1. This policy

The Isle of Man Law Society (the “Society”, “we”, “us”, “our”) takes privacy seriously and we are committed to protecting it.               

This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about you, how this information is used, the conditions under which it may be disclosed to others and how it is kept secure.              

This is our main privacy policy. We may provide additional, specific, privacy information to you as you interact with us in different ways (e.g. that we will only use certain information for specific purposes). To the extent that any of that information differs from what we say below, those specific statements will apply in those circumstances.

This policy was adopted on 7^th November 2024. Please see section 12 on changes to this policy below.

2. Who we are

The Society is the data controller in relation to the processing activities described below. This means that we decide why and how your personal information is processed. Our contact address is Isle of Man Law Society, 13 Mount Havelock, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 2QG.             

The Society is constituted as a body corporate originally under the Isle of Man Law Society Act 1859 and is registered with the Information Commissioner (reg. no R000455).        

The Council is responsible for our data protection function. You can find their contact details at the end of this policy.
               

3. How we collect your personal information        

When you use our website, services, interact with us online, or by phone, email or otherwise, the categories of information that we collect about you are as follows:   

Personal information you give to us (members of the public):            

This is information about you that you give to us by entering information via:             
our website (i.e. https://iomlawsociety.co.im); or

• corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise; or
• making an Application to People In Need. 

and is provided entirely voluntarily.            

This includes information provided at the time of making an enquiry on our website; making a complaint using the forms provided on our website (subsequently returned by email or post to us) and engaging in correspondence with us by phone, email or otherwise, such as to seek the services of an Isle of Man advocate. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our site.

The basic personal information we may ask for, or you may choose to give us, includes your name, user type (e.g. advocate, trainee, law student, member of the public), your address, email address and phone number. We may retain details of any enquiry you make to us and records of any correspondence with us. We may also ask for, or you may choose to give us, other information for specific purposes, e.g. additional information relating to your complaint or general information relating to a legal matter (such as type of advice needed) that you wish for us to circulate to Isle of Man advocates in the Society’s newsletter in order for you to obtain representation or to search for a will. We will always ask for your consent before circulating any request in our newsletter to Manx Advocates.           

Additional information is required when submitting an Application to People In Need in order for the Trustees to fully consider a request.            

We will seek to minimise the information we ask for to that which is needed to perform the relevant function or service at the time.              

Personal information we collect about you:

We automatically collect the following information when you interact with us: e.g. details of transactions you carry out through the site, and your visits to our site, including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, and the resources you access.

We also automatically collect technical information, including anonymous data collected by the hosting server for statistical purposes, the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer or device to the Internet, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform. Please see our cookie policy for further information.

Personal information we collect about you (members):

We obtain certain personal information about advocates and other members of the Isle of Man legal profession in our capacity as regulator of the Manx Bar and in furtherance of the aims and objectives of the Society which include the promotion of education and training, the maintenance of a law library and contributing to law reform. We also process personal data to administer the professional body membership and for related purposes. A non-exhaustive list of the purposes of processing therefore includes:

• ensuring that our website is correct and maintains members’ most up to date information;
• carrying out our regulatory functions as detailed in the Advocates Acts and byelaws of the Society including considering matters of professional conduct and complaints against members;
• promoting the status of the profession and members’ interests;
• validating and maintaining our membership register and ensuring eligibility with respect to, for example, the right to stand and vote in Council elections;
• providing membership services to advocates and trainees including considering fit and proper status, applications for articles and commission and the subsequent recommendations to the Deemsters;
• maintaining the Society’s law library;
• undertaking administrative duties for the Duty Advocate Committee; and
• undertaking the administration of the George Johnson Law Prize.

A list of the data fields we collect for these purposes is as follows: title, name, gender, phone number, Work email, work address, home address, home email address, firm or company, council positions (if applicable), responsibilities, awards, languages spoken, overseas qualifications, membership category, date of admission, regulated roles and posts, practice specialisms, training records, application to enter articles and application to be commissioned as an advocate, details of any complaints or ADTs, criminal convictions and exam results.

