Data Protection Statement

St. John Solicitors is fully committed to the protection of the rights and privacy of individuals in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Irish Data Protection law (as amended).

This Data Protection Statement sets out the basis for the collection, processing, retention, use and disclosure of personal data, in compliance with our obligations from 25 May 2018 under GDPR.

Who we are

St. John Solicitors ("SJS") is a law firm regulated by the Law Society of Ireland and the Legal Services Regulatory Authority with offices located at 6 Manor Park, Manor Street, Dublin 7, D07 DW30. We have appointed a Data Privacy Manager within our firm that has responsibility for dealing with Data Protection matters. Please contact:

  • The Data Privacy Manager

  • St.John Solicitors

  • 6 Manor Park

  • Manor Street

  • Dublin 7

  • D07 DW30

Email: info@stjohnsolicitors.ie

Why we process your data, The lawful basis for Processing your Data, and Who we share it with

For our clients, SJS will collect, process, retain, use and disclose your data in order to provide you with legal services and to comply with our legal obligations including, but not limited, to Anti-Money Laundering legislation. The provision of legal services includes the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or to provide you with legal advice. This data may include the following: your name, address, email, telephone number, date of birth, PPS Number, marital or civil partner status, nationality, financial information, your occupation and/or employment status, information about your health, your driving licence/passport, and utility bill/bank statement.

The legal basis for the processing of this data is processing necessary for the purpose of the legitimate interests of our firm in providing those legal services to you. This will include personal data that you supply to us as well as personal data that we obtain from other sources such as public authorities and service providers. You are not obliged to provide your personal data to SJS, however, we may not be able to provide you with the services that you have instructed us to provide in the event that we do not have access to your personal data.

We share the information you provide with our practice management system in order to store your contact information with our client file. We may also send you emails through our email service provider.

We may liaise with solicitors (including solicitors acting as our agent) and barristers on client matters as well as other third parties such as government agencies, including but not limited to the Courts Service, the Revenue Commissioners and the Property Registration Authority of Ireland, and the Injuries Board, as well as service providers such as experts (where applicable). We process personal data in order to liaise with such third parties about our client matters, to carry out our instructions and to comply with any legal obligations. The legal basis for the processing of this data is processing necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by our firm in representing our clients.

If we are processing personal data based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing which took place prior to its withdrawal.

SJS will retain your personal information in accordance with Law Society of Ireland recommended practice in relation to retention or destruction of files which includes personal data. The retention period will depend on the nature of the information we hold and the purpose for which it is processed. This period will usually be at least 7 years from the end of the transaction, however, we are obliged to retain conveyancing files for a period of at least 12 years.

For job applicants to the firm, we process data to recruit new employees and to ascertain your suitability for a specific role. The legal basis for this processing is processing necessary for the purpose of the legitimate interests of our firm in recruiting new staff. Please see the privacy notice in the job advertisement for further information about how we process applicant data.

We may share the information you provide in your application with a contracted recruiter (if applicable) in order to make a shortlist of candidates. We will have an agreement with the recruiter that it is not permitted to use this data other than on our behalf. We may also send you emails about your application through our email service provider.

We will retain this data for as long as it necessary and in any event, we will not retain this data for longer than 12 months in accordance with guidance from the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner soon to be Data Protection Commission.

Your rights relating to Personal Data

You have the following rights under GDPR, in certain circumstances and subject to certain exemptions, in relation to your personal data:

  • Access You have the right to request a copy of the personal data that we hold about you, together with other information about our processing of that personal data.

  • Rectification You have the right to request that any inaccurate data that is held about you is corrected, or if we have incomplete information you may request that we update the information such that it is complete.

  • Erasure You have the right to request us to delete personal data that we hold about you. This is sometimes referred to as the right to be forgotten.

  • Restriction You have the right to request that we no longer process your personal data for particular purposes, or to object to our processing of your personal data for particular purposes.

  • Data Portability You have the right to request us to provide you, or a third party, with a copy of your personal data in a structured, commonly used machine-readable format. 
In order to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact the Data Privacy Manager using the contact details at the start of this Data Protection Statement. Please note that your exercise of the above rights may be limited by exemptions provided for under Data Protection law in certain circumstances. We will endeavour to respond to your request within 1 month. If we are unable to deal with your request within 1 month we may extend this period by a further period of 2 months and we will explain the basis for the extension.

If you are unhappy with how we process personal data, please get in touch with us so that we can resolve the situation. You may lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The Irish supervisory authority is the Data Protection Commission.

Data Security

We may store your data on a physical file in our office, on an electronic file stored on our secure servers and your data may also be stored by email. Data held electronically is held on secure servers hosted by our contracted hosting provider. We take all reasonable steps (including appropriate technical and organisational measures) to protect your data. SJS take measures to ensure confidentiality and integrity of your data is maintained including provision of staff training. Whilst we endeavour to protect your data, unfortunately we cannot guarantee security of your data when it is transmitted by email, therefore, such transmission is at your own risk.

Automated decision making and profiling

We do not use any personal data for the purpose of automated decision-making or profiling.

Changes to our Data Protection Statement

SJS will continue to review the effectiveness of this Data Protection Statement to ensure it is achieving its stated objectives taking into account changes in the law and organisational or security changes. We may update this Data Protection Statement from time to time and will publish the updated version on our website.

Disclaimer

The content of this Data Protection Notice and the content on the SJS website is displayed for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. You should seek specific legal advice before making a decision to act or refrain from acting on any particular matter. Whilst all reasonable endeavours have been made to ensure the accuracy of the content of this Statement and the SJS website, SJS accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any omissions or errors or for any action taken in reliance on the information on this website. SJS accepts no responsibility whatsoever for the content of any third-party website.