Sackville Wilks Pty Ltd (A.C.N. 004 356 450) (hereafter referred to as “Sackville Wilks”, “We” or “Us”), recognises the importance of your privacy and understand your concerns about the security of your personal information. We are committed to protecting all personal information about you that we hold and are bound by the National Privacy Principles (“NPPs”) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“the Privacy Act”). This Privacy Policy explains how we generally manage and protect the privacy of your personal information under the NPPs.
Personal information is any information or an opinion, whether true or not, which identifies an individual or from which an individual’s identity is apparent or can be reasonably ascertained.
If the personal information we collect is Sensitive Information, the NPPs impose greater obligations on us regarding collection, use or disclosure of such information. Sensitive Information is a specific type of information or an opinion about you and includes:
- racial or ethnic origin;
- political opinions;
- membership of a political association;
- religious beliefs, affiliations or philosophical beliefs;
- membership of a professional or trade association or membership of a trade union;
- sexual preferences or practices;
- criminal record; and
- health or disability.
Accordingly, we will only collect your Sensitive Information if:
- you have expressly consented to us doing so;
- we are required to do so by law; or
- the collection is necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.
We only collect personal information that is necessary for us to perform our functions, to develop and promote our services and to assist us with complying with our legal and regulatory obligations. The kind of personal information we collect and hold will depend upon the services you request from us.
This may include:
- Information you give us when you instruct us to act for you.This information will include your name, address and contact details;
- Information about individuals we collect in the course of acting for you
- Communications between us and you
- We also collect some information from you when you use our website. Your use of the facilities and services available through our website will determine the amount and type of information which we collect about you. Some of this information will not be personal information because it will not reveal your identity.
Generally, we will collect personal information directly from you. We usually collect information such as your name, address, contact number and email address. . We only collect Sensitive Information with your consent.
Where necessary, to provide you with legal services, we may also collect personal information about you from a third party. For example, we may request and collect personal information from:
- another client to ensure that no conflict of interest arises;
- a company for whom you work; and
- other organisations with whom you have any dealings.
If we collect personal information about you from a third party, whether we are referred to by you, we will take reasonable steps to ensure you are aware of why the information is collected, how it will be used and to whom it will be disclosed. In the event that you have referred us to a third party, we will assume and you will ensure that you have made that third party aware that you have referred us to them and of the purposes involved in the collection, use and disclosure of the relevant personal or other information.
If you supply us with information about another person, you should ensure that you are authorised to do so and you must agree to inform that person who we are, that we will use and disclose their personal information as outlined in our Privacy Policy from time to time and that they may gain access to it should we hold that information.
As with most websites, we may track usage patterns on our website on an anonymous aggregate basis. Your identity cannot reasonably be ascertained from this information. Each time you visit our website a web server makes a record of your visit. Specifically, it records your:
- Internet Provider;
- Date and time of your visit;
- Pages accessed and the documents downloaded;
- Search items entered; and
- Referring URLs (universal locators).
When you visit our website, our server attaches a small data file called a “cookie” to your computer’s memory.
Cookies are pieces of information that may be transferred to your computer’s memory when you visit a website for record keeping purposes. Most Web browsers are set to accept cookies. However, if you do not wish to receive any cookies you may set your Web browser to refuse cookies. We use cookies to provide us with aggregate (anonymous) information on how people use our website and to help us to know what they find interesting and useful on our website. We do not link this information back to your identity or other information that you have provided to us. We do not store any information that identifies you inside cookies.
We may use your personal information for the following purposes:
- to provide you with legal services (if you are a client of Sackville Wilks);to provide you with information and services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you as permitted under applicable law;
- to enable us to carry out our functions as professional legal service providers and seeking to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
- to invite you to events; and
- to maintain and develop our relationship with you.
If we believe that it is necessary, me way conduct further searches and enquiries regarding the information you have provided us or more generally concerning you or your associates for our regulatory or prudential purposes. This may entail using some or all of the collected information to collect additional information concerning you or your associates (including personal information in respect of individuals) from various other entities including, but not limited to, government agencies, law enforcement bodies, publicly available records, public registries, court or tribunal records, ratings agencies, search and credit reporting agencies, and regulatory and licensing bodies.
