Pri­va­cy policy

This is Swaab’s pol­i­cy about the man­age­ment of per­son­al infor­ma­tion for the pur­pose of the Pri­va­cy Act 1988 (Cth). In this pol­i­cy ​‘per­son­al infor­ma­tion’ has the mean­ing in the Pri­va­cy Act. ​‘We’, ​‘our’ and ​‘us’ refer to Swaab, and ​‘you’ and ​‘your’ refer to the indi­vid­ual that the per­son­al infor­ma­tion is about. This pol­i­cy applies only to our per­son­al infor­ma­tion man­age­ment prac­tices to the extent they are reg­u­lat­ed by the Pri­va­cy Act and is a state­ment of our pol­i­cy only. We may have con­tracts (such as client engage­ment terms) and pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards oblig­a­tions that also affect our per­son­al infor­ma­tion man­age­ment prac­tices – this pol­i­cy does not state legal­ly bind­ing oblig­a­tions and is sub­ject to such oth­er obligations.

The pol­i­cy covers:

  • The kinds of per­son­al infor­ma­tion that we col­lect and hold
  • How we col­lect and hold per­son­al information
  • The pur­pos­es for which we col­lect, hold, use and dis­close per­son­al information
  • Whether we are like­ly to dis­close per­son­al infor­ma­tion to over­seas recip­i­ents and, if so, the coun­tries involved (where practicable)
  • How you may access per­son­al infor­ma­tion about you that we hold and seek the cor­rec­tion of such information
  • How you may com­plain about a breach of the Aus­tralian Pri­va­cy Prin­ci­ples and how we will deal with a complaint
  • Changes to this policy

The kinds of per­son­al infor­ma­tion that we col­lect and hold

Legal ser­vices: In rela­tion to our legal ser­vices, the kind of per­son­al infor­ma­tion we col­lect and hold in any giv­en cir­cum­stance is deter­mined by the legal ser­vices we are pro­vid­ing. It will gen­er­al­ly include your name, address­es and tele­phone num­bers (if you are our client, our clien­t’s nom­i­nat­ed con­tact per­son or anoth­er par­ty in a mat­ter involv­ing our client) and billing and pay­ment infor­ma­tion and dri­vers licence num­ber if you are our client. It may also extend to your date of birth, sex, mar­i­tal sta­tus, pass­port details (and there­fore nation­al­i­ty), Medicare num­ber, birth cer­tifi­cate details, mar­riage cer­tifi­cate details, pre­vi­ous name and oth­er infor­ma­tion which is col­lect­ed in the course of pro­vid­ing our legal ser­vices (par­tic­u­lar­ly to com­ply with the law for con­veyanc­ing mat­ters). Depend­ing on the mat­ter, we may also col­lect and hold per­son­al infor­ma­tion that is referred to in the Pri­va­cy Act as ​‘sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion’, such as infor­ma­tion about an indi­vid­u­al’s eth­nic ori­gin and health.

Mar­ket­ing our legal ser­vices: In rela­tion to mar­ket­ing our legal ser­vices, the kind of per­son­al infor­ma­tion we col­lect and hold is the name, address, email address, tele­phone num­ber, mar­ket­ing pref­er­ences, mar­ket­ing events pre­vi­ous­ly attend­ed, employ­er name, posi­tion title and Swaab con­tacts of an indi­vid­ual and oth­er infor­ma­tion which is appro­pri­ate for client-rela­tion­ship management.

You have the option of not iden­ti­fy­ing your­self, or of using a pseu­do­nym, when deal­ing with Swaab in rela­tion to a par­tic­u­lar mat­ter but not if you become a client or it would be imprac­ti­cal or unlaw­ful for us to per­mit you to do so.

  • Job appli­cants: We will col­lect and hold per­son­al infor­ma­tion in rela­tion to job appli­ca­tions. Such infor­ma­tion includes name, address, tele­phone num­bers and any CVs sub­mit­ted by job applicants;
  • Employ­ee infor­ma­tion: We will col­lect and hold per­son­al infor­ma­tion of the type described as an ​‘employ­ee record’ with­in the mean­ing of the Pri­va­cy Act 1988. Such infor­ma­tion includes but is not lim­it­ed to, health infor­ma­tion about the employ­ee and infor­ma­tion which includes their con­tact details, employ­ment con­tract, employ­ment record includ­ing any dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings, tax­a­tion, bank­ing and super­an­nu­a­tion affairs.

