Privacy Policy

 

Gallaway Cook Allan (GCA) collects personal information about its staff, clients, contractors, suppliers and others for the purpose of providing legal services throughout New Zealand.

GCA is bound by the Privacy Act 2020 (the Act) when dealing with personal information. Our lawyers are also subject to their obligations under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 and the Conduct and Client Care Rules 2008 when handling personal information.

This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use, store and share personal information, and explains your rights in relation to your personal information.  

Personal information means any information which can be used to identify you.

COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect personal information about you when you visit our website, engage us, request our advice, ask us to send you publications, or when you otherwise interact with us. We may collect the following personal information:

• Names;
• Contact details (e.g., email, address, telephone number);
• Date of birth;
• Occupation;
• Identification;
• Information about a prospective employee’s employment history and/or details, education and qualifications, and/or testimonials or feedback;
• Evidence of source of funds;
• Bank account details or credit card information; and
• Any other information that is reasonably necessary for us to provide our services. 

If personal information we request is not provided, this may impact on our ability to supply our services; engage suppliers or contractors; or progress an applicant’s employment.  

Wherever possible, personal information will be obtained directly from you, or from your nominated agent. Personal information may also be obtained or verified through other means, where the Act permits this.

USE OF OUR WEBSITE

We may use technology such as cookies to collect information about your use of our website. The information we collect may include (for example) your IP address; domain name; search terms; your operating system and browser type; the date and time you visited our website; the pages you visited; the links you clicked on; and any other information you expressly provide.

This helps us to understand how users engage with our website, and how we might improve our website. We may also use third party cookies and other technology to obtain analytics and to advertise our services online.

USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may use your personal information:

• to provide services and products to you;
• to process your personal information for our own internal business purposes;
• to verify your identity;
• for employment purposes (if you are being employed by us);
• to communicate with you, including contacting you electronically;
• to improve the services and products that we provide to you;
• to undertake credit checks on you if necessary;
• for debt recovery purposes, which may include disclosing information to debt collectors;
• to provide promotional material and newsletters in hard copy or electronic form, or other information that may be of interest;
• engaging with third parties at your request or on your behalf;
• to bill you and to collect money that you owe us, including authorising and processing credit card transactions;
• to respond to communications from you, including a complaint;
• to conduct statistical analysis (on an anonymised basis);
• to protect and/or enforce our legal rights and interests, including defending any claim and to comply with our obligations under anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism laws;
• to fulfil our legal obligations;
• to monitor use of our website; and/or
• for any other purpose authorised by you or the Act.

If you interact with us on social media, we may have access to your interactions and your profile information. We may use this information to communicate with you, for example by way of advertising or through responding to your interactions with us.

SECURITY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Personal information will be stored on GCA files and databases. GCA will take reasonable steps (including technical, physical, and/or organisational measures) to keep your personal information safe from loss, unauthorised activity, or other misuse. GCA personnel are required to respect the confidentiality of personal information and the privacy of individuals.

GCA will take reasonable steps to ensure that where unique identifiers are used, the risk of misuse will be minimised.

DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may disclose your personal information to:

• GCA personnel;
• any business that supports our services and products, including any person that hosts or maintains any underlying IT system or data centre that we use to provide our website or other services and products;
• a credit reference agency for the purpose of credit checking you;
• other third parties (for anonymised statistical information);
• a person who can require us to supply your personal information (e.g., a regulatory authority);
• any other person authorised by the Act or another law (e.g., a law enforcement agency); and/or
• any other person authorised by you.

Personal information will only be shared with GCA personnel or third parties if it is necessary for them to carry out their work for us; to meet your request for legal services; or otherwise with your permission.

A business that supports our services and products may be located outside New Zealand (for example, an IT provider). This may mean your personal information is held and processed outside New Zealand. However, where this is the case, we will take reasonable steps to ensure this third party is required to protect your personal information in a way that, overall, provides comparable safeguards to those in the Act, or otherwise obtain your permission to disclosure of your personal information.

YOUR RIGHTS

GCA will provide you with your personal information upon request, subject to certain grounds of refusal set out in the Act. GCA will also take reasonable steps to ensure personal information held about you is accurate. You have the right to ask us to correct your personal information.

If you do not want us to hold personal information about you, you can contact us to let us know. However, we may be unable to provide our services if you refuse to provide such information.

If you want to access or correct your personal information, please email us at lawyers@gallawaycookallan.co.nz. Your email should provide evidence of who you are and set out the details of your request (e.g., the personal information, or the correction, that you are requesting).

Please contact our Privacy Officer, Diccon Sim, at (03) 477 7312 or Diccon.Sim@gallawaycookallan.co.nz, if you are concerned your privacy has been breached by GCA and/or you wish to make a complaint. You also have the right to make a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.org.nz.