1. Keir Steele Waldon Lawyers’ commitment to privacy

Keir Steele Waldon Lawyers (ABN: 55 620 755 295), is committed to managing personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and in accordance with other applicable privacy laws.

This document sets out our policies for managing your personal information and is referred to as our Privacy Policy.

In this Privacy Policy, “we” and “us” refers to Keir Steele Waldon Lawyers and “you” refers to any individual about whom we collect personal information.

2. What information we collect about you

We are a commercial law firm and hold different types of information depending on the legal services provided to you, or in the case of prospective employees, the information needed to assess your suitability for employment with us. The personal information we may collect from you include:

• Identity information: name, date of birth, gender, signature, photographic identification;
• Contact information: residential and postal address, emails addresses and telephone numbers;
• Financial information: bank account details, billing information, payment card details, tax file numbers;
• Matter related information: information relevant to your legal matter or the legal matter of our client;
• Transaction information: details of services provided to you or your organisation;
• Communication records: records of correspondence and communication with you;
• Website and technical data: IP address, browser type, device information, pages visited, cookies;
• Recruitment information: employment history, qualifications, references, background check results;
• Sensitive information: including racial and ethnic origin, political beliefs, religious affiliation, criminal record, and health information.
• Other information: any additional personal information you provide to us, or authorise us to collect, as part of your interaction with us or otherwise required by law.

Where possible, we will only collect the personal information necessary to provide the legal or other service to you, or as required by our professional obligations.

2.1 Identity Verification and the AML/CTF Act

We may be required to verify your identity and collect certain information under the AML/CTF Act when we provide designated services. Identity documents might also be required for other services such as court matters, real property transactions and asset dealings.

This includes collecting identification documents and information about the source of funds and beneficial ownership of entities.

3. How we collect your personal information

3.1 Sources of Information

We collect personal information reasonably necessary to carry out our business, to assess and manage our clients’ needs, and provide legal advice and other services. We collect information directly from our clients, from other lawyers, government sources or public sources such as registers or the internet.

(a) Direct Collection

Where reasonable and practicable, we collect personal information directly from you.
This may occur when you:

• engage us to provide legal services;
• respond to communication with us or engage a solicitor or agent to do so;
• contact us by telephone, email, post or in person;
• complete forms or provide documents to us;
• visit our website or use our online services; or
• apply for employment with us.
  
  

(b) Indirect Collection

We may also collect personal information about you from third parties, including:

• our client(s), where we collect information in the course of providing legal services;
• other parties to legal proceedings or transactions and their lawyers;
• witnesses of fact, expert witnesses, health care providers and hospitals;
• courts, tribunals, law enforcement and government agencies;
• publicly available sources, including public registers, websites and social media;
• professional advisers such as bankers, accountants, financial planners and real estate agents;
• recruitment agencies and previous employers (for job applicants); and
• identity verification, commercial data brokers and background check service providers.
• Anonymity and Pseudonymity

If you are a client, you have the option of requesting to deal with us anonymously or by using a pseudonym. However, in most cases this is not lawful nor practical for legal services. If you do not provide us with the personal information we request, we may not be able to provide you with legal services or respond to your enquiry.

4. Why we collect personal information and how we use it

We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information for the primary purpose of providing legal services to our clients, complying with regulatory and insurance obligations and operating our legal practice.

Secondary purposes include financial management, system improvement, enforcement of our right to payment and managing the relationship between our firm and former clients once the retainer has concluded.

4.1 Primary Purposes

This includes:

• providing legal advice and representation to you or to our client(s);
• managing client matters and files;
• conducting legal research and investigations;
• preparing and reviewing legal documents;
• communicating with you and other parties;
• billing and collecting fees, including pursuit of our rights under a Costs Agreement or retainer;
• complying with our legal, professional and insurance obligations; and
• administering and managing our firm.
  
  

4.2 Secondary Purposes

We may also use and disclose personal information for secondary purposes that are related to our primary purposes, including:

• maintaining and developing our relationship with you;
• quality assurance and improvement of our services, including training our AI models or those of our AI providers (subject to our obligations of confidentiality to you);
• training and professional development;
• ongoing Customer Due Diligence as required by the AML/CTF Act;
• enforcement of our right to payment of fees;
• internal reporting and analysis; and
• risk management and insurance purposes.

5. Disclosure of Personal Information

We take reasonable steps to use and disclose personal information for the primary purpose for which it is collected. The primary purpose for which information is collected varies, depending on the particular service being provided, but is generally to provide legal advice and other services to an individual or their business.

In the case of potential employees, the primary purpose the information is collected is to assess the individual’s suitability for a position with us.

Personal information may also be used or disclosed by us for secondary purposes that are within the individual’s reasonable expectations and related to the primary purpose of collection.

We may disclose personal information to third parties to facilitate the purposes of collection noted in section 4. These purposes include disclosure to parties to proceedings or transactions and their representatives, to Courts, government and regulatory agencies as may be necessary or appropriate to establish legal rights and to progress transactions in which we are instructed. We also disclose information to third parties (such as data storage companies, our regulators or our insurers) who hold or process information for us.

