The WA Law Group respects the privacy of its clients and the readers of this website. In order that third parties understand and have confidence in how the WA Law Group deals with Personal Information, it has developed a Privacy Policy adopting the Australian Privacy Principles (APP).

If you are, or become a client of the WA Law Group, you also have the added comfort of the Wa Law Group’s ethical obligations as your lawyer to protect your Personal Information as part of its lawyer/client privilege duties.

General

The WA Law Group respects your privacy and is committed to protecting any information it holds or will hold about you.

The WA Law Group is bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (C’th) including the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

The Privacy Act safeguards your right to privacy and the use of your Personal Information which the Act says is basically any form of data that has the ability to identify you as an individual.

The APPs regulate the way in which WA Law Group can collect, use, keep, secure and disclose Personal Information.

This policy sets out how WA Law Group manages your Personal Information.

Information Collected

Personal Information may be collected by WA Law Group when you use the WA Law Group website. That information, including your internet protocol address, your operating system, your domain name (if applicable), the date and time of your visit to the WA Law Group website, duration of the visit and pages by you will be used for statistical purposes to improve the WA Law Group’s services to you.

The WA Law Group will also collect Personal Information that you may provide to it voluntarily in the course of our business relationship with you. You may choose to provide the WA Law Group with personally identifiable information in circumstances where you contact it with a query or fill out a contact details form or such other form from time to time which has provision included for your Personal Information, or you request WA Law Group to provide you with information. Personal Information we collect may include your name and contact details including phone numbers for postal and/or residential addresses and email addresses, your date of birth, photographs, any facts or opinions that are connected to an enquiry that we are conducting on behalf of a client or potential client and other personal information that is provided through a website belonging to WA Law Group or otherwise requested by us or provided by you.

We may also need to collect Sensitive Information. Sensitive Information is a subset of Personal Information that is given higher level of protection under the Australian Privacy Principles. The Australian Privacy Principles refer to Sensitive Information as information or opinion concerning racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of political associations, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional trade association, membership of a trade union, sexual orientation and practice, criminal records, health information; and biometric information.

The Personal Information (including Sensitive Information) collected will be referred to as information.

If we receive your information from third parties, we will protect it as set out in this policy and take reasonable steps to ensure that you are aware that we have collected the information about you and the circumstances of the collection. If you provide us with third party Personal Information, then you warrant to us that you had the third party’s consent to do so.

Purpose Of Collection

You consent for the WA Law Group to collect Personal Information from you and from third parties to provide you or someone that you know with legal services, to communicate with you, to provide you with information which may be relevant to your particular legal matter, type of business or other area of interest or expertise, to analysis enhancing the WA Law Group services and client needs and to comply with WA Law Group legal obligations.

The scope and volume of information that we may require from you in order for us to assert a legal claim on your behalf is recognised by the APP as a “permitted general situation”.

The WA Law Group may disclose your information outside the firm to service providers, agents and contractors from time to time in order that it may provide you with its legal services and, on occasions, marketing those services to you.

It would be an exceptional circumstance in which any of your Personal Information would be required to be sent overseas. If it were to be done so, it would be in circumstances that would be familiar because of your education or employment or family background, the circumstances of which would be explained to you. If we were to disclose that Personal Information to overseas recipients, we would use our best endeavours to ensure that the recipients in those countries comply with the requirements of the Australian Privacy Principles.

Security

The WA Law Group is committed to protecting the security of your Personal Information. The WA Law Group uses a variety of industry standard security technologies to help protect your personal information to ensure it stays safe from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure including electronic and physical security measures.

You should be aware that the internet and the sending of emails by you is not a secure environment. If you use the internet to send the WA Law Group any Personal Information, including your email addresses, it is sent at your own risk.

The WA Law Group stores your personal information electronically in its industry standard practice management system and/or in hard copy files.

Access

You may request access to Personal Information which the WA Law Group hold about you upon making a written request to the WA Law Group Privacy Officer.

The WA Law Group will endeavour to respond to your request and provide access to such Personal Information as soon as possible within a reasonable period of time.

The WA Law Group may charge you a fee to cover the cost of retrieval and copying of any Personal Information which it holds about you. That fee will not be excessive and will not apply to lodging a request for access.

The WA Law Group may decline a request to access Personal Information received in circumstances prescribed by the Privacy Act. If the WA Law Group does this it will tell you why.

Links To Other Websites

The WA Law Group website may, from time to time, contain links to other websites over which it has no control. The WA Law Group accepts no liability for the content of those linked websites including the accuracy of any information on those websites. The WA Law Group is not responsible for the privacy practices of the linked websites and any linked website is not subject to the WA Law Group’s Privacy Policy.

Complaints

If a client is concerned that Personal Information held by WA Law Group is incorrect, they may provide in writing to the Privacy Officer, a correction in regard to that information. In tendering the corrected information, the author should be aware that, in conducting legal claims on behalf of clients, the WA Law Group is bound to provide information that is based on available evidence.

An assertion of fact contrary to other available evidence would need to be explained.

Updates

The WA Law Group may update its Privacy Policy from time to time and you should check the WA Law Group website regularly for such updates in order that you are provided with the latest Privacy Policy.

Marketing

As part of what we hope to be an ongoing professional relationship with you, we may, from time to time, send you information related to other legal services that we offer or which we believe may be of interest to you in your personal circumstances or industry.

We do respect the wishes of individuals who do not wish to receive such material from us in the future and have implemented simple “opt out” procedures that can be activated within promotional emails and other electronic sent messages that we may send to you from time to time.

Contact Us

If you would like to make an access request, have queries or concerns regarding the WA Law Group’s Privacy Policy or would like more information from the WA Law Group regarding how we handle your Personal Information, please contact the WA Law Group Privacy Officer at WA Law Group, Exchange Tower Level 17 / 2 The Esplanade, Perth WA 6000 or email: info@walawgroup.com.au.

More Information

For more information about privacy in general, you can visit the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at: www.oaic.gov.au.