In addition to information listed above, the Duty Advocate Committee require a mobile contact number for Duty Advocates which will be shared with the Police, Courts and Prosecution.

Trainees sitting the Manx Bar Exam course may provide us with Special Category Data necessary for us to assess and accommodate any extra provisions in accordance with our Reasonable Adjustment Policy.

At times we may receive information on individuals from other sources, e.g. from a representative of their employing firm or other authorised contact.

If you are providing information to us as a representative or contact of somebody else, you confirm that it is true and correct and that you have the authority of the data subject whose information it is to do so. You also agree to pass on any required notices and confirm that, in providing the information to us, we may use it for the purposes and on the bases set out in this notice.

4. How we use your personal information

The purposes for which we use your information and the legal basis under data protection law on which we rely are explained below.

Legitimate Interests

We may use and process your personal information where it is necessary in connection with legitimate interests of the Society, or a third party, as long as your interests and rights do not override these. For present purposes, legitimate interests include:

Our professional body functions

• to inform the work of the Society as a professional membership body and to provide services to our members and guests;
• to ensure proper governance of the Society, to validate and maintain our membership register and to ensure eligibility for, eg, the right to stand and vote in Council elections;
• to verify the accuracy of data that we hold about you;
• to create a better understanding of you as a member of the Society, a member of the public or a user of our services so we can cater to your requirements and customise the services we provide;
• to correspond or communicate with you as a member of the Society, to let you know about our activities;
• to correspond or communicate with you if you are a member of the public about our activities;
• to raise public awareness of services offered by our members and to make that information easily accessible for the public (e.g. via the Find an Advocate service);
• for the management of queries, complaints, or claims; and

to facilitate the Manx Bar Exam course To fulfil online delivery and security

• to ensure that our online content is presented in the most effective manner for you and your computer;
• for network and information security in order for us to take steps to protect your information against loss or damage, theft or unauthorised access; and
• for prevention of fraud and other criminal activities.

Other

• for the purpose of fulfilling our Supervisory duties;
• for the purposes of operating and managing contracts with our suppliers and service recipients;
• for the establishment and defence of our legal rights;
• to assess and process applications from job applicants and to monitor our recruitment practices;
• to ensure the Duty Advocate Committee fulfils its statutory functions including maintaining a panel of duty advocates and drawing up a rota;
• to fulfil the charitable objectives and administrative duties of People In Need; and
• to undertake the administration of the George Johnson Law Prize

Public Function

We may collect and use your personal information where this is necessary in order for us to deliver our regulatory and statutory functions under the Advocates Acts and byelaws of the Society.

These functions include promoting opportunities for education and training services to advocates and trainees, providing practical support and advice about practice management; running a conciliation scheme for complaints about services provided by advocates to members of the public; participating in law reform and the legislative process; promoting the interests of the profession and the public in relation to legal matters.

Compliance with a Legal Obligation

We will use your personal information to comply with our legal obligations: (i) to assist any public authority or criminal investigation body as required; (ii) to identify you when you contact us; (iii) to verify the accuracy of data we hold about you; and/or (iv) to help us comply with equalities legislation in our recruitment practices; and/or (v) to comply with a request from you in connection with the exercise of your rights.

Performance of a Contract

We may also process your personal data if it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you or we are doing so at your request for the purposes of entering into a contract eg if you accept a role with us or we supply services, for example in relation to training.  

We may process your personal data whilst conducting the work delegated to us by the FSA under the Designated Business (Registration and Oversight) Act 2015.

Processing with your Consent

We may use and process your personal information where you have consented for us to do so for the following purposes:

• to use your special category data (formerly known as sensitive personal data) for any purpose we state expressly, e.g. to cater to any food allergy or intolerance at any of our events, or to make special adjustments at any event for any disability that you have made known to us, including making reasonable adjustments for exams. We will always request your explicit consent before using any special category personal information about you; and
• to circulate your request for assistance (with a will search or representation) in the Society’s newsletter which we circulate to Manx advocates and advocates’ firms; and
• to fulfil the charitable objectives of People In Need

You may withdraw your consent for us to use your information in any of these ways at any time. Please see section 11 on withdrawing your consent for further details.

