Privacy Policy

1. Policy Statement

Rankin Business Lawyers respects your privacy. Our privacy terms are compliant with the Australian Privacy Principles set out in the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) as well as the Spam Act 2003.

Rankin Business Lawyers may amend its privacy policy from time to time by publishing it on our website. We advise that you view this page periodically to ensure that you are up to date with our current privacy policy.

2. What personal information do we generally collect and why

We collect personal information from clients, prospective or potential clients and others we may encounter in the ordinary course of business. This information is collected to assist in the provision of legal services as well as for marketing, promotional and related activities.

We generally only collect personal information from this website when it is offered voluntarily by you (e.g., when you subscribe to our newsletter).

The information we may collect from this website includes, but is not limited to your:

• Name, address, email, age, occupation, qualifications, professional memberships and other contact information;
• Interests in areas of legal practice; and
• Social media details (e.g., we may note your Facebook contact details if you have commented on an article via Facebook).

We may also collect other personal information in the course of providing legal services. This information is collected in a number of ways, such as via email, over the phone or in a person.

3. Junk mail or unsolicited email

You will only receive emails from us if:

• You subscribe to our email newsletters. If you no longer wish to receive email newsletters, you may unsubscribe by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ option at the bottom of our newsletter emails;
• You request information about our services when you choose to contact us;
• It is otherwise relevant to the reasons for which we hold your email address, where we are permitted to do so by law.

4. Other information we collect

We may also collect the following information from you:

• The fully qualified domain name from which you accessed our website, or your IP address;
• The date and time you accessed each page on our website;
• The URL of any webpage from which you accessed our website;
• Cookies which track your visits to our website; and
• The web browser that you are using and the pages you accessed.

We use this information so that we can tell which pages are the most popular and where people spend most of their time on our website. This helps us improve our website and deliver interesting content to our visitors. In some circumstances, we may collect personal information about an individual from a third party, for example, to analyse traffic at our website. If this information is linked with personal information we already hold about you (as set out above), this new information will be treated as personal information and will be handled in the same manner as the personal information to which it has been linked.

5. Disclosure or your personal information overseas

We may disclose your personal information to the following overseas recipients:

• Other trusted companies or individuals who assist us in providing services or who perform functions on their behalf (such as third party service providers and specialist consultants);
• Anyone else to whom you authorise us to disclose it; and
• Anyone authorised by law.

6. How your personal information is stored and kept secure

We will use all reasonable endeavours to keep your personal information in a secure environment, however, this security cannot be guaranteed due to the nature of the internet. We will take reasonable steps to protect personal information held from misuse, loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure- for example by use of restricted access to electronic records.

If you reasonably believe that there has been unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information, please contact us immediately (contact details below).

7. Accessing your information

National Privacy Principle 6 of the Privacy Act 1988 allows you to get access to, and correct, the personal information we hold about you in certain circumstances.

In order to maintain the security of your personal information we may require you to provide proof of your identity before discussing any personal information and we may ask you to specify what information you require. Ways in which we may ask you to provide proof of identity may include the following:

• Certified Photo Identification (for example, passport, drivers license etc.);
• Providing date of birth, address, telephone number or other particulars pertaining to your identity; and
• Providing passwords or codes.

If you believe that any of your personal information is inaccurate, please contact us and, subject to the exceptions set out in the Privacy Act 1988, you may seek access to and correction of the personal information which we hold about you and we will take all reasonable steps to correct it within a reasonable timeframe.

8. How you can make a privacy related complaint?

If you have any questions about privacy-related issues or wish to complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles or the handling of your personal information by us, please contact us. We may ask you to lodge your complaint in writing. Any complaint will be investigated by our Privacy Officer and you will be notified of the making of a decision in relation to your complaint as soon as is practicable after it has been made (usually within 30 days). If you are not satisfied with our response, you can refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (details below).

9. Changes to our privacy policy

This privacy policy relates to our current privacy standards. We may periodically amend our Privacy Policy in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 and other relevant laws. It is your responsibility to ensure you understand our current Privacy Policy. The most current version of our Privacy Policy is located on our website and can be obtained by contacting our Privacy Officer.

By using or subscribing to our services or by purchasing our products without written objection, you agree to us using your personal information in accordance with the terms of our Privacy Policy.

10. Questions or Complaints

Should you have any questions or complaints about our Privacy Policy, please contact us:

Privacy Enquiries
Rankin Business Lawyers .
Email: [email protected]

For more information on privacy in Australia, please visit the Australian Commonwealth Government’s Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website at www.oaic.gov.au.