Privacy Policy

Force Legal is an Australian Incorporated Legal Practice. Force Legal understands that privacy and how we collect, use, disclose and protect your information is important to you. We are committed to ensuring the privacy of your information and to complying with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), which are contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act).

In summary, personal information is information or an opinion (whether true or not) about an individual who is identified or reasonably identifiable.

The types of personal information that Force Legal may collect, and hold will depend on the nature of your dealings with us. We may collect and hold personal information in relation to:

• clients, business associates and potential clients and their employees;
• individuals, which we collect in the course of acting for clients;
• suppliers and their employees;
• employees, prospective employees and contractors; and
• other people who come into contact with a member of the Force Legal team.

For more information on the collection, use and disclosure of personal information of job applicants, please refer to section 6 of this policy.

The personal information we will collect from you may include:

name, address, age, occupation, qualifications/professional membership, and other contact information;

• information specific to the legal advice sought by a client or arising in the course of giving legal advice;
• interest in areas of legal practice or events; and
• information about people’s dealings with us or our clients, including about visits made to our offices or to events with which we are involved.

Please note that we do not collect personal information that we do not need and while we seek to minimise the personal information we collect, if you do not provide us with personal information we request, we may not be able to communicate with you or provide you with the services and other assistance you seek.

Generally, we endeavour to collect personal information directly from the individuals concerned to the extent it is reasonable and practicable to do so. However, in some circumstances, we may collect an individual’s personal information from third parties, including from publicly available sources. If so, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the individuals concerned are made aware of the collection of their information.

If you are one of Force Legal’s ‘business contacts’ (e.g. a contact person in one of our suppliers, or in a government agency or company or client with which we deal), we may collect basic business contact information from you (e.g. your name, title and work contact details). Force Legal will not ask to collect sensitive information about you (such as details of your racial or ethnic origin, political affiliation, religious beliefs, sexual preferences, criminal convictions or health information) unless it is needed for the purposes of providing legal advice.

Force Legal’s policy is only to use personal information collected from business contacts for the business purpose for which it was collected. Force Legal may need to collect personal information so that we can provide our products and services and conduct our business. We also collect personal information so that we can communicate new legal or firm developments, including advertising new products or services that we offer, to our clients and to those people who have subscribed to our website, alert services or mailing lists. If, at any time

Force Legal does not sell, rent or trade personal information about you to or with third parties. Personal information may be disclosed outside of Force Legal in the circumstances described below:

• you are a client of Force Legal, or you are employed by, contracted to or are an agent of, a client of Force Legal, we may disclose your personal information to:
  • barristers, other legal specialists (including mediators), consultants or experts engaged in your matter; or
  • foreign law firms for the purpose of obtaining foreign legal advice.
• if we have collected your personal information in the course of providing legal services to any of our clients, we may disclose it to that client, and where permitted by law to others for the purpose of providing those services;
• we may disclose your personal information to our members, employees, agents, consultants and sub-contractors who assist us in running our business, including this website, or provide related services, and who are subject to security and confidentiality obligations;
• we may disclose your contact details on a confidential basis to third parties for the purposes of collecting your feedback on the firm’s service provision, to help us measure our performance and to improve and promote our services;
• we may disclose your personal information between certain Force Legal corporate or trust entities on a confidential basis for our internal administrative, billing and other business purposes, or for the purpose of providing legal services; and
• we will make whatever disclosures of your personal information that the law requires or authorises us to make.

Force Legal takes reasonable steps to ensure the security of any personal information that we hold and protect it from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, alteration and disclosure. Our security measures include the following:

• security procedures for access to our business premises;
• security procedures within our offices;
• IT security procedures including password protection, firewalls, intrusion detection and site monitoring; and
• mandatory confidentiality guidelines for all staff.

Under the Privacy Act, you have the right to:

• seek access to your personal information handled by Force Legal;
• ask us to update or correct your personal information when it is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date; and
• opt-out of receiving direct marketing communications from us.

If you wish to access the personal information that Force Legal holds about you, please set out your request in writing, using the contact details set out at the end of this Privacy Policy.

To provide you with access to your personal information held by us on our current records, Force Legal can provide you with a copy of the relevant personal information (ordinarily, an electronic print-out or a photocopy). Force Legal will not charge you for the cost of providing this type of access to these current records.

For legal and administrative reasons, Force Legal may also archive non-current records containing personal information, such as back up data files and offsite storage. Please note that if we do provide access to old records, we may charge you for the cost of providing such access.

If you are of the view that personal information about you is inaccurate or out of date, or if you have any other queries about access and correction, please contact us using the contact details set out below.

• When you visit our website, a small data file called a “cookie” may be stored on your computer or mobile device by our server.
• We may use cookies or digital markers to maintain user sessions (e.g. if you subscribe to the site to gain access to a publication, we may use cookies so when you next visit you do not need to re- enter your details). Like most website providers, we generate statistics about how many people visit our site and how people use our website. We use web logs and cookies to do this. This enables us to keep our site relevant and useful. However, generally this information will not identify you. We do not link this information back to your identity or other information that you have provided to us. We do not store any information that identifies you inside cookies.
• By using our website(s), and not opting out of cookies, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy. Most web browsers are set by default to accept cookies. However, if you do not wish to receive cookies you may set your browser to either prompt or refuse cookies (including Force Legal cookies). If you use your browser settings to block all cookies, you may not be able to access and/or use all or parts of our website.

Sometimes our website may contain links to other websites, for your convenience and information. When you access a website other than https://www.forcelegal.com.au/, please understand that Force Legal is not responsible for the privacy practices of that site. We suggest that you review the privacy policies of each site you visit.

If you have any questions about privacy-related issues or wish to complain about a breach of the APPs or the handling of your personal information by Force Legal, please contact us using the contact details set out below. We may ask you to lodge your complaint in writing. Any complaint will be investigated, and you will be notified of the making of a decision in relation to your complaint as soon as is practicable after it has been made, usually within 30 days.

• Force Legal collects personal information about and from individuals who apply for employment with the firm. The information we may collect includes the job applicant’s:
  • personal contact details and gender;
  • educational and employment history, and relevant qualifications and employment history;
  • eligibility to work in Australia; and
  • referees’ contact details.
• We may collect this information directly from the job applicant or indirectly from a third party, including from a recruitment agency.
• If necessary, we will also collect information about applicants from referees and from professional social networking sites like LinkedIn. If the applicant proceeds to the interview stage, we will collect information about the applicant’s performance during interview.
• If you do not provide with us the information we request, we may not be able to process or assess your job application.
• If you do not provide with us the information we request, we may not be able to process or assess your job application.

This Force Legal Privacy Policy may change from time to time. The Force Legal Privacy Policy will be made available to anyone who requests it, whether at our office or by use of our website.

If you have any questions or comments about the Force Legal Privacy Policy, please set out your request in writing, and forward this to our Privacy Officer, using the contact details below.

Email: privacy@forcelegal.com.au
Mail: Force Legal

Level 11, 75 Elizabeth Street Sydney,
New South Wales 2000