Who We Are
Kingsley Bond Solicitors (‘we’ or ‘us’ or ‘our’) gather and process your personal information in accordance with this privacy notice and in compliance with the relevant data protection regulation and laws. This notice provides you with the necessary information regarding your rights and our obligations, and explains how, why and when we process your personal data.

Information That We Collect
Kingsley Bond Solicitors processes your personal information to meet our legal, statutory and contractual obligations and to provide you with our services. We will never collect any unnecessary personal data from you and do not process your information in any way, other than as specified in this notice. The personal data that we collect can include your name, date of birth, postal and email address, telephone number, National Insurance number, passport number, driving license number and special category data (i.e. health/medical information).

How We Use Your Personal Data
We take your privacy very seriously. Our lawful basis for holding your personal information is contractual i.e. to meet the requirements of a contract, namely the specific instruction you give us as your Solicitor.In relation to your legal matter we collect other specific personal data from you, including more sensitive information in so called ‘special categories’ This is lawfully based on ‘legitimate interest’, primarily your own legitimate interest and the interests of us in representing you. Some categories of personal data must be processed by us for statutory reasons and our lawful basis for processing such data is a ‘legal obligation’, this includes data which we must report to (for example) the Law Society and the SRA (the Solicitors Regulatory Authority). This data is collected only on the condition that reporting to these authorities is necessary.For some matters, particularly family and private client related, we may require medical information for the purpose of assessing the matter. 

Your Rights
You have the right to access any personal information that we process about you and to request information about:  

• What personal data we hold about you

• The purposes of the processing

• The categories of personal data concerned

• The recipients to whom the personal data has/will be disclosed

• How long we intend to store your personal data

• If we did not collect the data directly from you, information about the source

If you believe that we hold any incomplete or inaccurate data about you, you have the right to ask us to correct and/or complete the information and we will strive to do so as quickly as possible; unless there is a valid reason for not doing so, at which point you will be notified. You also have the right to request erasure of your personal data or to restrict processing (where applicable) in accordance with the data protection laws; as well as to object to any direct marketing from us. Where applicable, you also have the right to data portability of your information.

How Long Will We Retain Information For?
We will retain your personal data for six years after your file is closed. All your special category personal data held by us will be destroyed at the latest, after six years (for many matters much earlier). For statutory reasons we will retain your key personal identifiers after that period, but most personal information will no longer be accessible.

Safeguarding Measures
We take every reasonable measure and precaution to protect and secure your personal data. We work hard to protect you and your information from unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or destruction and have several layers of security measures in place, including SSL, restricted access, IT authentication, firewalls and anti-virus/malware.

Transfers Outside the UK / EU
Personal data in the UK and European Union is protected by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) but some other countries may not necessarily have the same high standard of protection for your personal data. We do not transfer or store any personal data outside the UK / EU.

Consequences of Not Providing Your Data
You are not obligated to provide your personal information to us, however, as this information is required for us to provide you with our services, we will not be able to offer you any of our services without it.

Contact & Complaints
We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.

If you have a complaint, including in relation to your bill, please contact David Simpkins, Compliance officers for legal practice. You can write to him at: Bourne House, 475 Godstone Rd, Whyteleafe, CR3 0BL, United Kingdom, or email him at David.Simpkins@kingsleybond.co.uk. To help us understand your complaint and in order that we do not miss anything, please tell us: your full name and contact details, the person who has been acting for you and the file reference number, what you think we have got wrong and what you hope to achieve as a result of your complaint.

We hope that our business relationship continues smoothly but from time to time things do go wrong and we appreciate this. If there is any aspect of our service or our fees with which you are unhappy then you should telephone, email or write to our firm’s Senior Partner, David Simpkins. You can contact him by email on davidsimpkins@kingleybond.co.uk; phone him on 01420769742 or write to him at 13a Market Street, Alton, Hampshire, United Kingdom, GU34 1HA.

Solicitors are obliged to try and resolve problems that may arise with their services and it is therefore important that you do immediately raise with us any concerns that you may have. In the majority of cases, these can be resolved quickly and amicably. We operate an internal complaints and redress scheme for this purpose. Should you wish to receive a copy of our complaints procedure, please ask. We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not responded to your complaint within 8 weeks, you are entitled to contact the Legal Ombudsman whose details are given below.

If, after you have exhausted our internal complaints process, you still remain dissatisfied with the outcome then you can contact The Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333. Calls to 03 numbers will cost no more than calls to national geographic numbers (starting 01 or 02) from both mobiles and landlines. Calls are recorded and may be used for training and monitoring purposes. For minicom call 0300 555 1777 or you can email them at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or write to them at PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH.

The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about poor service from lawyers and they will look independently at your complaint if we cannot agree a resolution between us. You should aim to raise your complaint with the Ombudsman within 6 months of the date of our final written response on your complaint when matters are still fresh in everyone’s mind.

There are also two additional relevant time limits; the Legal Ombudsman will accept complaints up to 6 years from the date of the act or omission or 3 years from when the complainant should have known about the complaint.

In the event that we are unable to settle your complaint under our internal complaint processes, Solicitors are also required to provide information about ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) as an alternative scheme to resolve a complaint other than through the Legal Ombudsman scheme. In the event that we are unable to settle your complaint under our internal complaint processes we will agree to use Pro Mediate who are an approved organisation for this purpose. Pro Mediate can be contacted via www.promediate.co.uk or via telephone on 07824 704826. This information is also available on our website. Please note that the time limits for contacting an ADR approved body will be different from the time limits for contacting the Legal Ombudsman. We shall remind you of this at the time we write to you in the event that we have been unable to resolve directly with you any complaint.

You are also free to make a complaint directly to the SRA. For further information please visit https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.

Questions and comments regarding this Privacy Notice are welcomed, and should be sent to our Data Protection Manager, at Bourne House, 475 Godstone Rd, Whyteleafe, CR3 0BL, United Kingdom. We only process your personal information in compliance with this privacy notice and in accordance with the relevant data protection laws. If, however you wish to raise a complaint regarding the processing of your personal data or are unsatisfied with how we have handled your information you can contact our Data Protection Manager. Alternatively, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office who may be contacted at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow SK9 5AF or https://ico.org.uk.