MacCorkell Legal & Commercial respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data and keeping it safe. This Data Protection & Privacy Notice will inform you as to how we collect, process and look after your personal data, and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
WHO WE ARE
MacCorkell Legal & Commercial Limited (MLC) is a private client and commercial legal practice and is a company registered in Northern Ireland (Company Number NI606585).
MLC is recognised as a data controller and is therefore responsible for your personal data. We have appointed a Data Protection Officer who has overall responsibility for our Data Protection & Privacy Notice.
If you have any questions in relation to this Data Protection & Privacy Notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using the details set out below.
Contact Details
Name of Legal Entity: MacCorkell Legal & Commercial Limited
Registered Office: Unit 4 Garvey Studios, 8-10 Longstone Street, Lisburn, BT28 1TP
Email: mail@mlclegal.org
Telephone Number: 028 9266 9555
Website: www.mlclegal.org
DATA PROTECTION & PRIVACY POLICY IN BRIEF
It is important that you read the full policy to understand what information we hold, how we may use it and what your rights are. However, if you don’t have time to read it all now, the key points are summarised below:
- We collect information that is personal data. Personal data is information that can be used to help identify an individual, such as name, address, telephone number, email address or IP addresses.
- We collect information about everyone who engages with MLC including clients, barristers, other experts, employees, suppliers and others.
- We collect information in order to provide services to clients and prospective clients and for administration purposes.
- We only collect the information that we need or that you agree we can collect.
- We do our best to keep information secure.
- We never sell your data, and we will never share it with another company for their own purposes without your express authorisation.
- We only share data where we are required by law or with carefully selected service providers who carry out work for us. We recognise the importance of ensuring that all our service providers treat your data as carefully as we would, use it only as instructed, and allow us to check that they do this.
- Our websites use cookies. For more information, please check our Cookies Policy.
You will find the policy in full below.
This policy applies to the websites we operate, our use of emails and postal mailings for marketing purposes, and any other methods we use for collecting information. It covers what we collect and why, what we do with the information, what we won’t do with the information, and what rights you have.
THE DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
We will only ever collect information we need, including data to help improve our services, or which you agree we can collect.
Personal data means information that can be used to identify you. It can include:
- Your name
- Date of Birth
- Your contact details, whether personal or business, including postal address, email address and telephone numbers along with your preferences as to which of these we should use to contact you in the future
- Financial information such as bank account, direct debit, debit or credit card details
- Your position within an organisation
- Internet Protocol addresses, details of pages visited on our websites and files downloaded
- Your identification details including passport, driving licence and other documents in order to ensure compliance with current Money Laundering Regulations
- National Insurance Number
- Other personal information or sensitive data you share with us
SENSITIVE DATA
Sensitive information can include diversity and health data, details of offences, details of sexual orientation, religion etc. We will only request sensitive information where necessary and we are legally allowed to do so. We will ensure enhanced safeguards are put in place to protect sensitive data.
HOW WE COLLECT THIS DATA
We may use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
DIRECT INTERACTIONS
The majority of the personal data we collect will come from you directly. This could include when you instruct us to act on your behalf, engage with our social media platforms, register to receive news about our services, or contact us by telephone, email, text or post.
You don’t have to disclose any of this information to browse our website. However, if you choose to withhold requested information, we may not be able to provide you with certain services.
INFORMATION THAT IS AVAILABLE PUBLICLY
This may include information found in publicly available sources such as Companies House, the Electoral Register, LinkedIn, government websites and information that has been published in reputable media.
USE OF OUR WEBSITE
As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this data by using ‘cookies’ and other similar technologies which help make our site and the way you use it better. Please see our Cookies Policy for further details.
If you want to delete cookies that are already on your computer, please refer to the instructions for your file management software to locate the file or directory that stores cookies. You may also wish to restrict or block web browser cookies that are set on your device through your browser settings. See www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of desktop browsers.
INFORMATION FROM THIRD PARTIES
We may obtain personal information from third parties in order to allow us to carry out legal work on your behalf. These third parties can include organisations such as banks, building societies, professional advisors both legal and non-legal, estate agents and organisations that have referred work to us.
HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to do so. The data we collect helps us to complete your matter or transaction or send you relevant information, and to ensure that all our communication with you is relevant and timely.
We will use your personal information:
- To verify your identity in order to ensure compliance with Money Laundering and Law Society regulations.
- To verify your source of funds.
- To keep financial records of your transactions and the transactions we make on your behalf.
- To process your matter or transaction including providing you with advice, carrying out litigation on your behalf, attending hearings on your behalf, preparing documents or to complete transactions.
- To seek advice from third parties such as legal and non-legal experts.
- To keep a record of your correspondence, questions you have asked us or comments or complaints you have made.
- To respond to any complaint or allegation of negligence made against us.
- To occasionally send relevant marketing information or newsletters and advice notes regarding the services we provide.
