| Privacy
As a privacy law
consulting firm, Privacy Law Consulting Australia (“We”) understands the
importance of protecting the privacy of individuals’ personal information.
This document sets out our information handling procedures and the rights
and obligations that both you and we have in relation to your personal
information.
How we collect personal information
We only collect personal information
that is necessary for the conduct of our practice as providers of legal
services.
We primarily collect information
about you from correspondence we engage in with you; for example, through
discussions during meetings, letters, telephone conversations and e-mails.
We may also collect information about you through our website; for example,
if you subscribe to an online newsletter.
However, in the course of providing
legal services, it is often necessary to collect personal information from
third parties; for example, from a contractor, another party to a matter,
government agencies and courts. If we collect personal information about you
from a third party, we will, where it is appropriate and practicable to do
so, request the third party to inform you that we are holding information
about you and to provide you with a copy of, or link to, our privacy
statement.
From time-to-time, we collect
personal information from sources that are publicly available, such as
newspapers, industry journals and websites.
We do not make use of any form of
cookies, web-bugs or adware on our website to collect or analyse information
about visitors to the site.
Kinds of personal information we hold
We only hold information about you
that is necessary for the services we provide. Such information will
generally include your name, contact details, job title, type of business,
payment details, account number, records of correspondence and billing
statements. We may also hold personal information about you regarding the
matter for which you have sought our services.
We do not hold sensitive information
about you, such as information about your race, ethnic origins, political or
religious beliefs or health, unless special circumstances surrounding the
provision of our services to you requires this. We only collect sensitive
information about you if we have obtained your consent to do so.
If you visit our website, our web-server will
automatically collect the following types of information:
-
your internet protocol addresses;
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the date and time of your visit;
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webpages visited;
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the type of internet browser you are using; and
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in certain circumstances - your domain name.
However, this information is
generally anonymous and is used for statistical purposes only. We do not
attempt to link this information to you.
How we use personal information
We use your personal information:
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to provide you with legal services;
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to administer our business relationship with you;
and
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for internal purposes such as procedural
assessments, risk management, product and service reviews, staff
training, accounting and billing;
Use and disclosure
In general, we will not use or
disclose personal information about you otherwise than for:
the purpose of providing or offering
legal services;
-
a purpose that you would reasonably expect it to be
used or disclosed;
-
a purpose authorised by law; or
-
a purpose in relation to which you have consented.
Various laws, including the Legal
Practitioners Act 1981 (SA), require us to disclose information in
certain circumstances.
It may be necessary for information
to be disclosed to other organisations in the course of providing our legal
services; for example, to other law firms, government departments, courts,
barristers, expert consultants or advisers, our auditors, external
consultants and other service providers.
Direct marketing
We seek to obtain express consent
from individuals to send promotional materials wherever possible. However,
if we have not engaged in correspondence with you, we will generally not
have had an opportunity to seek your express consent. In these
circumstances, we may use your personal information to send you information
about our services, but you may at any time express a wish not to receive
any further such materials and we will remove you from our mailing list
immediately.
How we secure your information
We hold all hardcopy and electronic
records of personal information in a secure manner to ensure that they are
protected from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. We follow
strict information handling procedures and only permit staff whose tasks
require use of your information to access it. We delete your personal
information in a secure manner once it is no longer needed or required to be
kept by law; for example, by shredding hardcopy records and degaussing (demagnetising)
electronic records.
Your right of access
You may request access to your
personal information at any time by sending a written request to our Privacy
Officer by mail at 61 Carrington Street, Adelaide SA 5000, by facsimile on
(08) 8237 0555, or by email to privacy@privacylawconsulting.com.au.
In your request, please state how
you would like to obtain access. For example, you may like to inspect our
records at our premises or you may prefer to be sent a photocopy or an
electronic version of your information. You do not need to provide a reason
for your request.
Once our Privacy Officer has
verified your identity, your request will be forwarded to our information
systems manager who will arrange for access to be provided to you in an
appropriate manner within five working days. If our files indicate that you
have opened a matter with us with another individual, we will provide each
person named on the file with access to all personal information held in the
file. Our Privacy Officer will follow up your request to ensure that the
level of access with which you have been provided is to your satisfaction.
Generally, we will not charge a fee for providing access, however, may do so
if significant time and resources are required to provide you with access.
In rare circumstances, we may not be
able to provide access to your information; for example, if it would have an
unreasonable impact upon the privacy of others, if it relates to legal
proceedings between us through which the information would not otherwise be
available, if it would be prejudicial to negotiations we are holding with
you, if we are required by law to withhold the information or if it would
reveal information relating to our commercially sensitive decision making
processes. If we are unable to provide you with access, we will state why
this is so and consider whether the use of an intermediary would be
appropriate to provide you with an explanation of your personal information.
You may correct your information
In order to provide you with our
legal services, we will generally take instructions at the commencement of a
matter and supplement and update this information as necessary throughout
the conduct of the matter.
However, if we hold personal
information about you and you are able to establish that the information is
not accurate, complete or up-to-date, you may inform us of this and we will
correct it for you. In the unlikely event that we disagree about the
accuracy of the information and are unable to change it, you may provide us
with a statement that you dispute its accuracy and we will associate the
statement with your information in such a manner that it will be brought to
the attention of each person who uses the information.
Your right to lodge a complaint
If you are not satisfied with how we
have handled your personal information, you may lodge a complaint with our
Privacy Officer either by mail at 61 Carrington Street, Adelaide SA 5000, by
facsimile on (08) 8237 0555 or via email at
privacy@privacylawconsulting.com.au. We will inform you of who will handle
your complaint and you may contact our Privacy Officer to enquire about its
stage of progress at any time. In the unlikely event that we are unable to
resolve the matter to your satisfaction, we will discuss with you dispute
resolution options in order to have the matter resolved by an independent
third party.
Identifiers
We will not adopt an identifier for
you, or use or disclose an identifier, if it has been assigned to you by a
government agency.
Anonymity
If we provide you with legal
services, we will require you to inform us of your identity for the purpose
of conducting a conflict of interests check. For this reason, it is not
possible for us to provide our services if you choose to remain anonymous.
Transborder data flows
We will only transfer your personal
information overseas if:
-
you, or one of your authorised representatives, is
overseas, and it is necessary to transfer the information to you;
-
you, or one of your authorised representatives,
request us to transfer the information to a person or entity overseas;
or
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we are required to do so by law.
We will not transfer your
information outside of Australia in any other circumstances.
We may need to change our privacy policy from time to time
Due to changing business
circumstances, we may need to change our privacy policy from time to time.
If we do, we will endeavour to ensure that your overall level of privacy
protection is not diminished and will publish the changes on our website.
Any actions that we have taken before the change will continue to be
regulated by the privacy policy that existed before the changes were made.
Further information
If you have any
questions or concerns about our privacy statement or if you would like more
Information about how we handle your personal information, please
contact our
Privacy Officer. |
