Privacy Policy

  1. Introduction

Gedling Legal is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. The information that you provide to us, or that is gathered automatically helps us to provide you with legal, advisory and/or consultancy services as well as carrying out marketing and recruitment activities.  This privacy notice sets out how we use and protect your information.

  1. Who are we?

Gedling Legal is the marketing name for the Legal Services Team of Gedling Borough Council. The Legal Services Team is wholly part of Gedling Borough Council and all staff members are employed by Gedling Borough Council.

Gedling Borough Council is the Data Controller for the purposes of data protection law in relation to any personal information that we hold about you. The Council is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The Legal Services Team is regulated by the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority, our practice number is 65478.

  1. Who does this privacy notice apply to?

This privacy notice applies to everyone whose personal information we collect and process (excluding our existing and former workforce, to whom a separate HR privacy notice applies and is accessible through the Borough Council’s website). This includes individuals in the categories below or who work for any of the following:

  • Our clients;
  • Other lawyers and law firms, including barristers;
  • People who are involved in court or other legal proceedings (including legal claims, criminal actions, inquests, tribunals, arbitrations, mediations, investigations and regulatory actions) or the provision of related or other legal, advisory and/or consultancy services;
  • People who are involved in contracts and transactions we are working on, such as other businesses or individuals our clients are contracting with;
  • Our regulators, insurers, auditors and professional advisers;
  • Prospective employees, consultants and partners; and
  • People whose details we process in connection with our marketing activities.
  1. What personal information do we collect and why?

We collect and process personal information to enable us to provide you with legal services and to meet our legal, statutory and contractual obligations. We will only collect the information that we need and have a legal basis to do so.  This may include:

  • contact information for individuals (such as full name, job title, organisation, date of birth, address, email address and telephone number). We may collect additional information to enable the identity of individuals to be verified;
  • financial information, including your bank account and payment card details;
  • employment records, including professional membership/registration, SRA checks, references, proof of eligibility to work in the UK , security checks, photos;
  • recruitment information, including CVs, interview notes and assessment material;
  • information regarding an individual’s legal requirements and personal or professional situation;
  • information about individuals employed by or associated with our clients, advisers or the organisations involved in a matter on which we are instructed;
  • medical records and health information as necessary for the provision of our services where the services we provide involve or relate to medical matters;
  • information obtained as a result of investigations carried out in relation to individuals which may involve surveillance conducted by third parties and/or by researching online activity, and accessing various subscription databases and open-source platforms where the services we provide relate to suspected crime including regulatory or disciplinary offences involving dishonesty; and
  • marketing and communications data, including your marketing preferences and interests and any feedback you provide to us (for example, by completing a survey). We also track when you receive and read marketing communications from us.

The lawful basis’ for processing personal information we rely on are that the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims by or against our clients, the processing is necessary to comply with a legal obligation which our clients are subject to and/or the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract of which our clients are a party to.

For details about information we collect automatically from your use of our website, please see our cookie policy.

  1. How do we collect your personal information?

We collect information from and about you using a variety of methods including:

Direct interaction: You may voluntarily provide us with your personal information when you:

  • fill out a form on our website;
  • correspond with us by email or post;
  • Speak to us in person or on the phone;
  • Visit our offices;
  • Give us feedback eg by completing a survey;
  • Give us your business card at an event or meeting;

Automated technologies or interactions: when you visit our website we will automatically collect information about your browsing activities and your equipment.  We collect this using cookies and through a third party service, Google Analytics.  This information does not identify anyone directly and we will not use it to try to ascertain a visitor’s identity.

Publicly available sources: we may collect personal information available publically from the publically accessible and online sources such as:

  • Online professional social networking services and applications, such as LinkedIn;
  • Your company’s website;
  • The Land Registry;
  • Companies House

Third party sources: we may collect personal information from the following third party sources:

  • Our clients;
  • Our agents:
  • Professional advisors instructed by us;
  • Fraud prevention and credit reference agencies;
  • Subscription databases;
  • Insurance databases;
  • Government agencies.
  1. How long do we keep your data and how is it kept secure?

We retain personal data in accordance with our records management and retention policy. For most legal transactions this will be for a period of 6 years after the end of the matter or, where this relates to property, potentially 12 years or more.  If you would like clarification in relation to your particular matter please feel free to contact us and ask for more details.

We are strongly committed to data security and we take reasonable appropriate steps to protect the personal information we hold from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration or corruption. We have put in place physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure that information.