5. Data anonymisation and use of aggregated information

Your information may be converted into statistical or aggregated data in such a way as to ensure that you are not identified or identifiable from it. Aggregated data cannot be linked back to you as an individual. We may use this data for analytical and research purposes.

6.  Who may receive or have access to your personal information

Our suppliers and service providers

We may disclose your information to our third-party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other organisations for the purposes of them providing services to us or to you directly on our behalf. An example of this is the conciliation scheme we run for the resolution of complaints which is handled by Ian Cochrane, an independent party to the Society, who handles such cases on our behalf. We may additionally share personal data with the Isle of Man Financial Services Authority (in the case of members) for regulatory purposes.

Other third parties who may process incidental personal data include our outsourced IT support provider; cloud service providers (to the extent used); hosting, email and content providers; our external auditors and other professional service providers.

When we use third party service providers, we only disclose to them personal information that is necessary for them to provide their service. Additionally, with each service provider we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it other than in accordance with our specific instructions.

Other ways we may share your personal information

We may transfer your personal information to a third party if we’re under a duty to disclose or share it in order to comply with any legal obligation, to detect or report a crime, to enforce or apply the terms of our contracts or our legal rights or to protect the rights, property or safety of our visitors and guests. We will always take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.

7. Where we may store your personal information

We do not regularly transfer personal data outside the Isle of Man, UK and EEA, which all offer a similar level of protection for your personal data and safeguards for its processing. In addition, our suppliers and service providers are Isle of Man based and we do not generally permit data to be stored on servers outside the EEA.

On occasion, however, the information you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the EEA. By way of example, this may happen where need to liaise with overseas authorities (ie for the purposes of verifying qualifications or equivalence of training and to check the criminal record of an advocate or trainee). In some circumstances, the relevant jurisdiction may not have similar data protection laws to the Isle of Man.

If we transfer your information outside the EEA in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this policy. These steps include imposing contractual obligations on the recipient of your personal information or ensuring that the recipients are subscribed to ‘international frameworks’ that aim to ensure adequate protection. You are welcome to contact us using the details at the end of this policy for more information about the protections that we put in place.         

8. How long we keep your personal information

We keep personal information for as long as necessary to ensure we can carry out our functions and in line with our data retention and disposal policy. This policy takes into account legal requirements, our regulatory and compliance functions and other applicable considerations to determine the appropriate retention period.

We do not retain personal information in a format that identifies individuals for longer than is necessary.

9. Security and links to other sites

Regardless of the security we put in place, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Consequently, any information you send us or query you submit via the website is at your own risk. Once we have received your personal information, we will put in place reasonable and appropriate controls to ensure that it remains secure against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, or unauthorised access.

Where we collect any sensitive personal information, we will apply additional security measures and safeguards to protect that data.

Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access an account or particular area of our website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Our website may contain links to websites run by other organisations or bodies. This policy does not apply to those other websites so we encourage you to read their privacy statements. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other websites even if you access them using links that we provide. In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party website, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party website and recommend that you check the policy of that third party website.

10. Cookies

We use cookies to obtain an overall view of visitor habits and visitor volumes to our website. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent to your computer or device and stored on its hard drive to allow our websites to recognise you when you visit.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. For more information on how we use cookies and how to switch them off on your device, please visit our Cookie Policy.

11. Your rights

You have a number of rights in relation to your personal information under data protection law. When you exercise any rights, we may ask you for information to confirm your identity and, where applicable, help us to search for your personal information.

Except in rare cases where additional time may be required (in which case we will notify you within one month), we will respond to you within one month from either (i) the date that we have confirmed your identity, or (ii) where we do not need to do this because we already have this information, from the date we received your request.

