Privacy Policy

Data protection and confidentiality

We use the information you provide primarily for the provision of legal services to you and for related purposes including:

updating and enhancing client records
analysis to help us manage our practice
statutory returns
legal and regulatory compliance

Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), The Data Protection Act 2018, and our duty of confidentiality. Please note that our work for you may require us to give information to third parties such as expert witnesses and other professional advisers. You have a right of access under data protection legislation to the personal data that we hold about you.

External firms or organisations may conduct an audit or quality checks on our practice. These external firms or organisations are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files. Should you not want you file to be audited by any of these external organisations, then please let us know.

We are professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, solicitors may be required by statute to make a disclosure to police/government/financial agencies where they know or suspect that a transaction may involve money laundering or terrorist financing. If we make a disclosure in relation to your matter, we may not be able to tell you that a disclosure has been made. We may have to stop working on your matter for a period of time and may not be able to tell you why.

If we know or suspect that you have given false information in relation to an application for legal aid we are obliged to disclose that fact to the Legal Aid Agency.

If you wish any other person to be given access to your information, or details of your case (for example a relative) then please contact us and we can discuss the implications of this and advise you further.

Our Privacy Notice:

This notice details how we process the personal data we hold on you, and how we control the retention and use of that data. We seek only to use and retain such data that is necessary for the conduct of your criminal defence. By instructing us to conduct your criminal defence you have consented to our data protection policy.

Who to contact in regard to the processing of your data – Piara Dhanju is the appointed Data Protection Manager/Partner, and can be contacted at the office by telephone, or email – piara@dmasolicitors.co.uk.

The purpose for which we hold your personal data – DMA collects and processes personal data for the exercise of its service as criminal defence solicitors contracted to the LAA.

Who else has access to the data we hold about you - The organisations we may share personal data with include:

Public authorities such as the DWP, HMCTS, The LAA.

The crown prosecution service. The National Probation Service. Barristers and Experts appointed in the case.

How long will we hold your data – Personal Client Data contained in case paper files are retained for 6 years after the conclusion of the criminal defence work. After 6 years the relevant case papers are securely destroyed by incineration, pulping, or cross shredding.

Electronically held personal data will be retained for 10 years after the conclusion of the criminal defence work.

The General Data Protection Regulations / Data Protection Act 2018,

provide the following rights for individuals over the personal data we hold:

The right to be informed
The right of access
The right to rectification
The right to erasure
The right to restrict processing
The right to data portability
The right to object

Your right to request details about any of the above rights– If you wish to make a request please contact the firms’s DPM/P, Mr Piara Dhanju.

Your right to lodge a complaint with the ICO. When we ask you for information, we will comply with the law. If you consider that your information has been handled incorrectly, you can contact the Information Commissioner for independent advice about data protection.

You can contact the Information Commissioner at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113
www.ico.org.uk