How we col­lect and hold per­son­al information

Legal ser­vices: In rela­tion to our legal ser­vices, how we col­lect per­son­al infor­ma­tion in any giv­en cir­cum­stance is deter­mined by the legal ser­vices we are pro­vid­ing. This may be direct­ly from you (if you are our client) or from anoth­er per­son who has an inter­est in pro­vid­ing us with the infor­ma­tion for their mat­ter (for exam­ple, from our client if you are par­ty to a mat­ter involv­ing our client), from pub­lic agen­cies, refer­rers and experts involved in a mat­ter or (for mat­ters such as con­veyanc­ing) from you via our autho­rised iden­ti­ty agents.

Mar­ket­ing our legal ser­vices: For mar­ket­ing our legal ser­vices, we col­lect per­son­al infor­ma­tion from you direct­ly or from those we con­sid­er have a legit­i­mate inter­est in pro­vid­ing your per­son­al infor­ma­tion to us (for exam­ple, the infor­ma­tion may be pro­vid­ed to us by a client com­pa­ny of which you are a nom­i­nat­ed contact).

  • Job appli­cants: For those per­sons who apply for posi­tions at Swaab, we col­lect per­son­al infor­ma­tion from you direct­ly. We also may col­lect per­son­al infor­ma­tion from your ref­er­ees. Per­son­al infor­ma­tion from unsuc­cess­ful job appli­cants may be destroyed or returned to you after con­sid­er­a­tion of the appli­ca­tion. If it is pro­posed to be kept on file we will advise you accord­ing­ly and will keep it on file unless you require its return or destruction.
  • Employ­ee infor­ma­tion: In con­duct­ing the Fir­m’s oper­a­tions we may col­lect and hold per­son­al infor­ma­tion of the type described as an ​‘employ­ee record’ with­in the mean­ing of the Pri­va­cy Act 1988. Such infor­ma­tion will be used by us for pur­pos­es asso­ci­at­ed with employ­ee matters.

We hold per­son­al infor­ma­tion in our phys­i­cal and elec­tron­ic files at our prin­ci­pal place of busi­ness and off­site stor­age facil­i­ties. Per­son­al infor­ma­tion may be held in these ways direct­ly by us or by third par­ty con­trac­tors on our behalf. In either case, it is our pol­i­cy to take such steps as are rea­son­able in the cir­cum­stances to pro­tect the infor­ma­tion from mis­use, inter­fer­ence and loss and from unau­tho­rised access, mod­i­fi­ca­tion or disclosure. 

The pur­pos­es for which we col­lect, hold, use and dis­close per­son­al information

We col­lect, hold, use and dis­close per­son­al infor­ma­tion in con­nec­tion with pro­vid­ing our legal ser­vices. We also col­lect, hold, use and dis­close per­son­al infor­ma­tion oth­er than sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion in con­nec­tion with respond­ing to enquiries (such as those via our web­site) and mar­ket­ing our legal ser­vices and those of our affil­i­ates (such as our affil­i­ates in the Mer­i­tas Glob­al Alliance).

These activ­i­ties are sub­ject to any legal oblig­a­tions by which we are bound — for exam­ple, con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, con­trac­tu­al and legal pro­fes­sion­al oblig­a­tions. There may also be cir­cum­stances where we are required by law to col­lect, hold, use and dis­close per­son­al infor­ma­tion — for exam­ple, to com­ply with legal­ly enforce­able infor­ma­tion dis­clo­sure require­ments of a court or reg­u­la­tor or to com­ply with legal oblig­a­tions to iden­ti­fy our clients.

Whether we are like­ly to dis­close per­son­al infor­ma­tion to over­seas recip­i­ents and, if so, the coun­tries involved (where practicable)

We may allow your per­son­al infor­ma­tion to be shared with those who are in coun­tries oth­er than Aus­tralia. We do this:

  • where we have made a busi­ness deci­sion to store our data with a trust­ed ser­vice provider who is in the busi­ness of pro­vid­ing data stor­age and pro­cess­ing ser­vices – for exam­ple, a ser­vice provider who stores and process­es our email and mobile appli­ca­tion data. These ser­vices com­mon­ly involve diverse geo­graph­ic loca­tions which change from time to time for rea­sons which include data pro­tec­tion and pro­cess­ing effi­cien­cy. Where these ser­vices are used by us, it is not prac­ti­cal for us to noti­fy you of which coun­try your per­son­al infor­ma­tion may be locat­ed in;
  • when you are in a dif­fer­ent coun­try loca­tion than us;
  • when our legal ser­vices nec­es­sar­i­ly involve over­seas disclosures

It is our pol­i­cy only to allow per­son­al infor­ma­tion to be shared over­seas in a way which requires obser­vance of strict pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty stan­dards, both dur­ing tran­sit and at the over­seas destination.

