Our commitment to protecting your privacy and personal information
WEPlan Solicitors is committed to protecting your privacy.
This page sets out our privacy policy in respect of any personal, financial and sensitive information collected about you, and what we may do with that information.
Any personal, financial and sensitive information that we collect about you will only be used in the manner permitted by law. Our commitment in respect of personal, financial and sensitive information is to abide by the Australian Privacy Principles for the protection of personal information, as set out in the Privacy Act.
In addition, WEPlan Solicitors is bound by legal obligations of confidentiality and legal professional privilege. We will continue to treat and protect information we receive in accordance with these obligations.
Personal information
Personal information means information which can be used to identify you.
Personal information we collect or hold about you may include your name, date of birth, address, contact details, account details, occupation, and any other information we may need to identify you or provide our services. It may also include an opinion about you, sensitive information or financial or credit information.
We may collect personal information from you directly, or via your use of our services. We will only collect personal information, which is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, our functions and activities (unless the collection of personal information is required or authorised by or under any Australian law or a court order).
Financial information
We may collect and hold financial information. The kinds of information that we collect or hold about you may include details of your assets and liabilities and financial structures connected to you, for example details of companies and trusts. If we collect or hold financial information, we do so to assist in the preparation of your documents (unless the collection of financial information is required or authorised by or under any Australian law or a court order).
Sensitive information
Sensitive information is any information about a person's racial or ethnic origin, political opinion, membership of a political association, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional, or trade association, membership of a trade union, sexual preferences or practices, criminal record or health information.
We will collect sensitive information with the relevant individual's consent (unless the collection of sensitive information is required or authorised by or under any Australian law or a court order) and where the collection is reasonably necessary.
Do we disclose your personal, financial and/or sensitive
information?
We may disclose your personal, financial and/or sensitive information to the following parties:
- our professional and financial advisers;
- service providers for the purposes of providing services requested by us;
- our web hosting company, and other companies that provide information and infrastructure systems to us;
- anybody who represents you;
- any affiliated company;
- anyone, you have given us consent to disclose such information; and/or
- the use or disclosure of the information is required or authorised by or under an Australian Law or court order.
Before we disclose any personal, financial and/or sensitive information about you to another person or organisation, we will take all reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that:
(a) the person or organisation has a commitment to protecting your personal, financial and/or sensitive information at least equal to our commitment, or
(b) you have consented to us making the disclosure.
We may use "cloud" storage to store your information we hold about you. The cloud storage and the IT servers may be located outside Australia.
Accuracy, storage,
security and destruction of Personal, Financial and/or Sensitive Information
We will take reasonable steps to protect your personal, financial and sensitive information by storing it in a secure environment. We may store your personal information in paper and electronic form. We will also take reasonable steps to protect such information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
Any personal, financial and/or sensitive information that has not been used or disclosed for a period of seven (7) years will be securely destroyed, unless we are requested by or under any Australian law or a court order to keep such information for a longer period of time.
Updating your personal information
It is important that your personal information is accurate and up to date. We therefore ask you to inform us if any of your personal information has changed.
Please contact us if you wish to make changes to your
personal information.
Access and correction to your information
You may request access to any personal, financial and/or
sensitive information that we hold about you at any time. We will endeavour to
respond promptly following your request. However, we may need to contact other
entities to properly investigate your request.
There may be situations where we are not required to provide
you with access to your personal information, for example, if the information
relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings, or if your request is
vexatious.
Change in our privacy policy
We may change this privacy policy from time to time.