Rae & Partners Privacy Policy

Our commitment to the protection of your personal information

Rae & Partners is committed to protecting your privacy. Below we set out our privacy policy commitment in respect of the personal information we hold about you, and what we do with that information. Any personal information that we collect about you will only be used for the purposes for which we have collected it, or as allowed by law. Our commitment in respect of personal information is to abide by the Australian Privacy Principles for the protection of personal information, as set out in the Privacy Act and to abide by any other relevant law.

Personal information

When we refer to personal information we mean information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable. This information may include information or an opinion about you. The personal information we hold about you may also include sensitive information or credit information.

Credit information is information which is usually exchanged between credit and finance providers, credit reporting bodies and other entities that are involved in managing credit.

The kinds of personal information we may collect about you include your name, date of birth, address, bank account details, occupation, position, email address, phone number and any other information we may need to identify you or provide our services. We may collect personal information from you directly or indirectly. We will only collect personal information which is reasonably necessary for our functions and activities.

Credit information

In the course of providing legal services, we may collect and hold credit information. The type of credit information that we hold may include details of your liabilities in respect of consumer credit, default information, and information about court proceedings. If we collect or hold credit information we do so to assist in the management of the credit. You may access any credit information that we hold about you, seek correction of this information, or enquire about how we have used your credit information by using the contact details below. We will acknowledge your enquiry within 7 days, and provide you with a substantive response to your enquiry within 30 days.

Why we collect your personal information

We collect personal information for the purposes of providing the services you have requested and managing our relationship with you. This occurs when you seek legal advice from us, attend a seminar, sign up to receive information from us, apply for a position with us or provide services to us. We may also collect your personal information from our clients, where that information is necessary for us to act for them.

We may use your personal information as required by or authorised by law.

Sensitive information

Sensitive information includes 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, health information and certain genetic or biometric information. We will not ask you to disclose sensitive information unless it is necessary for providing our services to you. However, if you elect to provide unsolicited sensitive information, it may be captured and stored if it is reasonably necessary for our functions or activities (or if otherwise permitted by law).

Do we use cookies?

We use cookies in a limited manner when you visit our website, for the purpose of providing you with a better and more customised service. Cookies are not used by us to collect and store your personal information. A cookie is a small text placed on your computer by our webpage server. A cookie can later be retrieved by our webpage services. Cookies are frequently used on websites. You can choose if and how a cookie will be accepted by configuring your preferences and options in your internet browser.

We use cookies for different purposes such as:

• to allocate a unique number to your internet browser;
• to customise our website for you;
• for statistical purposes;
• for security purposes; or
• to authenticate or identify whether you are registered on our website, without requiring you to re-enter details each time you log on to our website.

If at any time you do not wish to accept cookies or wish to delete existing cookies, you may manually configure your browser to refuse cookies or may manually delete existing cookies from your hard drive. However by deleting or refusing to accept cookies you may frustrate or hinder your access to or use of areas of our website.

IP addresses

Your IP address is the identifier for your computer when you are using the internet. It may be necessary for us to collect your IP address for your interaction with various parts of our website.

Do we disclose your personal information?

We may disclose your personal information the following parties:

• external service providers (including, without limitation, litigation funders), so they can provide a service we have contracted out or wish to contract out to them;
• companies that provide information and infrastructure systems, IT services or other services to us;
• anybody who represents you;
• anyone, where you have provided us consent;
• investors, agents, advisors, or any entity that has an interest in our business;
• third parties who have instructed us to provide services;
• organisations that provide products or services used or marketed by us; or
• other persons or entities as required or allowed by law.

We may use cloud storage to store the personal information we hold about you. The cloud storage and the IT servers may be located outside Australia. We may disclose your personal information to overseas entities in countries including the Philippines.

Mailing lists

From time to time we may use your personal information to provide you with current information about legal issues or events that you may find of interest. If you do not wish to receive marketing information, you may at any time decline to receive such information by telephoning us on (03) 6337 5555, by writing to us at firm@RaePartners.com.au, or if the direct marketing is by email you may also use the unsubscribe function in the email message.

Updating your personal information

It is important to us that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. During the course of our relationship with you we may ask you to inform us if any of your personal information has changed. If you wish to make any changes to your personal information, you may contact us. We will generally rely on you to ensure the information we hold about you is accurate or complete.

Access to and correction of your personal information

We will provide you with access to the personal information we hold about you (unless we are entitled to rely on an exemption under relevant legislation). You may request access to any of the personal information that we hold about you at any time. Depending on the type of request that you make, we may respond to your request immediately. Otherwise, we will usually respond to you within seven days of receiving your request. We may need to contact other entities to properly respond to your request.

There may be situations where we are not required to provide you with access to your personal information, for example if your request is vexatious. An explanation will be provided to you if we deny you access to the personal information we hold about you.

If any of the personal information we hold about you is incorrect, inaccurate or out of date, you may request that we correct the information. If appropriate, we will correct the personal information at the time of the request. Otherwise, we will usually provide an initial response to you within seven days of receiving your request. Usually we will provide you with details about whether we have corrected the personal information within 30 days.

We may need to consult with other entities to respond to your request. If we refuse to correct your personal information, we will provide you with our reasons for not correcting the information.

Using government identifiers

If we collect government identifiers, such as your tax file number, we will not use or disclose this information other than as required or authorised by law.

Doing business without identifying you

In most circumstances it will be necessary for us to identify you in order to successfully do business with you. However, where it is lawful and practicable to do so, we will offer you the opportunity to do business with us without providing us with personal information.

How safe and secure is your personal information that we hold?

We will take reasonable steps to protect the security of your personal information.

What to do if you are not satisfied with the way we handle your personal information

If you are dissatisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information, or you have a complaint about our compliance with the Privacy Act, please contact us on the details below. We will usually acknowledge your complaint within seven days, and provide you with a substantive response to your complaint within 30 days. If you are dissatisfied with our response you may make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner who can be contacted via the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner website (www.oaic.gov.au) or on 1300 363 992.

Further information

You may request further information about the way we manage your personal information by contacting us on the details below.

Changes in our privacy policy

We regularly review all of our policies and attempt to keep up to date with market expectations. Technology is constantly changing, as are the law and marketplace practices.

As a consequence we may change this privacy policy from time to time.

This version of this privacy policy is dated July 2018.

Contact details:

firm@raepartners.com.au Level 3, 113 Cimitiere Street

Launceston TAS 7250

T +61 3 6337 5555

Rae & Partners Pty

ABN 39 109 423 645