Your personal information and confidential data is held by us subject to our duty of confidentiality under the Australian Solicitor’s Conduct Rules (“ASCR”) and any applicable undertakings or court rules. We may disclose personal information to third parties subject to those obligations and for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including:

• to discharge our professional obligations to you or to our clients or in the reasonable execution of our instructions;
• to comply with our legal obligations or in answer to a compulsory notice such as a subpoena or warrant, or to disclose information under the AML/CTF Act, Criminal Code(s), Legal Profession Act or other relevant legislation;
• to barristers, mediators, expert witnesses, investigators and consultants and other legal practitioners engaged to act for you (and/or our client) or in relation to the matter;
• other parties to legal proceedings or transactions as instructed, reasonably necessary or required by law;
• courts, tribunals, government agencies and regulators;
• our professional indemnity insurers;
• a Costs Assessor in the event that an assessment is ordered or reasonably necessary.
• service providers who assist us to operate our business (including IT providers, AI providers, document management providers, and marketing service providers);
• paid search providers;
• as permitted under the ASCR confidentiality exceptions; and any person you expressly or impliedly authorise us to disclose information to.

6. Security of Personal Information

6.1 Security Measures

We store information in paper-based files and electronic record keeping methods in secure databases (including trusted third-party storage providers based in Australia). Personal information may be collected in paper-based documents and converted to electronic form for use or storage (with the original paper-based documents either stored securely or securely destroyed).

We maintain physical security over paper and electronic data stores, such as through locks and security systems at our premises. We also maintain computer and network security, for example, we use firewalls and other security systems such as user identifiers, passwords and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to control access to our computer systems.

Our website does not necessarily use encryption or other technologies to ensure the secure transmission of information via the internet. Users of our website are encouraged to exercise care in sending personal information via the internet.

We take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. However, we cannot guarantee that personal information cannot be accessed by an unauthorised person (e.g. a hacker) or that unauthorised disclosure will not occur.

We hold your personal information using a system designed to protect against data breaches, however like all data security systems, risks may only be mitigated but not eliminated. It is our practice to require our storage service providers to be reputable.

6.2 Retention and Destruction

We retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, to comply with our legal and professional obligations and to ensure that pertinent evidence remains available if reasonably required.

7. How We Interact With You via the Internet

You may visit our website www.kswlawyers.com.au without identifying yourself. If you identify yourself (for example, by providing your contact details in an enquiry), any personal information you provide to us will be managed in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Keir Steele Waldon Lawyers’ website uses cookies. A “cookie” is a small file stored on your computer’s browser, which assists in managing customised settings of the website and delivering content. We collect certain information such as your device type, browser type, IP address, pages you have accessed on our websites and on third-party websites. You are not identifiable from such information.

You can use the settings in your browser to control how your browser deals with cookies.

Keir Steele Waldon Lawyers’ website may contain links to third-party websites. Keir Steele Waldon Lawyers is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of websites that are linked to our website.

8. Direct Marketing

We may use or disclose your personal information for the purpose of informing you about our services, upcoming promotions and events, or other opportunities that may interest you. If you do not want to receive direct marketing communications, you can opt-out at any time by contacting us using the contact details below.

If you opt-out of receiving marketing material from us, we may still contact you in relation to our ongoing relationship with you.

9. Access and Correction

You are entitled to request access to or correction of the personal information we hold about you. To request access please contact our privacy officer (Privacy Officer) using the contact details set out below.

9.1 Access to Personal Information

We will respond to your request within a reasonable period, generally within 30 days. We may charge a reasonable fee to cover the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information. If you are a client or former client we do not charge for recovery or storage of records that are your property, but may charge for costs incurred in retrieval of other records or where urgent timelines or requests for documents to be delivered remotely, incur additional outlays.

If you are not a client or former client, our confidentiality obligations to them and other relevant exemptions under the Privacy Act may preclude us giving you the information requested. Request for search or recovery costs in advance does not mean that information will necessarily be released. We will inform you of any applicable fees before processing your request.

The Privacy Act permits us to refuse access in some circumstances. If we refuse your access request, we will provide you with written reasons for the refusal (unless unreasonable to do so or we are prohibited from doing so by law) and information about how you may lodge a complaint.

9.2 Correction of Personal Information

We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we hold during the currency of your matter is accurate, up-to-date, complete and relevant. Records held subsequent to the completion of our work for you will not be monitored or updated unless further instructions are issued. If you believe that personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, you may request that we correct it.

We will respond to correction requests within a reasonable period. If we correct information that we have previously disclosed to a third party, we will notify that third party of the correction if you request us to do so.

If we refuse to correct your personal information, we will provide written reasons for the refusal and information about how you may lodge a complaint.

10. Complaints and Questions

If you have a question about this policy or a complaint about how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer. We ask that you provide details of your complaint in writing. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days and investigate it promptly. We aim to resolve complaints within 30 days. If we need more time, we will keep you informed of our progress.

Privacy officer details and complaints

The General Manager
Keir Steele Waldon Lawyers
PO Box 1015
Townsville QLD 4810
Email: mcolleton@kswlawyers.com.au
Phone: 07 4722 0220

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may escalate your complaint to:

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) or the Legal Services Commission.
Website: www.oaic.gov.au
Phone: 1300 363 992
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Post: GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001