  1. Who we might share your data with

We may share your personal information with the following categories of third parties, some of whom we appoint to provide services, including:

  • business partners, professional advisors, suppliers and sub-contractors in the course of the provision of legal or other services or in the performance of any contract we enter into with you;
  • providers of business support services including technology, banking, insurance, litigation support and security;
  • analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site;
  • providers of business development and marketing support services;
  • survey or quality assurance providers in order to receive feedback and improve our services.

Additionally, we will disclose your personal information to the relevant third party if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our customers, our regulator, or others.

Where we share your personal information with third parties, as described above, we will only do so where in our reasonable opinion that information will be adequately protected.

Any other service providers with whom we share information are approved by us and subject to contractual obligations designed to ensure that those providers comply with data protection legislation.

  1. Use of our website

Your visit to our site is anonymous. No personal information about you is recorded or gathered unless you fill in a survey or other form requesting information.  We collect information about your activities on our website using the third party service ‘Google Analytics’.  The information collected does not identify you.

  1. Online surveys of website usage

On occasion we may conduct online surveys relating to the usage of our website. This is used to help us understand how people are using our services, collect demographic information and other information that we may find useful to help us improve the service provided by the website.  These surveys are optional and we may share non-personal, aggregated information with third parties.  The survey method deposits a cookie on visitors’ computers.

  1. Links

Our website may contain links to other websites from time to time. Gedling Legal Is not responsible for the privacy practices within any of these other sites.  We encourage you to be aware of this when you leave our site and to read the privacy policies on other websites that you visit.  This privacy policy applies solely to information collected on our website.

  1. Cookies

Please see the cookie policy for details about how this site uses cookies and why.

  1. Marketing

We process personal information in connection with marketing or communications purposes where you have given consent for us to do so. This is so that we can:

  • Send you invitations to events and/or conferences that we think may be of interest to you;
  • Register and manage your attendance at one of our events or conferences
  • Promote your participation where you are a speaker at one of our events on platforms such as twitter, LinkedIn, our website and in marketing communications
  • Share with you news and offers about our products and services
  • Email you with legal updates and newsletters relevant to your interests
  • Ask you for feedback about our client or visitor services and to manage, review and act on the feedback;
  • Manage any changes to your marketing preferences or comply with unsubscribe requests;
  • Monitor our website usage and improve our services, please see our cookies policy for further information on how we use cookies to do this.

You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us on DataProtectionOfficer@gedling.gov.uk

  1. Recruitment

When we are carrying out recruitment we will need to process personal information for the following purposes:

  • recruiting new employees, consultants and partners;
  • verifying immigration status and/or eligibility to work in the UK;
  • undertaking pre-employment checks; and
  • obtaining references.
  1. Your rights – The Data Protection Act 2018 and GDPR

Under the Data Protection Act 2018, we have a legal duty to protect any personal information that we collect from you. We do not pass on your details to any third party unless you give us permission to do so or the law requires/permits it.  You can visit and use this website without identifying yourself or revealing any personal information.  If you choose to provide us with your personal information we will only use it for the purpose for which it was originally collected or compatible purposes.

Please be advised that any information, unless stated otherwise, will be sent to us via the open internet and is therefore not secure during transmission to us.

The Data Protection Act 2018 provides you with rights in relation to the personal data we may hold about you.

  • Right of Access – you can ask us to for copies of your personal information. This right always applies. There are some exemptions, which means you may not always receive all the information we process.
  • Right to rectification – you can ask us to rectify information you think is inaccurate and complete information you think is incomplete.
  • Right to erasure – you can ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • Right to restrict processing – you can ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances.
  • Right to object to processing – you can object to us processing your information where this is done as part of our public tasks or is in our legitimate interests.
  • Right to data portability – you have the right to ask us to transfer information that you have given to us to another organisation, or give it you.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. You must submit your request in writing and provide proof of your identity before we will act.  We have one month to respond to you.

You can obtain further information about your rights and the Data Protection Act from:

Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 700
Fax: 01625 524 510
Website: www.ICO.org.uk

  1. Complaints

If you are dissatisfied with the way your personal data is being used we would ask that you contact the Data Protection Officer in the first instance so that we can deal with your concerns. You have the right to complain at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK supervisory authority for data protection.

  1. Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review to make sure that it is up to date and accurate. Significant changes will be notified on our news page.

  1. Contact us

If you have any concerns, questions or comments or you need to make a complaint, please contact the Data Protection Officer by email DataProtectionOfficer@gedling.gov.uk