Our Work / College Chambers, Southampton
Responding to a Subject Access Request in keeping with GDPR.
Dealing with a SAR can be quite burdensome on resources for chambers and organisations within the legal profession. They must provide copies of all data that is held on the individual, often having to provide duplicates of all documents, emails, and any other types of communication that contain the individual’s personal data, then redact any information made in references to other individuals.
It can take an extraordinary amount of time for the appointed data controller to gather up this information, and failure to respond, or an unexplained delay can result in regulatory enforcement action being taken by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The SAR in question
When College Chambers were faced with a request for a case involving three barristers, interlocutory hearings and a five-day trial, their Senior Clerk, J-P Schulz, was “keen to approach it in a cautious and compliant manner.” Fortunately, upon learning of Briefed’s advisory services through our GDPR training, J-P contacted us for help.
“I had an idea, and of course, I’d received training on SARs, but until you get one, you’re never quite sure what you should and shouldn’t be doing, and I wanted to approach it in a very cautious way. I didn’t want to breach any confidentiality…that was my biggest concern.”
– J-P, Senior Clerk (Data Protection Lead)
Fully Briefed
As trusted trainers in GDPR, part of our role is to advise barristers, chambers, and their staff on procedures and protocols they can implement to ensure they are fully compliant in a cost-effective way. But when resources are limited, our advisory services are there to help you when you need it most, just a phone call away.
Throughout the entire process of sifting through more than 4,000 documents, J-P received extensive guidance and assistance from our in-house barrister, Chris Kelly, whose invaluable input proved to be a crucial factor; as J-P himself stated, “Without Chris’s guidance, we would have been completely lost.”
Chris stated that they worked together, “through many Team’s meetings and phone calls to gain understanding of the SAR. We assisted with outlining processes, timeframes, what was disclosable, what was not, and were there any exemptions we could rely upon.”
Thanks to Briefed, J-P and his team were able to manage the SAR in a timely manner and ensure it was dealt with efficiently and in compliance with GDPR. J-P was relieved and grateful for the guidance provided by Briefed, stating that without it, he, “wouldn’t have known definitively how to handle the request and could have potentially breached confidentiality.”
