PRIVACY POLICY
Cornerstone Law respects your right to privacy and understand that protecting your personal information is important. We comply with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (Privacy Act) when handling personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, hold, use, disclose and protect your personal information.
The information we collect
Personal information means information about an identifiable individual (a natural person). The types of personal information we may collect about you include:
your name;
images of you;
your location information (for example your GPS location);
your social media handles;
your contact details, including email address, mailing address, street address and/or telephone number;
your age and/or date of birth;
details of products and services we have provided to you and/or that you have enquired about, and our response to you;
additional personal information that you provide to us, directly or indirectly, through your use of our Services, associated applications, associated social media platforms and/or accounts from which you permit us to collect information; and
any other personal information requested by us and/or provided by you or a third party.
How we collect personal information
We collect personal information in a variety of ways, including: through REAL AML, other solicitors when Client Due Diligence is required and other third parties for Identity purposes.
Directly: We collect personal information which you directly provide to us, including when you ‘contact us’ form on our website or when you request our assistance via email, or over the telephone.
Indirectly: We may collect personal information which you indirectly provide to us while interacting with us, such as when you use our website, in emails, over the telephone and in your online enquiries.
Collection and use of personal information
Personal information: We may collect, hold, use and disclose personal information for the following purposes:
personal information about you.
to enable you to access and use our Services;
to provide our Services to you, including to manage your appointments,;
to contact and communicate with you about our Services;
for internal record keeping, administrative, invoicing and billing purposes;
for analytics, market research and business development, including to operate and improve our Services, associated applications;
for advertising and marketing, including to send you promotional information about our products and services and information that we consider may be of interest to you;
to comply with our legal obligations and resolve any disputes that we may have;
if you have applied for employment with us; to consider your employment application; and
if otherwise required or authorised by law.
Disclosure of personal information to third parties
We may disclose personal information to: third parties for identity purposes and for the purpose of providing Legal Services to you;
third party service providers for the purpose of enabling them to provide their services, to us, including (without limitation) IT service providers, data storage, web-hosting and server providers, debt collectors, couriers, maintenance or problem-solving providers, marketing or advertising providers, professional advisors and payment systems operators;
our employees and agents;
anyone to whom our business or assets (or any part of them) are, or may (in good faith) be, transferred;
we may disclose your name and address to third parties such as credit agencies to perform a credit reference or to undertake credit management or collection processes if it is reasonable to do so.
courts, tribunals and regulatory authorities, in the event you fail to pay for services we have provided to you;
courts, tribunals, regulatory authorities and law enforcement officers, as required or authorised by law, in connection with any actual or prospective legal proceedings, or in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights; and
any other third parties as required or authorised by law.
Overseas disclosure: For the purposes above, we may transfer your personal information to parties located outside New Zealand which may not have an equivalent level of data protection laws as those in New Zealand. Before disclosing any personal information to an overseas recipient, we will comply with Information Privacy Principle 12 and only disclose the information if you have authorised the disclosure after we expressly informed you that the overseas recipient may not be required to protect the personal information in a way that, overall, provides comparable safeguards to those in the Privacy Act, or we believe the overseas recipient is subject to the Privacy Act, or we believe that the overseas recipient is subject to privacy laws that, overall, provide comparable safeguards to those in the Privacy Act, or we believe that the overseas recipient is a participant in a prescribed binding scheme, or we believe that the overseas recipient is subject to privacy laws in a prescribed country or we otherwise believe that the overseas recipient is required to protect your personal information in a way that, overall, provides comparable safeguards to those in the Privacy Act (for example pursuant to a data transfer agreement entered into between us and the overseas recipient).
Your rights and controlling your personal information
Your choice: Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. If you provide personal information to us, you understand we will collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You do not have to provide personal information to us, however, if you do not, it may affect our ability to provide our Services to you and your use of our Services.
Information from third parties: If we receive personal information about you from a third party, we will protect it as set out in this Privacy Policy. If you are a third party providing personal information about somebody else, you represent and warrant that you have such person’s consent to provide the personal information to us.
Restrict and unsubscribe: To object to processing for direct marketing/unsubscribe from our email database or opt-out of communications (including marketing communications), please contact us using the details below or opt-out using the opt-out facilities provided in the communication.
Access and Correction: Subject to certain grounds for refusal set out in the Privacy Act, you may request access to, and correction of, the personal information that we hold about you. If you are an individual, you have the right to access and correct this information. If you require access, please contact Kim Kyle.
Retention: We will not keep your personal information for longer than is required for the purposes for which your personal information may lawfully be used and complying with the legal requirements of legislation and the NZ Law Society.
Complaints: If you wish to make a complaint, please contact us using the details below and provide us with full details of the complaint. We will promptly investigate your complaint and respond to you, in writing, setting out the outcome of our investigation and the steps we will take in response to your complaint.
Trust Accounting: We operate a trust account. All money received from you or on your behalf will be held to your credit in our trust account.
Under sections 40 to 54 of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 we are required to disclose to government agencies (including but not limited to the Inland Revenue, the Department of Internal Affairs, New Zealand Police and New Zealand Customs) details of trust account transaction we undertake on your behalf.
Verification of Identity: We will need to ask you for up to date identification and verification of both your identity and verification of both your identity and residency. This is because the Financial Transactions Reporting Act 1996 requires us to collect from you and to retain information required to verify your identity; and the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing Terrorism Act 2008 (“the AML/CFT Law” for short) requires us to assess the risk from action of money laundering and people who finance terrorism by identifying potentially suspicious activity and reporting it. To make that assessment we must obtain and verify information from new and existing clients about a range of things. This begins with their identity and place of residency. We may be required to refer this information about you if there is anything we deem suspicious. By signing our letter of engagement, you authorise us to do so without further reference to you.
If you are seeing us about company or trust business we will need information about the company or trust including the people associated with it such as directors, shareholders, trustees and beneficiaries.
We may also need to ask you for information including the nature and purpose of the work you are asking us to do for you and the source of a property including money to be put into it.
If you cannot provide the required information we reserve the right to decline to act for you on the matter.
The information we collect and hold about you will be kept at our offices and/or at secure file storage sites (including electronic file storage sites) elsewhere. If you are an individual, you have the right to access and correct this information. If you require access, please contact Kim Kyle.
Relationship of Trust: The relationship between client and solicitor is based on trust and confidentiality. At no time shall either party audio or visually record meetings or telephone calls without first asking the permission of the other person participating in the meeting or conversation. If this duty of good faith and trust is breached the aggrieved party shall have the right to immediately terminate the engagement and any unpaid work will be invoiced becoming payable within 7 days of the receipt of the invoice.
Storage and security
We are committed to ensuring that the personal information we collect is secure. We have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures, to safeguard and secure personal information and protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.
While we are committed to security, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that is transmitted to or by us over the Internet. The transmission and exchange of information is carried out at your own risk.
Links to other websites
Our Services may contain links to other websites. We do not have any control over those websites and we are not responsible for the protection and privacy of any personal information which you provide whilst visiting those websites. Those websites are not governed by this Privacy Policy.
Amendments
We may, at any time and at our discretion, vary this Privacy Policy by publishing the amended Privacy Policy on our website. We recommend you check our website regularly to ensure you are aware of our current Privacy Policy.
For any questions or notices, please contact our Privacy Officer at:
Cornerstone Law
Kim@cornerstonelaw.co.nz
Last update: 29th July 2024