OUR PRIVACY POLICY

At Summers Legal we treat the privacy of personal information with great importance.

Our Privacy Policy set out below is intended to explain the manner in which we collect, use, disclose and manage personal information (“PI”) that is information, data or opinion about a specific individual.

Summers Legal provides ‘commercial credit’ for the purposes of the Privacy Act to individuals and entities who apply for credit in relation to our services. Our Privacy Policy includes our Credit Reporting Policy in order to comply with specific provisions relating to credit reporting in the Privacy Act. Our Credit Reporting Policy also appears below and unless specifically provided for the term “Privacy Policy” which includes the Credit Policy.

We encourage your comments and feedback regarding our Privacy Policy.

Summers Legal operates the website summerslegal.com.au (the “Website”) which is accessible via desktop, tablet and mobile.

By using our Website, subscribing to our information services or entering into a professional engagement agreement with us in relation to our professional legal services, we rely on the fact you have read and agreed to the collection, use, disclosure and handling of your PI in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

We will regularly review and update our Privacy Policy and you are encouraged to review our Privacy Policy in order to understand our policy and procedure in dealing with your PI.

Our Privacy Policy has been drafted to take into account the amendments to the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 (Commonwealth of Australia) which became effective on 12 March 2014 and amend the provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 (Commonwealth of Australia) (“Privacy Act”).

We have endeavoured to develop our Privacy Policy in order to comply with the thirteen Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs”) outlined in Schedule 1 of the Privacy Act.

Please understand that due to the nature of our professional legal services business we may collect sensitive information as defined under the Privacy Act, such as racial or ethnic information, political opinions or associations, criminal records or health information.

We are bound by the Privacy Act as our business falls within the Privacy Act’s criteria of the application. As a legal firm operating within the jurisdiction of Western Australia, we have additional obligations of privacy and confidentiality in accordance with the provisions of the Legal Profession Act 2008 (Western Australia) and associated legislation including the Legal Profession Conduct Rules 2010.

It is likely that we will collect your; name, physical and electronic contact details, gender, occupation, and depending on the circumstances we may also collect details of your family members names, family history, health details, financial resources, assets and liabilities, and any other information provided.

For some of our professional legal services, we may require you to verify your identity and will collect your personal information to enable verification of your identity, including information from your passport, driver’s licence, Medicare and banking cards.

If you subscribe to our e-news and information services we may collect your name and email address even though you have not engaged Summers Legal to undertake legal services.

We may also collect non-personal information about you including, but not limited to, data relating to your activities on our Website (including IP addresses) via tracking technologies such as cookies, web beacons and measurement software or data relating to survey responses.

You acknowledge that the PI you provide us and which we collect from you is your own information or information which you have been authorised to provide to us.

Personal Information (“PI”), How do we collect it? 

Summers Legal may collect PI about you from a variety of sources including, but not limited to:

  • engaging Summers Legal to undertake professional services on your behalf or on behalf of an affiliate is an entity you are associated with or a family member.
  • by subscription to our Website, E-news or updates;
  • communicating with Summers Legal or any of our employees via your social networking including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn;
  • subscribing to receive e-news and information services, email alerts, newsletters, providing feedback on surveys or research, participating in online communication with Summers Legal via our Website or by email for whatever reason;
  • seeking or using our professional services and any credit provided by Summers Legal which has been granted for a period of in excess of 7 days in connection with those services (refer to the Summers Legal Privacy Act Credit Reporting Policy below); and
  • applying for employment with Summers Legal.

Personal Information (“PI”), How do we use it?

We use the PI we have collected largely for the purpose of providing you with professional legal services that you have engaged Summers Legal to undertake on your behalf or responding to your queries.

Summers Legal may use PI which we have collected to:

  • to provide legal services to you, to manage and account for legal services, and to enhance legal services;
  • to communicate with you;
  • to transact with you;
  • to comply with our legal obligations.

Occasionally we may use personal information to send you e-news and information services, email alerts, newsletters, and invites to seminars and events.

Personal Information (“PI”), Who do we disclose it to?

