privacy policy.

Angela Pierce and Associates (referred to in this document as we, us or our) respects the privacy of your personal information. We will treat all personal information in accordance with any and all obligations that are binding upon us under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) governing management of your personal information as contained in that Act.

This policy sets out how we collect, use, disclose and otherwise manage personal information about you.

Your privacy

We are committed to protecting your privacy with your rights and needs in mind.

Giving consent

You are not obliged to disclose personal or sensitive information about yourself or your contact details when you visit our website.

By voluntarily providing us with any personal information, you consent to us using this information to assist you with your enquiry and to offer any of our services that may be relevant to you.

Personal information we collect and method of collection

Personal information is information or an opinion, whether true or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion.

For example, the following are all types of personal information:

  • ‘sensitive information’ (includes information or opinion about an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinion, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or criminal record, provided the information or opinion otherwise meets the definition of personal information)
  • ‘health information’ (which is also ‘sensitive information’)
  • ‘credit information’
  • ‘employee record’ information (subject to exemptions), and
  • ‘tax file number’ information.

Where the circumstances require, we may also need to collect sensitive information, including health information.

How we may use your personal information

The personal information that we collect and hold about you, depends on your interaction with us. Generally, we will collect, use and hold personal information for the purposes of:

  • Providing services to you or someone else you know;
  • Providing you with information about other services that we, our related entities and other organisations that we have affiliations with, offer that may be of interest to you;
  • Facilitating our internal business operations, including the fulfilment of any legal requirements; and
  • Analysing our services and customer needs with a view to developing new or improved services.

Your personal information may also be used in order to:

  • verify your identity;
  • respond to any queries or feedback that you may have;
  • conduct appropriate checks for credit-worthiness and for fraud;
  • prevent and detect any misuse of, or fraudulent activities involving, this site;
  • conduct research and development in respect of our services;
  • gain an understanding of your information and communication needs or obtain your feedback or views about our services in order for us to improve them; and/or
  • maintain and develop our business systems and infrastructure, including testing and upgrading of these systems,
  • and for any other purpose reasonably considered necessary or desirable by us in relation to the operation of our business.

From time to time we may email our customers with news, information and offers relating to our own services or those of selected partners. Your personal information may also be collected so that we can promote and market products and services to you. This is to keep you informed of products, services, and special offers we believe you will find valuable and may continue after you cease acquiring products and services from us. If you would prefer not to receive promotional or other material from us, please let us know and we will respect your request. You can unsubscribe from such communications at any time if you choose.

Pre-client information

We collect personal information about you during the pre-client stage to determine if we are able to assist you with your legal matter. We hold on to this information to ensure any future communication with you is relevant.

We may monitor and record telephone calls for training and security purposes.

Client information

When you become a client at Angela Pierce and Associates, we collect all information necessary to process your legal matter. We are required by law to keep this information for seven years once your matter is closed. If the personal information you provide to us is incomplete or inaccurate, we may be unable to provide you, or someone else you know, with the services you, or they, are seeking. We require accurate information to ascertain a client’s identity before we will commence to act for them.

Website

We may collect website activity statistics such as number of visitors, pages visited, time and date of visit and where you accessed our website from, so that we can make informed decisions relating to improving our website and the service we deliver. This information is anonymous and does not identify a person.

When you visit our website, a cookie may be placed on your computer which is later used to display advertising on other websites you may visit. The cookie does not contain personal information that can identify you but may contain information about the page you visited on our website. If you do not wish for this to occur, you can remove cookies from your computer by following the standard procedures for your internet browser to do so.

When transmitting personal information from a computer to our website, an individual must keep in mind that the transmission of information over the Internet is not completely secure or error-free. In particular, messages and e-mails sent to or from the site may not be secure, and an individual should take special care in deciding what information to send to us via e-mail or the web message portal. Other than liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, Angela Pierce and Associates will not be liable in any way in relation to any breach of security or any unintended loss or disclosure of that information.

Third party disclosure

We may disclose information to third parties when outsourcing services, such as data storage, billing and debt collection, bulk distribution and mailing, direct marketing, website usage analysis, technology support services and obtaining expert help from consultants to improve our services.

We take reasonable steps to ensure that these organisations are bound by confidentiality and privacy obligations in relation to the protection of your personal information.

By engaging us, our clients consent to the disclosure by us of personal information where this is required in the course of representing them. For example, Angela Pierce and Associates may need to disclose information to barristers, courts, tribunals, mediators, governmental agencies, and other relevant persons, including persons with whom our clients have, or are proposing to have, dealings or to the legal or other representatives or financiers of those persons.

In addition, we may also be required to disclose your personal information to:

  • credit-reporting and fraud-checking agencies;
  • credit providers (for credit-related purposes such as creditworthiness, credit rating, credit provision and financing);
  • our professional advisers, including our accountants, auditors and lawyers;
  • government and regulatory authorities and other organisations, as required or authorised by law;
  • organisations who manage our business strategies, including those involved in a transfer/sale of all or part of our assets or business (including accounts and trade receivables) and those involved in managing our business risk and funding functions; and
  • the police or other appropriate persons where your communication suggests possible illegal activity or harm to others.

Disclosure of personal information to overseas entities

There may be situations where we store personal information with vendors who have been contracted to provide customer support and technological solutions, where we consult overseas-based experts regarding your matter, or if your matter is funded by an overseas-based litigation funder. If these situations apply to you, we will be required to disclose your personal information to recipients outside Australia. To the best of our knowledge at this time, any such recipients would likely be located in the United Kingdom, European Union, United States of America, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore and the Philippines.

Required by law

There are times when we will be required by law to disclose any personal information we have about you, such as in the instance of an investigation into bankruptcy, counter-terrorism, fraud, or taxation.

Protection of your information

We take all reasonable steps to ensure that information we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete, up-to-date and securely stored.

We strive to protect your personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access through rigorous data protection and backup protocols including firewalls, anti-virus software, and email filters, as well as passwords, multifactor authentication, and other security protocols protecting all of our electronic information; however, we cannot guarantee security.

Likewise, we take all reasonable measures to ensure the security and secure destruction of any information we hold in hard-copy.

Location of your information

We make particular efforts to hold all of your information within Australia, including locally on our office computers and on Australian based-servers and Data Centres. Our website is also hosted in Australia. Nevertheless, we cannot guarantee that third parties to whom we necessarily have disclosed your information have a similar location policy.

Access to your information

You can access your personal information held by Angela Pierce and Associates, and request correction to your personal information, by making a written request by email or by post to the Privacy Officer, Angela Pierce and Associates, Solicitors, Level 13, 111 Elizabeth Street, Sydney NSW 2000. We will deal with all requests for access to personal information as quickly as possible.

We may charge you a fee for access if a cost is incurred by us in order to retrieve your information, but in no case will we charge you a fee for your application for access or correction.

In some limited circumstances, we are permitted to deny your request for access, or limit the access we provide, including where giving you access would:

  • be unlawful (eg, where a record that contains personal information about you is subject to a claim for legal professional privilege by one of our contractual counterparties);
  • have an unreasonable impact on another person’s privacy; or
  • prejudice an investigation of unlawful activity.

We may also refuse access where the personal information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings, and the information would not be accessible by the process of discovery in those proceedings.

If we refuse to give you access, we will provide you with reasons for our refusal.

If you think your information has been mishandled, please contact us by letter or by telephone (02) 9157 9010. You may also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Last updated 31 March 2023