Privacy Policy

1. Overview

Your privacy is important to Ficus Lawyers Consultants (Us) and we are committed to protecting your privacy in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act), which includes the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and any related privacy codes.

Our primary obligations are derived from the Privacy Act and the APPs. However, we may be required to comply with other Australian State and Territory privacy laws, such as the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) and the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic) from time to time. To the extent that we do so, this Privacy Policy applies.

This Policy outlines how we collect, use, disclose and store your personal information and lets you know how you can access that information.

This Policy applies to our obligations when handling information in Australia.

Please read this Policy and let us know if you have any questions.

2. What personal information to do we collect and why do we collect it?

If you are a client, work for a client, are a counterparty, or provide services to a counterparty of a client, we may collect the following information:

Information Collected:

Your name, email address and phone number.
Address.
Date of birth.
Gender.
Employment details including your job title and your employer.
Employment history.
Business registration details such as your Australian Business Numbers.
Any photos provided to us.
Billing and payment information.
Credit details.
Your device ID, device type and information, geo-location information, Internet Protocol (IP) address, standard web log information browser session data, device and network information, statistics on page views, acquisition sources, search queries, browsing behaviour and information gathered through internet cookies.
Information relevant to providing you or our client with legal services, and your preferences and opinion about our services.
Information about your dealings with our clients.
Information contained in any communications between you and us.

Why we collect it?

For the purpose for which the personal information was originally collected, which is to give you information about our services and provide our clients with legal services.
To identify and interact with you.
To perform administrative and operational functions.
To manage our relationships.
To comply with any legal requirements, including any purpose authorised or required by law, courts or tribunals.
To send you information on news, publications, blog and other content.
To invite you to seminars and events.
To develop consumer insights so we can better understand your preferences and interests, personalize your experience, and enhance our services.
To perform accounting, billing and other administrative and operations functions.
For any other purpose for which you give your consent.

How we collect it?

Directly from you when you:
- use our services;
- interact or share personal information with us via our website, platforms and social media; and
- communicate with us.
Through third parties, such as our clients or their counterparties and authorised representatives.
Through our third party service providers, credit reporting bodies, related entities, marketing companies, referrals who may have introduced you to us, and organistaions with have an agreement to share information with for marketing purposes.

If you are an individual that may not be a client of ours, or do not work for a client, but interact with us, we may collect the following information:

Information Collected:

Your name, email address and phone number.
Address.
Employment details including your job title and your employer.
Information about the legal assistance you are seeking.
Information about your access and use of our website, including browser session data, device and network information, statistics on page views, acquisition sources, search queries, browsing behaviour and information gathered through internet cookies.

Why we collect it?

To identify and interact with you.
To perform administrative and operational functions.
To send you information on news, publications, blog and other content.
To invite you to seminars and events.

How we collect it?

Directly from you.

If you are a contractors or prospective staff member, we may collect the following information:

Information Collected:

Your name, email address and phone number.
Your nationality and which countries you hold citizenship of.
Educational details, such as schools you have attended.
Employment details, such as a CV, qualifications attained or examples of work.

Why we collect it?

To enable us to carry out our recruitment functions.
To correspond with you.
To fulfil the terms of any contractual relationship.
To ensure that you can perform your duties.

How we collect it?

Directly from you.
From third parties where it is unreasonable or impracticable to collect the information from you.

If you choose not to provide information as requested, we may not be able to service your needs. For example, it will not be possible for us to provide you with our services if you want to remain anonymous or use a pseudonym.

We sometimes receive unsolicited personal information. In circumstances where we receive unsolicited personal information we will usually destroy or de-identify the information as soon as practicable if it is lawful and reasonable to do so unless the unsolicited personal information is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, our functions or activities.

3. Sensitive Information

We may collect some sensitive information about you. This may include:

(a) health information,

(b) racial or ethnic origin,

(d) religious beliefs,

(e) political affiliation, and

(f) trade union or other professional associations or memberships.