We may disclose your PI to:

  • courts, tribunals and regulatory authorities;
  • external service providers, agents and contractors so that they can provide financial, administrative or other services to assist us to provide legal services, including barristers, expert witnesses, travel consultants, photocopy and archive services providers and financial institutions; or
  • other parties, as you request.

Our use of your PI does not generally involve sending your information overseas. If you instruct us to provide PI to foreign law firms for the purpose of obtaining foreign legal advice, and if such a situation arises, we will not disclose PI without your specific consent.

If we have formed a reasonable opinion that disclosing PI is necessary to conduct our professional services as part of our engagement with you or we are otherwise authorised or required by law to do so we may disclose PI to relevant public, government or regulatory authorities, or other parties in the provision of our professional services to you.

If you contact one of our strategic partners listed in our marketing material or linked via our Website we are not responsible for the way these organisations collect, use, disclose or handle PI.

Personal Information (“PI”), How do we use it for our own purpose?

We may use PI for our own benefit in order to;

  • ensure that content from the Website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
  • provide a better service or product to you;
  • combine your personal information with information that Summers Legal has collected from its service providers, third parties, cookies or applications in order to provide you with an improved quality of our professional services;
  • personalise and customise e-newsletters, website content and publications that you view and engage with on
  • respond to or provide you with service, information and assistance that you request from Summers Legal;
  • contact you to conduct surveys, research and feedback about our services publications or the Website;
  • verify your identity when you register or log in to our Website and if required remind you of your password and username;
  • allow you to participate in interactive features of our online services when you choose to do so;
  • help carry out our obligations arising from any engagement entered into between you and Summers Legal;
  • to assess your application for credit for our services (to approved clients only);
  • to market our products and services or provide you with information about offers of services, which we believe may be of interest to you. We may make such contact even though we no longer are engaged by you to provide professional services.

If you submit PI to us in relation to an employment opportunity with Summers Legal, we may also use your personal information to:

  • consider you for the position for which you have submitted your personal information to us or any other positions that are or become available in the future;
  • respond to you in relation to any future application you make for an employment opportunity with us; and
  • contact your referees in order to collect the information you have consented to us collecting about you in order to consider you for employment opportunities with us.

Credit Reporting, Our Policy 

We are a credit provider as defined under 6G of the Privacy Act as we provide credit to our clients in limited and specific circumstances for periods of greater than 7 days. Therefore Summers Legal provides ‘commercial credit’ for the purposes of the Privacy Act to individuals and entities who apply for credit in relation to our services.

We do not provide any consumer credit and are not licensed to do so.

If you engage us on the basis of credit terms you may be asked to provide PI from other credit providers, their bank, contractors and suppliers for the purposes of assessing your application.

Set out below is our policy on managing your personal credit information (“PCI”)

Credit Reporting, Collecting, Holding and Managing Your PCI

PCI covers the conduct of your credit with Summers Legal information that we may collect credit reporting bodies (“CRBs”) on how you manage your credit arrangements with others.

PCI that we may collect and hold about you may include but is not limited to;

  • identification information: such as your name, address, date of birth or employer;
  • information about consumer credit you hold with other credit providers;
  • credit reporting information about you from CRB’s to assess your creditworthiness and standing and our determination about the credit you have applied for including a CRB’s analysis of risk;
  • arrears information: information from CRB’s to determine if you are failing to manage your credit arrangements with third parties such as default and overdue payments;
  • legal and court proceedings that you may be involved in regarding your financial obligations or that may create a contingent or present liability for you and which could affect your ability to maintain the credit we may provide you;
  • personal and corporate insolvency information: about bankruptcy, administration, liquidation, compromise with creditors or related matters;
  • information in the public domain;
  • information provided by third parties where allowed by the Privacy Act.

PCI as with PI both in electronic and digital form is kept onsite at our premises in Western Australia or offsite with our archive storage contractors Grace Records Management with whom we have entered into a contract for secure storage at their facility in Western Australia.

Credit Reporting, Non-Disclosure of PCI 

We do not disclose PCI to CRBs.

If we commence legal proceedings against you for a default of our credit terms (which we undertake as a last resort), the information of such proceeding and any resulting judgement or discontinuance may become a matter of public record and be obtained by third parties and CRB’s

The way we deal with PCI and is regulated by Part IIIA of the Privacy Act and its associated Credit Reporting Privacy Code.

