Privacy Policy | Stone Group Lawyers

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Stone Group Lawyers Pty Ltd ACN 161 443 812 (collectively referred to as “Stone Group Lawyers” and “we” and “our” and “us”) understands and respects your desire to maintain your privacy. It is our priority to maintain your privacy in all of your dealings with us.

We will in the course of providing our services to you be required to collect your personal information. The collection of personal, sensitive, credit and confidential information is fundamental to an effective lawyer-client relationship.

This Privacy Policy is intended to explain how we and our related entities will collect and protect your privacy.

We will always act in accordance with the Privacy Act 1998 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) when dealing with your personal information. We are also subject to the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2014 in relation to our management of credit information.

How We Collect & Protect Your Privacy

Personal Information

This Privacy Policy covers your personal information. Personal information is information or an opinion, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable. All personal information received in connection to your matter is subject to strict rules of confidentiality and legal professional privilege. Personal information will not be disclosed unless disclosure is authorised by our client or in accordance with our professional obligations as contemplated by this Privacy Policy.

Common examples include your name, signature, address, telephone number, date of birth, medical records, bank account details, billing and credit card details, photos of you and commentary or opinion about you.

We may collect some or all of the following types of personal information:

  1. information that you give us through your dealings with us;
  2. information that we may collect from you; and
  3. information that we may receive from you from other third-party sources.

By agreeing to this Privacy Policy, you consent to the fact that you are aware that we are collecting your personal information and disclosing it as required by us and in accordance with the Privacy Act 1998 (Cth) and any applicable Australian Privacy Principles.

Information That You Give Us

We may collect your personal information directly from our contact with you. This may include by you completing forms on our website (www.stonegroup.com.au), or by you contacting us via email, telephone, through social media and other similar functions either directly through our site or through third-party host sites, in person, through various marketing channels or competitions either directly through our site or through third-party host sites, and surveys.

You understand that any personal information that you provide to use must be accurate and up to date. We will assume this to be the case. Your failure to comply with this obligation may impact on our ability to provide you with our services.

 

Information That We Collect About You

Our website may automatically collect the following information about you each time you visit our website:

  1. Technical information including but not limited to the Internet Protocol Address used to connect your computer to the internet, the internet browser and version that you are using when accessing our website, any additional plug-ins that you are using, and your computer’s operating system and platform; and
  2. Information about the time and date you accessed on our site, and what you accessed on our site. This includes links that you clicked on, what content you accessed, how long you accessed that content for, whether you downloaded any content, whether supplied by us or downloaded from a third-party host, and how you navigated to and from our website to other sites or other pages hosted by us; and
  3. Your computer’s IP address.

 

Sensitive Information

Throughout the course of collecting your personal information, we may collect sensitive information about you. Sensitive information includes:

  1. Information or an opinion about your racial or ethnic origin; or political opinions; or membership of a political association; or religious beliefs or affiliations; or philosophical beliefs; or membership of a professional or trade association; or membership of a trade union; or sexual orientation or practices; or criminal record that is also personal information; or
  2. Health information about an individual; or genetic information about an individual that is not otherwise health information; or biometric information that is to be used for the purpose of automated biometric verification or biometric identification; or biometric template.

If we do collect any of your sensitive information, we will only collect it in accordance with Principle 3.3 of the Australian Privacy Principles. This means that we will only collect this information with your consent and for reasons that are reasonably necessary or otherwise related to the provision of our services.

Where you consent to our collection of your sensitive information, you also consent to us using that sensitive information for the purpose/s for which it was collected, including its disclosure to third parties.

We may be required to disclose your personal information for the purposes for which it was collected and also subject to our professional obligations:

  1. As required by law, subject to legal professional privilege;
  2. To any person where necessary or desirable in connection with our provision of legal services; and
  3. On a confidential basis to our external service providers and advisers.

To be clear, you consent to our disclosure of your personal information to any of our business partners, supplies, sub-contractors or the like, advertisers and other advertising networks, analytics and search engine providers and other third parties provided the disclosure of your personal information is for the purpose or ancillary to the services that we or these third parties offer you and for the purposes the information was originally collected.

You understand that we are authorised to disclose your personal information to third parties in the event that we buy or sell any business or assets, including our business, if we are under a duty to disclose your information, or if the disclosure of your personal information is necessary for us to conduct an investigation into any unlawful activity that we know or suspect has or may be engaged in.

You consent to the disclosure of your personal information to overseas recipients, and warrant that you are aware that an overseas recipient of your personal information is not required to comply with the Privacy Act 1998 (Cth) or the Australian Privacy Principles. Please notify us immediately if you have any objections to us providing your personal information to any overseas recipient.

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that any overseas recipient of your personal information does not willingly or knowingly breach the Australian Privacy Policy in relation to your personal information.

We will only keep your information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes for which your personal information was originally collected.

We will delete your information after a reasonable time. You may be required to re-enter your personal information if it has been deleted.

You agree and acknowledge that your personal information may be stored at or transferred within Australia or a destination outside of Australia. This will allow staff operating outside of Australia (whether employed by us or by a third-party engaged by us or otherwise authorised under this Privacy Policy to access your personal information) to process your information for the purposes of providing you with our services.

We will take all reasonable steps and precautions to ensure that any transmission of your personal information via the internet is secure. However, we cannot guarantee the security of any data transmitted to our site and you agree and acknowledge that any such transmissions are at your own risk.

Once we receive your information, we take reasonable steps to protect your personal information. This may include storing any information on a secure server and employing strict procedures and security features to protect your personal information from any unauthorised recipients and to prevent unauthorised access to the same. We may also store your personal information in physical form.

All our employees with access to your information will be held to the confidentiality obligations as set out in this Privacy Policy.

Our website uses “cookies”. Cookies are small pieces of data sent from a website and stored in your web browser. These pieces of data will allow our website to remember who you are and to obtain information from you which allows us to deliver you a better and more customised service. As a result of our website’s use of cookies, we may collect information such as your IP address, online activity and your web browser details. Information that we will not collect or store include your passwords or other sensitive information.

If you enabled cookies when accessing our website, we will take this as consent to our use of cookies and other technologies mentioned in our Privacy Policy.

Please note that you should also refer to our website’s Terms of Use for further information on this issue.

You have the right to request access to the personal information we hold about you by contacting us or our Privacy Officer in writing.

If we cannot provide you with access, we will write to you and provide you with the reasons why we are unable to provide you with access.

If any personal information that we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or not up to date, you may write to us or our Privacy Officer and request that we correct the information at the above address.

You have the right to request that we do not disclose your personal information (for example, for marketing purposes). You can exercise your rights by unchecking the relevant check boxes on our website when you provide us with your personal information, or by writing to us at the above address.

You may choose to opt out of receiving any further correspondence from us by writing to us at the above address or emailing us at admin@stonegroup.com.au.

If you are concerned about a possible interference with your privacy or about the potential misuse of your personal information, please contact us or our Privacy Officer in any of the following ways:

  1. Telephone – (07) 5635 0180
  2. Email address – admin@stonegroup.com.au
  3. Postal address – Suite 1305, Level 3, Commercial Tower 1, 56 Scarborough Street, Southport 4215 in the State of Queensland

We take all complaints very seriously. It is our policy to handle complaints in a timely, effective, fair and consistent manner. If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

This Privacy Policy was last updated in December 2016.

We reserve the right to make changes to this Privacy Policy at any time. We encourage you to regularly review this Privacy Policy to make sure you are aware of any changes and how your information may be used.