How you may access per­son­al infor­ma­tion about you that we hold and seek the cor­rec­tion of such information

You may access the per­son­al infor­ma­tion we hold about you and ask to cor­rect it by con­tact­ing our Pri­va­cy Com­pli­ance Offi­cer (see below). We may first need to ver­i­fy your iden­ti­ty so that we do not pro­vide your per­son­al infor­ma­tion to any­one who is not enti­tled to it. Your rights to access and cor­rect your per­son­al infor­ma­tion are sub­ject to any legal oblig­a­tions which bind us — for exam­ple, con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, con­trac­tu­al and legal pro­fes­sion­al obligations.

How you may com­plain about a breach of the Aus­tralian Pri­va­cy Prin­ci­ples and how we will deal with a complaint

We have a fair and respon­si­ble sys­tem for respond­ing to queries con­cern­ing the col­lec­tion, accu­ra­cy or dis­clo­sure of per­son­al infor­ma­tion. You may com­plain about any breach of the Aus­tralian Pri­va­cy Prin­ci­ples by con­tact­ing our Pri­va­cy Com­pli­ance Offi­cer (see below). If you are not hap­py with the way your pri­va­cy com­plaint is being han­dled, you may also ask the Pri­va­cy Com­pli­ance Offi­cer to esca­late the mat­ter to our Man­ag­ing Partner.

Our Pri­va­cy Com­pli­ance Officer’s con­tact details are:

Email:

email@​swaab.​com.​au

Atten­tion: Pri­va­cy Com­pli­ance Officer

Post:

Pri­va­cy Com­pli­ance Officer

Swaab

Lev­el 4, 20 Hunter Street

Syd­ney NSW 2001

Phone:

+61 2 9233 5544

If you believe that we have not ade­quate­ly han­dled your com­plaint, or for fur­ther infor­ma­tion about pri­va­cy gen­er­al­ly, you may con­tact the  Office of the Aus­tralian Infor­ma­tion Com­mis­sion­er:

Email:

enquiries@​oaic.​gov.​au

Post:

OAIC

GPO Box 5218

Syd­ney NSW 2001

Phone:

1300 363 992

Changes to this policy

We may mod­i­fy this pol­i­cy from time to time. We will give 2 weeks’ notice of the change via swaab​.com​.au (unless the law requires the change to be made sooner).

Our web­site and the use of cookies

Our web­site

When you vis­it our web­site, a record is made of your vis­it. We log the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion for the pur­pose of analysing and eval­u­at­ing the per­for­mance and oper­a­tion of our web­site: your IP address, the date and time of your vis­it to the site, the pages you accessed and doc­u­ments down­loaded, any pre­vi­ous site which referred you to our site, and the type of brows­er you are using.

‘Cook­ies’ are small text files which are placed on your com­put­er by a web­page serv­er. The pur­pose of a cook­ie is to help analyse web traf­fic and to let the web­site know when you vis­it a par­tic­u­lar page. Cook­ies allow a web appli­ca­tion to respond to you as an indi­vid­ual. They can record infor­ma­tion about your vis­it to the site, allow­ing it to remem­ber you next time you vis­it and pro­vide any rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion to you. Cook­ies are also used to enhance the secure use of websites.

Cook­ies can be stored in your hard dri­ve (per­sis­tent cook­ies) or in mem­o­ry (ses­sion cook­ies). A per­sis­tent cook­ie is a cook­ie which will enable a con­tin­u­ing record to be kept of your vis­its to the web­site. A ses­sion cook­ie is a cook­ie which is a tran­sient cook­ie and tracks your vis­its for a web­site ses­sion only.

Swaab uses ses­sion cook­ies to iden­ti­fy which pages of our web­site are being used for a web­site ses­sion only. Upon clos­ing your brows­er, the ses­sion cook­ie set by our web­site is destroyed and no per­son­al infor­ma­tion is retained. Swaab does not make any attempt to iden­ti­fy users or their gen­er­al brows­ing activities.

Links to third par­ty websites 

For your con­ve­nience, our web­site may con­tain links to oth­er third par­ty web­sites. If you do choose to use or fol­low a link to a third par­ty web­site, please be aware that those web­sites have their own pri­va­cy poli­cies and we can­not accept any respon­si­bil­i­ty for their use of any infor­ma­tion you may pro­vide to them.

Cred­it report­ing policy 

Intro­duc­tion

Our cred­it report­ing pol­i­cy (CRP) has been devel­oped in accor­dance with the Pri­va­cy Act 1988 (Pri­va­cy Act) and the Cred­it Report­ing Code (CRC). The CRP details how we gen­er­al­ly man­age your cred­it-relat­ed information.

For infor­ma­tion about our man­age­ment of your per­son­al infor­ma­tion, please see our Pri­va­cy Pol­i­cy. This CRP is rel­e­vant to cur­rent and for­mer clients, as well as oth­er indi­vid­u­als we deal with in con­nec­tion with cred­it we pro­vide (such as guar­an­tors and directors).

