We are the law firm of Morison and Smith Limited having our Registered Office at 20 Anderson Street, Airdrie, Scotland, ML6 0AA. We have offices at:
- 16 Anderson Street, AIRDRIE, ML6 0AA
- 39 High Street CARLUKE ML8 4AL
- 20 Hope Street LANARK ML11 7NG
- 61 High Street LANARK ML11 7LN
You can contact us at: 20 Hope Street, Lanark, ML11 7NG by phone on 01555 662488 or by email at [email protected]
Our Undertaking to you
In this Privacy Statement we will tell you how we collect and use your personal data. We will use it to look after your interests in the best way we can and to ensure that we can properly act on your behalf. We will make sure we collect and store your personal data securely.
If you’re a client of the firm:
We collect your personal data from you. This is either face to face, over the phone, email, letter or fax.
If you’re a client of another law firm:
We will receive your personal data from your solicitor or from our client.
Data we receive from third parties
We will also receive and process personal data of third parties for whom we neither act nor have any connection with. This can belong to the defender or witness in a court case, the beneficiary in a Will or Executry case or the other party in an accident case. These are examples of where we might receive and process personal data which does not belong to our clients. This list is not exhaustive and we will receive and process personal data from a wide range of third parties.
The types of personal data we collect
We collect names and contact details, including your postal address, telephone numbers and email addresses. We collect identification information from you in order to verify your identity, which may include a copy of your driving licence, passport and/or a bank statement or utility bill.
If you are a client, we collect additional personal data as is necessary to properly represent you and carry out your lawful instructions to us. This can include personal and business financial information, employment information, personal circumstances, health and medical information, information on your family members and their circumstances.
COVID-19 UPDATE: as a result of the worldwide Coronavirus pandemic, we may need to record information regarding whether you are displaying from any symptoms of Covid-19, have been in recent contact with anyone who has tested positive or is displaying symptoms of Covid-19 or have been advised to shield.
What we will do with your personal data?
Where you are a client, we will use your personal data to act on your behalf in the matter or matters you have instructed us in. These are set out in the Terms of Business we have sent to you.
We will also be in touch with you from time to time to explain other services we can provide that may be relevant to your circumstances and inform you about changes in the law that might impact on you, your family, your business or your employment or which otherwise may affect you. If you do not wish to receive such communications, please let us know and you will be excluded from receiving them.
Where you are not a client, we will process your data for the purpose of carrying out our client’s instructions in a transaction or case in which we’re acting.
On what basis are we processing your personal data?
Where you are a client:
The following Lawful Bases apply where we process personal data for our clients:
- To perform a contract or take steps to enter into a contract: this relates to the Contract we have with you as set out in our Terms of Business letter to you;
- To comply with a legal obligation: this includes complying with our professional obligations as a firm of solicitors under the Law Society of Scotland and Scottish Legal Complaints Commission requirements, the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 and other applicable legislation; or
- To pursue our or a third party’s legitimate interests, provided there is no disadvantage to you: this includes where it is in our interests to promote our services to you or provide you with legal updates.
Where we process your personal data in pursuit of legitimate interests, you have the right to object to us using your personal data for the above purposes. If you wish to object to any of the above processing, please contact us at [email protected]. If we agree and comply with your objection, this may affect our ability to undertake the tasks above to represent you as our client.
Where we process special categories of personal data for our clients (for example, health information), we will apply one of the Lawful Bases above and one of the following Special Conditions:
- Your explicit consent (where consent is required);
- To establish, exercise or defend legal claims: this includes actual or prospective legal proceedings and complaints;
- To prevent or detect unlawful acts and/or fraud; or
- Where a disclosure is required on suspicion of terrorist financing or anti-money laundering.
COVID-19 UPDATE: We may need to process additional health information for reasons of public interest in the area of public health, including protecting against serious cross-border threats to health where we have a legal duty of confidentiality to our clients.
If another solicitor or organisation acting for you has provided your personal data in the course of a transaction with us on behalf of a client for whom we act:
Our Lawful Basis for Processing your personal data is the Legitimate Interests of this firm and its clients to properly and lawfully represent our clients’ interests.