OPTING OUT
You can choose at any time which marketing materials or information you want to receive from MLC and in which format. You can change or stop what you receive from us by following the instructions at the bottom of any postal communication or email, or by contacting us using any of the methods listed at the start of this Notice.
THE LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING DATA
CONSENT – We may use your consent for the provision of information, such as newsletters or advice notes regarding the services we provide, by way of email, post, telephone or online communication. Email communication you receive provides a clear opportunity for you to opt out of/unsubscribe from future marketing email communications.
CONTRACTUAL BASIS – We will use a contractual basis for processing data relating to your matter or transaction, such as acting for you in a property transaction or dispute. Our contract with you is set out in our Terms of Engagement.
LEGAL OBLIGATION – We will process your personal data where we are required to do so by law, e.g. in a property transaction we may be required to provide personal data to HM Revenue & Customs in respect of Stamp Duty.
LEGITIMATE INTEREST – If you have been a previous client of MLC, we may use legitimate interest as a reason to contact you. If you have previously asked us not to contact you, we will continue to respect your wishes.
We will ensure that at all times, we balance the interest of MLC against your rights and freedoms, having due regard to your reasonable expectations about the use of your data.
SECURITY AND PROTECTING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
The security of your information is very important to us. We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
Despite all the security and protection we put in place, the internet cannot be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Therefore, you submit data at your own risk. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
SHARING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
There are circumstances, when carrying out legal work, where we may need to disclose your personal data to third parties.
We may share your data with the following third parties:
- Land Registry, where you are involved in a property transaction
- HM Revenue and Customs
- Courts and Tribunals
- Solicitors acting on the other side of a transaction
- Barristers
- Non-legal experts including but not limited to accountants, medical professionals, mediators and process servers
- External Auditors including but not limited to the Law Society of NI, Home Charter Scheme, ISO assessors and financial auditors
- Banks, building societies or other financial institutions
- Any disclosure required by law or regulation such as the prevention of financial crime and terrorism
We carry out comprehensive checks on third parties before we work with them and may put a contract or specific guidelines in place that set out our expectations and requirements, especially regarding how they manage the personal data they have collected or to which they have access. They are not permitted to use this information for any other purpose and are required to confidentially destroy this information once the function for which it has been transferred has been carried out.
Due to the nature of servers and cloud-based storage all over the world, this may mean that, during the processing of your data, it leaves the European Economic Area (EEA). Although they may not be subject to the same data protection laws as in the UK, we will take steps to make sure they provide an adequate level of protection. By submitting your personal information, you are agreeing to this potential transfer, storing or processing at a location outside the EEA.
KEEPING YOUR INFORMATION UP TO DATE
When possible, we use publicly available sources to keep your records up to date and accurate. We also take appropriate measures to ensure that information is only kept for as long as is necessary and only for the purpose for which it was given.
We would appreciate if you let us know if your contact or personal details change, as this gives us consent to use the updated information and continue to communicate with you.
HOW LONG WE WILL KEEP YOUR INFORMATION
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and the applicable legal requirements.
Depending on the nature of the matter or transaction, we may be required to retain legal files for a period of up to 10 years, based on the Law Society guidelines for destruction of files as summarised below:
- Conveyancing Transactions – 13 years (potentially 7 years if documents not executed under seal)
- Corporate, Commercial & Company Work – 13 years
- Probate – 7 years
- Trusts (including those involving land) – Lifetime of Trust + 13 years
- Litigation – Civil Court Cases (RTA’s, PI claims, disputes) – 7 years
- Matrimonial – 7 years
- Simple debt cases – 7 years
- Correspondence files – 7 years
Wills and Title Deeds will be held indefinitely, provided we have your consent to do so. Where you have made a will with us, and we have retained this on your behalf, we may contact you after 5 years to advise you to review and update your will.
Where your information is no longer required, we will ensure that it is disposed of in a confidential and secure manner.
YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
The General Data Protection Regulation gives you certain rights over your personal data and how we collect, process and retain it.
You have the right to:
- Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
- Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, although we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
- Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us to continue to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local legislation. Please note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal or regulatory reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
- Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or that of a third party) and you object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may be able to demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
- Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data where you want us to establish the data’s accuracy, where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it, where you want us to hold the data even if we no longer require it or you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
- Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a readable format. Note that this right only applies to data which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
- Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdrew your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw consent.
- Change your communication preferences at any time.
FEES
You will not normally have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
WHAT WE MAY NEED FROM YOU
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
TIME LIMIT TO RESPOND
We will try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally, it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
CHANGES TO THE POLICY & YOUR DUTY TO INFORM US OF CHANGES
MLC may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. This may be necessary if the law changes, or if we change our business in a way that affects the protection of personal data. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal data, we will make this clear on the MLC website and/or by contacting you directly.
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.
MAKING A COMPLAINT
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Officer (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us in the first instance at the details given at the start of this Notice.
February 2023