This Privacy Policy sets out how Goldman Legal (“we”, “us” and “our”) collects, uses, stores and discloses personal information about our clients, potential clients, persons associated with our clients, suppliers and others. As a firm, we are bound by the Privacy Act 2020 (“the Act”) and the privacy principles set out in the Act.
For the purposes of this policy, “personal information” means information about an identifiable individual.
Why we collect personal information?
We collect personal information in order to conduct our business, to provide our services and to meet our legal obligations (“Services”).
How we collect personal information?
Information you provide to us directly: Our usual practice is to collect personal information directly whenever an individual interacts with us for the purposes of providing our Services, such as when we are instructed to represent and advise a client. Personal information may be collected in a number of ways. For example:
- when we receive an enquiry using the contact form on our website (“Website”)
- any forms completed on our website and emailed to us
- face to face meetings and interviews
- telephone conversations
Information we get from third parties: Third parties may provide us with personal information about an individual, such as a background check, credit check, verification of your identity, a report provided by a medical practitioner or a reference from another person.
Information you make public: We may collect or obtain your personal information that you manifestly choose to make public, including via online channels.
Information we collect automatically: We also collect information from our Website. When the Website is visited, we collect general user information such as user internet protocol addresses, browser type, internet service provider details and other technical information. We use this information to analyse web traffic, which may involve the use of cookies. The information does not include any personal information.
What personal information do we collect?
We collect your personal information so that we can provide you with our Services and any related services you may request. In general, the type of personal information that we collect includes (but is not limited to): names, addresses, contact details, bank account and other financial information, identity verification such as your driver’s licence, passport and birth certificate and other information which assists us to conduct our business, provide and market our Services and meet our legal obligations under applicable privacy laws and the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009.
In many cases, if personal information is not provided as requested, we may not be able to carry out the instructions or provide our Services.
How we use or disclose your personal information?
We may use and disclose personal information for the purpose for which it is collected, for directly related purposes, for other purposes authorised by you and in other circumstances authorised by the Act. We may use and disclose personal information:
- to provide legal services and client services
- to carry out our responsibilities as an employer;
- to verify your identity details;
- to process your personal information for our own internal
- business purposes;
- to carry out firm and trust account transactions, such as client billing and payments, firm creditors, and client trust account transactions;
- for debt recovery purposes, which may also include disclosing information to debt collectors;
- to provide promotional information and newsletters in hard copy or electronic form, or information that we believe may be of interest;
- to comply with our legal obligations, and to meet our reporting obligations as required by law.
We may be required to disclose personal information to third parties in the course of representing and advising our clients if it is required or authorised by an individual; by law; or by the Law Society’s Rules of Professional Conduct.
Storage and security of personal information
Personal information may be stored in hard copy and/or electronic form. All data that is stored electronically is encrypted and stored securely in the “cloud” in data centres located both inside and outside New Zealand.
If your information is held in the form of physical documentation, and is destroyed, it will be destroyed by a confidential professional destruction service.
We’ll retain your personal information for as long as we have a relationship with you and for a period of time afterwards where we have an ongoing business need to retain it, in accordance with our internal retention policies and practices. Following that period, we’ll make sure it’s deleted or anonymised. Otherwise, as a general rule, we only keep your personal information for as long as we require it for the purposes of providing you with our Services.
In the event of a privacy breach, we have established procedures for notifying the Privacy Commissioner and the individual affected, including setting out the reasonable steps we have taken to mitigate the effects of a privacy breach, should we be required to do so under law.
If you wish to enquire about personal information we hold about you (if any) or make any changes to that information, you can contact us as follows: [email protected]
What about links to other websites?
Links or references to other websites are provided for your convenience only. Other websites are not under our control. We have not reviewed them and we do not endorse or assume responsibility for the contents of any other website.
Email, text and telephone communication
We are committed to complying with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007.
By subscribing to emails communications, or otherwise providing your email address, you consent to receiving emails which promote and market our products and services, or the products and services of others, from time to time. You can unsubscribe from our email communications at any time by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link in any promotional or marketing email received or by emailing [email protected]
Once you have unsubscribed from the email or text communications, you will be removed from the corresponding marketing list as soon as is reasonably practicable.
Updates to this Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy will be reviewed from time to time to take account of new legislation and technology, changes to our operations and practises, and the changing business environment. Changes to this Privacy Policy will be notified by posting an updated version on our Website.
We welcome any feedback or questions about our Policy or any other interaction you may have had with us. Please feel free to email us at [email protected]