Antony Hook, Barrister at Law
and Hook Law
Privacy Notice - General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”)
Please read the following information carefully. This privacy notice contains
information about the information collected, stored and otherwise processed about you and the reasons for the processing. It also tells you who I share this information with, the security mechanisms I have put in place to protect your data and how to contact me in the event you need further information.
Who Am I?
I am Antony Hook. I am a barrister-at-law in England & Wales. I also trade under the name Hook Law. I also work from a barristers chambers (www.greatjames.co.uk)
I collect, use and am responsible for personal information about you.
When I do this I am the ‘controller’ of this information for the purposes of the GDPR
and the Data Protection Act 2018.
If you need to contact me about your data or the processing carried out you can use the contact details at the end of this document.
What do I do with your information?
Information collected
When carrying out the provision of legal services I collect some or all of the following personal information that you provide:
- personal details
- family details
- lifestyle and social circumstances
- goods and services
- financial details
- education, training and employment details
- physical or mental health details
- racial or ethnic origin
- political opinions
- religious, philosophical or other beliefs
- trade union membership
- sex life or sexual orientation
- genetic data
- biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person
- criminal proceedings, outcomes and sentences, and related security measures
- other personal data relevant to instructions to provide legal services,
including data specific to the instructions in question.
Information collected from other sources.
The same categories of information may also be obtained from third parties, such as other legal professionals or experts, members of the public, your family and friends, witnesses, courts and other tribunals, investigators, government departments, regulators, public records and registers.
How I use your personal information: Purposes
I may use your personal information for the following purposes:
- to provide legal services to my clients, including the provision of legal advice
and representation in courts, tribunals, arbitrations, and mediations
- to keep accounting records and carry out office administration
iii. to take or defend legal or regulatory proceedings or to exercise a lien
- to respond to potential complaints or make complaints
- to check for potential conflicts of interest in relation to future potential cases
- to promote and market my services
vii. to carry out anti-money laundering and terrorist financing checks
viii. to train other barristers and when providing work-shadowing opportunities
- to respond to requests for references
- when procuring goods and services
- to publish legal judgments and decisions of courts and tribunals
xii. as required or permitted by law.
Whether information has to be provided by you, and why
If I have been instructed by you or on your behalf on a case your personal information has to be provided, to enable me [to provide you with advice or representation or the reference, and to enable me to comply with my professional obligations, and to keep accounting records.
The legal basis for processing your personal information
I rely on the following as the lawful bases on which I collect and use your personal
information:
- If you have consented to the processing of your personal information, then I
may process your information for the purposes set out above to the extent to
which you have consented to me doing so.
- If you are a client, processing is necessary for the performance of a contract
for legal services or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into
a contract.
- In relation to information which is in categories (g) to (o) above (these being
categories which are considered to include particularly sensitive information
and which include information about criminal convictions or proceedings) I
rely on your consent for any processing for the purposes set out in purposes
(ii), (iv), (vi), (viii) and (ix) above. I need your consent to carry out processing
of this data for these purposes. However, if you do not consent to processing
for purposes (iv) and (ix) (responding to potential complaints and providing a
reference) I will be unable to take your case or to provide a reference. This is
because I need to be able to retain all the material about your case until there
is no prospect of a complaint and to provide an informed and complete
reference.
- In relation to information in categories (g) to (o) above (these being categories
which are considered to be particularly sensitive information and include
information about criminal convictions or proceedings), I am entitled by law
to process the information where the processing is necessary for legal
proceedings, legal advice, or otherwise for establishing, exercising or
defending legal rights.
- In relation to information which is not in categories (g) to (o) above, I rely on
my legitimate interest and/or the legitimate interests of a third party in
carrying out the processing for the Purposes set out above.
- In certain circumstances processing may be necessary in order that I can
comply with a legal obligation to which I am subject (including carrying out
anti-money laundering or terrorist financing checks).
- The processing is necessary to publish judgments or other decisions of courts
or tribunals.
Who will I share your personal information with?
If you are a client, some of the information you provide will be protected by legal professional privilege unless and until the information becomes public in the course of any proceedings or otherwise. As a barrister I have an obligation to keep your information confidential, except where it otherwise becomes public or is disclosed as part of the case or proceedings.
It may be necessary to share your information with the following:
- data processors, such as my Chambers staff, IT support staff, email providers,
data storage providers
- other legal professionals
- experts and other witnesses
- prosecution authorities
- courts and tribunals
- the staff in my chambers
- trainee barristers
- lay clients
- family and associates of the person whose personal information I am
processing
- 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
- current, past or prospective employers
- education and examining bodies
- business associates, professional advisers and trade bodies, e.g. the Bar
Council
- the intended recipient, where you have asked me to provide a reference.
- the general public in relation to the publication of legal judgments and
decisions of courts and tribunals [this requires the production of a policy document
to comply with this obligation – DPA Bill sch. 1 Part 2. para. 5(1)].
I 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 my consent or yours, which includes privileged information.
I may also be required to disclose your information to the police or intelligence services, where required or permitted by law.
Sources of information
The personal information I obtain may include information which has been obtained
from:
- other legal professionals
- experts and other witnesses
- prosecution authorities
- courts and tribunals
- trainee barristers
- lay clients
- family and associates of the person whose personal information I am
processing
- 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
- current, past or prospective employers
- education and examining bodies
- business associates, professional advisers and trade bodies, e.g. the Bar
Council
- the intended recipient, where you have asked me to provide a reference.
