Client Privacy Notice

The Dental Law Partnership is committed to keeping your information private. By ‘your information’ we mean any information or personal data about you that you or third parties provide to us.

 

How we collect your information

We will collect personal information from you directly and with your consent when you contact us to enquire about your claim, and during the course of your claim.

We will obtain information from your dental and medical records.

We may obtain information from other parties involved in your claim such as your opponent, practitioners who treat you or experts who examine you.

 

What do we use your information for?

Your information is used in order to investigate, advise, represent and assist you with your dental negligence claim.

 

What information do we hold?

In order to assist you with your claim we will need to obtain, process and store some or all of the following information:

• Prefix and full name
• Gender
• Date of birth/age
• Marital Status
• Occupation and employment details
• Contact details including your full postal address, landline and mobile telephone numbers and email address
• Contact details of your litigation friend if you are a protected party, or any person you nominate to assist you with your claim.
• Dental and medical records from your current and previous practitioners.
• Financial information – for example we may require details of your income to calculate a claim for loss of earnings, or details of your savings accounts in order to determine whether you can claim remission on court fees.
• National Insurance number and details of any state benefits received.
• Records of any communications in relation to your dental negligence claim

 

How we manage and protect your information

We protect all the personal information we collect whether in digital or other format. We maintain high levels of security on our premises and in respect of our computer servers where our digital data is held. Our computer servers are backed up and encrypted, and the relevant backups are held off-site as well as on-site. Recovery tests are periodically carried out.

 

Access to personal information is strictly controlled and restricted. Personal information is held in an encrypted form on servers and cannot be read without the secure electronic keys; therefore the information is protected from unauthorised access.

We use industry-standard digital security measures, such as current anti-virus protection on workstations and servers, spam and virus filters on email. All computers are regularly updated to fix security issues

 

Data processing outside the UK

We may transfer some of your personal information to a dental expert in Australia so that your claim can be assessed. We comply with UK data protection laws and have procedures in place to ensure your personal information is encrypted and secure at all times.

 

Disclosure to third parties

We do not sell your information to third parties.

We will not disclose information regarding your claim to anyone without your prior approval unless we are legally required to do so or in the event of a sale of the business.

We will not provide your information to other parties for marketing, advertising or other uses without your prior and express consent to do so.

 

In order to investigate, advise and represent you in relation to your dental negligence claim it will be necessary to disclose your information to trusted third parties who assist us in conducting our business or servicing your claim, so long as those parties agree to keep your information confidential. Trusted third parties may include the Court, your opponent and/or their representatives and any experts or Counsel nominated by you or your opponent.

 

Your consent

On signing a Conditional Fee Agreement with the Dental Law Partnership we will ask you to confirm that you have read our privacy notice and that you consent to us collecting and processing personal information about you in line with this policy.

 

You can withdraw your consent at any time. Please contact us if you wish to do so.

If you withdraw your consent we may not be able to provide services to you.

Withdrawal of consent after signing the Conditional Fee Agreement will effectively end our Conditional Fee Agreement and you may incur liability for any costs and disbursements we have incurred on your behalf.

 

How long do we keep your personal information?

We may keep your information for up to 7 years following the conclusion of your dental negligence claim for one of the following reasons:

• To respond to any questions or complaints
• To show that we treated you fairly
• To maintain records according to the rules that apply to us

 

We may keep your personal information for longer than 7 years if we cannot delete it for legal, regulatory or technical reasons. We may also keep it for research and statistical purposes. If we do we will make sure that your privacy is protected and use it only for those purposes.

 

Your Rights

1. You have the right to access your personal information we hold.
2. You have the right to question any information we have about you that you think is wrong or incomplete. If you do, we will take reasonable steps to check its accuracy and correct it.
3. You have the right to object to our use of your personal information, or to ask us to delete, remove or stop using your personal information if there is no need for us it keep it. This is known as the ‘right to object’ and the ‘right to erasure’ or the ‘right to be forgotten’. However there may be a legal or other official reason why we need to keep or use your data.
4. You have the right to withdraw your consent to the use of your information at any time.
5. You have the right to lodge a complaint to the Information Commissioners’ Office if you believe that we have not complied with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulations with regard to your personal information.

If you wish to access your personal information or exercise any of these rights please contact Helen Coleman, Data Protection Officer.

Identity and contact details of the data controller

The Dental Law Partnership Solicitors Limited trading as the Dental Law Partnership is the controller and processor of data for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulations.

If you have any concerns as to how your personal information is processed you can contact:

Helen Coleman,  Director and Data Protection Officer for the Dental Law Partnership.

By email: hc@dentallaw.co.uk

By post: Alvaston House, Middlewich Road, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 6PF.