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Privacy notice for legal services
Waltham Forest Legal Services (shortly to be known as ‘East London Partnership’) is a law firm authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to provide legal advice and representation to our internal and external clients.
Some of the information that you provide to the Council is passed to our service so that we can provide the Council with legal advice and representation. Without this information, we will not be able to work on a legal matter for our clients.
In accordance with the data protection laws, we need a "legal basis" for collecting and using information about you. There are a variety of different legal bases for processing personal data which are set out in the data protection laws.
The lawful bases on which we rely in order to use the information which we collect about you for the purposes set out in this notice will be:
The lawful basis on which we rely in order to use your sensitive personal data / special categories of personal data which we collect about you will be that this is needed in order to work on a legal matter pursuant to the contract between us and Council Services, and lawful because it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest as set out in Data Protection legislation.
We hold personal data i.e. names, addresses, dates of birth, biographical, professional, financial and social information including about residents, members of the public, elected members, and experts instructed for the purposes of providing legal advice and representation to Council Services. We may also hold sensitive personal information (Special Category data) such as information regarding your race; ethnic origin; political opinions; religious beliefs; trade union membership; health; sex life; or sexual orientation.
Generally, the information we hold will have been provided to us by our clients but we may also hold information provided by third parties where this is relevant and necessary for the provision of our legal service e.g. from social workers, health professionals, doctors, occupational therapists and enforcement and regulatory agencies such as the police.
We will only ask for personal information that is appropriate to enable us to deliver our service. Processing of your personal information will be undertaken in accordance with the principles of the Data Protection legislation. Access to personal information is restricted to authorised individuals on a strictly need to know basis. We will treat your personal information fairly and lawfully and we will ensure that information is:
In accordance with the data protection act 2018, we need a "lawful basis" for collecting and using information about you. There are a variety of different lawful bases for processing personal data which are set out in the data protection act.
The lawful basis on which we rely in order to use the information which we collect about you for the purposes set out in this notice will be:
1.1 We may share information about you with our contractors and sub-contractors. Where this occurs our contractors and sub-contractors shall be contractually required to ensure that they adhere to the security requirements imposed by the data protection laws.
1.2 Our contractors and sub-contractors will only be able to use the information when completing work on our behalf. Examples of subcontractors we use regularly are:
1.3 We may also be required to share your information with our regulators who are permitted access to this information by law and with other organisations where we have a legal obligation to share the information with them.
1.4 We may need to share your information with our insurers in certain circumstances, to ensure we can comply with our obligations under the terms of our insurance cover.
Waltham Forest Legal Services is subject to a quality standard, Lexcel, and are regularly audited by external auditors. We will ensure that any auditors access your information solely for the purposes of carrying out the audit in question and that they are subject to the security requirements imposed by the data protection laws.
We will store personal data provided to us in accordance with our file destruction policy. For matters open and close after 1 April 2013, we will store data held on our client files for the following periods.
We retain information for a period of 7 years in respect of the following matters:
We retain information for a period of 13 years in respect of the following matters:
We retain information for a period of 25 years in respect of the following matters:
This means that in respect of the above we will hold our files for the relevant time period after which we will delete or destroy them. We do not destroy or delete information in the following cases:
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.
If we’re unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).
We typically use your personal data for the purposes of conducting litigation and so that we may contact you and make recommendations to our clients and other parties about the experts that may be recommended for use in litigation
We may share your data with third parties such as service providers and counsel, subject to appropriate confidentiality protections.
We respect the security of your data and treat it in accordance with the law.
Under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (the data protection laws), we are required to explain to you why we are asking for information about you, how we intend to use the information you provide and whether we will share this with anyone else.
If we instruct you on a matter we will hold your personal information in one or more of our client matter files. We will hold this information pursuant to our contract (or alternatively our client's contract) with you.
We also hold your information in a database which our lawyers use to facilitate contact with you and when deciding which expert or experts to recommend to our client for work on a legal matter on which we are instructed. This information is retained on the basis that we consider that we have a commercial legitimate interest in holding it. If you would like your personal details to be removed from our expert database for any reason, please email informationofficer@walthamforest.gov.uk
We are collecting information about you in order to achieve the purposes set out above.
Personal details held in our expert database
Personal details in a legal matter folder
The information which we collect about you will be obtained through a variety of sources which may include:
The information which you provide to us will be used for the following purposes:
Contractors and sub-contractors
1.1 We may share information about you with our contractors and sub-contractors. Where this occurs our contractors and sub-contractors shall be contractually required to ensure that they adhere to the security requirements imposed by the data protection laws.
1.2 Our contractors and sub-contractors will only be able to use the information when completing work on our behalf. Examples of subcontractors we use regularly are:
1.3 We may also be required to share your information with our regulators who are permitted access to this information by law and with other organisations where we have a legal obligation to share the information with them.
1.4 We may need to share your information with our insurers in certain circumstances, to ensure we can comply with our obligations under the terms of our insurance cover.
Waltham Forest Legal Services is subject to a quality standard, Lexcel, and are regularly audited by external auditors. We will ensure that any auditors access your information solely for the purposes of carrying out the audit in question and that they are subject to the security requirements imposed by the data protection laws.
We may from time to time share your information with other organisations but only to the extent required to allow them to maintain services provided to us and always subject to appropriate confidentiality provisions.
We keep your information in case files in accordance with our retention periods outlined above.
We keep your information in our experts’ database for as long as you consent to our retaining it for that purpose.
Our Data Protection Officer is Mark Hynes. You can contact him at Data.Protection@walthamforest.gov.uk.
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice
These are included in the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.
If we’re unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).