Privacy Policy
This page informs you of our policy regarding the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information we receive. By using this site and/or our services, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Policy.
Background
We maintain a policy of strict confidence concerning our clients’ personal information. Our privacy policy has been developed in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) including the Australian Privacy Principles, where applicable. The policy applies to Grassi Pty. Limited (ACN 131 922 266) as Trustee of the Grassi Legal Unit Business Unit Trust trading as Joseph Grassi + Associates (we, us or our).
Privacy Act 1988
Our Privacy Policy sets out the manner in which we may collect and treat personal information as defined in the Privacy Act (Personal Information). It also describes how you as a client may access and amend personal information held by us on your behalf.
The Australian Privacy Principles can be obtained through the website of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/australian-privacy-principles).
Contact Details
Our contact details are as follows:
Address:
Suite 1, 86 Henry Street,
PENRITH NSW 2750
Telephone: 02 4702 5905
Email: info@grassiassociates.com.au
Website: www.grassiassociates.com.au
Collection of Personal Information
We may collect Personal Information from you when you instruct us to provide you with legal services that is reasonably necessary for our functions, activities and legal obligations. We may also collect Personal Information from you if you make an enquiry via our website that can be used to contact or identify you, if you attend one of our seminars or subscribe to our mailing list.
The Personal Information that we collect from you may include your name, contact details, date of birth, address, identity document details, property or transaction details, and information about your authorised representatives, company officers, trustees, beneficiaries, beneficial owners or agents.
Where we are required to comply with the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) and related rules, we may also collect, use and retain personal information for customer due diligence, identity verification, risk assessment, reporting and record-keeping purposes.
We may collect personal information directly from you, from your authorised representatives, from other parties involved in a matter or transaction, from public registers, from government agencies, from identity verification providers, and from other third parties where permitted by law.
If required information is not provided, we may be unable to act for you, verify your identity, complete a transaction, provide a service, or comply with our legal obligations.
By providing personal information to us, you acknowledge that we will handle your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
We will keep your Personal Information in our offices. When your matter is completed we will store your records and any related Personal Information electronically.
Use and Disclosure of Information
The Personal Information we obtain helps provide an efficient legal service to you.
It also helps in raising your awareness of our activities, services we provide and new legal developments.
We will not use Personal Information for purposes other than;
- providing our legal services;
- complying with our legal obligations and
- providing details of our legal services and upcoming seminars through our mailing list.
In the course of providing legal services, we may disclose your personal information to third parties. However, we will ensure the disclosure of any Personal Information to entities outside of our firm will be bound by the same principles of confidentiality we are bound to.
Where identity documents are provided, we may record relevant details such as document type, document number, expiry date and verification outcome. We will take reasonable steps not to retain copies of full identity documents longer than necessary, unless retention is required or authorised by law.
We are also bound by strict professional ethics and legal professional privilege to ensure any type of information collected on your behalf is maintained in accordance with such principles.
We may disclose personal information where reasonably necessary for our services or where required or authorised by law. This may include disclosure to courts, regulators, government agencies, AUSTRAC, law enforcement bodies, land title authorities, revenue authorities, electronic lodgment network operators, banks, lenders, other lawyers or conveyancers, identity verification providers, insurers, IT providers and professional advisers.
Information Security
We require our employees to perform their duties in a manner that is consistent with our responsibilities under the Privacy Act.
We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that paper and electronic records containing Personal Information are stored in our offices or secure record management facilities.
Access and Amendment
If you wish to access your Personal Information, then you may contact our Privacy Officer and request that this be done. In the interests of your privacy, we may require you to verify in writing your identity prior to releasing your Personal Information. Any questions you may have in relation to accessing Personal Information should be addressed to our Privacy Officer.
We will return the Personal Information to you in accordance with our normal retrieval practices.
We will take steps to destroy, amend or de-identify Personal Information in as short a time as possible after being notified by you in writing to do so unless the law requires otherwise.
We reserve the right to charge you for the reasonable cost of retrieving your Personal Information.
Change in Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to change our privacy policy at any time. You should visit our privacy policy from time to time to see whether it has been updated. Your continued instructions are we make any modifications to the Privacy Policy will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Privacy Policy.
Privacy Officer
Our Privacy Officer will be the first point of contact for inquiries about privacy issues. Individuals wishing to make an inquiry or complaint regarding privacy should do so by contacting our Privacy Officer using the contact details below:
Privacy Officer: Lois Grassi
Collecting Personal Information
All information collected is to provide legal services to you and to the community. Generally, we will obtain personal information directly from you. This will include contact details and may include sensitive information such as professional or trade associations and health information. If we obtain information about you without your knowledge and the law requires your express consent to obtain it, then you will be contacted by us.
We may also collect information from you if you subscribe to any of our regular mail-outs, seminars or client functions.
Access
If access to your Privacy Information we may have concerning you is required, you may request to see what it is and if it is up to date. This will be subject to any exemptions allowed under the Privacy Act.
If we refuse to allow access to your Personal Information, you will be informed and given details of what exemptions under the Privacy Act prevent its acquisition. Please note, an access request will most probably incur a reasonable fee in providing such a service.
Accuracy
All reasonable steps are taken to ensure that the Personal Information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If any information we have is inaccurate you are invited to contact us immediately and we will take all reasonable steps to correct it.
Security
The security of your Personal Information is important to us. We take reasonable steps to maintain Personal Information in a secure environment. Our electronic security measures include firewalls, password protection and restricting access to authorised personnel.
However, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure. While we use reasonable safeguards to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
Cookies
Cookies are files with small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Like many sites, we use “cookies” to collect information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Site.
Log Data
Like many site operators, we collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our Site (“Log Data”). This Log Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our Site that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages and other statistics.