Privacy Policy Notice
Please read the following information carefully. This privacy notice explains why we are processing clients’ personal data, how long we will be keeping it for and who we will be sharing it with. It also tells you the security mechanisms we have put in place to protect your data and how to contact us if you have a complaint. We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy at all times.
Who we are?
Martin Gaffney Legal Services Limited , a company registered in England and Wales with company registration number 07008272 , Trading as Martin Gaffney Solicitors is a firm of solicitors with its main office in Rothwell and two branch offices in Ilkley and Selby. Our head office is based at The Old Bank, 51 Commercial Street, Rothwell, Leeds, LS26 0AN and our telephone number is 0113 282 7988. Martin Gaffney Solicitors collects, uses and is responsible for personal information about you. When we do this, we are the ‘controller’ of this information for the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and other applicable data protection laws.
Our contact details:
Name: Martin Gaffney Legal Services Limited
Address: The Old Bank, 51 Commercial Street, Rothwell, Leeds, LS26 0AN
Telephone Number: 0113 2827988
E-mail: data@martingaffneysolicitors.co.uk
What do we do with your information?
Information collected by us
When completing our website enquiry form at www.martingaffneysolicitors.co.uk or corresponding with us by telephone, email letter, in person or otherwise, we may collect the following personal information that you provide to us:
- Your name;
- Your address;
- Your telephone number;
- Your email address;
- Employment details;
- Martial/ Civil Partnership status;
- The reason why you are contacting us;
- Date of Birth and National Insurance number;
- Property details;
- Details of any criminal offences;
- Information about your health;
- Family details such as your next of kin, and any other dependents;
- Financial details and information such as bank details, benefits, taxation status and property and investments.
- At our Rothwell office we have CCTV. This is purely for security purposes, employee safety and to verify information such as when you visited the office or establish facts such as in relation to health and safety incidents
Information collected from other sources
We collect the following information from these sources:
- To enable us to confirm your identity we may supply your personal information to third parties to process Identity Verification and Anti-Money Laundering checks such as credit risk and affordability checking, fraud prevention, anti-money laundering, identity verification and tracing.
- We may also receive information from other sources such as third party solicitors or a third party themselves in matters such as litigation matters.
In those circumstances we would combine this information with information you had already provided us and information we may have collected about you. This would then be used to carry out our obligations to you arising from the contracts we have entered into, provide you with information and service your needs.
How we use your personal information
We use your personal information, however this is gathered, for the following purposes:
- To carry out our obligations to you arising from the contract we have entered into;
- To provide you with information and service your needs;
- To provide you with information regarding other services that we offer which may compliment the services you have already paid for or perhaps enquired about.
AI service providers and data location
Our AI tools operate entirely within our internal systems and do not share your data with external third parties.
Nor do we use cookies on our website so individual users are not tracked or traced in any way. Any analytics obtained from website usage is entirely anonymous.
AI-specific considerations
AI-generated outputs may contain errors or inaccuracies. All outputs from AI tools are reviewed and verified by qualified legal professionals before being relied upon or provided to clients. We mitigate data security risks through:
- Careful selection and due diligence of AI service providers
- Contractual protections requiring confidentiality and data security
- Technical security measures
- Mandatory human review of all AI-assisted work
Data retention for AI processing
Personal data processed through AI tools is retained in accordance with our standard retention periods for legal matters.
Whether information has to be provided by you, and why?
Personal information must be provided by you to us, to enable us to verify your identity and for anti-money laundering checks. This may include name, address, date of birth, employment details and financial details. When we collect information from you, we will inform you whether you are required to provide this information to us and what further information we may to progress your matter further.
Legal reasons we collect and use your personal information
We rely on several reasons as the legal basis for processing your information.
When making telephone calls providing advice and meetings at our office requires your consent to provide information to us so that we may assess your case and provide advice and assistance.
In dealing with your matter, act in your best interests, progressing your matter day to day, updating you and billing you relies on the contract we have with you to provide you with this service.
To meet our legal, administrative, regulatory and professional obligations including dealing with complaints would involve us meeting a legal obligation and acting in legitimate interests.
