Your
Privacy Rights
From January 1, 2004, all businesses engaged in commercial
activities must comply with the Personal
Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act,
and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code
for the Protection of Personal Information, which
it incorporates. These obligations extend to lawyers
and law firms, including my office. The Act gives
you rights concerning the privacy of your personal
information.
Hania E. Grabowski is responsible for the personal
information we collect and hold. To ensure this accountability,
we have developed this policy, and trained our support
staff about our policies and practices.
Why Does Hania E. Grabowski Need Personal
Information?
We
provide legal services and products to a wide range
of clients. In doing so, we may produce materials
concerning services and developments in the law.
What personal information do we collect?
Personal
information is any information that identifies you,
or by which your identity could be deduced.
If we did not collect and use your personal information
we could not provide you with legal services.
How do we collect your personal information?
We
collect information only by lawful and fair means
and not in an unreasonably intrusive way. Wherever
possible we collect your personal information directly
from you, at the start of a retainer and in the course
of our representation.
Sometimes we may obtain information about you from
other sources: for example,
• your insurance company;
• your real estate agent in a property transaction;
• from a government agency or registry;
• your employer;
• your accountant.
Consent
In
most cases, we shall ask you to specifically consent,
if we collect, use, or disclose your personal information.
Normally, we ask for your consent in writing, but
in some circumstances, we may accept your oral consent.
Sometimes, your consent may be implied through your
conduct with us.
Use of Your Information
We
use your personal information to provide legal advice
and services to you, to administer our client (time
and billing databases) and to include you in any direct
marketing activities. If you tell us that you no longer
wish to receive information about our services, or
about new developments in the law, we will not send
any further material.
My office does not disclose your personal information
to any third party to enable them to market their
products and services. For example, we do not provide
our client mailing lists to anyone.
Disclosure of your Personal Information
Under
certain circumstances, my office may disclose your
personal information:
when we are required or authorized by law to do so,
for example if a court issues a subpoena;
• when you have 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 tell us otherwise;
• where it is necessary to establish or collect
fees;
• if we engage a third party to provide administrative
services to us (like computer back-up services or
archival file storage) and the third party is bound
by our privacy policy;
• if we engage expert witnesses on your behalf;
• if we retain other law firms in other jurisdictions,
on your behalf;
• if the information is already publicly known.
Updating Your Information
Since
we use your personal information to provide legal
services to you, it is important that the information
be accurate and up-to-date.
If during the course of the retainer, any of your
information changes, please inform us so that we can
make any necessary changes.
Is My Personal Information Secure?
We
take 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:
• premises security;
• restricted file access to personal information;
• deploying technological safeguards like security
software and firewalls to prevent hacking or unauthorized
computer access;
• internal password and security policies;
• primary computer database is self-contained
and separate from Internet computers.
Access to Your Personal Information
You
may ask for access to any personal information we
hold about you.
Summary information is available on request. More
detailed requests which require archive or other retrieval
costs may be subject to our normal professional and
disbursement fees.
Correcting Errors
If
my office holds information about you and you can
establish that it is not accurate, complete and up-to-date,
my office will take reasonable steps to correct it.
Can I be Denied Access to My Personal Information?
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 our firm's rights and property;
• where the request is frivolous or vexatious.
If we deny your request for access to, or refuse a
request to correct information, we shall explain why.
My office does not use your Social Insurance Number
as a way of identifying or organizing the information
we hold upon you.
Can I request anonymity?
Whenever
it is legal and practicable, we may offer the opportunity
to deal with general inquiries without providing your
name (for example, by accessing general information
on our website).
Credit Bureaus
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.
Communicating with Us
You
should be aware that e-mail is not a 100% secure medium,
and you should be aware of this when contacting us
to send personal or confidential information.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
Since
my office regularly reviews all of its policies and
procedures, we may change our Privacy Policy from
time to time.
Requests for Access
If
you have any questions, or wish to access your personal
information, please write to me directly at
200 - 200 Elgin Street
Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 1L5
If you are not satisfied with our response, the Privacy
Commissioner of Canada can be reached at
112 Kent Street,
Ottawa Ontario, K1A 1H3
1-800-282-1376
Employment Inquiries
If
you apply to us for a job, we need to consider your
personal information, as part of our review process.
We normally retain information from candidates after
a decision has been made, unless you ask us not to
retain the information. If we offer you a job, which
you accept, the information will be retained in accordance
with our privacy procedures for employee records.
Web Site
Our
website contains links to other sites, which are not
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 optimise our web service.
We may provide aggregated information to third parties,
but these statistics do not include any identifiable
personal information. |
