Privacy Policy

Last updated: 22 April 2021 ©

This is copyright material. Our Privacy Policy is specific to our practice. If you would like to have a privacy policy drafted for your business, be sure to get in touch, we are glad to help.

1. Your privacy protection

Your privacy matters. Michael Law Group is committed to protecting your personal information, this Privacy Policy explains how we do that and how you can contact us about your privacy questions.

We will update our Privacy Policy if we change how we handle personal information or as required by law. Updates will be published on this page on our website.

2. Who is collecting your information?

Your personal information is being collected by Vivian Michael Pty Ltd trading as Michael Law Group (ACN 166 717 326). Our contact details are on our website or you can email us at privacy@michaellawgroup.com.au.

3. Types of personal information we collect

The information we collect from you depends on your relationship with us. It may include:

(a) Your personal and contact details;

(b) IP address when you use our website; and

4. Anonymity

Where possible, we will give you the option of interacting with us anonymously or with a pseudonym.

We will need your personal or contact details to give you advice to comply with our record keeping obligations as legal practitioners.

5. How we collect personal information

We may collect information in a number of ways. We may collect your personal information directly from you or in our dealings with you, for example if you:

[a) provide personal information to us by completing a form on our website,

(b} comment on a post or send us a direct message;

(d) use the chat feature on our website;

(e) become a client;

(f) enter a competition either online or in-person for example at a trade show;

(g) provide feedback or otherwise interact with us;

(h) visit our website, social media accounts;

(i) purchase an item from our online store.

We may also collect personal information about you from someone that you have delegated to deal with us such as a business partner. Rest assured, we will obtain your permission before we do this.

For site security purposes and to ensure that our service remains available to all users, Michael Law Group uses software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorised attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.

6. Why we collect personal information

We collect your personal information so we can provide you with our services, to contact you and to carry out our functions and activities.

The reasons for collecting your personal information may include:

(a) complying with our record keeping obligations as legal practitioners;

(b) responding to your website or social media queries;

(d) communicating with you before or after we provide you with our services; and

(e) providing and operating our competitions, promotions and event.

7. Use and disclosure of your personal information

We will use your information for the purpose for which it was collected.

If you have subscribed to our email list on our website or downloaded resources, we may email you other useful updates and resources. Rest assured, you can unsubscribe anytime and we do not sell your information to third parties.

If you are sending us a direct message or commenting on our posts, our social media management partner may see your message and either respond or forward the message to us. Rest assured, our social media management partners have signed confidentiality agreements with us. If you are not comfortable for this to occur, please do not send us personal information or party names over social media.

We may also disclose your personal information:

(a) to our professional insurers;

(b) where permitted or required by law of a court/tribunal; and

8. Australia and overseas disclosures

We may disclose your personal information to our Australian or overseas partner law firms and/or partner accounting firms, if you instruct us that you would like a referral. Rest assured, we will only do this if we have your permission.

9. EU

If you are in the EU, you may have these rights:

(a) ask us if we are using your personal information;

(b) withdraw your consent for us to use your personal information;

(c) ask us to delete your personal information (we'll consent if we don't need to use your personal information to carry out our day-to-day functions or have other legitimate grounds to process your information);

(d) ask us to help you move your personal information to another company via automatic means (some conditions apply);

also you have the right to be informed about measures to protect your data if we transfer it overseas.

10. How we use cookies and web-tracking tools

Cookies are small files sent to your browser and stored by your browser on the device you are using to access our website.

Our cookies collect your IP address or MAC address, the city associated with your IP or MAC address, the date and time of your visit to our website, pages viewed and the type of browser you use.

We also use Google Analytics; a web-tracking tool that generates detailed statistics about traffic to our websites and traffic sources. It only provides us with aggregated data (not personal information of our website visitors).

The cookies and web-tracking tools help us improve the content and functioning of our website.

11. Our marketing and your personal information

We use personal information that we hold about you to offer you services and products that may be of interest to you.

We may contact you by email, text message or phone to let you know about specials, our partners and third party offers and promotions or any new services.

You can contact us at any time if you do not wish to receive marketing materials from us, our related entities or partners. If you receive marketing email from us, you can op-out by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.

12. Storage and security of your personal information

We hold personal information electronically in our IT systems and databases. We also hold personal information in hard copy paper files. We may use third party service providers to store some personal information and may destroy your hard copy paper files after a matter has concluded.

We take reasonable steps to protect the information that we hold about you from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

We do this by having physical and electronic security systems and by limiting who can access your personal information.

We have online security systems in place for our website, so that the information you provide us online is protected and secure. However, because of the nature of the internet, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information.

Please contact us if you become aware of any security breach.

13. Access and correction of your personal information

You have a right to request access or request correction of your personal information held by us.

If you wish to access, amend or update personal information that we hold about you, please contact us using the details below.

We will respond to your request within a reasonable time of you making the request and give you access in the manner you requested unless it is impractical or unreasonable for us to do so.

We can sometimes respond to your request on the phone, but we may need your request in writing and we might need time to gather the information and get back to you. Complex requests usually take us between 14 and 30 days. We might need to send the information to you by post or we might ask you to come and see us to have a look at the information.

Making a request is free. Depending on what information you request access to, we may need to charge you for providing access. These charges will not be excessive and we will let you know if a charge applies before supplying access. There is no charge for correcting your personal information.

There may be reasons why we cannot give you access to the information you have requested. In this instance, we will let you know the reasons in writing. If we refuse you access or to correct your personal information, you can make a complaint by following the procedures in this Privacy Policy.

14. How to make a complaint

If you have a complaint about how we have handled your personal information, you can make a complaint by contacting us using the details below.

We will investigate and respond to you within a reasonable time.

We take any privacy complaint seriously and will deal with your complaint fairly and promptly. However, if you are not satisfied with our response or how we handled your complaint, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (in writing) at:

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)

GPO Box 5218

Sydney NSW 1042

Phone: 1300 363 992

TTY: 1800 620 241

email: privacy@privacy.gov.au

If you are located in the European Union, you may lodge a complaint with the local data protection authority (DPA) within the European Union. You can find their details here.

15. Changes to our privacy policy

We may update our Privacy from time to time. Our Privacy Policy was last updated in November 2019. By continuing to use our website or otherwise continuing to deal with us, you accept this Privacy Policy as it applies and changes from time to time.

You can contact us by:

email: privacy@michaellawgroup.com.au

Privacy Officer

Level 1, 377 New South Head Road, Double Bay NSW 2028

T: Australia 1800 478 278 I Overseas +61 2 9151 7322