PRIVACY NOTICE
What we need
Stodarts 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 Stodarts, 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.
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. We will use our clients' personal information to:
- provide you with legal advice, including by communicating with you by email, letter and/or telephone, etc.;
- represent you as your solicitors in connection with legal work you instruct us to do;
- respond to and communicate with clients regarding your questions, comments, support needs or complaints, concerns or allegations in relation to the work that we do for you and we will use your personal information to investigate any complaints and take disciplinary action
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:
- carry on business as a firm of solicitors;
- promote our services by sending clients communications with information about the firm's activities; and
- invite our clients as guests to our events
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 at 95 Almada Street, Hamilton ML3 OEY, by telephone on 01698 200302 or by email to mail@stodarts.co.uk. 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;
- the Council of Mortgages Lenders' Regulations;
- the Scottish Legal Aid Board Regulations; and
- the Money Laundering Regulations
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, Revenue Scotland, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, the Council of Mortgage Lenders, the Scottish Legal Aid Board and the National Crime Agency for the purposes of complying with our regulatory authority and taxation regulations. Some of our files may be selected for review by other solicitors who are members of the Law Society of Scotland in terms of our regulations.
We may also share personal data with our professional advisers for the purposes of taking advice.
Stodarts employs third party suppliers to provide services. We currently instruct Castle to supply IT support, Tikit to provide cash records, Bighand to provide digital dictation, Nelson Gilmour Smith to provide accountancy services, Alex Quinn and Partners Limited to provide legal accounting services, the Royal Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow to provide legal accounting services, First Scottish Searching Services Limited to provide various reports, DX to deliver mail, the Storage Zone to store paper files and Professional Office Supplies to shred papers and files. 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. We also sometimes share your data with other solicitors such as local agents we may instruct to appear in court for us and Advocates. In the event that we do share personal data with external third parties, we will only share such personal data strictly required for the specific purposes and take reasonable steps to ensure that recipients shall 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, and is accessed by our staff for the purposes set out above.
How long we keep your personal information
We keep our clients' personal data for as long as is set out in our data retention policy. We will review and possibly delete your personal information following a period of at least 7 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 which is in line with the Law Society of Scotland's policy. This sets out different retention periods and you can request a copy by contacting us at 95 Almada Street, Hamilton, ML3 DEY by telephone on 01698 200302 and by email at mail@stodarts.co.uk.
Your rights
You can exercise any of the following rights by writing to us at 95 Almada Street, Hamilton, ML3 DEY or mail@stodarts.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 Stodarts 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.orq.uk
WEBSITE GDPR COMPLIANCE
(EU GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION)
What is this Privacy Regulation Policy for?
This policy governs the privacy of online visitors to this website: www.stodarts.co.uk which is managed by Stodarts. The policy sets out the different areas where user privacy is concerned and outlines the obligations & requirements of the users, the website and website owners. Furthermore the way this website processes, stores and protects user data and information will also be detailed within this policy.
Collection of data from www.stodarts.co.uk
At Stodarts, we are committed to maintaining the trust and confidence of our visitors to our web site. In particular, we want you to know that Stodarts is not in the business of selling, renting or trading email lists with other companies and businesses for marketing purposes. We only store your details to contact you directly in regards to orders, issues or beneficial communication.
Use of Cookies
When someone visits www.stodarts.co.uk, we use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.
Contact & Communication
Users contacting this website and/or its owners do so at their own discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until a time it is no longer required or has no use, as detailed in the Data Protection Act 1998. Every effort has been made to ensure a safe and secure form to email submission process using Secure Sockets Layer protection (SSL Certificate) but Stodarts advise users using such form to email processes that they do so at their own risk. This website uses information submitted to provide you with further information about the services we offer or to assist you in answering any questions or queries you may have submitted. Your details are not passed on to any third parties.