Col­lec­tion, use and dis­clo­sure of your cred­it-relat­ed information

Types of cred­it-relat­ed information

We col­lect and hold var­i­ous types of cred­it-relat­ed infor­ma­tion, including:

  1. your cur­rent and pri­or names and address­es, age, occu­pa­tion and your dri­ver’s licence number;
  2. your repay­ment history;
  3. pay­ments owed to us in con­nec­tion with cred­it pro­vid­ed to you or in rela­tion to which you are a guar­an­tor, over­due for more than 60 days (and, if you sub­se­quent­ly repay any such over­due pay­ment, the fact of that repayment);
  4. whether you have entered into arrange­ments with us or oth­er cred­it providers in con­nec­tion with cred­it pro­vid­ed to you;
  5. court pro­ceed­ings infor­ma­tion, per­son­al insol­ven­cy infor­ma­tion and cred­it-relat­ed pub­licly avail­able information;
  6. cer­tain admin­is­tra­tive infor­ma­tion relat­ing to cred­it, such as account and cus­tomer numbers.

Col­lec­tion of cred­it information

Cred­it infor­ma­tion may be col­lect­ed by us in a num­ber of ways including:

  1. pro­vid­ed by you direct­ly to us or by per­sons act­ing on your behalf (such as on appli­ca­tions or oth­er forms);
  2. in the pub­lic domain;
  3. infor­ma­tion derived by us from your usage and (where applic­a­ble) repay­ment of any account held with us.

Hold­ing cred­it information

We may hold your cred­it infor­ma­tion in phys­i­cal form or in elec­tron­ic form on our systems.

Our pro­ce­dures are designed to pre­vent your cred­it infor­ma­tion being accessed by unau­tho­rised per­son­nel, lost or mis­used. If you rea­son­ably believe that there has been unau­tho­rised use or dis­clo­sure of your cred­it infor­ma­tion please con­tact our Pri­va­cy Offi­cer (details above).

Pur­pos­es of col­lec­tion, use and dis­clo­sure of cred­it information

We will only col­lect per­son­al infor­ma­tion, to use and/​or dis­close your cred­it infor­ma­tion as rea­son­ably nec­es­sary for our busi­ness pur­pos­es and as per­mit­ted by law.

These pur­pos­es may include:

  1. to form deci­sions as to whether to pro­vide you, or an enti­ty asso­ci­at­ed with you, with cred­it or to accept you as a guarantor;
  2. to assist you to avoid default­ing on your cred­it-relat­ed obligations;
  3. to under­take debt recov­ery and enforce­ment activ­i­ties, includ­ing in rela­tion to guar­an­tors, and to deal with seri­ous cred­it infringements;
  4. to deal with com­plaints and meet legal and reg­u­la­to­ry requirements.

(Some cred­it infor­ma­tion may only be used or dis­closed under the Pri­va­cy Act for some of these pur­pos­es or in some circumstances).

Dis­clo­sure of cred­it infor­ma­tion to Cred­it Report­ing Bureaus

We may dis­close your cred­it infor­ma­tion to cred­it report­ing bureaus (CRB) for pur­pos­es such as those described above where the Pri­va­cy Act per­mits us to do so.

We will give you at least 14 days writ­ten notice of our inten­tion to dis­close your infor­ma­tion to a CRB.

We com­mit to advis­ing our CRB of pay­ment infor­ma­tion with­in a rea­son­able time­frame once the amount report­ed has been paid.

Dis­clo­sures of cred­it infor­ma­tion to third parties

We may (if per­mit­ted by law) dis­close your cred­it infor­ma­tion with third par­ties. In some cir­cum­stances we may require your con­sent before being able to make such disclosures.

We will not dis­close your cred­it infor­ma­tion to over­seas enti­ties unless you express­ly advise us to, apart from where it is con­tained in emails which are fil­tered by our email fil­ter­ing host in the Unit­ed Kingdom.

Cor­rect­ing your cred­it information 

If you believe that any cred­it infor­ma­tion held by us about you is incor­rect you have the right under the Pri­va­cy Act to request that we cor­rect that infor­ma­tion. If you would like to do so please con­tact our Pri­va­cy Offi­cer (details above).

We will attempt to resolve your cor­rec­tion requests in a time­ly man­ner. If we need more time to resolve your request we will noti­fy you in writ­ing as to the delay and seek your agree­ment to a longer period.

If we do not agree with a request to cor­rect cred­it infor­ma­tion we hold about you we will give you notice in writ­ing as to our rea­sons and the mech­a­nisms avail­able to you to com­plain about our decision.

There is no cost involved for you to make a cor­rec­tion request or for the cor­rec­tion of your information.