Privacy Policy

Kells respects your privacy.

We are bound by the Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs”) set out in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act”), and other applicable laws governing privacy, including the Legal Profession Uniform Law 2014 (NSW).

What information do we collect?

(a) Clients and prospective clients

We only collect the information that we believe is reasonably necessary, for us to provide services to you, or that is directly related to this purpose. In order to provide quality legal advice to you, it is necessary for us to collect personal information about you.

The Privacy Act currently defines personal information as meaning information or an opinion about an identified individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information or opinion is true or not and whether it is recorded in a material form or not.

This may include, but is not limited to your:

• full name;
• date of birth;
• address;
• contact details;
• professional details; and
• information about your employer or the organisation you represent.

Personal information is essential information to assist us acting for you. If there is an issue with providing this information, please advise your solicitor or conveyancer and we can try to find an alternate arrangement. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our service, it is not practicable for clients to remain anonymous or assume pseudonyms. We are required to collect the full name and address of our clients by rule 93 of the Legal Profession Uniform General Rules 2015 (NSW).

Depending on the type of matter, it may be necessary to collect sensitive information, which is a subset of personal information, which includes information about your:

• racial or ethnic origin;
• political, philosophical and/or religious beliefs;
• criminal records; or
• health records.

This may be particularly necessary in criminal law, family law and personal injury matters.

(b) Other Individuals

We may also collect personal or sensitive information about individuals, who are not clients, as it may be necessary for our client’s matter. This may include collecting personal information about children. Where children do not have sufficient understanding and maturity to make decisions about their personal information, we will require their parents or guardians to make decisions on their behalf. 

We may collect personal information for the purpose of maintaining a business relationship with our referrers or prospects, including people who participate in events we are involved with and other individuals who we act with on a commercial basis.

When we do so, we will comply with the APPs, particularly in relation to the solicitation of information.

(c) Prospective employees or applicants

We may also receive personal information about prospective employees, including but not limited to their name, contact details, qualifications and work history.

This may be provided to us by the individuals themselves, or by third parties such as recruitment agencies, previous employers, referees or providers of pre-medical assessments.

How is your information collected and held?

As much as we can, we will endeavour to collect information directly from you. Where that may not be practical, we may collect information about you from third parties, such as referrers.
 
We hold your information using a variety of electronic and physical security measures, including restricting access to our offices and the use of firewalls and security databases to secure personal information.

We collect and hold information in paper-based files or other electronic record keeping methods in secure databases. This includes trusted third party entities based in Australia and overseas.

We take reasonable steps to protect all personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, but cannot guarantee that the information will not be misused, lost, accessed or disclosed.

How we use your information?

We understand that your personal and sensitive information is strictly confidential and in the case of our clients we are bound by professional obligations of confidentiality.

We only collect the information that we feel is necessary to provide appropriate legal advice and make educated decisions about the ways in which we can best serve you.

In addition to providing legal advice and acting for you, we may also use your personal information to advise you about:

• new or complementary services at Kells;
• seminars or educational services; or
• related areas of law.

Who has access to your information?

Our employees and related parties (including our service entities and employees) will have access to your personal and sensitive information.

We may also need to share your personal or sensitive information with other organisations. This may include barristers, specialists, experts and opposing parties.

We may disclose information to third parties we engage in order to provide our services, including contractors and service providers used for data processing, data analysis, information technology services and support, website maintenance and development, and mail contractors and file archivists. These third parties all have contractual obligations of confidentiality. These third parties may be located in Australia or overseas.

We may also disclose information, including information which is confidential to you, in accordance with the Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules 2015 (“Conduct Rules”).

Overseas Entities

Your personal information may be disclosed, or used by, trusted third parties overseas.

This includes entities located in the countries specified at Schedule A.  

Unless we have your consent, or an exception under the APPs applies, before we disclose your personal information to an overseas recipient, we will:

• take reasonable steps to an ensure that the recipient does not breach the APPs in relation to that information; or
• ensure that the recipient is subject to a law, or binding scheme, that protects the information in at least a substantially similar way to the APPs and standards that we do, though they may not always follow the particular requirements of Australian privacy laws.

What happens at the end of your matter?

At the end of your matter, your hard copy file will be either archived or securely destroyed and electronically archived. Original documents requiring retention will either be returned to you or placed into our safe custody, based on your direction. Your personal information will remain electronically accessible by our employees and service entities after the completion of your matter. In accordance with the Conduct Rules, we will destroy the physical file which contains your personal information after a period of 7 years has elapsed since the completion or termination of our engagement.
 
As mentioned above, we may use your information to keep you informed of other services offered by Kells and provide updates about changes in the law that may interest you.

Data Breach

If a data breach has occurred and there is unauthorised access to or disclosure of your personal information we will be required to comply with the Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme under the Privacy Act.

We are required to notify you, and the Australian Privacy Commissioner, where there has been a notifiable date breach. This is defined under the Privacy Act as a data breach of your personal information that has potential to cause serious harm to you.

Accessing and correcting your information

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete and up-to-date. You can assist us in doing so by advising us if you notice errors or discrepancies in information we hold about you and letting us know if your personal details change.

You have the right to access information we hold about you and suggest corrections, where applicable.
 
In accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles there are limited circumstances where we may not be able to provide you access to your information. If we deny your request for access we will explain the reasons why we have done so.

Please contact our Privacy Officer on (02) 4221 9311, email privacy@kells.com.au, or write to PO Box 5364 Wollongong NSW 2520 to request access or corrections to your personal or sensitive information.

Website, Emails and Digitally Delivered information

The content of the Kells website, emails or information supplied via any digital medium or channel is provided for information purposes only. The contents do not constitute legal advice and should not be used as such.

Formal legal advice should always be sought in particular matters.

Comments or complaints

If you would like to make a comment or wish to know more about the way we handle your personal or sensitive information please contact our Privacy Officer.

If you wish to make a complaint please write to us. We will endeavour to respond within 30 days. If you are unsatisfied with our response you may then complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (“OAIC”). For more information please visit the OAIC website at www.oaic.gov.au.

We may amend this privacy policy from time to time, with or without notice to you. We recommend that you visit our website regularly to keep up to date with any changes.

Last updated : 22 November 2022

Schedule A – Countries overseas recipients are likely to be located

Philippines

United Kingdom

United States of America