Correction of and Access to PI and PCI 

Want to know what PI or PCI we hold about you? Please contact Summers Legal by email at contact@summerslegal.com.au so that we may provide you with the requisite information. We will likely require you to verify your identity before providing the requested information. We will endeavour to respond to you within 14 days by return email.

Complaints regarding compliance with our Privacy Policy, or Credit Reporting or the collection, management disclosure or destruction of your PI or PCI can be made by email at contact@summerslegal.com.au so that we may resolve your concerns. Please be as specific as you can regarding the detail of your concern. We will endeavour to respond to complaints within 14 days by return email.

Should you become aware that PI or PCI is inaccurate or out of date and requiring rectification or updating please contact us by email as we endeavour to maintain accurate records and data on all those with whom we have a professional or communication relationship. Please be as specific as you can and send your email to contact@summerslegal.com.au so that we may resolve your concerns. We will endeavour to correct or rectify our records and confirm that it has been done within 14 days by return email.

For information about privacy issues in Australia and protecting your privacy, visit the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website.

Do We Disclose Any PI to Outside Parties? 

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your PI. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our Website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential.

We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect our or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Security and Destruction of PI and PCI 

We strive to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of the personal information we collect. We have established safeguards and use reasonable security measures to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.

Our employees, contractors, agents and service providers who provide services related to our information systems and storage of PI, are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by us. We review and update our security measures in light of current technologies.

We are bound to keep client records for 7 years and in some cases ( for example wills and estate matters) indefinitely in accordance with the Legal Profession Act 2008 (Western Australia) and its associated legislation.

If you have not engaged Summers Legal for professional legal services and we have no need to retain your PI for reasonable purposes we will remove or destroy your PI within a reasonable time frame. We constantly review the destruction of PI no longer required.

Archived documents relating to former matters and/or clients are stored either at our principal place of business or with our storage providers Grace Records Management, Forrestfield, Western Australia.

PI and PCI collected and stored either electronically on servers or in hard copy are all located at our principal place of business in Western Australia.

Cookies 

We use cookies, on our Website. Cookies are small files that a site or service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enable the sites or service providers systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information.

We use and disclose the information collected through the use of cookies in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We use cookies to help us understand and save your preferences for future visits, keep track of advertisements and compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us conduct and improve our business.

Remarketing

We also use 3rd party vendor re-marketing tracking cookies, including the Google Adwords tracking cookie. This means we will continue to show ads to you across the internet, specifically on the Google Display Network (“GDN”). As always, we respect your privacy and are not collecting any identifiable information through the use of Google’s or any other 3rd party remarketing system.
The third-party vendors, including Google, whose services we use – will place cookies on web browsers in order to serve ads based on past visits to our website. – Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to your website. This allows us to make special offers and continue to market our services to those who have shown interest in our professional services.

Google Analytics Demographics & Interest Reporting

Our Website uses cookies to facilitate the sampled reporting of demographics and interests of its visitors within Google Analytics – our Website will not merge or facilitate the merging of personally identifiable information with non-personally identifiable information previously collected from display advertising or divulge such information to any third parties.
You can opt-out of this feature by visiting the following link:
Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on(hyperlink)
This data is used to provide better services and more relevant content to our users based on demographic and interest data.

Opt-Out

You may opt-out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting the Ads Preferences Manager. (hyperlink) Also, you can opt-out of other third-party vendor’s use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page. (hyperlink)

Portlets Widgets, Web Parts, Gadgets, Badges, Modules, Snippets and Flakes (“Applications”) Or Links To Other Websites

On our Website, we may provide applications to other websites. We also allow some third parties to display applications on our Website allowing you to interact and share content including social media buttons such as Facebook,

Twitter and LinkedIn.

These linked sites and applications are not under our control, and we cannot accept responsibility for the conduct of entities linked to our Website, or their collection of information through these applications.

Prior to disclosing your personal information on any other website, or using these applications make sure you carefully read the terms and conditions of using a third parties website their privacy policy and how they will deal with your PI.