We may also use your personal information to provide you with information about other services offered by us. If you would prefer not to receive this information, please let us know and we will respect your request.
As our legal duty, we have an obligation to maintain the confidentiality of our clients’ affairs including personal information. This duty of confidentiality applies except where disclosure of your personal information is with your consent. Your consent may be given either expressly or may be implied from your conduct. If in the course of providing legal services to you, we are required to disclose your personal information to a third party (eg barristers and expert witnesses) your consent would be implied when you engage us for our legal services unless you advise us otherwise.
We may also disclose your information to third parties where compelled by law (eg.in response to a subpoena) or for any other purpose permitted by the NPPs.
If we engage a third party contractor to perform services which involves handling personal information, we will take reasonable steps to prohibit the contractor from using personal information except for the purposes for which it was supplied.
If you do not provide the personal information we request, we may not be able to provide you with prompt and effective legal services or be able to provide you with the other information or services you request from us.
As outlined above, we may use the personal information we collect about you to identify particular services and/or information which we believe may be of interest and benefit to you. We may then contact you to let you know about these services and information and how they may benefit you. If you advise that you no longer wish to be contacted about these matters, we will no longer use your personal information in this way.
If you apply for a job, work placement or work experience at Sackville Wilks, you may need to provide us with your personal information. By providing us with a resume or a job application, you consent to our use of this information to assess your suitability for employment with us.
We believe that having accurate personal information about our clients will enable us to provide our client with the best possible service. We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect, use and disclose is accurate, complete and up to date.
Please contact us immediately if you find that the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. We will take reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is corrected.
However, should we disagree with your view about the accuracy, completeness or currency of a record of your personal information held by us, and you ask us to associate with that record a statement that you have a contrary view, we will take reasonable steps to do so.
Sackville Wilks protects your personal information from loss, misuse, modification and disclosure. We safeguard the security of your personal information through physical, electronic and managerial procedures. For example:
- security monitoring of premises;
- code only access and alarm systems to prevent outside access to your personal information; and
- electronic and computer systems to prevent unauthorised access to your personal information.
You may request access to any of the personal information we hold about you.
We encourage all requests for access to your personal information to be directed to us at
info@swlawyers.com.au or by writing to us.
We will, upon receipt of a request from you, provide you with access to such personal information , unless there is an exemption which applies under the Privacy Act.
Your request for access will be dealt with in a reasonable time. We may charge you a fee to cover the reasonable cost of retrieval and the supply of the information to you. Please note that requests for a large amount of information, or information which is not currently in use, may require further time before a response can be given.
In some cases, consistently with the NPPs, we may refuse to give you access to personal information we hold about you. This includes circumstances where giving you access:
- Would be unlawful (for example, where a record which contains personal information about you is subject to a claim for legal professional privilege by one of our clients);
- Would have an unreasonable impact on other people’s privacy;
- Would prejudice negotiations we are having with you;
- Would prejudice an investigation of unlawful activity; and
- Would prejudice activities carried out by, or for, a law enforcement agency.
If we refuse your request for access, we will provide you with reasons for the refusal.
Except as described in this section, we do not transfer your personal information overseas unless:
- we are authorised by law to do; or
- you have consented to it as part of the legal services we provide to you;
AND PROVIDED however that in the event that it is not practical to obtain your consent but the transfer is for your benefit and your consent would likely be given and we have taken reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information will not be held, used or disclosed by the recipient in a manner inconsistent with this Privacy Policy and the NPPs.
We note that we store our clients’ personal information via an online legal software database provided by a third party service supplier.
By providing your personal information and in the event that the third party service supplier stores the database in a different jurisdiction, you consent to overseas transfer of your personal information, and you accept that the privacy laws of the jurisdictions in which this database may be accessed may not be as stringent as the NPPs.
Technologies and information governance practices are constantly developing. We may therefore need to revise this Privacy Policy in future.
Accordingly, we reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy at any time and you should therefore review this page regularly to ensure that you are aware of any changes to its terms.
If you would like more information about the way we manage personal information that we hold about you, are concerned that we may have breached your privacy, wish to gain access to or correct your personal information or make a complaint about a breach of your privacy, please contact Frank Levy at:
