Purpose
OFRM Lawyers is strongly committed to protecting your privacy and adopts the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Act).
This policy sets out how we collect, use and disclose information about you, how we aim to protect the privacy of your personal information and your rights in relation to your personal information.
Our use of the information you provide to us is also subject to the strict requirements and ethical obligations imposed by the legislation which governs the practice of lawyers. This means we are required to keep your matter confidential and we will.
Policy purpose
The purpose of this policy is to explain:
- What kinds of personal information we collect and store;
- How we collect and store the personal information;
- Why we collect personal information and in what circumstances we will disclose the information;
- How you can access details of the personal information we hold and if necessary correct the personal information; and
- How to contact us to discuss any breach of this policy or the use of your personal information.
Personal information
The types of personal information we may collect about you include:
- contact details such as your name, business or personal addresses, email addresses, phone and fax numbers;
- your employment or professional details;
- your marital status and/or anniversary;
- your age and/or date of birth;
- your preferences and/or opinions;
- details of your company’s ABN and/or ACN;
- financial information including bank account and credit card details;
- information about your access and use of our website
- additional personal information that you provide to us, directly or indirectly, through your use of our website, associated applications, associated social media platforms and/or accounts from which you permit us to collect information; and
- any other personal information requested by us and/or provided by you or a third party.
Personal information may also include ‘sensitive information’. Sensitive information is information or an opinion about an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association, membership of a trade union, sexual preferences, criminal record, health and biometric information or similar such information.
OFRM Lawyers will generally only collect sensitive information with your consent (unless otherwise permitted or required by law)
Collection and Use of Personal Information
OFRM Lawyers collects information about you which we may use for the following reasons:
- to provide a service that you have requested. For example, if you engage us to prepare a Will for you;
- Where you have applied for a position with us, or are completing work experience or other related work with us;
- for accounting, billing and other administrative purposes;
- Where we would like to improve our service to you, for example through the use and collection of data for statistical purposes or by the use of electronic tools like website cookies;
- As part of our client database; and
- For any other purpose related to providing quality legal services to you.
- To meet any other legal requirements including any that we need to comply with under our legal profession rules, such as the Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2014.
We will not use or disclose any information about you other than the purpose for which it was collected, without your consent, unless the use or disclosure is permitted under the Privacy Act, required by law or authorised by you.
Generally speaking there are two types of information we collect:
- Information that you specifically give to us; and
- Other information obtained from your use of our services and/or interactions with us including our website, Facebook page or other social media.
While in some circumstances you may not need to provide us with personal information, there are many circumstances when dealing with us that you must provide your personal information to us. For example, we are unable to act on your behalf in legal matters unless we have been provided with your personal details.
We will endeavour to ensure that any personal information stored within our systems is complete, accurate, up to date, relevant, and kept confidential. However this will not be the case if your situation has changed and you have not informed us of the change.
Electronic Data we Collect
Web forms, surveys and Social Media Interactions
Any information provided to us by you via web forms such as our “Request an Appointment” form, seminar registrations and social media interactions (“Likes”, “Shares”, “Comments” and the like) may be collected and stored by OFRM Lawyers for use suitable to its purpose.
We encourage you to be vigilant about the protection of your own information when using digital services, such as social media. While we will endeavour to ensure that any relationships we have with third parties include an appropriate level of protection for your privacy, we are unable to control any electronic platform operated by or hosted by a third party, nor can we ever confirm such information has been fully deleted.
Analytical Data from Websites and Social Media
OFRM Lawyers automatically collects information to on the use of our website and social media accounts. We use the built-in tools for each platform, plus Google Analytics, to provide analytical data that helps us identify what our users want from our online services and to help us identify what is useful or unnecessary on our site. This data is predominantly collected using cookies. Most information is effectively anonymous; however, if you do not want this type of information recorded, use a web browsers that gives you the option to disable cookies.
Storage of Personal Information
Information collected by us is stored in a mix of physical files within our office, electronically on our server or a hosted service, electronically offsite for backup purposes, in secure archive storage offsite, and electronically on cloud servers or hosted sites.
We believe our choices properly balance the needs of privacy with the effectiveness of working on your matter.
