criminal solicitors yorkshire - PRIVACY POLICY

SJ Law is a firm of Criminal Solicitors which is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (ID No: 305136).  Our head office is at Suites 1-2 Station Chambers, Station Parade, East Ham, London E6 1JE.  We have a branch office in Finchley in North London, The Firm is registered with the Information Commissioners office.  

Our Privacy Policy provides the basis upon which personal data that we might collect from you, or that you give to us, in any form will be processed by SJ Law.  By reading the following we hope you will understand our practice with regard to your personal data and how we will treat or use it. 

If you give us information about other people, you must ensure that they have been advised of this privacy policy, they can  and are comfortable with you giving us their information. 

We may gather information about you from forms that you may complete by any means.  This will include data you provide when you register to use a secure part of our website, subscribe to any of the updates or newsletters, search for a service, make an enquiry, request a quotation, make a payment through our website, engage us to provide services, during the course of a legal matter, participate in social media functions on our website, register for an event or when you report a problem with our site. This information you give us may include personal data, including your name, position, company, contact details (such as address, e-mail address and phone number), your personal preferences, choices and requirements specific to particular requests or services, financial & credit card information, personal description & photograph.

If you are a client of the firm, you may give us certain special categories of personal data. This includes information about your health, your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, your sex life or sexual orientation, biometric information to uniquely identify you or your genetics (Special Categories of Data). You may give us information about criminal convictions or offences.  

Whenever you visit our website we may automatically collect the following information:

• Information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), clickstream to, through and from our website (including date and time), pages you viewed or searched for page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used on our site.

• technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform.

This includes information we receive about you from other sources, included but not limited to:

• The Crown Prosecution Service,
• The police or other investigators
• Courts and the Court service,
• Probation Services, 
• Business Partners (Accountants, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies)
• Other Professionals (Barristers, solicitors, agents, Doctors and other medical practitioners) and may receive personal information about you from them.

The GDPR rules defines personal data as “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’)… An identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.”  

Types of data we might hold:

• Current living situation:
• Antecedent History
• Looks and appearance:
• Education data:
• Benefits Data
• Private data:
• Health, sickness and genetics
• Workplace data:
• Generic personal Details:
• Financial details

We will only collect, use & otherwise handle your personal information

• where is it necessary in representing you or
• where it is necessary for our legitimate interest in connection with operating our website or our business. 
• Where this is necessary for as a result of legal obligations which may apply to us
• Where it is necessary to comply with the professional obligations to which we are subject as a member of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and other professional bodies); and/or
• Where this is necessary for the performance of a service for you 

We will only use your information for the following purposes:

• To communicate with you directly ourselves
• Facilitate representing you; or
• To comply with Legal or Regulatory Obligations that apply to us 
• To communcate with you directly ourselves.

It is an absolute rule that we do not sell your information to other people, parties or companies.   We will only provide your information to other parties other than for the purpose of furthering your objectives in the matter you have instructed us.  To this end. these parties would include:

• Those involved in the Criminal Justice System (courts, cps, probation etc)
• Barristers
• Medical Experts

 1. Staff and Agents 

All of our staff have access to your data through various devices (phones, tablets etc).  Occasionally, we may instruct agents, barristers, experts or external professionals in connection with your case.  We will always inform you in advance of our intention to engage an external professional and we have policies and procedures in place to ensure the protection of your data.

2. Those we work with.

Our IT Support is outsourced to a third party company.  They will have access to your data which is held on our servers.  We have an agreement with them, that they are not permitted to use any data in any way whatsoever and will only access data that we hold for the purposes of providing IT support.  Other examples would be experts or interpreters.

3. Regulatory or Professional bodies

We are regulated by The SRA who may from time to time request files or data.  If your case is funded by the Legal Aid Agency (Legal aid), we are required to share data with them for various reasons.  Many of these organisations will also share data with other organisations for legitimate purposes.  In some instances, we may be required to make a report in respect of money laundering.  In this instance, we would be required to share data.   If we share your data with other organisations, it will only be as a result of a legal requirement for us to do so, with your consent or to further the very purpose of our engagement with you.

4. Those who assess our services

We are subject to various performance standards and will have regular assessments by various bodies / companies.  All of these bodies and companies will have privacy rules and will not be allowed to share your data for commercial gain.

5. Other parties necessary to progress a legitimate purpose

Depending on the basis of our engagement, we may need to share your information with other parties, such as courts, recruitment experts, interviewers or assessors for example.

All of the information you give us is stored in our offices or off-site secure storage or on our secure servers. Any payment transactions will be processed securely by your own bank, Lloyds bank  or Worldpay. The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Whilst we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our website (if any) and any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.  

In all cases, we will only ask for information that is necessary for us to progress matters.  If you choose not to provide the information, it is likely that we will be unable to assist or work with you.  

 We at SJ Law will maintain the confidentiality of your confidential information in accordance with all applicable laws. 

Clients

If you are a client of the firm, we will normally keep your data for a period of at least 6 years from the date of conclusion of your case.  We may hold your data for longer. 

Interviewees

If you have come for an interview, we will retain your information for at least 6 months following which it will be destroyed.

No problem.  If you require further information, you can contact Mr Khaleeq Zaman or Vijesh Saujani at SJ Law