Fortis Law Group is an Australian legal advisory firm. Fortis Law Group 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.
1. Personal Information which Fortis Law Group may collect and hold
The types of personal information that Fortis Law Group 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 Fortis Law Group 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 Fortis Law Groups’ ‘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). Fortis Law Group 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.
2. Fortis Law Group use of Personal Information
Fortis Law Group’s policy is only to use personal information collected from business contacts for the business purpose for which it was collected. Fortis Law Group 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, you do not wish to receive these kinds of communications, please let us know using the contact details set out in section 9 below.