Personal Data

How we can help with personal data issues

Our experts can help you with your personal data requirements in various ways:

• Assisting with understanding and exercising your data protection rights. Most commonly the right of access (data subject access requests (DSARs)).
• Assisting you in making complaints about how their personal data has been handled.
• Helping with submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) requests to public bodies.

Knowing your rights regarding personal data

Our data protection laws were upgraded in 2018 to give us more rights and protections over the way that our personal data is handled. There are various rights which you have regarding your personal data. These are set out below:

• The right to be informed: you have the right to know what information is being held about you and what it’s being used for, who else it is shared with, how long it is kept for and where it is stored. All of this must be disclosed to you  in a clear and transparent way.
• The right of access: You have the right to obtain a copy of your personal data, as well as other supplementary information (see the right to be informed above). It helps you to understand how and why third parties are using your data and check they are doing it lawfully.
• The right to rectification: You have the right to request that incorrect information held about you should be amended promptly.
• The right to erasure: in some circumstances (for example, where you withdraw consent or where the purpose for them processing your data comes to an end) you are entitled to ask to have your personal data erased, this is also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’.
• The right to restrict processing: in certain circumstances, you have the right to request the restriction or suppression of your information .
• The right to data portability: you can move, copy or transfer personal data easily from one IT environment to another in a safe and secure way, without affecting its usability.
• The right to object: you have an absolute right to stop your data being used for direct marketing purposes.

How we have helped people with their personal data

We have assisted clients with their personal data in the following ways:

• scoping and submitting DSARs; and
• advising clients with regard to their personal data rights.