Privacy Law Help

[potato_001]

I'm not sure if anyone will know this but you never know!

 

I heard recently that someone had done a check on me. The key points are I was left some money in a will a few months ago and the check that was done found this out due to my dealing with the solicitor. I thought all dealings with solicitors were confidential so was a bit surprised it appeared to be public avaialable even to the amount of money I had inherited. Other things were details of my parents and things I guess are on the electoral register which I guess are public available.

The person who did the search was a barrister. Basically the barristers son likes my girlfriend and I guess was hoping to find something to put her off me. I am basically wondering if there is anything I can do as it seems an abuse of position, if nothing else to be able to invade my privacy like this. Does anyone know what search this is that was done and any rules around this?

 

Thanks.

[understanding]

If you have a name on the search then you have proof and possible chance to have it looked into - but I would wait for someone with legal knowledge to come along as I could be talking rubbish.

 

I had a similar problem some years ago whereby I found papers showing searches done on my ex and myself by my new partner. Needless to say I felt it an invasion of privacy and should have kept the paperwork as proof - anyone who goes that far to find out things is not someone to take lightly, and I would personally see it as infringement of your rights, but legally, I don’t really know, sorry to say.

[Somebody Told Me]

You might want to seek advice from the ICO here.

On the face of it it seems rather stupid of a barraster to carry out a search on someone without any professional reason to.

Might also be worth seeking some advice from the Law Society here.

[potato_001]

Thanks for the feedback it is reassuring that others also think there is something wrong here! I've emailed the law society though when I have done this before they tend to be more on the side of the solicitors, barristers etc than the public. But looking at the ICO website I will ask the solicitor who had my information for their advice, as in my view they should have protected my data better and perhaps I can approach the ICO on this basis.

 

If anyone in the legal profession does know of what search would have been done and any terms of use attached to this, I this would be appreciated. Trying to confront a barrister is not something I will do lightly so I'd like to have as much supporting information as I can as they make a fulltime job of putting their arguments forward of course.

[Conniff]

He could have just applied for a copy of the will. Almost all Wills proved and grants of representation (whether there was a Will or not) issued in England & Wales since 1858 are available to the general public.

[Kraken1]

sounds like all he did was obtain copies of freely available info. disconcerting, yes, illegal, no. cause for complaint? Not really.

[potato_001]

But he didnt know there was a will and the will doesnt say the value of the estate to know how much I inherited. My girlfriend didnt know I had inherited anything before this so all he had to go on was my name and address. He did a search and found that I had had contact with a solicitor then some how found out the reason I had seen the solicitor, even though I thought there was something called client confidentiality. My guess is there is a computer system that all legal people have which has the details of everyones dealings with solicitors, the reason for this I have no idea. My initial thought is that certainly the data protection act prevents information being given out other than for approved reasons logged with the data protection registrar and I can't see this would fall in to that. The problem is I don't know anything about the computer system to go much further.

[Kraken1]

There really isn't such a computer system. I'm fairly certain that anything he got was publicly available info.

 

If you tell me what he knew about you, I'm sure we can say where he got it from. Wills say what someone inherits, and there are house price records. Other records show how owns property, where people live, and what debts someone has. You'd be amazed what you can get for a tenner.

[buzby]

Probate Records are a matter of public record, and always have been. This is why newspapers runs stories of Mr XXX having a 'fortune of....' - the figures are those disclosed by the executor as part of the settlement of deceased's affairs. It's just like the Land Registry, anyone can discover the exact figure you paid for any property, by paying the fee and asking for it.