Parker Coles Curtis is dedicated to protecting your privacy. Our team respects the confidentiality of your personal information.
Let us explain our policies in collecting, handling, disclosing and using your personal information. By giving us your information, you are agreeing for us to process it in the ways described here.
1. This policy is made under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). We adopt the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act. A copy of the Australian Privacy Principles may be found here.
2. What is personal information?
Personal information is information we hold which is identifiable as being about you. For example: name, date of birth, phone number and bank account details.
3. What kind of personal information do we collect?
We collect personal information about you which is necessary to help us contact you, provide legal services and advice to you and personalise our content for you.
The personal information we may collect includes:
Contact information including residential, postal and email addresses, telephone numbers;
Information about your current occupation and job title, your employer or business situation and your income;
Billing and credit card information;
Your opinions and information about how you use our site;
Other information required during the course of your legal matter including personal health information, your Tax File Number and information about your children or spouse;
Sensitive information as defined by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
When you access our website, you may provide us with information about your location, internet provider, browser and computer hardware and software.
4. How do we collect personal information from you?
We only obtain information about you in fair and lawful ways.
We obtain or receive personal information from you in various ways including:
Questionnaires including the ‘New client information sheet’ either/both hardcopy or found on our website;
Via our ‘Book now’ page or online enquiry form;
During meetings or conferences with you;
During other communications with you such as telephone calls, emails, SMS messages, messages via social media platforms, Skype/Zoom or other video-conferencing platforms;
From Court documents or other publicly available documents;
In correspondence from clients or third parties, including government agencies and legal advisors;
When you purchase or subscribe to our products or services;
When you subscribe to our mailing list;
When you apply for employment at our firm or you subcontract your services to us.
We may also receive information about you via cookies. Cookies are digital identifiers that are automatically stored on your computer. They are not malicious programs that access or damage your computer. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies.
Cookies can tell us things about you that help us personalise our services to you and provide a better website visitor experience to you. They can be turned off or deleted in your browser settings at any time. Turning them off may reduce the functionality and enjoyment of our website by you.
Cookies can be used by us for many reasons including (but not limited to):
a. improve the performance of our website by reporting any errors that occur;
b. provide statistics about how our website is used;
c. remember the settings that you used on our website;
d. identify that you are logged onto our website;
e. link to social media platforms;
f. provide advertisements that are tailored to you.
5. Why do we collect personal information?
We collect, hold and disclose personal information from you to do the following:
Provide legal services to you and improve those products and services;
Verify your identity;
Communicate with you;
Maintain a client database;
Offer you products or market our products that you may be interested in;
Where you have given us your consent (express or implied) to collect, hold and disclose it;
Investigate complaints you may make;
Investigate whether you are in breach of our terms and conditions;
To avoid, lessen or prevent a serious emergency or crime;
Provide to you optional surveys about our products, services and websites;
To improve our products and services and better understand your needs and the needs of other clients;
Comply with the law or use your information as permitted under the law; and
For purposes what are related to the above.
We may contact you by a variety of methods including emails, SMS, telephone, videophone or mail.
6. How do we keep your information secure?
We hold your personal information in hardcopy (paper) records at our office and as electronic records on our cloud-based server.
We take reasonable steps to hold all records containing your personal information in a secure way to protect it from misuse, loss and interference, and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure including:
Our database management system contains security features such as encryption, firewall and anti-virus;
Strict user logins to obtain access to your information;
Our staff are trained in information security;
Upholding strict client confidentiality obligations;
Where we obtain credit card details from you, we pass them on in order for processing and then destroy them. We do not permanently store complete credit card details.
If we do not need your information anymore and are not legally required to store it, we will anonymise it or delete it.
7. What do we do with your personal information?
We use your information to give you the best legal service. This involves communicating with you, providing you with advice, researching your problem, marketing our services to you and seeking your feedback.
We aim to keep your personal information strictly confidential. At times in providing legal services we may need to disclose your information, including:
To our employees, insurers, professional advisers and other third parties, such as law firms, mediators, barristers, valuers, government departments and the Court. That nature, type and amount of information provided to third parties will vary and depends upon the circumstances of the case. The disclosure will occur only when it is required in the delivery of our services.
To comply with a legal requirement, such as a law, regulation, Court order, subpoena, warrant or in response to a law enforcement agency request.
To agents conducting work on our behalf such as technology service providers including internet and cloud service providers, Australia Post Couriers, data analysts and handlers of our website traffic, targeted ads providers (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google) and payment services.
To protect the copyright, trademarks, legal rights, property or safety of Parker Coles Curtis or third parties.
If Parker Coles Curtis is sold, transferred or there is a change in control of our business, we may transfer our user databases and any personal information contained in those databases, to the maximum extent allowed by law. This information may be disclosed to a potential purchaser under an agreement to maintain confidentiality.
Where we disclose your personal information to third parties, we will request that the third party follow this policy when handling your personal information.
If we share your information with other agents or contractors (such as marketers, advisors, data storage and payment service providers), we do so on a need-to-know basis. It is possible that these groups may store your information overseas, where different privacy laws and disclosure obligations apply. You may not have any remedy under Australian laws like the Privacy Law if those agencies breach Australian privacy laws. When engaging with us online, we cannot guarantee that your information hasn’t been intercepted by someone else.
We do not disclose your personal information to third parties for payment, profit or advantage.
We do not hold any of your personal information in data storage facilities overseas.
We may use your personal information to promote and market our business if we:
use it in a way that you reasonably expected us to for promoting and marketing our business to you; and
provide you with a simple method to opt out.
You can request to be removed from our electronic mailing list any time by contacting us at hello@parkercolescurtis.com.au or telephoning (02) 5114 2660.
We will not use your personal information to send you unsolicited commercial electronic messages which do not comply with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth).
By providing us with personal information, you are agreeing to the terms of our Privacy Policy and the types of disclosure covered by this policy.
We cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us, or receive from us. You transmit and exchange information with us is at your own risk. The measures above are implemented by us to safeguard against unauthorised disclosures, but we cannot assure you that your information will not be disclosed in a way that is not permitted by this Privacy Policy.
8. How can I correct my personal information?
You can ask us for access to your personal information or to correct it. You do not need to give us a reason when making this request.
We do not charge a fee for correcting your personal information. We do our best to keep your information up to date, but rely in part upon our client advising us when their personal information changes.
If you ask us to correct your personal information, we will in a reasonable timeframe update our records to ensure that they are up to date, accurate, complete, relevant and not misleading.
If there is a cost involved in providing access to you, a small administrative fee may be passed onto you for that access.
We can refuse to allow you access to your personal information if the Australian Privacy Principles do not require us to provide access. If we cannot grant your request to correct your information or for access, we will explain to you why that is.
To request to access your personal information, or to ask us to correct it, please contact us at hello@parkercolescurtis.com.au .
9. What happens if you receive unsolicited information?
If we receive unsolicited personal information and it is found that we could not have received that information by lawful means, we will take reasonable action in accordance with the law to de-identify or destroy the personal information.
10. How do I complain about a privacy issue?
We are committed to ensuring we meet your expectations in delivering our services to you.
Please provide any complaints about our privacy policy and practices by emailing the details to hello@parkercolescurtis.com.au. We will endeavour to investigate and resolve your complaint in a timely way.
If you are not satisfied with our response, or we do not respond to you within a reasonable timeframe without sufficient explanation, you can complain to the office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
11. Changes to this policy
If this policy ever changes, we will update it here.