Privacy Policy
Our commitment to the protection of your personal information
Gadens is committed to protecting your privacy. 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 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and to abide by any other relevant law.
What is covered in this policy?
- Collection of personal information
- Use of personal information
- Disclosure of personal information (including outside Australia)
- Security of personal information
- Using our website
- Marketing communications
- Access, corrections and complaints
Collection of 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 facts or an opinion about you. The personal information we hold about you may also include sensitive information or credit information.
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 services, functions and activities.
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.
In most circumstances it will be necessary for us to identify you to successfully do business with you. However, if you choose not to provide us with personal information, we may not be able to do business with you.
We may also collect personal information if required or permitted by law or professional standards.
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).
Use of 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.
Disclosure of personal information
We may disclose your personal information to 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.
Security of personal information
We may retain your personal information electronically or in hard copy.
We employ a variety of security measures to keep your personal information secure by limiting access to our offices, utilising firewalls and secure databases, password protecting our IT systems, frequently updating our anti-virus software and conducting regular audit and data integrity checks.
All of our partners and employees are also bound to keep your personal information secure and treat it as confidential.
We cannot guarantee the security of your personal information. The internet is not a safe environment. However, the Firm takes steps reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that the personal information it holds is protected from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
Our websites and electronic newsletters may also contain links to other websites operated by third parties. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of those linked websites. The privacy policies that apply to those other websites may differ from our privacy policy, so we recommend you read them before proceeding to those websites.
Using our website
When you interact with our website, we and our internet service providers collect data to enhance your experience when using our website. We also use this data to interpret and report on which pages and downloads are used by visitors.
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.
The types of data we collect includes:
- your device’s IP address (collected and stored in an anonymized format);
- search terms and pages visited on our website;
- date and time when pages were accessed;
- downloads, time spent on page, and bounce rate;
- referring domain and out link if applicable;
- device type, operating system and browser information;
- device screen size;
- your geographic location.
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.
Social networking services
We use services such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to communicate with the public about our services. When you interact with us using these services we may collect your personal information, but we only use it to help us to communicate with you and the public. These services have their own privacy policies which you can access directly.
Marketing communications
If we have an existing relationship with you, or if you have subscribed to our mailing list, registered for our events or provided feedback, we may use your personal information to provide you with current information about legal issues, firm developments, including information relating to new products and services that we offer, sector-focused newsletters 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) 9252 2555, by writing to us at MS-Marketing@gadens.com, or if the direct marketing is by email you may also use the unsubscribe function in the email message.
Access, corrections and complaints
Access
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. We will need to verify your identity before giving you access to information. 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.
Corrections
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.
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.
Complaints
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 with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) enquiries@oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992. Further information is available on the OAIC’s website at https://www.oaic.gov.au/.
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 September 2022
Contact details:
MS-PrivacyOfficer@gadens.com
Level 13, Collins Arch
447 Collins Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
GPO Box 48
Melbourne VIC 3000
T +61 3 9252 2555
F +61 3 9252 2500
