HAMILTON PURCELL LAWYERS (ABN 93 653 974 899) are referred to in this Privacy Policy as we, us or our.
‍
This Privacy Policy explains how we manage personal information.  It also describes your rights to access and correct personal information we hold about you, and how you make a complaint about our management of your personal information.  This is an addition to our obligations of confidentiality to clients and other parties arising from sources other than the Privacy Act.

This Privacy Policy only applies to some of the personal information we manage.  It only applies to personal information we manage for the purposes of or in connection with our obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (the AML/CTF Act).

Other personal information we manage remains excluded by applicable exemptions in the Privacy Act.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements.  The current version will be available on our website at hamiltonpurcell.au

PERSONAL INFORMATION: WHAT WE COLLECT
The types of personal information we may collect includes, but is not limited to the following:-
1. Identity information: name, date of birth, gender, signature, photographic identification, offices or directorships held;
2. Contact information: residential and postal addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers;
3. Professional and business information: occupation, employer, job title, professional qualifications, business holdings and structures;
4. Financial information: bank account details;
5. Matter-related information: information relevant to your legal matter or the legal matter of our client;
6. Transaction information: details of services provided to you or your organisation;
7. Communication records: records of correspondence and communications with you;
8. Recruitment information: employment history, qualifications, references, right to work status, background check results; and
9. Sensitive information: racial and ethnic origin, political beliefs, religious affiliation and criminal record.

We may be required to verify your identity and collect certain information under the AML/CTF Act when we provide designated services.  Identity documents might also be required for other services such as court matters, real property transactions and asset dealings.

This includes collecting identification documents and information about the source of funds and beneficial ownership of entities.

HOW WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION
Where reasonable and practicable, we collect personal information directly from you.  This may occur when you:-
1. Engage us to provide legal services;
2. Respond to communication with us or engage a solicitor or agent to do so;
3. Contact us by telephone, email, post or in person;
4. Complete forms or provide documents to us;
5. Visit our website or use our online services; or
6. Apply for employment with us.

We may also collect personal information from you from third parties, including:-
1. Information collected in the course of providing legal services;
2. Other parties to legal proceedings or transactions and their lawyers;
3. Witnesses of fact and expert witnesses;
4. Courts, tribunals, law enforcement and government agencies;
5. Publicly available sources, including public registers, websites and social media;
6. Recruitment agencies and previous employers (for job applications); and7. Identity verification and background check service providers.

If you are a client, you have the option of requesting to deal with us anonymously or by using a pseudonym.  However, in most cases this is not lawful nor practical for legal services.  If you do not provide us with the personal information we request, we may not be able to provide you with legal services or respond to you enquiry.

WHY WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION AND HOW WE USE IT
We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information for the primary purpose of providing legal services to our clients, complying with regulatory and insurance obligations and operating our legal practice.

Secondary purposes including financial management, system improvement, enforcement of our right to payment and managing our relationship between our firm and former clients once the retainer has concluded.

DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
Your personal information and confidential data is held by us subject to our duty of confidentiality and any applicable undertaking or court rules.  We may disclose personal information to third parties subject to those obligations and for the purposes described in the Privacy Policy, including:-
1. To discharge our professional obligations to you or to our clients or in the reasonable execution of our instructions;
2. To comply with our legal obligations or in answer to a compulsory notice such as a subpoena or warrant, or to disclose information under the AML/CTF Act or other relevant laws;
3. To barristers, mediators, expert witnesses, investigators and consultants and other legal practitioners engaged to act for you or in relation to your matter;
4. Other parties to legal proceedings or transactions as instructed, reasonably necessary or required by law;
5. Courts, tribunals, government agencies and regulators;
6. Our professional indemnity insurers;
7. A Costs Assessor in the event that an assessment is ordered or reasonably necessary;
8. Services providers who assist us to operate our business (including IT providers, AI providers, document management providers and marketing service providers); and
9. Any person you expressly or impliedly authorise us to disclose information to.

OVERSEAS DISCLOSURE
We will disclose information to overseas recipients where this is reasonably necessary to progress our instructions.  The following circumstances are common examples when that may apply:-
1. Where your matter involves overseas parties or overseas proceedings;
2. To overseas law firms or legal practitioners engaged in a matter;
3. To our staff if working or travelling overseas;
4. To parties such as regulators or auditors who may use overseas processors or offices;
5. To service providers whose systems or servers are located overseas (including cloud storage, AI and IT service providers if we consider that the confidentiality arrangements that will apply to such information is sufficient); and
6. Where you instruct or authorise us to do so.

SECURITY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We hold your personal information using a system designed to protect against data breaches.  However, like all data security systems, risks may only be mitigated but not eliminated.  It is our practice to require our storage service providers to be reputable.

We retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, to comply with our legal and professional obligations and to ensure that pertinent evidence remains available if reasonably required.

THIRD PARTY WEBSITES
Our website may contain links to third party websites.  We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites and we encourage you to read their privacy policies.

ACCESS AND CORRECTION
You have the right to request access to or correction of the personal information we hold about you.  To make an access request, please contact our Privacy Officer.

If we refuse to correct your personal information, we will provide written reasons for the refusal and information about how you may complain.

The Privacy Act permits us to refuse access in some circumstances.  If we refuse your access request, we will provide you with written reasons for the refusal (unless unreasonable or we are prohibited from doing so by law) and information about how you may complain.

COMPLAINTS AND QUESTIONS
If you have a question about this policy or complaint about how we have handled your personal information please contact our Privacy Officer.  We ask that you provide details of your complaint in writing.  We will acknowledge your complaint within 14 business days and investigate it promptly.  We aim to resolve complaints within 30 days.  If we need more time, we will keep you informed of our progress.

Privacy officer details and complaints:-
Attention: The Privacy Officer
Hamilton Purcell Lawyers
Address: PO Box 1263, Devonport TAS 7310
Email: reception@hamiltonpurcell.au
Phone: 03 6423 6669

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may escalate your complaint to:
​Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
Website: www.oaic.gov.au
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Phone: 1300 363 992
Post: GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001