Chambers collects some or all of the following personal information that you provide depending on the area of law to which instructions apply:

• Personal contact information
• Criminal proceedings, outcomes and sentences, or related security measures
• Other personal information relevant to instructions to provide legal services, including information specific to the instructions in question.

The same categories of information may be obtained from third parties, such as members of Chambers, experts, members of the public, witnesses, courts and other tribunals, government departments, regulators, public records and registers.

Chambers may use your personal information for the following purposes:

• Administration in connection with the provision legal of services and recording information relating to the use of these services
• To carry out anti-money laundering and terrorist financing checks
• Enforcement of our terms and conditions
• To respond to potential complaints or make complaints
• As otherwise required by law

In relation to the personal information collected for marketing purposes, this consists of

• Name, contact details and name of organisation if relevant.
• The areas of law of interest as specified by you
• Your attendance at Chambers’ events

This information can be provided by email to marketing@ftbchambers.co.uk or by completing the online form.

The information provided by you will be stored in Chambers’ practice management system.  It will be transferred to and processed by Mailchimp only for the purposes of sending marketing emails to you.  Each of these emails will provide an opportunity to unsubscribe.  By unsubscribing, you are opting out of receiving any further marketing emails from Francis Taylor Building.

Marketing emails include:

• Invitations to seminars and other events
• Occasional news alerts

If at any time, you would like your record to be deleted, please email marketing@ftbchambers.co.uk.

Chambers is currently hosting webinars and hybrid events using the Zoom platform.  In order to register for webinars and hybrid events hosted on Zoom, individuals may be asked to supply their name, organisation name and email adderess to Zoom in order to generate and send automated joining instructions.  Francis Taylor Building will have acceess to registration data and attendee data.  It will be used by Zoom to send reminders to you about the webinars you have signed up to.  It will also be used by Francis Taylor Building to follow up with you after each event for which you either sign up and or attended. This data will be deleted by Francis Taylor Building from the Zoom platform by 30 days after the date of each event.
Zoom's legal and privacy notices can be found here.

Chambers relies on the following as the lawful bases to collect and process your personal information:

The processing is necessary to prevent or detect unlawful acts where it is in the substantial public interest and it must be carried out without consent so as not to prejudice those purposes.

In certain circumstances processing may be necessary in order that Chambers can comply with a legal obligation to which it is subject (including carrying out anti-money laundering or terrorist financing checks).

It may be necessary to share your information with the following:

• Data processors – clerks and other staff, email providers, information technology systems providers, Mailchimp
• Legal professionals
• Experts and other witnesses
• Prosecution authorities
• Courts and tribunals
• Pupil barristers
• In the event of complaints, the Head of Chambers and members of Chambers who deal with the complaint, the Senior Clerk, the Bar Standards Board and the Legal Ombudsman

Chambers may be required to provide your information to regulators, such as the Bar Standards Board, the Financial Conduct Authority or the Information Commissioner’s Office. In the case of the Information Commissioner’s Office, there is a risk that your information may lawfully be disclosed by them for the purpose of any other civil or criminal proceedings, without Chambers’ consent or your consent, which includes privileged information.

Chambers may also be required to disclose your information to the police or intelligence services where required by law.

The personal information Chambers obtains may include information obtained from:

• Legal professionals
• Experts or other witnesses
• Courts and tribunals
• Lay and professional clients of members of Chambers
• In the event of complaints, the Head of Chambers, other members of Chambers who deal with complaints, the Bar Standards Board, and the Legal Ombudsman
• Other regulatory authorities
• Education and examining bodies
• Business associates, professional advisers and trade bodies, e.g. the Bar Council
• Data processors – clerks and other staff, email providers, information technology

Chambers will normally store all your information:

1. Until at least 1 year after the expiry of any relevant limitation period, from for example the date of the last provision of service or goods, the date of the last payment made or received or the date on which all outstanding payments are written off, whichever is the latest. At this point any further retention will be reviewed and the information will be marked for deletion or marked for retention for a further period. The latter retention period is likely to occur only where the information is needed for legal proceedings, regulatory matters or active complaints. Deletion will be carried out as soon as reasonably practicable after the information is marked for deletion.
2. Names and contact details held for marketing purposes will be stored indefinitely or until Chambers becomes aware or is informed that the individual has ceased to be a client / potential client or an individual has unsubscribed from Chambers marketing.

Under the GDPR, you have a number of rights that you can exercise in certain circumstances. These are free of charge. In summary, you may have the right to:

• Ask for access to your personal information and other supplementary information;
• Ask for correction of mistakes in your information or to complete missing information Chambers holds on you;
• Ask for your personal information to be erased, in certain circumstances;
• Receive a copy of the personal information you have provided to Chambers or have this information sent to a third party. This will be provided to you or the third party in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, e.g. a Word file;
• Object at any time to processing of your personal information for direct marketing;
• Object in certain other situations to the continued processing of your personal information;
• Restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;

If you would like more information about your rights under the GDPR please see the Guidance from the Information Commissioner's Office on Individuals' rights under the GDPR.

