Data Protection Policy

Gavin Bain & Company (G B & Co) is a law firm and provides legal advice and assistance to its clients. It is regulated by the Law Society of Scotland.

The personal data that G B & Co processes to provide these services relates to its clients and other individuals as necessary, including staff and suppliers’ staff. 

This policy sets out G B & Co’s commitment to ensuring that any personal data, including special category personal data, which G B & Co processes, is carried out in compliance with data protection law. G B & Co processes the personal data of clients from all over the world, including the personal data of non-EU citizens, but is committed to ensuring that all the personal data that it processes is done in accordance with data protection law. G B & Co ensures that good data protection practice is imbedded in the culture of our staff and our organisation.

‘Data Protection Law’ includes the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679; the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and all relevant EU and UK data protection legislation.

This policy applies to all personal data processed by G B & Co and is part of G B & Co’s approach to compliance with data protection law. All G B & Co staff are expected to comply with this policy and failure to comply may lead to disciplinary action for misconduct, including dismissal.

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example, when you complete the contact form, when you book a property viewing or engage with other contact forms within our site or if you provide us with other contact forms either electronically or physically.

A phone conversation with us.

E-mails or letters you send to us.

Meetings with one of our solicitors, property staff or other members of staff.

Our on-line services such as websites and social media.

What type of information do we collect from you?

The personal information we collect might include your name, address, e-mail address, telephone number, IP address and information regarding what pages are accessed and when.  If you make a payment to ourselves on-line, your card information is not held by us; it is collected by our third party parent processors, who specialise in secure on-line capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions.

How is your information used?

We may use your information to:-

1. Contact you regarding queries raised in the contact form.
2. Progress work on your behalf and send you information directly related to this.
3. Carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between us.
4. Seek your views or comments on the service we provide.
5. Notify you of changes to our services.
6. Send you communications which you have requested.
7. Process a job application.
8. To complete the matter on which you have instructed us.

The G B & Co website uses cookies.  Cookies are small pages of digital information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit.  Cookies can collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns but not identify you as an individual.  This information can help us to improve our service to you.

Cookies can be switched off by setting your browser preferences accordingly.  For more information on this, please visit our full Cookies Policy.  Please note that if you do turn off cookies, the functionality of our website may be diminished.  The main cookies used on our site are google analytics.

Google Maps are third party cookies which are unique identifiers to allow traffic analysis to Google Maps.

G B & Co complies with the data protection principles set out below. When processing personal data, it ensures that:

• it is processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency’)
• it is collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes (‘purpose limitation’)
• it is all adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed (‘data minimisation’)
• it is all accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date and that reasonable steps will be taken to ensure that personal data that are inaccurate, having regard to the purposes for which they are processed, are erased or rectified without delay (‘accuracy’)
• it is kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed (‘storage limitation’)
• it is processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, using appropriate technical or organisational measures (‘integrity and confidentiality’)

G B & Co will facilitate any request from a data subject who wishes to exercise their rights under data protection law as appropriate, always communicating in a concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible form and without undue delay.

G B & Co will:

• ensure that the legal basis for processing personal data is identified in advance and that all processing complies with the law
• not do anything with your data that you would not expect given the content of this policy and the fair processing or privacy notice
• ensure that appropriate privacy notices are in place advising staff and others how and why their data is being processed, and, in particular, advising data subjects of their rights
• only collect and process the personal data that it needs for purposes it has identified in advance
• ensure that, as far as possible, the personal data it holds is accurate, or a system is in place for ensuring that it is kept up to date as far as possible
• ensure that appropriate security measures are in place to ensure that personal data can only be accessed by those who need to access it and that it is held and transferred securely

G B & Co will ensure that all staff who handle personal data on its behalf are aware of their responsibilities under this policy and other relevant data protection and information security policies, and that they are adequately trained and supervised.

Breaching this policy may result in disciplinary action for misconduct, including dismissal. Obtaining (including accessing) or disclosing personal data in breach of G B & CO’s data protection policies may also be a criminal offence.

G B & Co has processes in place to ensure that it can facilitate any request made by an individual to exercise their rights under data protection law. All staff have received training and are aware of the rights of data subjects. Staff can identify such a request and know who to send it to.

All requests will be considered without undue delay and within one month of receipt as far as possible.

Subject access: the right to request information about how personal data is being processed, including whether personal data is being processed and the right to be allowed access to that data and to be provided with a copy of that data along with the right to obtain the following information:

• the purpose of the processing
• the categories of personal data
• the recipients to whom data has been disclosed or which will be disclosed
• the retention period
• the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office
• the source of the information if not collected direct from the subject, and
• the existence of any automated decision making

Rectification: the right to allow a data subject to rectify inaccurate personal data concerning them.

Erasure: the right to have data erased and to have confirmation of erasure, but only where:

• the data is no longer necessary in relation to the purpose for which it was collected, or
• where consent is withdrawn, or
• where there is no legal basis for the processing, or
• there is a legal obligation to delete data

Restriction of processing: the right to ask for certain processing to be restricted in the following circumstances:  

• if the accuracy of the personal data is being contested, or
• if our processing is unlawful but the data subject does not want it erased, or
• if the data is no longer needed for the purpose of the processing but it is required by the data subject for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, or
• if the data subject has objected to the processing, pending verification of that objection

Data portability: the right to receive a copy of personal data which has been provided by the data subject and which is processed by automated means in a format which will allow the individual to transfer the data to another data controller. This would only apply if G B & Co was processing the data using consent or on the basis of a contract.

Object to processing: the right to object to the processing of personal data relying on the legitimate interests processing condition unless G B & Co can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override the interests of the data subject or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

This includes the following personal data revealing:

• racial or ethnic origin
• political opinions
• religious or philosophical beliefs
• trade union membership
• the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person
• an individual’s health
• a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation
• criminal convictions or offences

G B & Co processes special category data of clients and third parties as is necessary to provide legal services for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

G B & Co processes special category data of employees as is necessary to comply with employment and social security law. This policy sets out the safeguards we believe are appropriate to ensure that we comply with the data protection principles set out above. G B & Co also has a data retention policy which sets out how long special category data will be held onto.

We will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including the purposes of satisfying any legal accounting or reporting requirements.

The partners of G B & Co take ultimate responsibility for data protection.

If you have any concerns or wish to exercise any of your rights under the GDPR, then you can contact the data protection lead in the following ways:

• Name: Neil Johnston
• Address: 432 Union Street, Aberdeen, AB10 1TR
• Email: n.johnston@gavin-bain.co.uk
• Telephone: 01224 623040

This policy was last updated on 25 March 2020 and shall be regularly monitored and reviewed, at least every two years.