This privacy notice sets out how A.C. Morrison & Richards will collect, use, share and store the personal information that you provide to us.
A.C. Morrison & Richards, including A.C. Morrison & Richards Financial Services Department, will be a "controller" of the personal information that you provide to us, when you instruct us to act on your behalf, unless otherwise stated in this privacy notice.
A.C. Morrison & Richards is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (registration reference Z627252X).
Individual clients' personal data
When you become a client of A.C. Morrison & Richards, we will collect, store and use the personal information that you provide to us in your instructions and during the course of our solicitor / client or adviser / client relationship. We may ask you for additional personal information during the course of our relationship, which shall be collected, stored and used in accordance with this privacy notice.
Other individuals’ personal data
There are various circumstances where we will have dealings with individuals who are not our clients, for example, tenants of landlords for whom we act and beneficiaries of estates where we are dealing with the estate administration. In these circumstances, all personal information shall be collected, stored and used in accordance with this privacy notice.
What we do with your data
All of the personal data which we collect is processed by our employees. We will document what personal data we hold, where it came from and what we do with it. The data will only be used for the purpose for which it was intended and it will not be shared with 3rd parties. We have a Data Protection Policy in place to oversee the effective and secure processing of your personal data.
Why we need your personal information – contractual purposes
We need to collect our clients' personal information in order to provide you with an ongoing service, so that we can perform our contractual obligations to you. We will not collect any personal data from you that we do not need. We will use our clients' personal information to:
- provide you with legal, personal taxation and financial advice by, for example, communicating with you by email, letter and/or telephone.
- represent you as solicitors in connection with a range of legal services, including, but not limited to, residential sales and purchases, residential leasing, agricultural law, estate administration, general private client work, company law and commercial property.
- represent you as financial advisers in connection with mortgages, general insurance and life assurance.
- respond to and communicate with you regarding your queries, comments, support needs or complaints, concerns or allegations, for example, we will use your personal information to investigate your complaint and take disciplinary action, if applicable.
We need to collect personal information of other individuals, including prospective tenants and tenants in order to perform our contractual obligations. We will use tenants’ personal information to:
- process tenancy applications
- undertake and perform our obligations and duties in accordance with the terms of your lease
- enable us to respond to repair requests and complaints
Why we need your personal information – legal obligations
We are under a legal obligation to process certain personal information relating to our clients and certain other individuals, including tenants for the purposes of complying with our obligations under:-
- The Law Society of Scotland requirements for solicitors in terms of the Practice Rules 2011
- The Money Laundering Regulations 2017
- The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002
- The Terrorism Act 2000
- The Financial Conduct Authority
- Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016
Other uses of your personal information
We may ask you if we can process your personal information for additional purposes. For example, to obtain insurance quotations, and alternative mortgage products. We will provide you with an additional privacy notice with information on how we will use your information for these additional purposes.
Who we share your personal information with
We may be required to share personal information with statutory or regulatory authorities and organisations to comply with statutory obligations. Such organisations include the Law Society of Scotland, FCA, HMRC, Revenue Scotland, Insurers, Banks and Building Societies and Police Scotland, for the purposes of compliance and anti-money laundering.
In relation to residential tenancies, we may be required to share tenants’ personal information with individuals and organisations in order to comply with statutory obligations. Such individuals and organisations include contractors in relation to preparing Inventories and instructing repairs, the local authority and utility providers in relation to transfer of utilities and Police Scotland and Scottish Fire & Rescue in relation to investigating complaints.
We may also share personal data with our professional advisers for the purposes of taking advice.
A.C. Morrison & Richards employs third party suppliers to provide services, including IT. These suppliers may process personal data on our behalf as “processors” and they are subject to written contractual conditions to only process that personal data under our instructions and to protect it.
In the event that we do share personal data with external third parties, we will only share such personal data strictly required for the specific purposes and take reasonable steps to ensure that recipients shall only process the disclosed personal data in accordance with those purposes.
How we protect your personal information
Your personal information is stored on our paper file and on our electronic filing system and Server based in the UK and is accessed by our authorised employees for the purposes set out above.
How long we keep your personal information
We are required by the Law Society of Scotland and FCA to keep your basic personal data for certain durations depending on the type of work/product involved. We undertake to retain your data for no longer than deemed necessary by the Law Society of Scotland and FCA. If the retention programme is not specified by the Law Society of Scotland or the FCA, we will retain your personal data for no longer than 12 years. We will review and possibly delete your personal information following a period of at least 6 years after you have ceased to be our client.
We have a data retention policy that sets out the periods for retaining and reviewing all information that we hold, as prescribed by the Law Society of Scotland and FCA. This sets out different retention periods and you can request a copy by contacting us at A.C. Morrison & Richards, 18 Bon Accord Crescent, Aberdeen AB11 6XY.
Your rights
You can exercise any of the following rights by writing to us at A.C. Morrison & Richards, 18 Bon Accord Crescent, Aberdeen AB11 6XY.
Your rights in relation to your personal information are:
- you have a right to request access to the personal information that we hold about you by making a "subject access request";
- if you believe that any of your personal information is inaccurate or incomplete, you have a right to request that we correct or complete your personal information;
- you have a right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information for specific purposes; and
- if you wish us to delete your personal information, you may request that we do so.
Any requests received by A.C. Morrison & Richards will be considered under applicable data protection legislation. If you remain dissatisfied, you have a right to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office at www.ico.org.uk