Privacy Policy

This is the Privacy Policy of William Roberts Pty Ltd (ACN 115 089 864) trading as William Roberts Lawyers (“we”, “us” and when relating to us, “our”).

We are committed to protecting the privacy of our contacts, customers, suppliers and employees (“you” and when relating to you, “your”) and complying with the Australian Privacy Principles set out in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act).

In this policy we describe how we manage your personal information.

The kinds of personal information we collectThe kinds of personal information that we collect includes:
- contact details such as name, role or position, address, email address, mobile number, land-line number and fax number;
- information relating to your circumstances and affairs relevant to the matter/s in which we are instructed;
- information about your legal interests and requirements and the legal services that you may wish to purchase;
- information regarding our communications with you and your attendance at seminars and promotional events held by us;
- if you are an employee or prospective employee, information about your qualifications, skills and work experience; and
- if you are a supplier or prospective supplier, information about your business skills, services, products and prices.
How we collect personal information
1. We collect personal information by various means including when:
  - you contact us with a question or enquiry;
  - you subscribe to our newsletter or legal updates service;
  - you attend a seminar or event where we are hosting or presenting;
  - you instruct us to act for you and we open a file and conduct a conflict check;
  - our clients provide information relating to related and adverse parties relevant to the advice or services we are providing;
  - we undertake a search or investigation;
  - you visit our website.
2. Where practicable we collect personal information about you directly from you; however, we may have collected information about you from a third party such as a client, a third party information provider, the courts or a person responding to our questions or inquiries.
3. We are required to collect the full name and address of our clients by the Solicitors Rules made under the Legal Profession Act 2004 (NSW). Accurate name and address information must also be collected in order to comply with the trust account record keeping requirements in the Legal Profession Regulation 2005 (NSW) and to comply with our duty to the courts.
4. If you are a client and do not provide us with name and address information we cannot act for you.
5. If you do not provide us with accurate personal information we may not be able to carry out our instructions or achieve the purpose for which the information has been sought.
The purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information
1. We collect, hold, and use personal information in order to:
  - respond to your enquiries;
  - provide legal services;
  - employ competent and diligent personnel;
  - monitor or improve the use of and satisfaction with our legal services;
  - let you know about news, legal developments, our expertise and legal services that may be of interest to you; or
  - provide you with marketing information about us (including invitations to events).
2. We disclose personal information:
  - in order to carry out the instructions of our clients; and
  - subject to our confidentiality obligations, when using services in support of our legal practice.
The parties to whom your personal information is disclosed
1. Subject to our confidentiality obligations, we may share some relevant personal information with:
  - parties related to a matter you have with us, government authorities and service providers as reasonably required to carry out your instructions;
  - our e-mail marketing provider for the purposes of providing you our marketing material, newsletter, invitations, and news or legal updates; and
  - third party service providers who assist us with archival, auditing, accounting, legal, business consulting, website or technology services.
2. We also will disclose your information if required by law to do so or in circumstances permitted by the Privacy Act – for example:
  - where we have reasonable grounds to suspect that unlawful activity, or misconduct of a serious nature, that relates to our functions or activities has been, is being or may be engaged in;
  - in response to a subpoena, discovery request or a court order; or
  - in response to a notice from a government authority that requires compliance by law
Disclosure of information outside the jurisdiction of collection
1. We may provide your personal information to overseas recipients.
2. Those overseas recipients are located in Singapore. At present it is not practicable to specify any other countries where overseas recipients may be located.
3. We have a wholly owned subsidiary located in Singapore that operates our Singaporean office. This subsidiary is William Roberts Pte Ltd. For the purposes of this policy, this subsidiary is governed by the same principles as those in Australia and thus the sharing of information, in so far as that sharing adheres to this policy, is permissible.
Access/correction/updating personal information
1. You can contact us to access, correct or update your personal information. Unless we are subject to confidentiality obligation or some other restriction on giving access to the information and we are permitted to refuse you access under the Privacy Act, we will endeavour to make your information available to you within 30 days. Examples of circumstances where we may refuse to give you access to your personal information include where:
  - giving access would be unlawful;
  - we reasonably believe that giving you access would pose a serious threat to the life, health or safety of any individual or to public health or public safety;
  - giving access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others;
  - the information could reveal the intentions of a party in negotiations;
  - giving access could prejudice the taking of appropriate action in relation to unlawful activity;
  - giving access could reveal evaluative information in a commercially sensitive decision making process.
2. If you request us to correct your personal information, we will correct, or, if we consider more appropriate, note your request for amendment of the information on your record.
3. We will not charge you to make a request to access your record but we may charge you to actually provide access depending on the costs associated with obtaining and providing the material.
4. These actions can usually be taken by selecting “Contact Us” in the section below.
Storage of personal informationWe will store your personal information for as long as we consider necessary, and at least as long as the law requires us to do so.
SecurityWe take reasonable physical, technical and administrative safeguards to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. For example, we maintain our files in secure offices and limit access to personal information.
Notification of ChangesIf we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will send you a copy of our revised policy or post a copy on our website.
Opting out of marketing communicationsWe may, from time to time, send you marketing material, newsletters, invitations and legal updates about our services. You can opt out of receiving such communications by notifying us using our contact details below, or by clicking the “unsubscribe” option at the bottom of any marketing e-mail received from us.
Complaints / Contact us
1. If a breach of this Privacy Policy occurs, a complaint may be made to us by:Post:The Privacy OfficerWilliam Roberts Lawyers
  PO Box 20424
  WORLD SQUARE NSW 2002Telephone: +61 2 9552 2111
  Email: enquiries@williamroberts.com.au
2. We will endeavour to respond to any complaint within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you may seek a review by contacting the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner using the information available at http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints.
European Union
1. If you are based in the European Union, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) apply. This section 12 only applies to you. The GDPR can be accessed here.
2. A reference to your personal information in this Privacy Policy is also a reference to your personal data for the purposes of the GDPR.
3. We are either a data controller or a data processor pursuant to the GDPR. Anyone we disclose your personal data to in accordance with this Privacy Policy is a data processor pursuant to the GDPR.
4. In addition to our obligations under the Privacy Act, you have the following additional rights with respect to your personal data (this is subject to the terms of the GDPR):
  - The right to erasure: Art 17 of the GDPR
  - The right to data portability: Art 20 of the GDPR
  - The right to object: Art 21 of the GDPR

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 20 September 2018.

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