Again, while we will endeavour to ensure that any relationships we have with third parties include an appropriate level of protection for your privacy, we are unable to control any electronic platform operated by or hosted by a third party.
Length of Time we keep Information
We keep physical files of client information and records for a period of 7 years from the date of completion of a matter in line with standard business practices. Electronic files will be generally kept for a longer period.
If the information is not client matter related, we generally keep other data on our server or in our archives for as long as we reasonably need it, for taxation, insurance purposes or legal issues.
We may alter this practice according to changing requirements. For example, we may delete some data, if needed, to free up storage space. In addition, information posted by you in a public forum could stay in the public view indefinitely.
Disclosure of Personal Information
We do not sell personal information to third parties.
We may disclose personal information to
- our employees and contractors
- to third parties involved in the provision of our services to you, including banks, government agencies, barristers engaged in your matter and Courts.
- Third party service providers for the purpose of enabling them to provide their services to us including IT service providers, data storage, web-hosting and server providers, marketing or advertising providers
- Third party service providers engaged to perform financial, administrative or other consulting services
- Third party software providers
We may also disclose information for the analysis and support of your use of our website.
We are permitted under the Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules 2015 (under the Legal Profession Uniform Law) to disclose your personal information in the following circumstances;
- Where you have expressly or impliedly authorised disclosure;
- Where we are permitted or compelled by law to disclose your personal information;
- When the information is disclosed in a confidential setting, for the sole purpose of obtaining advice in connection with our legal or ethical obligations;
- Where we disclose the information for the sole purpose of avoiding the probable commission of a serious criminal offence;
- Where the information is disclosed for the purpose of preventing imminent serious physical harm to you or to another person; or
- Where the information is disclosed to our insurers.
Where we are permitted to by law, we will use all reasonable efforts to make you aware of the disclosure of your personal information contrary to the terms outlined in this Privacy Policy and where necessary will keep a written record of any circumstances where we disclose your personal information.
Use of your personal information to contact you
We will never intentionally send you unwanted electronic commercial material, however, if we feel there is an update to legislation or a significant issue you need to be aware of we may send you information to advise you of this update or change as relevant to you.
We may also send you correspondence from time to time regarding our services.
Protection of information we collect
We use secure web services to collect your information and we store certain kinds of data in encrypted form.
We follow reasonable technical and management practices to help protect the confidentiality, security and integrity of data stored on our system and premises. While no system is completely secure, we believe the measures implemented by us reduce the likelihood of security problems to a level appropriate to the type of data involved.
Credit/Debit Card Information
We do not accept credit/debit card information via our website. If anyone purports to be OFRM Lawyers and asks for your card information online please leave the site and contact us immediately.
When you provide card details over the phone, the information is destroyed once the payment has been processed.
DO NOT POST, EMAIL, SMS Flags
Our system includes flags that can be set at your request to prevent post, email or SMS being delivered. We will endeavour to honour the flags when set.
Email Communications
From time to time, we may send non-commercial electronic mail messages to your email account. In addition, we regularly send correspondence to you by email regarding any services we provide to you. If you do not want to receive email communication from us, you will need to advise us of this.
Sharing Files via the Cloud
At times during the course of your client matter we may wish to share files with you or a third party such as a barrister or mediator via a cloud service Those documents will be deleted from that service at the conclusion of your matter.
Controlling your privacy
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. If you provide personal information to us, you understand that we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
You do not have to provide personal information to us, however if you do not, it may affect our ability to provide our services to you.
Privacy Enquiries and Complaints
You have a right to request access to personal information held by OFRM Lawyers about you. You also have the right to request correction of any personal information that we hold.
If at any time you would like to access or correct the personal information that OFRM Lawyers holds about you, please contact our Privacy Officer Lachlan Edwards, Director on
- l.edwards@ofrm.com.au
- PO Box 1111, BENDIGO VIC 3552
- 03 5445 1031
If you do have any questions or complaints regarding our use, collection or storage of your personal information, please feel free to contact us our Privacy Officer.
We will endeavour to respond to your query, comment or complaint within 30 days of receipt of your correspondence.
If you are unhappy with our response or if we do not provide a response within 30 days you can make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (“OAIC”).