We will only collect your sensitive information where you consent to that collection or where we are otherwise permitted by law.

We will use your sensitive information for the purpose for which it is collected, which is usually to provide our services to you or to our clients.

4. Health Information

We may receive health information about you from our clients where you are an employee of our clients or a counterparty to our clients in a legal matter. Our client will have provided this health information to us as it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim.

We will use your health information for the purpose it was originally collected, which is to provide our legal services to our clients in relation to their establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim.

We collect, use, store and disclose your health information in accordance with the:

(a) Privacy Act and APPs for all individuals; and

(b) Victorian Health Records Act 2001 (Vic) for individuals based in Victoria (where we are required to do so).

Once this information is no longer required, we will delete or destroy health information in accordance with section 9 of this Privacy Policy.

5. Disclosing your personal information

Subject to our professional obligations, we may disclose your personal information to the following third parties:

(a) the organisation you work for;

(b) barristers and other legal specialists, governmental or regulatory authorities, enforcement agencies, courts and tribunals;

(d) our professional advisers, dealers and agents;

(e) third parties and contractors who provide services to us, including customer enquiries and support services, IT service providers, data storage, webhosting and server providers, marketing and advertising organisations, payment processing service providers;

(f) payment system operators and debt-recovery functions;

(g) third parties to collect and process data; and

(h) any third parties authorised by you to receive information held by us.

We may also disclose your personal information if we are required, authorised or permitted by law.

We may send information to third parties that are located outside of Australia for the purposes of providing our services. These third parties are located in the United States of America, although this list may change from time to time. Disclosure is made to the extent that it is necessary to perform our functions or activities.

6. Using your personal information for direct marketing

From time to time, and in support of our future development and growth, we may use your personal information to contact you to promote and market our products and services.

You can opt-out from being contacted for direct marketing purposes by contacting our Privacy Officer at our details below or by using the unsubscribe facility included in each direct marketing communication we send. Once we receive a request to opt out from receiving marketing information, we will stop sending such information within a reasonable amount of time.

7. Security

We take all reasonable steps to protect personal information under our control from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We hold your personal information electronically in secure ISO compliant databases operated by our third-party service providers.

We protect the personal information we hold through a number of different layers including:

(a) secure authentication requirements for all staff, including multi-factor authentication for access;

(b) staff training on cyber security; and

While we take reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is protected from loss, misuse and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, security measures over the internet can never be guaranteed.

We encourage you to play an important role in keeping your personal information secure, by maintaining the confidentiality of any passwords and account details used on our website.

8. Accessing or correcting your personal information

If you would like to access your personal information, please contact us using the details below. In certain circumstances, we may not be able to give you access to your personal information, in which case we will write to you to explain why we cannot comply with your request.

We try to ensure any personal information we hold about you is accurate, up-to-date, complete and relevant. If you believe the personal information we hold about you should be updated, please contact us using the details below and we will take reasonable steps to ensure it is corrected if appropriate.

9. Destroying or de-identifying personal information

We destroy or de-identify personal information when we no longer need it unless we are otherwise required or authorised by law to retain the information.

10. Making a complaint

If you believe your privacy has been breached or you have a complaint about our handling of your personal information, please contact us using the details below.

We take privacy complaints seriously. If you make a complaint, we will respond within 5 days to acknowledge your complaint. We will try to resolve your complaint within 30 days. When this is not reasonably possible, we will contact you within that time to let you know how long we will take to resolve your complaint.

We will investigate your complaint and write to you to explain our decision as soon as practicable.

If you are not satisfied with our decision, you can refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by phone on 1300 363 992 or online at www.oaic.gov.au.

11. Changes

We may, from time to time, amend this Policy. Any changes to this Policy will be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Policy on our website. By continuing to interact with us following any changes, you will be deemed to have agreed to such changes.

12. Contact Us

All questions or queries about this Policy and complaints should be directed to the Principal:

Nicole Tsotras

Email: nicole@ficuslaw.com.au

This Policy was last updated in July 2023.