Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

In this Privacy Policy, “we”, “our” and “us” refer to Optic Lawyers (ABN 66 133 065 657) and related entities.

This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, hold, use, manage and disclose your Personal Information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

Personal information is as defined in the Privacy Act and includes information or an opinion about you from which you are reasonably identifiable and includes personal information:

• provided to us by you;
• provided to us by a third party such as an organisation you work for, a credit agency or by our clients; or
• collected through our website (located at opticlawyers.com.au) (Website).

By using our Website, dealing with our firm or providing your personal information or another person’s personal information to us, you:

• accept this Privacy Policy and agree to its terms; and
• consent to our collection, use, management and disclosure of Personal Information in accordance with its terms.

Personal information

We may collect, use, hold and disclose your personal information. We will only do so in accordance with the APPs for the purposes set out below. Personal information that we routinely collect are provided below.

Your contact details

We collect the following contact details for the purposes of communicating with you about our products and services, managing your legal matter, managing our relationships with our service providers and for recruitment purposes:

• your name;
• job title or position;
• personal and/ or business address;
• telephone/ mobile numbers; and
• email address.

Information about you and your legal matter

In addition to your contact details, we collect personal information about you, and in some cases, about relevant third parties, who are involved in or connected to, your legal matter.

Depending on the nature of your legal matter, this may include sensitive information, including health and medical information.

We may not be able to provide you with services if we do not collect this personal information from you.

Recruitment activities

When you explore employment opportunities with Optic Lawyers, in addition to your contact details, we will collect information about your qualifications, experience and eligibility to work in Australia. This will usually include:

• your full name;
• date of birth;
• your resume, employment history, experience and skills;
• qualifications, and in some instances, certified copies of qualifications; and
• country of birth (including visa status, if applicable).

In the event that our recruitment activities and discussions with you progress to the point of making you an offer of employment, we will collect additional information in the context of our onboarding procedures.

Collection of your personal information

We may collect personal information about you during the course of providing legal services to you, an organisation you work for, or from another party on a legal matter that involves you. Optic Lawyers is bound by legal obligations of confidentiality and legal professional privilege. We will treat and protect the information we receive (including any personal information) in accordance with these obligations.

Where you provide the personal information of another person to us, you must provide a copy of, or refer them to, this Privacy Policy. In addition, you must obtain that person’s consent to share their personal information with us or do so in circumstances where they would reasonably expect that information sharing to occur.

When you visit our website, we may automatically collect information about you, including details of access, IP addresses, webpage statistics and other information that helps us to ensure that the site is functioning properly.

Our website uses both session and persistent cookies. Session cookies are temporary cookie files and once you’ve closed your browser, they will not endure. Persistent cookies attach to your browser and device memory.

A “cookie” assists us to store information about how visitors to our website use it and to make assumptions about what information may be of most interest to you. Cookies may be used, stored and analysed in our IT systems and by our server and network hosts. It is possible that personal information will be captured in those processes. You will usually find information on cookies and how to manage them under “Options” or “Settings” on your browser. For more information about managing cookies, see the guidance from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au).

Our website may direct you to websites operated by third parties (Linked Sites). We are not responsible for the content or practices of the Linked Sites or their privacy policies regarding the collection, storage, use and dissemination of your personal information. We encourage you to always read the applicable privacy policy of any Linked Site before using it.

How we use and disclose your personal information?

We may use and disclose your personal information for the purposes of managing our firm’s legal practice. This may include:

• providing you with legal services to an organisation you work for or to another party in matters in which you are involved;
• confirming your identity and details about you;
• complying with applicable laws, insurance requirements, legal practice obligations and court orders;
• enforcing agreements that we or our clients have with you or that otherwise involve you;
• managing our operations, recruitment and procurement processes;
• communicating legal or firm news;
• helping us to identify products and services that may interest you and provide you with relevant information about them;
• helping us improve our services, matter management and financial performance using marketing data and analytics;
• keeping our facilities secure and well managed;
• collecting debts owing to us; and
• responding to your enquires.
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Do we disclose your personal information to third parties?

We may disclose information to third parties for the purposes noted above and as permitted, authorised, required or compelled by law.

You agree that where necessary for the work we are doing for you, we may disclose such information to others (for example to a court, other parties in a litigation, other lawyers, accountants, valuers, experts, barristers, witnesses).

Security

We take reasonable steps to ensure that any of your personal information that we collect, hold, use or disclose is accurate, complete and up to date.

We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss and from unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. We restrict access to our offices, employ firewalls, password-protect IT systems and regularly update the software we use.

Complaints

To make a complaint about our privacy practices, please contact us, in writing, at:

Optic Lawyers

Email: contact@opticlawyers.com.au

Our Privacy Officer will consider your complaint to determine whether there are simple or immediate steps we can take to resolve the issue. In this case, we will generally respond to you within a few business days. If your complaint requires further investigation, we will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within a week and try to carry out the investigation in a timely manner. We may seek further information from you to assist with our investigation. We will then inform you of our findings about your complaint.

Changes to our privacy policy

We may amend this privacy policy to reflect legislative changes or changes to our personal information management practices. Any changes take effect by being published on our website.