Client Privacy Policy 

Please ask our Clinic Director or legal volunteers if you do not understand any part of this policy, or ask a friend, family member, or other person known to you (such as a translator) to assist you if needed. 

Who we are 

East Greenwich Legal Advice Clinic (EGLAC) is a non-profit charity that offers in-person and virtual legal advice (by telephone or video call) for residents in South East London who cannot otherwise afford legal assistance from the private sector. In this capacity we collect, use, hold and are responsible for certain personal information about you. This Privacy Policy is to inform persons who contact EGLAC for legal help of their rights under privacy law when they contact us and when they receive advice from the clinic. 

Our postal address is EGLAC c/o Christ Church, Trafalgar Road, London SE10 9EQ. You can get in contact with us by email at  or by filling in this form. 

How we collect your information  

We need to collect, use, and store your personal information in order to advise you on the legal problem for which you are seeking our help.   You may provide personal information when you contact us on the EGLAC website, when you email us directly, over a telephone or video call, and when you come to see us in person during one of our legal drop-in clinics. 

Under UK privacy laws, this is called “processing” your personal information.   

Categories of information 

Personal information can include any information related to you as an individual.  The types of your information data that we may process includes: 

• Identity information includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender. 

• Contact information includes home address, email address and telephone numbers. 

• Financial information includes employment details and bank account details. 

Sensitive information 

Depending on the nature of your legal issue, we might in certain cases need to ask you for information about you which is of a sensitive nature, such as information about your physical or mental health, your racial or ethnic origin, your sexual orientation, your religion, or your political opinions. You may decline, but our legal advice to you may be impacted if we believe the information is relevant to your matter.   

How we use your information and the legal bases we rely on 

We will only process your personal information to review your request for legal advice and to provide you with legal assistance, and where appropriate, to refer you to external agencies to assist you further.  It may also be necessary for us to process personal information in order to comply with certain legal obligations.   

We are required to have a legal basis (valid legal reason) for processing your personal information.  The legal bases we rely on are as follows:  

Contractual obligation.  We will process your personal information in order to respond to your request for legal advice and to provide you with legal assistance and this will form an agreement between you and us. You can find our agreement in the Terms of Representation we have provided to you.   

Legitimate interests.  We may need to use your information if doing so is necessary for our ‘legitimate interests’- for example, to keep records of our casework, or provide reports to outside organisations – unless there is a good reason to protect your information and that takes priority over our legitimate interests.” 

Legal obligation.  We will process your personal information if necessary in order to comply with any legal obligations – for example if there is a court order or law enforcement activity requiring us to do so. 

Sharing your information with others 

At times we will need to share your personal information with other parties such as outside law firms, advisors, and translators we work with, organisations related to your legal matter if there is a need to contact them, and regulatory and law enforcement authorities. We only do this where it is necessary for providing legal services or for compliance with legal requirements.  When sharing your information with other parties, in order to protect your privacy rights, we only provide the information that is necessary and state that we are sharing your personal information only for a certain purpose.    

How long we keep your information 

We will only keep your personal information for as long as necessary, which will depend on the type of information held and the reason for holding it. 

In some cases, we store your information for longer (for example when we need to keep to legal requirements).   

Once we decide that it is no longer necessary to keep your information, we will delete it from our records in accordance with our Record Retention and Destruction Policy.  

Exercising your privacy rights  

You have the right to ask us whether we are using or storing your information.  You also have the right to ask us for copies of the information we hold about you.  

You also have the right to ask us to correct personal information that is inaccurate or incomplete, the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances, the right to ask us to restrict processing of your information in certain circumstances, the right to object to the processing of your information in certain circumstances, and the right to ask us to transfer the information you provided to us to you or to another organisation. 

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. 

In order to make any of the above requests, please contact us at  or by telephone at 07806 733341. 

How to complain 

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at or by telephone at 07806 733 341. 

If you are dissatisfied with how we have responded to any request you have made, or if we fail to respond, you have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about our handling of your personal information.  

The ICO’s address: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire  SK9 5AF 

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113 

ICO website:  https://ico.org.uk/