Privacy notice
The General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR) is introduced from 25 May 2018 and seeks to protect and enhance the rights of data subjects. Foys Solicitors is compliant with GDPR and are committed to protecting and keeping confidential all the information you provide to us.

This privacy notice sets out how Foys Solicitors collects and uses any information that you give to us. It confirms who we are, how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

Who are we?

Foys Solicitors is a partnership authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, SRA number 00048529, VAT registration number 183060578. We have 7 offices in Doncaster, Worksop, Rotherham, Retford, Chapeltown, Crystal Peaks and Clowne. The head office is Doncaster and the address for that office is Kingsgate House, Kingsgate, Waterdale, Doncaster, DN1 3JZ. The firm collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When it does so it is also regulated under the GDPR by the Information Commissioner and is responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information.

In what capacity will Foys Solicitors hold personal information about you?

In the course of your legal transaction we will collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:-

• Name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number, contact information (including telephone numbers and email where appropriate)

• Identification information and documentation

• Bank details

• Additional information and instructions from you in respect of your legal transaction, to enable us to advise you and progress your case.

The main reason we will use your personal information is to enable us to provide you with a legal service in accordance with your instructions.We will also use your personal information where it is necessary for our legitimate interests or where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation. We will also use your information for purposes related to the transaction, including identity verification and administration of files. The information will be held in hard copy and/electronic format.

In many circumstances, when we are dealing with your legal transaction, we will need to work in conjunction with other professionals including medical or other experts, banks, Barristers, estate agents, mortgage lenders, Courts etc. Where required, we will seek your explicit consent that we may share and disclose relevant personal data and information about your matter to them, if we feel it is appropriate and required in order to deal with and progress your transaction. In certain circumstances, we may not need your consent to disclose the data we hold on you. For example, where matters of a criminal nature are disclosed, we may pass your personal details to the police, as well as details of the offence.

It is your responsibility to provide accurate personal data and instructions that you supply to us and we will not be held liable for your errors, unless you have advised us previously of any changes in your personal data.

We use a private and secure electronic system to assist us in processing and protecting your information and keeping it secure from risks of cyber crime and fraud. All IT service providers that we use are subject to confidentiality agreements with this firm. We confirm that all of the personal information you provide to us is kept in the UK and we will not transfer any of your personal data to another country outside the UK unless you specifically instruct us to do so.

External bodies or regulators may sometimes have the need to audit our client files. This is strictly on a confidential basis by way of an audit in order to ensure that we are meeting our regulatory, legal, quality and financial management standards. We may also need to share information with our professional indemnity insurers and insurance brokers.

We might want to share information about certain legal transactions or outcomes with the media or on our website or social media. However, we confirm that we will not share such information in this way without your explicit written consent.

*Covid 19 – As you will be aware, the Government’s advice is that participation in the Covid-19 contact tracing programme is an important part of its measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the UK. This firm is committed to supporting the efforts of NHS Test and Trace Service as far as that is consistent with our obligation to keep information belonging to our clients confidential. This means that we will normally never pass on information about you, or the matters on which you have instructed us, without your permission.

A situation may arise in which, for the purpose of contact tracing, we may be asked to provide the NHS Test and Trace service with your name, address, postcode, telephone number(s) and details of any relevant contact between you and any member of our staff, or visitors to our premises. We will not do so, however, without your consent and you are free to decide whether or not you wish to provide that consent. *

How is your personal information collected?

Typically the personal information that we collect about you will be information that you provide to us. This might be when you provide us with instructions during a meeting or via telephone call, or in writing, or it might be when you contact us through our website.

What are your rights relating to the use of your personal information?

Under the GDPR you have certain rights in respect of the processing of your personal information, which may vary dependant on the legal basis for collection of your personal information and how that information is used.

You have a number of important rights under GDPR. Further information about these rights can be found on the Information Commissioners website www.ico.org.uk/for-the-public/ (http://www.ico.org.uk/for-the-public/)

If you would like to exercise any of these rights please contact our Information Manager, Kim Ashley at kim.ashley@foys.co.uk

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your personal data for an appropriate period of time, depending on the nature of your case. We will confirm this to you at the end of your case. After that period of time your file of papers, including the electronic file and the physical file, will be destroyed confidentially without further reference to you. To determine the appropriate retention period, we consider the nature and sensitivity of the personal information and the transaction we have dealt with on your behalf. In many cases that will mean that the information is held for a period of 6 years from the date our files are closed. However in some circumstances, the information might be held for a longer period and that will be confirmed in our final letter to you when closing the file.

Data collected solely for the purposes of the Test and Trace Scheme will only be held for a period of 21 days from your attendance at our office.

Security

We have put in place measures to protect the security of your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and as subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have procedures in place 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.

We will use our best efforts to ensure that no unauthorised parties have access to any of your personal information.

Use of cookies

Our website uses cookies to better the user’s experience while visiting the website. Cookies are small files saved to the computer’s hard drive that track, save and store information about the user’s interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server, to provide the users with a tailored experience within the website.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used, which helps us analyse data about webpage traffic and improve the website in order to tailor it to customer’s needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system. The cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use of saving of cookies from this website onto their computer’s hard drive, they should take necessary steps within their web browser’s security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors or use the cookie control system if available upon their first visit.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to enable you to visit other websites. We only look to include safe and relevant external links, but warn users that you are advised to adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. We cannot guarantee or verify the content of any externally linked website, despite our best efforts. Users should therefore note that they click on external links at their own risk and we cannot be held liable for any damages or implication caused by visiting any external links mentioned. Users should note that we do not have any control over such other websites and therefore we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and this privacy notice does not govern such sites.

Further information or complaints

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how to make a complaint about how your personal information is being processed by Foys Solicitors, you have a right to complain to the firm’s Information Manager, Kim Ashley via email to kim.ashley@foys.co.uk  or by post to Foys Solicitors, Kingsgate House, Kingsgate, Waterdale, Doncaster, DN1 3JZ.

The GDPR also gives you rights to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at www.ico.org.uk/concerns/

The GDPR also gives you rights to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at www.ico.org.uk/concerns/

Changes to this privacy notice

This privacy notice was published in August 2020. We may change this privacy notice from time to time.