Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy sets out the policies and procedures regarding our collection, use, retention and disclosure of personal information in respect of our clients and others and supplements, where applicable, our professional obligations of confidentiality and solicitor/client privilege.
Collection of Personal Information
We collect personal information in order to provide legal and other related services to our clients, to administer client accounts, to establish and manage client relationships and other commercial relationships, and to comply with regulatory requirements. As well, we collect personal information to provide our clients with newsletters and to hold seminars concerning developments in the law.
When you open a client file with us, register to receive content or attend an event, communicate with us, send us an email, or post on our blog, you are giving us information that we collect.
That information may include personal information such as your IP address, name, physical address, email address, phone number, and other details including demographic information.
By giving us this information, you consent to your information being collected, used, disclosed, and stored by us, only as described in this Privacy Policy.
We will collect your information from you or from third parties and as agents on behalf of our clients, where we have obtained the requisite consent to do so (for example, upon a client’s instructions) or as otherwise permitted by law. From time to time you may provide us with the personal information of individuals other than yourself. You agree to obtain, prior to disclosing such information to us, the consent of such individuals to the disclosure, and subsequent use by us, of such personal information, in accordance with this Privacy Policy, unless otherwise permitted by law.
How We Collect Your Personal Information
We collect your personal information only by lawful and fair means and only with your consent or as required or permitted by law. Whenever possible and appropriate, we collect your personal information from you directly or from persons whom you have requested to provide us with information. Sometimes we may collect information about you from other sources such as financial institutions, insurance companies, other parties involved in your transaction or file, government agencies or registries, employers (if we are acting for you at your employer’s request), accountants or other professional advisors, and credit bureaus.
How We Use Your Information
We may use your personal information for the following purposes:
- to provide legal and related services
- to conduct conflict searches, in order to determine if we can represent you
- to assess client eligibility for credit
- to administer client accounts
- to fulfill our legal and professional obligations, including client identification and verification rules and other requirements of applicable provincial law societies
- to manage our business, including fulfilling contractual obligations and auditing our operations
- to provide information to representatives and advisors to help us comply with legal, accounting, or security requirements.
- to detect and prevent fraud
- to evaluate client satisfaction
- to provide you with information about our services and about developments in the law and to communicate with you generally
- for security and emergency purposes
- as otherwise permitted by law.
Disclosure of Your Personal Information
Subject to our professional obligations of confidentiality, we will only disclose your personal information for purposes related to its providing services to you, or with your express consent, or if required or authorized by law. For example, we may disclose your information:
- when disclosure to third parties assists us in providing you the legal services that you have requested, including retaining other law firms at your request
- when necessary to collect outstanding accounts or to assess eligibility for credit
- when necessary to comply with court orders, regulatory rules (including the rules of applicable provincial law societies) or to satisfy our insurance requirements
- when we reasonably believe that a third party requesting your personal information is your agent.
Information from Your Use of this Website
We may collect standard internet log information about how and when you use this website. This information may include but, not be limited to, your IP address and location data, weblogs, time, date, browser used, referring web addresses, other communication data, searches conducted, pages visited.
To ensure that our website is optimized for ease of use, we or our service provider(s) may use cookies to collect standard information about your language preferences, when you visit the site, your browser type and version, and other similar information. These cookies are intended to optimize your experience of the site. Cookies are files that store information on your hard drive or browser. They enable the website to identify your computer, and recognize that you have visited before.
Cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use the website. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. Cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.
We may use navigational data for system administration and to report aggregate information. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual. This means that your session may be tracked, but you will not be identified. We may use cookies to track the pages that you visit on the site. We may also collect non-personal information, such as number of site visits and tracking patterns of page viewing in order to monitor the performance of the site and make improvements to it.
If you do not want cookies sent to or stored on your system, most Internet browsers will allow you to delete or block cookies from your computer hard drive, prevent them from being stored or signal a warning before a cookie is stored. You should refer to your browser instructions or help screen to learn more about these functions. However, please note that if you use your browser settings to delete or block cookies you may not be able to access all or parts of our website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies as soon you visit the site. If you continue to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies.
Consent
We may obtain your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information either expressly, for stated purposes, or impliedly when the purposes are indicated by the relevant circumstances or follow logically from other stated purposes. By providing us with personal information, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of information relating to providing our services, managing our relationship with you, administering our business and as permitted or required by law, in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
We will seek your consent before using personal information for any purpose beyond the scope of your original consent. You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal and contractual restrictions and reasonable notice.
For example, if you no longer wish to receive our publications or receive information about our services, including by email, please send an e mail message to: Rajen@akalulaw.com with the subject line “unsubscribe”
Accuracy of Your Information
We will use reasonable efforts to ensure that your personal information is kept as accurate, complete and up-to-date as possible. We will not routinely update your Personal Information, unless such a process is necessary. In order to help us maintain and ensure that your Personal Information is accurate and up to date, you must inform us, without delay, of any change in the information you provided to us.
Security of Your Personal Information
We have policies and procedures in place to protect your personal information from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. In addition, we have implemented technological safeguards including security software, passwords and firewalls to prevent unauthorized computer access.
The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to us or to this website; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorized access.
Information Transferred to Service Providers
When we transfer your personal information to a third party to provide administrative and other services, we use appropriate measures to ensure that the third party will only use your personal information to perform the services we have specified.
Social Media Features
Our website may include social media features, such as LinkedIn, the Facebook Like button and widgets, such as the “Share This” button or interactive mini-programs on our site. These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our site, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our site. Your interactions with such a feature are governed by the privacy policy of the organization providing it.
Links to Third-Party Sites
Our Site includes links to other websites, whose privacy practices may differ from ours. If you submit Personal Information to any of those websites, your information is governed by their privacy policies and we do not accept any responsibility or liability in respect of such third party sites. Please check the privacy policies published on any third party sites which you may access through the website before submitting personal information to them.
Access to Your Personal Information
You may ask for access to any information that we hold about you. You also may ask how we collected the information, how we are using it, and to whom we have disclosed it. In certain circumstances we may be unable to provide access to some or all of the information that we hold about you. If we are unable or not permitted by law to provide you with access, we will provide you with an explanation and indicate further steps which are available to you.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We regularly review this Privacy Policy and may amend it from time to time.
Questions, Concerns, Access to Information
If you have any questions or concerns or wish to obtain further information about our personal information policies and procedures, or if you wish to access your personal information or change any consent regarding our use or disclosure of your personal information, please use our contact form.
