Privacy policy

The types of personal information that we collect will depend on the nature of your dealings with us. We may collect personal information from you when you:

• Make an enquiry with us or instruct us to provide you with legal advice or services
• Purchase or subscribe to a Stacks online service
• Subscribe to our website or to one of our mailing lists
• Attend a Stacks seminar
• Have business dealings with us (whether as one of our suppliers, or as a regulator we deal with, or in the context of a transaction), or
• Apply or register your interest for employment with Stacks.

The personal information we will collect from you will usually include your name, title, address, email address, contact numbers (telephone, fax, mobile). If necessary for the purposes of providing advice or information to you,  we may collect other personal information from you, such as information to verify your identity or to be able to liaise with third parties on your behalf (such as date of birth, tax file or Medicare numbers). We will not ask to collect sensitive information about you (such as details of your racial or ethnic origin, political affiliation, religious beliefs, sexual preferences, criminal convictions or health information) unless it is needed for the purposes of providing legal advice.

Please note that, while we seek to minimise the personal information we collect, if you do not provide us with the personal information we request, we may not be able to provide you with the services and other assistance you seek.

Generally, we endeavour to collect personal information directly from the individuals concerned. However, if this is not practicable, we may collect personal information about individuals from third parties, including from publicly available sources. If we do, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the individuals concerned are made aware of the collection of their information.

We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information for the purposes of:

• Providing legal and related services to our clients, including to communicate with clients by letter, email and SMS
• Assessing and processing inquiries and requests for the provision of our services
• Marketing, including direct marketing and market research and analysis
• The general conduct and management of our business, including provision and enhancement of our services and purchasing goods and services from others, or
• Meeting our legal obligations.

By providing us with your personal information you give your consent for us to use that information for these purposes.

If the personal information we request is not provided, we may not be able to provide the relevant service.

Stacks does not sell, rent or trade personal information about you to or with third parties. Personal information may be disclosed outside of Stacks in the circumstances described below:

• Disclosures to external service providers – We may disclose personal information to external service providers who help us operate our business. Examples of our external service providers include third party data storage or technology providers, companies who provide photocopying and archiving services, other legal service providers (including contractors, consultants and barristers), and research organisations. If we engage external service providers, we takes steps to ensure that those providers comply with the APPs when they handle personal information about you
• Disclosures overseas – Where we engage external information technology service providers, we ensure that wherever possible, our data is stored within Australia. Some of our vendors do however store data in overseas locations, including but not limited to Singapore, UK and the USA, or
• Disclosures required or permitted by law – Otherwise, we will only disclose personal information if this is required by law or permitted under the Privacy Act. We are also bound by professional obligations of confidentiality, including in relation to personal information.

Personal information may also be confidentially disclosed between one or more Member Firms or to Stacks Law Group. All personnel within Stacks are bound by the same confidentiality laws and standards that govern the legal profession within Australia and comply with the APPs.

We take a number of steps to ensure the security of your personal information. For example, we implement the following security measures:

• Security procedures for access to our business premises
• IT security procedures including password protection, firewalls, intrusion detection and site monitoring; and
• A requirement that Stacks employees, as a condition of employment, treat personal information we hold as confidential.

However, data protection measures are never completely secure and, despite the measures we have put in place, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information. You must take care to protect your personal information (for example, by protecting any usernames and passwords). You should notify us as soon as possible if you become aware of any security breaches.

At the conclusion of legal matters, we are required to keep legal files for a minimum period of 7 years from the closure of a legal file unless we are instructed to the contrary. In some cases, we may be required to retain documents for a longer period of time (e.g. documents that inform the making of a Will).

Under the Privacy Act, you have the right to:

• Seek access to your personal information handled by Stacks;
• Ask us to update or correct your personal information when it is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date; and
• Opt-out of receiving direct marketing communications from us.

If you wish to access the personal information that we hold about you, please set out your request in writing, and forward this to our Privacy Officer, using the contact details set out at the end of this Privacy Policy.

As detailed in our Terms of use, we may monitor visits to our web site and collect data about visitors (including, without limitation, the use of cookies and other browser-generated information, and also any personal information you provide when communicating with us). Generally this information will not identify you. You are not obliged to disclose personal information about yourself or your contact details when you visit our website. By voluntarily providing us with any personal information, you consent to us using this information for the purposes set out in this Policy.

Sometimes our website contains links to other websites, for your convenience and information. When you access a website other than ours, please understand that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of that site. We suggest that you review the privacy policies of each site you visit.

If you wish to make a complaint about how we handle your personal information, please contact us setting out your complaint in writing, and forward it to our Privacy Officer, using the contact details below.

We will deal with all requests for access to personal information or complaints as quickly as possible and will endeavour to get back to you within a reasonable timeframe.