Who will we share your personal information with?
We have relationships with a number of third parties that we routinely share data with to provide our services, progress your matter and operate our business.
These may include our IT Consultant and professional advisors such as barristers, experts, Courts, public bodies, our regulators, auditors and other third parties involved in your case.
Nothing in this privacy policy is intended to prejudice or affect our obligations of confidentiality to our clients under the SRA Rules of Conduct or Legal Professional Privilege.
We will share personal information with law enforcement agencies if required by applicable law.
In connection with any audit of our accounts or files or in connection with obtaining legal or other professional advice from advisers who are under obligations of confidentiality to us.
If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or terms and conditions of supply and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of us, our clients, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection, compliance with money laundering rules and credit risk reduction.
We will not share your personal information with any other third parties without your consent.
Where will we store your personal data and how long for?
The information is securely stored and processed on our secure server that is based in the United Kingdom.
We keep data we have obtained which may be in paper form on your paper file which will be archived in our off site archive facility at the conclusion of your matter. Your electronic file is our server until your matter has ended and once it has ended the electronic file is then placed on an air gap server that is totally separate from our server. We will then securely dispose of your information by confidentially shredding the paper file and securely wiping the server.
To comply with our tax obligations and our contractual obligations to our insurers we may retain some or all of the personal data that we hold about you for a period of seven years after the conclusion of our business relationship with you.
Consent
We are relying on your explicit consent when dealing with website enquiries. You provided this consent when you completed the online enquiry form.
You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time, but this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing activity we have carried out prior to you withdrawing your consent.
Your data protection rights
Under the UK GDPR, you have a number of important rights that you can exercise free of charge. In summary, these rights are:
- Transparency over how we use your personal data and fair processing of your information;
- Access to your personal information and other supplementary information;
- Rectification – require us to correct any mistakes or complete missing information we hold on you;
- Erasure – require us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances;
- Receive a copy of the personal information you have provided to us or have this information be sent to a third party, this will be provided to you or the third party in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format;
- Object at any time to processing of your personal information for direct marketing;
- Object in certain other situations to the continued processing of your personal information;
- Restriction – request that we restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;
- Data portability – ask that we transfer the information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
If you want more information about your rights under the UK GDPR, please see the Guidance from the Information Commission Office on Individual’s rights under the UK GDPR.
If you wait to exercise any of these rights, please contact Martin Gaffney, Managing Director, at data@martingaffneysolicitors.co.uk or 0113 2827988.
How to make a complaint
If you have a concern about how we have handled your personal data, you can raise a complaint with us directly through any of the following channels:
- Email: data@martingaffneysolicitors.co.uk
- Post: Data Protection Complaints, Martin Gaffney Solicitors, The Old Bank, 51 Commercial Street, Rothwell, Leeds, LS26 0AN
- Telephone: 0113 2688898 (complaints made by telephone will be followed up in writing)
- In person: at any of the firm’s offices, addressed to Martin Gaffney
We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and respond without undue delay. Also we will keep you informed of the progress of the complaint and where additional time may be required to properly investigate it. We will then inform you of the outcome of the investigation.
If you are not satisfied with our response, or if you would prefer to go directly to the regulator, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commission (ICO), the UK’s data protection supervisory authority. You can make a complaint to the ICO by calling 0303 123 1113 or via the complaints tool on their website: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
Our security
All title deeds, Wills, Lasting Powers of Attorney, Family Trusts and other important documents that you may ask us to keep on your behalf are kept in our secure fire proof safes.
Future processing
We do not intend to process your personal information for any reason other than stated within this privacy notice. If this changes, we will inform you by posting any updates on this page.
Changes to this privacy notice
This privacy notice was published on 25th September 2026 and last updated on 25th September 2026.
We constantly review our internal privacy practices to make sure they are up to date and may change this policy from time to time. When we do, we will inform you by posting any updates on this page.
Please feel free to check back to see any changes or updates have been made.
Get in touch
If you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information we hold about you, please contact Martin Gaffney at data@martingaffneysolicitors.co.uk or 0113 2827988.
This part of our website is currently under review