This Lawful Basis for Processing also applied to personal data of individuals who have no connection with our firm where our clients instruct us to carry out such processing. Examples of such individuals are beneficiaries named in a Will, the Defender who we are instructed to sue, or a witness in a court action. This list is not exhaustive and there are many other instances where we will be required to process personal data as instructed by our clients.
Where we process your personal data in pursuit of legitimate interests, you have the right to object to us using your personal data for the above purposes. If you wish to object to any of the above processing, please contact us at [email protected]. If we agree and comply with your objection, this may affect our ability to undertake the tasks above to represent our clients.
Where we process special categories of personal data for other individuals (for example, health information), we will apply one of the Lawful Bases above and one of the following Special Conditions:
- Your explicit consent (where consent is required);
- To establish, exercise or defend legal claims: this includes actual or prospective legal proceedings and complaints;
- To prevent or detect unlawful acts and/or fraud; or
- Where a disclosure is required on suspicion of terrorist financing or anti-money laundering.
Measures in place to ensure the protection of any Children’s or Special Categories of personal data held
We ensure that any children’s or special categories of personal data we hold are properly stored in our access controlled data store on our Network and in our firm’s Practice Management systems which, again, can only be accessed through a secure username and password.
Any data of this nature held in paper files, is held in secure filing cabinets within our offices which are locked and alarmed when unoccupied.
This data is only accessed by solicitors and staff members within our firm and no access is available to third parties in respect of this data.
Data is stored in our access controlled data store on our Network and in our firm’s Practice Management systems which, again, can only be accessed through a secure username and password.
Personal data processed by third parties on our behalf
Your personal data will be processed by third parties with whom we are required to deal with when acting properly and lawfully for you. Examples of such parties are professional searchers, our IT support company and our practice management system support desk, our file store for closed files, and our secure shredding company. This list is not exhaustive and will change from time to time. If you require specific details, please contact us.
We are regulated by The Law Society of Scotland and they have a right of access to our books and records to carry out regulatory inspections. They may remove personal data from our premises and systems in order to carry out regulatory checks. We may be required to share personal data with other statutory or regulatory authorities and organisations, such as the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, HMRC, Scottish courts, Registers of Scotland, Companies House, local authorities, expert witnesses, local agents, accountants and auditors.
Our Data Retention Policy
Where you are a client:
We will retain your data in accordance with our current data retention policy. This is set out in our Terms of Business we sent to you.
If you are a third party:
We will retain your data in accordance with our client’s instructions and any data retained within our digital or paper filing system or storage will be subject to our data retention policy. [You can request further information on specific retention periods by contacting us at [email protected]] [Drafting Note: I would suggest referencing the Law Society retention periods here, as applicable.]
What are your rights?
You have the following rights:
- Access to the personal data we hold about you, free of charge in most cases;
- The correction of your personal data when incorrect, out of date or incomplete;
- To object to the processing of your personal data where we have no legitimate overriding interest, or once the purpose for which we hold the data has come to an end;
- To request that we stop using your personal data for direct marketing;
- To request that we stop any consent-based processing of your personal data after you withdraw that consent;
- To request that we restrict the processing of your personal data for specific purposes;
- To ask us to delete or erase your personal data (subject to our Terms of Business in the case of clients);
- To request the personal data we hold about you, which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit such personal data to a third party; and
- If applicable, you have a right to object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or which similarly significantly affect you.
To protect the confidentiality of your information, we will ask you to verify your identity before proceeding with any request you make under this Privacy Statement. If you have authorised a third party to submit a request on your behalf, we will ask them to prove they have your permission to act.
To exercise any of the above rights, please contact us at: 20 Hope Street, Lanark, ML11 7NG by phone on 01555 662488 or by email at [email protected]
What is our Complaints Procedure?
Our complaints procedure in respect of any legal work we carry out on your behalf is stated in our Terms of Business letter to you. If you are not a client of the firm, you should write to us at the contact address show at the beginning of this Privacy Statement.
If you are unsatisfied with the manner in which we have dealt with any complaint relating to your personal data, you are entitled to ask the Information Commissioner to investigate. You will find information on how to raise a concern with the information Commissioner on their website by clicking this link: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ If you do not have Internet Access, you can call the Information Commissioner by telephoning 0303 123 1113.
07/07/2020