- the general public in relation to the publication of legal judgments and
decisions of courts and tribunals [this requires the production of a policy document
to comply with this obligation – DPA Bill sch. 1 Part 2. para. 5(1)].
- data processors, such as my Chambers staff, IT support staff, email providers,
data storage providers
- public sources, such as the press, public registers and law reports.
Transfer of your information outside the European Economic Area (EEA)
This privacy notice is of general application and as such it is not possible to state whether it will be necessary to transfer your information out of the EEA in any particular case or for a reference. However, if you reside outside the EEA or your case or the role for which you require a reference involves persons or organisations or courts and tribunals outside the EEA then it may be necessary to transfer some of your data to that country outside of the EEA for that purpose. If you are in a country outside the EEA or if the instructions you provide come from outside the EEA then it is inevitable that information will be transferred to those countries. If this applies to you and you wish additional precautions to be taken in respect of your information please indicate this when providing initial instructions.
Some countries and organisations outside the EEA have been assessed by the European Commission and their data protection laws and procedures found to show adequate protection. The list can be found here. Most do not. If your information has to be transferred outside the EEA, then it may not have the same protections and you may not have the same rights as you would within the EEA.
I may transfer your personal information to the following which are located outside
the European Economic Area (EEA):
- cloud data storage services based in the USA who have agreed to comply with
the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, in order to enable me to store your data and/or
backup copies of your data so that I may access your data when they need to.
The USA does not have the same data protection laws as the EU but the EU U.S. Privacy Shield has been recognised by the European Commission as providing adequate protection. To obtain further details of that protection see
https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/data-transfers-outsideeu/eu-us-privacy-shield_en.]
- cloud data storage services based in Switzerland, in order to enable me to store
your data and/or backup copies of your data so that I may access your data
when I need to. Switzerland does not have the same data protection laws as the
EU but has been recognised by the European Commission as providing
adequate protection; see https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/dataprotection/data-transfers-outside-eu/adequacy-protection-personal-data-noneu-countries_en.
If I decide to publish a judgment or other decision of a Court or Tribunal containing
your information then this will be published to the world.
I will not otherwise transfer personal information outside the EEA except as
necessary for providing legal services or for any legal proceedings.
If you would like any further information please use the contact details at the end of this document.
How long will I store your personal data?
I will normally store all your information:
- until at least 1 year after the expiry of any relevant limitation period (which
will usually be 6 years, but may be 12 years, or longer where the case includes
information relating to a minor), from the date of the last item of work carried
out, the date of the last payment received or the date on which all outstanding
payments are written off, whichever is the latest/whatever other end point is chosen.
This is because it may be needed for potential legal proceedings/ other period –
provide justification]. At this point any further retention will be reviewed and the
data 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 (without further notice to you) as soon as reasonably
practicable after the data is marked for deletion.
- I will store some of your information which I need to carry out conflict checks
for the rest of my career. However, this is likely to be limited to [your name and
contact details/ the name of the case/anything else]. This will not include any
information within categories (g) to (o) above.
- [Information related to anti-money laundering checks will be retained until five
years after the completion of the transaction or the end of the business
relationship, whichever is the later;]
- Names and contact details held for marketing purposes will be stored
indefinitely or until I [or my clerks] become[s] aware or am[/are] informed that
the individual has ceased to be a potential client.
Consent
As explained above, I am relying on your explicit consent to process your
information in categories (g) to (o) above. You provided this consent when you
agreed that I would provide legal services/you asked me to provide a reference.
You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time, but this will not affect the
lawfulness of any processing activity I have carried out prior to you withdrawing
your consent. However, where I also rely on other bases for processing your
information, you may not be able to prevent processing of your data. For example, if you have asked me to work for you and I have spent time on your case, you may owe me money which I will be entitled to claim.
If there is an issue with the processing of your information, please contact my clerks using the contact details below.
Your Rights
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 data or to complete missing
information I hold on you;
- Ask for your personal information to be erased, in certain circumstances;
- Receive a copy of the personal information you have provided to me 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 my processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;
- Request not to be the subject to automated decision-making which produces
legal effects that concern you or affects you in a significant way.
If you want more information about your rights under the GDPR please see the
Guidance from the Information Commissioners Office on Individual's rights under
the GDPR.
If you want to exercise any of these rights, please:
- Use the contact details at the end of this document;
- I 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.
I will respond to you within one month from when I receive your request.
Marketing Emails
Please note if you wish to unsubscribe from any marketing emails that you have signed up for, you can do so by following the instructions in any email I send or by contacting me. It may take 7 days for this to become effective.
How to make a complaint?
The GDPR also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with the Information
Commissioners’ Office if you are in the UK, or with the supervisory authority of the
Member State where you work, normally live or where the alleged infringement of
data protection laws occurred. The Information Commissioner’s Office can be
contacted at http://ico.org.uk/concerns/.
Future Processing
I do 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.hooklaw.org
Changes to this privacy notice
This privacy notice was published on 18 March 2020 and last updated on that date.
I continually review my privacy practices and may change this policy from time to
time. When I do it will be placed on the website www.hooklaw.org
Contact Details
If you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information I hold about
you, please contact me or my clerks.
The best way to contact me is to write to me at 37 Great James Street Chambers London or contact my clerks by email at email address [email protected]
Sign
Please read this privacy notice carefully and contact me if you have any
queries.
Only continue to use my website if you are content to accept this privacy policy.
This policy is governed exclusively by the law of England & Wales.