reasonable steps to ensure that recipients only process the disclosed personal data in accordance with those purposes.
How we protect your personal information
Your personal information is stored on our electronic filing system and our servers based in the UK/EU, and is accessed by our staff for the purposes set out above.
If we are required to transfer your personal information outwith the EU for any purpose we will provide you with information regarding the safeguards that we have put in place with the recipient country to protect your personal information.
How long we keep your personal information
We keep our clients’ personal data for the periods appropriate to ensure compliance with Law Society of Scotland Regulations; Anti-Money Laundering Regulations; tax statutes and other legislation imposing record-keeping compliance requirements. We will review and possibly delete your personal information following a period of at least 6 years after you have ceased to be our client.
We have a data retention policy that sets out the periods for retaining and reviewing all information that we hold. This sets out different retention periods and you can request a copy by contacting us by phone on 0131-229 5304; by email on neilcampbell@curriegilmour.co.uk or by post to our office at Currie Gilmour & Co., 41-43 Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh, EH9 1EU.
Your rights
You can exercise any of the following rights by writing to us at Currie Gilmour & Co., Solicitors, 41-43 Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh, EH9 1EU or by emailing neilcampbell@curriegilmour.co.uk.
Your rights in relation to your personal information are:
- you have a right to request access to the personal information that we hold about you by making a “subject access request”;
- if you believe that any of your personal information is inaccurate or incomplete, you have a right to request that we correct or complete your personal information;
- you have a right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information for specific purposes; and
- if you wish us to delete your personal information, you may request that we do so.
Any requests received by Currie Gilmour & CO will be considered under applicable data protection legislation. If you remain dissatisfied, you have a right to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk.