Privacy Notice / Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Non-Practising Survey

Background

The Minister for Justice (the “Minister”) has asked the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (“LSRA”) to consider the economic and other barriers that continue to be faced by young barristers and solicitors following their professional qualification from the King’s Inns and the Law Society respectively. In considering these issues, the Minister has requested that the LSRA pay particular attention to equity of access and entry into the legal professions, and the objective of achieving greater diversity within the professions.

The Minister has asked the LSRA to engage appropriately with all relevant stakeholders, including with university law students, those students currently studying in the King’s Inns and the Law Society and newly qualified members of both professions. The Minister has also requested that the LSRA survey those people who have completed King’s Inns or the Law Society in recent years, but who have chosen not to practise at this time. The Minister has further asked that the LSRA, having considered these issues, make recommendations for changes which could be introduced by way of effective reform of the present system.

On foot of the Minister’s request, the LSRA proposes to prepare a report for the Minister (the “Report”) in accordance with section 34(1) of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 (the “2015 Act”). For the purpose of preparing the Report, and in accordance with section 13(2)(i) the 2015 Act, the LSRA has carried out an anonymous survey of (a) trainee and qualified solicitors with up to 7 years post qualification experience, (b) student barristers and barristers with up to 7 years post qualification experience and (c) certain law undergraduates (the “Online Anonymised Survey”). The LSRA now proposes to carry out a further survey to engage with those people who have completed King’s Inn or the Law Society in recent years, but who have chosen not to practise at this time (“the Non-Practising Survey”).

The LSRA has engaged an external research/survey company, Behaviour & Attitudes (“B&A”), in order to assist with the design of, and to conduct, the Non-Practising Survey.

Privacy Notice / Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This Privacy Notice/FAQ has been prepared to provide respondents with certain information in relation to the processing of their data for the purposes of carrying out the Non-Practising Survey and to answer some frequently asked questions that you may have.

Participation in the Non-Practising Survey is entirely voluntary. The Non-Practising Survey will be hosted on B&A’s website and potential respondents will be directed to the survey via the LSRA website and notifications and advertisements on social media. The Non-Practising Survey will take approximately 5 minutes to complete. The Non-Practising Survey will be hosted by Microsoft Azure.

The survey does not need to be completed in one go. When the survey is restarted, it will resume at the last unanswered question. Only fully completed surveys will be processed.

No personal details will be captured on the Non-Practising Survey.

Yes. Participation is entirely voluntary.

By design, access to the survey will be via a generic link.

No names, addresses or personal contact details will be captured in the Non-Practising Survey and respondents are instructed not to provide any personal data or information in response to those questions which provide for an open text response.

The survey results will be reviewed in aggregate anonymous form as a statistical report and will not be linked back to respondents in any way.

B&A will share the aggregated Non-Practising Survey results with the LSRA however no personally identifiable data will be shared with the LSRA to ensure respondent anonymity.

As set out above, the LSRA is conducting research, which includes the Non-Practising Survey, for the purpose of reporting to the Minister on the economic and other barriers that continue to be faced by young barristers and solicitors following their professional qualification from the King’s Inns and the Law Society respectively. In particular, the purpose of the Non-Practising Survey is to obtain insight from those people who have completed King’s Inn or the Law Society in recent years, but who have chosen not to practise at this time.

Due to the subject matter of the survey, some of the questions in the Non-Practising Survey relate to potentially sensitive subjects (e.g. discrimination, disability etc.).

Participation in the Non-Practising Survey is entirely voluntary therefore the legal basis is consent. Your consent to participate can be withdrawn at any point. To do this, simply do not complete the full survey and/or you can choose to opt out at any time by closing your browser and not returning to the survey. Please note it will not be possible to withdraw consent once the survey has been completed as individual participants cannot be identified.

The results of the Non-Practising Survey will be used by the LSRA for the purpose of preparing the Report for the Minister. It is envisaged that the results of the Non-Practising Survey and Report will be shared with the following:

  • The Minister for Justice;
  • The Department of Justice.

It is also envisaged that the results of the Non-Practising Survey and Report may be shared with the following, for the purpose of further consultation in relation to making recommendations to the Minister:

  • The Representative Bodies;

However, no personal data will be shared in circumstances where survey results will be reviewed in aggregate anonymous form as a statistical report and will not be linked back to respondents.

The Report will be laid before each House of the Oireachtas in accordance with the 2015 Act and will be publicly available on the LSRA’s website.

Security is integrated into the Azure platform with multiple levels of encryption, back up, and vulnerability assessment tests are run on B&A’s online servers in Dublin on a quarterly basis. Specific measures taken include:

  • Responses to the Non-Practising Survey are encrypted in transit, storage and at rest.
  • B&A is certified to ISO27001:2013 Information Security Management System.

It is not anticipated that data will be transferred outside of the EEA. The Non-Practising Survey will be hosted by Microsoft Azure in Dublin.

Non-Practising Survey response data will be held for a period of 12 months after the project concludes, after which it will be electronically destroyed.

You have the following data protection rights:

  • If you wish to access, correct, update or request deletion of your personal information, you can do so at any time by contacting us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below.
  • In addition, you can object to processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict processing of your personal information or request portability of your personal information. Again, you can exercise these rights by contacting us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below.
  • You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. The Data Protection Commission can be contacted at [email protected].

B&A do not collect cookies for the conduct of their online surveys. The cookies function is disabled.

The data controller for the purpose of the Non-Practising Survey is the LSRA. If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, please contact our data protection officer using the following details: [email protected]. You can contact the LSRA at PO Box 12906, Dublin 7.

You can contact B&A’s data protection officer by emailing the DPO Officer at [email protected]. A copy of B&A’s Privacy Policy is available here https://banda.ie/privacy-policy/