• If you want to exercise any of these rights, please:
• Use the contact details at the end of this document;
• Chambers may need to ask you to provide other information so that you can be identified;
• Please provide a contact address so that you can be contacted to request further information to verify your identity;
• Provide proof of your identity and address;
• State the right or rights that you wish to exercise.

Chambers will respond to you within one month from when it receives your request.

Data Protection Complaints Procedure

This procedure explains how individuals can make a complaint about the way Chambers has handled their personal data, what information we may need to investigate the complaint, and when they can expect a response.

Chambers is committed to handling personal data lawfully, fairly, securely and transparently. This procedure provides a clear route for individuals to raise data protection complaints with us. 

When to use this procedure

This procedure should be used where an individual has a Data Protection Complaint (DPC) and believes that Chambers may have infringed data protection legislation in the way we have collected, used, stored, shared, retained, protected, or otherwise handled their personal data, or the personal data of someone they are authorised to act for.

What this procedure covers

• How Chambers responded to a request made under the Data Protection Act 2018, including requests for access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, portability, or other applicable data protection rights.
• Concerns about the security measures used to protect personal data, including concerns arising from an actual or suspected data breach.
• How Chambers collected, used, shared, stored, retained, or deleted personal data.
• Concerns about the accuracy of personal data Chambers holds.
• Any other matter relating to Chambers’ compliance with data protection legislation.

Making a complaint

Time limits

Chambers will only consider a DPC received within six months of the matter complained about. Complaints received outside this period will only be considered in exceptional circumstances, for example where the complainant became aware of the matter more than six months after it occurred.

How to make a data protection complaint

A DPC can be made by email to our Senior Clerk using the email address paul.coveney@ftbchambers.co.uk, or in writing addressed to:

Paul Coveney
Senior Clerk
Francis Taylor Building
Inner Temple
London EC4Y 7BY

Please provide as much detail as possible so that we can understand and investigate the complaint. This should include your name and contact details, a description of the issue, relevant dates, copies of correspondence, reference numbers, the personal data involved, and the outcome sought.

Suppporting information required to investigate a complaint

We may need to ask someone who has made a complaint for proof of identity before we can proceed. If proof of identity is required, we will ask for it at the earliest opportunity.

A DPC may be made by someone acting on behalf of another person, such as a family member, solicitor, representative, advocate, or relevant not-for-profit organisation. In these cases, we will check that the person making the complaint is authorised to act on the other person’s behalf. This may require evidence such as:

• an appropriate power of attorney; or o a signed letter of authority from the person they are acting on behalf of.

In the absence of appropriate evidence, we will not investigate the complaint.

Acknowledgement and investigation

We will aim to acknowledge receipt of a DPC received within 5 working days.

We will then aim to investigate the DPC and provide an outcome within one calendar month. However, complex complaints may take longer to resolve. If additional time is needed, we will tell the complainant.

When necessary, we will request additional information or clarification to ensure our substantive response is complete.

We will keep the person who has made the complaint updated on the progress of the investigation where we can.

Outcome and possible remedies

We will provide the complainant with the outcome of the DPC without undue delay once the investigation is complete. The response will explain, where appropriate, what we investigated, our findings, whether we uphold the complaint in whole or in part, any action we will take, and any further steps available to the complainant.

Where a DPC is upheld, possible actions may include correcting inaccurate data, completing or revisiting a data protection request, improving security measures, changing internal processes, providing further explanation, offering an apology, updating records, or taking other appropriate remedial action.

Escalation to the Information Commissioner's Office

If the complainant remains dissatisfied after receiving our response, or believes Chambers has not handled the original DPC appropriately, they may raise the matter with the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK regulator for data protection and information rights:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow, Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Website: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/  
Telephone:  +44 (0) 303 123 1113.

Record keeping and learning

We will keep appropriate records of each DPC, including the issues raised, steps taken, decisions made, communications with the complainant, and any remedial actions. We will use complaints to identify lessons learned, improve our handling of personal data, and strengthen data protection governance.

Review of this procedure

This procedure will be reviewed periodically and updated where required to reflect changes in data protection law, regulatory guidance, organisational structure, or operational practice.

Chambers does not intend to process your personal information except for the reasons stated within this privacy notice. If this changes, this privacy notice will be amended and placed on www.ftbchambers.co.uk.

This privacy notice was published on 23 May 2018.  It was last updated on 16 April 2020.

Chambers continually reviews its privacy practices and may change its policy from time to time. When it does, an amended privacy notice will be placed on www.ftbchambers.co.uk.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information Chambers holds about you, please contact Chambers using the details below.

Paul Coveney, Senior Clerk
Francis Taylor Building
Inner Temple
London
EC4Y 7BY