Privacy Policy
Policy on the collection, use and disclosure of personal information
Low Murchison Radnoff LLP recognizes the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information. As lawyers, we have a professional obligation to keep confidential all information we receive within a lawyer-client relationship. We are committed to protecting any personal information we hold. This Privacy Policy outlines how we manage your personal information and safeguard your privacy.
Your Privacy Rights
As of January 1, 2004, all businesses engaged in commercial activities, which are extended to include lawyers and law firms, must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. To view an official copy of the act, a link to the website where it may be found is provided below. We encourage you to visit the website to become familiar with your rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.
Low Murchison Radnoff LLP takes full responsibility for the personal information we collect and hold. To ensure this accountability, we have developed this policy, and trained our lawyers and support staff about our policies and practices.
Why Does Low Murchison Radnoff LLP Need Personal Information?
Low Murchison Radnoff LLP provides legal services to a wide range of clients. Unfortunately we can only provide these services if you provide Personal Information to us.
What Personal Information Do We Collect?
Personal information is any factual or subjective information, recorded or not, about an identifiable individual, such as:
- Age, name, ID numbers, income, ethnic origin, or blood type
- Opinions, evaluations, comments, social status, or disciplinary actions
- Employee files, credit records, loan records, medical records, existence of a dispute between consumer and a merchant, intentions (for example, to acquire goods or services, or change jobs).
Personal information does not include the name, title, business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization.
We only collect that information which is necessary in your particular case to provide the legal services you have requested. We will identify those needs on an individual basis and inform you as to why it is needed.
How Do We Collect Your Personal Information?
Personal information will be collected, to the extent possible, directly from the individual concerned at the time you retain our services and during the course of our representation. However, collection of personal information will not be limited to collecting directly from the individual concerned.
Consent
In most cases, we will ask you to specifically consent, if we collect, use or disclose your personal information. However, consent may be implied if the information has been provided to us, by you, directly.
Use Of Your Information
We will use your personal information for no other purpose than which it was collected to provide legal advice and services to you.
We do collect e-mail and mailing addresses for the sole purpose of including you in any direct marketing activities of Low Murchison Radnoff LLP. If you tell use that you do not wish to receive any information from us about our services or new developments in the law, we will remove your name from our list.
Low Murchison Radnoff LLP does not sell, trade, or exchange for consideration any Personal Information that it has obtained on an individual or organization.
Personal information we have collected may be disclosed by Low Murchison Radnoff LLP under the following circumstances:
- When we are required or authorized by law to do so such as in a court subpoena
- When you have verbally or in writing, consented to the disclosure
- When the legal services we are providing to you requires us to give your information to third parties (for example a lender in a real estate mortgage transaction) your consent will be implied unless you have communicated otherwise, in writing, to our firm.
- Where it is necessary to collect fees.
- When we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us and the third party is bound by our privacy policy.
- When we engage expert witnesses on your behalf
- When we retain other law firms in other jurisdictions, on your behalf
- If the information is already publicly known
By submitting your or another individual’s personal information to Low Murchison Radnoff LLP or its affiliates, service providers and agents, you agree, and confirm your authority from such other individual, to our collection, use and disclosure of such personal information in accordance with our privacy policy.
Accuracy
As we are using the personal information which we collected for a specific purpose in providing legal services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up to date.
If, in the course of the retainer, any of your information changes, please inform us so that we can make the necessary changes to our file.
If at any time you can establish that the information we hold is not accurate, complete and up to date, Low Murchison Radnoff LLP will take reasonable steps to correct it.
Is Your Personal Information Secure?
Low Murchison Radnoff LLP takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. Among the steps taken to protect your information are:
- Secure premises
- Technological safeguards like security software and firewalls to prevent hacking or unauthorized computer access
- Bonded off site records storage facilities
- Internal password and security policies
While every measure is taken to respect your privacy, we would like to remind you that in providing personal information to Low Murchison Radnoff LLP, there is no method of transmitting or storing data that is completely secure. E-mail, mail, telephone calls, faxes and transmissions over the Internet are all susceptible to misrouting, possible loss, interception and misuse of the information being transmitted or communicated.
Access To Your Personal Information
Within 30 days of a request from you, we will inform you of the personal information we hold about you and explain how it is to be or has been used along with a list of any third party to which it has been disclosed.
Providing this information to you may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees but we will inform you of such costs in advance.
If additional time is required to answer your request, we will notify you within the 30 day period following your request.
Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute. We may deny access when:
- Denial of access is required or authorized by law (for example, when a record containing personal information about you is subject to a claim of legal professional privilege by one of our clients).
- Information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings against you
- When granting you access would have an unreasonable impact on other people’s privacy
- When to do so would prejudice negotiations with you
- To protect the firm’s rights and property
- Where the request if frivolous or vexatious
If we deny your request for access to or refuse a request to correct information, we shall explain why.
Credit Checks
To help us make credit decisions about clients, prevent fraud, check the identity of new clients and prevent money-laundering, we may on occasion, request information about you from the files of consumer reporting agencies.
Amendments To This Privacy Policy
Low Murchison Radnoff LLP may make amendments to this policy from time to time in accordance with any changes in the way in which it handles personal information. This policy has been in effect since January 1st, 2004 with no further amendments.
Applications for Employment
If you apply to Low Murchison Radnoff LLP for a job, we need to consider the personal information you have provided as part of our review process. Any resumes which we retain will be held in accordance with our privacy procedures for employee records.
The personal information contained in an employee file will be shared only with those individuals within the firm who are directly involved in human resource/payroll issues. No personal information on employees will be shared with a third party unless:
- It is felt that there are reasonable grounds to believe the information could be useful when investigating a contravention of a federal, provincial or foreign law and the information is used for that investigation
- For an emergency that threatens an individual’s life, health or security
- It is publicly available
- The use is clearly in the individual’s interest and consent is not available in a timely way
- Consent from the individual has been obtained
- It is required by law
Website
Our website contains links to other sites, which may not necessarily be governed by this privacy policy.
On our website, like most other commercial websites, we may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information in order to optimize our web service. We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but these statistics do not include any identifiable personal information.
Questions
Any questions concerning this policy should be directed to the professional with whom he or she has had contact; the Managing Partner of Low Murchison Radnoff LLP or the Firm’s Chief Privacy Officer at chiefprivacyofficer@lmrlawyers.com or by phone 613-236-9442. If you are not satisfied with the response to your inquiry, you may contact the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at 112 Kent St, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1H3 or phone
1-800-282-1376.