Privacy & Cookie Policy

We use artificial intelligence tools, both our own internal systems and third party services, to help us deliver matters efficiently. They may be used for document review, legal research, summarising information, preparing draft correspondence and reconstructing records of the time spent on a matter.

Three points matter, and we hold ourselves to all three. A qualified member of our team reviews the output before it is sent to you or relied upon, and we remain fully responsible for the advice and services we provide. We do not make decisions about you by automated means alone where the decision produces legal effects or similarly significant effects, so the rights in Article 22 of the UK GDPR are not engaged. Where an AI provider processes personal data for us it does so as our processor, under a written contract containing the protections required by Article 28 of the UK GDPR, and subject to the international transfer safeguards described in section 9.

6A. Call recording and transcription

Calls to and from our office telephone line are recorded and transcribed. This applies to every external call in both directions, whether you telephone us or we telephone you, and whether or not you are a client. It applies from the first time you call us, including a call about a problem you decide not to instruct us on. Our system also produces a written summary of the call.

You will hear this said in our hold message when you call us. If we call you, we will tell you at the start of the call. If you would rather not be recorded, say so and we will arrange another way to have the conversation.

What happens to the recording depends on whether the call relates to a matter. If it does, the person who took the call files it to that matter, and the recording, the transcript and the summary become part of the file. Our practice management system then produces a short further summary using an AI service, which is described at section 6. If the call does not relate to a matter, and most first enquiries that go no further do not, nothing is filed: the recording stays within the telephone system, is deleted within six months, and no AI service ever sees it.

Video meetings on Microsoft Teams are not the same as telephone calls. They are not recorded or transcribed unless someone in the meeting switches it on. If a Teams meeting is transcribed, the transcript is kept within our own Microsoft environment.

6B. CCTV at our office

We operate closed circuit television at our office at 88 Cromer Street. The cameras cover the entrance, the reception area, the hallway down to our offices and the open-plan working area downstairs. If you visit us, you will be recorded.

We do this for four reasons. To keep the premises secure, and with them the people who work there. To protect the client files, original documents and client money held there. To be able to investigate if we ever have reason to think that confidential information or property has been interfered with, which is something data protection law and our professional rules both require us to be able to do. And to be able to establish what happened if there is an incident at our office, including where a claim is made about it.

We rely on our legitimate interests. We have considered whether the same result could be achieved without cameras and concluded that it could not, in a building where confidential files and original documents are held and where papers are sometimes left in trays overnight.

The cameras record images only. They do not record sound, and we do not use them to listen to anything.

There are two different things we do with what the cameras see, and we describe them separately because they are not the same. The live view from all of the cameras, including the open office area, is shown on a monitor in the office and is seen by the people working there, who use it as part of keeping the premises secure. The recording is different: a saved recording is accessed only by a partner, and only where there is a reason to look at it, such as an incident, a theft or a security concern.

We keep recordings for up to about eight weeks, and they are then overwritten. We have set that period against the third and fourth of the reasons above, because those are the ones that need it. If confidential information is taken, nothing appears to be missing and we would usually learn of it only when it came to light somewhere else, which is weeks rather than days. The same is true of an incident at the office, which is often reported to us some time after it happened. A shorter period would be enough for a break-in and of no use at all for either of those. We keep the period under review, and the question we ask at each review is whether footage older than a few weeks has in fact been needed.

We would keep a particular clip for longer than the ordinary period if it were needed for an investigation, an insurance claim or legal proceedings, and then only for as long as that purpose lasts. We would disclose footage to the police or to an insurer if we were properly asked for it.

You can ask us for a copy of footage of yourself under section 11. Because the cameras record other people as well, we may need to obscure them before we can give you a copy, and occasionally that makes a request one we cannot fully meet.

The cameras also record the people who work for and with us while they work. They are told separately how that affects them. We do not use the cameras to monitor how our people work, their productivity or their attendance. A recording is opened only where there is a specific reason, which is written down first, and only on the written authority of a partner.