Accessing your personal information

Under data protection laws you have a legal right to ask to see a copy of the personal information that we hold about you. Such requests are called subject access requests.

If you would like to make a subject access request, you can contact us using the details below. It is helpful for you to put your request in writing but not essential.

You will also need to provide one or more forms of identification so that we can confirm that you are entitled to the information you are requesting, for example, driving licence, utility bill, and if appropriate, any particulars about the source or location of the information concerned.

Requests for access to personal information can be directed as follows:

Meghan Kennish
Isle of Man Law Society,                 
13 Mount Havelock,         
Douglas,
Isle of Man,         
IM1 2QG

Or via email to Meghan.kennish@iomlawsociety.co.im

Further information about subject access requests can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website https://www.inforights.im/

We may not provide you with a copy of your personal information to the extent that it concerns other individuals or if we have another lawful reason to withhold that information.

Correcting and updating your personal information

The accuracy of your information is important to us.

If you change your name or address/email address, or you discover that any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please let us know by contacting us in any of the ways described in this policy.

Withdrawing your consent

Where we rely on your consent as the legal basis for processing your personal information, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the details in this policy. If we rely on another ground for processing your personal information, we may still have a lawful basis to hold or have access to it, depending on the reasons for which we collected it originally.

Where you withdraw your consent, our use of your personal information before you withdraw is still lawful. You should also be aware that where you ask us to publish a request for representation or ask us to undertake a will search, the information – once published – will be in the public domain and not capable of retraction.

Objecting to our use of your personal information and automated decisions made about you

Where we rely on legitimate interests as the legal basis for processing your personal information for any purpose(s), you may object to us using your personal information for these purposes by emailing or writing to us using the details included in this policy. Except for the purposes for which we are sure we can continue to process your personal information, we will temporarily stop processing your personal information in line with your objection until we have investigated the matter. If we agree that your objection is justified in accordance with your rights under data protection laws, we will permanently stop using your data for those purposes. Otherwise we will provide you with our justification as to why we need to continue using your data.

We do not use your personal data to make automated decisions about you.

Erasing your personal information or restricting its processing

In certain circumstances, you may ask for your personal information to be removed from our systems by emailing or writing to us at the address included in this policy. Unless there is a reason that the law allows us to use your personal information for longer, we will make reasonable efforts to comply with your request.

You may also ask us to restrict processing your personal information where you believe it is unlawful for us to do so, you have objected to its use and our investigation is pending or you require us to keep it in connection with legal proceedings. In these situations we may only process your personal information whilst its processing is restricted if we have your consent or are legally permitted to do so, for example for storage purposes, to protect the rights of another individual or company, or in connection with legal proceedings.

Right to data portability

In some situations, individuals can ask a data controller to provide to them or a third party whom they nominate information they have provided to the controller in a structured, machine readable and commonly used format. This mostly applies to consumer data and enables individuals to “port” their information across different services and IT environments. Due to the type of processing that we carry out (which is all non-automated), this right would not be so relevant to our use of your personal data.

Complaining to the Isle of Man Information Commissioner

We’d like to be able to resolve all your concerns, and we hope that we can do so. Where we haven’t been able to do this, you have the right to complain to the Isle of Man Information Commissioner (“IC”) if you are concerned about the way we have processed your personal information or given effect to your rights. Please visit the IC’s website for further details: https://www.inforights.im/

12. Changes to this policy

We may review this policy from time to time and any changes will be notified to you by posting an updated version on our website. We recommend you regularly check for changes and review this policy whenever you visit our website. If you do not agree with any aspect of the updated policy you must immediately notify us and cease using our services.

13. Contact us

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcome.

Please direct any queries about this policy or about the way we process your personal information to Meghan Kennish using the post and email details below.

You can write to us at:

Isle of Man Law Society   
13 Mount Havelock,         
Douglas,
Isle of Man, IM1 2QG       

Our email address for data protection queries is meghan.kennish@iomlawsociety.co.im.

If you would prefer to speak to us by phone, please call 01624 662910.