Privacy Policy

This notice relates to our privacy practices in connection with this website. https://bowensolicitors.ie/ fully respects your right to privacy and will not collect or publish any personal information about you through this website without your clear permission. Any personal information which you volunteer to Bowen & Co Solicitors will be treated with the highest of standards of security and confidentiality.

Who We Are

We are Bowen & Co Solicitors of Pound Street, Sixmilebridge, County Clare, V95 Y2XD. You can contact us at this address by post or by email at info@bowensolicitors.ie 

Our data protection representative is Gwen Bowen, Principal.

Our data protection officer may be contacted at gwen@bowensolicitors.ie 

Types of information we may collect from you

We may collect, store and use the following kinds of personal information about individuals who visit and use our website:

1. Information you supply to us.

You may supply us with information about you by filling in forms on our website. This includes information you provide when you submit a contact/enquiry form, buying a residential property quote request form and make a Will request form.  The information you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address and phone number.

2. Information our website automatically collects about you

With regard to each of your visits to our website we may automatically collect information including the following:

• technical information, including a truncated and anonymised version of your Internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, operating system and platform.
• information about your visit, including what pages you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got to the site (including date and time); page response times, length of visit, what you click on, documents downloaded and download errors.
• Google Analytics is used to gather statistical information on howe visitors use our websites and to help us better understand certain matters, including which of our web pages are the most popular. This helps us to improve the overall browsing experience for all our users.

How we use the information we collect

1. For people who view and interact with our website

• To respond to your query when sent through our ‘contact us’ form, ‘buying a residential property form, ‘making a Will’ form.
• To sign up to our newsletter when you request subscription through our website.

• In order to market our service

• We may keep you informed of such services that we think you may be interested in, using the following methods:- correspondence by post, email, telephone, SMS text message and other electronic messages.

The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interest in the administration and operation of our legal services as well as our legitimate interest in marketing and promoting our firm’s legal services. You can unsubscribe/opt out of receiving such communications at any time.

We share this data with our client relationship management system provider. They may only process this data for the purpose of providing us with their services, and no other purpose.

We will retain this data for no longer than is necessary, and/or legally permitted and/or until such time as you request us to delete it.

2. For our potential, current and past clients, we process personal data:

• In order to market the services of our firm.
• To provide you with legal updates and newsletters to which you have subscribed.
• We may keep you informed of such services that we think you may be interested in, using the following methods:- correspondence by post; email; telephone; SMS text messages and other electronic messages.

The legal basis for the processing of this data is processing necessary for the purpose of the legitimate interests which we pursue in providing you with legal services, including but not limited to our legitimate interest in the administration and operation of our legal services as well as our legitimate interest in marketing and promoting our firm’s legal services. You can unsubscribe/op out of receiving such communications at any time.

We share information such as your name and email address with our newsletter provider who sends out our newsletters. This provider may only process this data for the purpose of providing us with their services, and no other purpose.

We will retain this data for as long as is necessary and for a period of time thereafter but for no longer than is required or legally permitted. For our clients, we process personal data:

• In order to provide you with legal advice.
• To assist you with legal transactions, claims or proceedings.
• To assist you with your legal rights.

This processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps, at your request, prior to entering into a contract. This is the legal basis for the processing of this data.

If your case involves the processing of special categories of data, such as medical or health data, we will only process such personal data or special categories of personal data in connection with a legal claim, where we are acting on your behalf, our legal basis for processing will be that the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of your legal rights/case and for no other purpose.

There may also be limited circumstances where our legal basis for processing is your consent (where we have sought it and you have provided it to us), in which case you can withdraw your consent at any time.

There may also be limited circumstances where our legal basis for processing of personal data is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of you or another natural person.

We shall keep any personal data, information and documents relating to you or your business confidential, except where disclosure is required by law or regulation or in other exceptional circumstances. In the same way we must respect the confidentiality of information and documents which we hold for our other clients. We cannot, without their express written permission, disclose any of that material to you.

We will retain this data for as long as is necessary for the purpose of providing advice and for a period of time thereafter but for no longer than is required or legally permitted.

3. For Solicitors and barristers that we liaise with on client matters, we process personal data:

• In order to liaise with you about client matters.
• To ensure our clients are fully represented.
• The legal basis for the processing of this data is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by our firm in representing our clients.

We share the information you provide with our practice management system in order to store you contact information with our client’s file. We may also send you emails through our email service provider. Such providers may only process this data for the purpose of providing us with their services, and no other purpose.

We will retain this data for as long as is necessary and for a period of time thereafter but for no longer than is required or legally permitted.

4. For job applicants to the firm, we process personal data:

• To recruit new employees.
• To ascertain your suitability for a specific role.
• To conduct due diligence during the recruitment process.

The legal basis for this processing is processing necessary for the purpose of the legitimate interests of our firm in recruiting new staff.

We share the information you provide in your application with our contracted recruiter in order to make a shortlist of candidates. We may also send you emails about your application through our email service provider. Such providers may only process this data for the purpose of providing us with their services, and no other purpose.

We will retain this data for the period of time it will take for our recruitment team to assess your suitability for the interview. All data relating to unsuccessful applicants will be deleted immediately after the recruitment process has completed. Successful applicants will have their personal data securely transferred to their employee personnel file and this shall be governed by our firm’s internal policies and procedures. We use third party professional and other service providers, and this involves some access to our files. Such third parties may only process your personal; data for the purpose of providing us with their services, and no other purpose. The sharing of data to such third parties allows us to manage our firm properly. We always try to make sure that the third parties/third party service provider(s) is/are reputable and can provide sufficient guarantees to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures in terms of confidentiality and security to ensure our personal rights are protected. We require them to sign letters of confidentiality and/or a written contract.

When we store files off site, whether electronic or hard copy, we will take all reasonable steps to make sure we keep your information confidential.

Although we use appropriate security measures, including physical, electronic and managerial measures, to ensure that we keep your personal data secure, accurate and up to date. Once received the transmission of personal data over the internet, including by email, is never completely secure. We endeavour to protect personal data but we cannot 100% guarantee the security of data transmitted to us or by us and you transfer personal data at your own risk.

We do not as a matter of course transfer data outside of the EEA. Where we are required to do so, we shall have appropriate safeguards in place for such transfers, for example, entry into European Commission approved standard contractual clauses with the provider.

Your Rights Relating to Personal Data

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

1. Right to access the data

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.

2. Right to 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.

3. Right to 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.

4. Right to Restriction of Processing or to Object to Processing

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.

5. Right to Data Portability

You have the right to request us to provide you, or a third party, with a copy of your personal date in a structured, commonly used machine- readable format.

In order to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at the contact details at the start of this privacy notice.

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.

If you are unhappy with how we process personal data, we ask you to contact us so that we can rectify the situation.

You may lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The Irish supervisory authority is the Data Protection Commission.

Requirement to Process Personal Data

You may browse our website without providing us with any personal data and this will not affect your ability to view our website.

If you do not provide us with your information for the purposes described above, we cannot provide you with legal advice, assist or represent you with legal transactions, claims or legal proceedings, send you our newsletter, respond to your queries sent through our contact forms, liaise with you on client matters or asses your suitability for a role within our firm.

Automated Decision-Making and Profiling

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

Cookies

Protecting our clients is at the heart of everything we do at Bowen & Co Solicitors and protecting your information is no exception. This means that any cookies used on our website will not contain personally identifiable information about you. Cookies do not contain information such as your home address, telephone number or credit card details and we will not disclose the content of cookies to any third parties.

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website, this helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies, we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie Policy