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Privacy Policy

About This Statement

Baker O’Brien Toll is committed to respecting the privacy of your personal information.

This policy statement explains how we collect, store, use and disclose personal information (including credit information and credit eligibility information) and what steps we take to comply with privacy laws.

In this Policy, we use the terms “us”, “we” and “our” to refer to Baker O’Brien & Toll Solicitors.

We are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) including Division 3 of Part IIIA and the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Act and are committed to protecting personal information we may hold at any time in respect of any individual, in accordance with those requirements.

Those principles do not apply to certain records and practices relating to the employment relationship between us and our employees.

We may, in connection with particular services we offer or provide to you, make other privacy disclosures to you or seek your authority to use your personal information in ways which are different from or more specific than those stated in this Privacy Policy. In the event of any inconsistency between the provisions of this Privacy Policy and those other disclosures, the other disclosures will apply.

It is important that you read and understand this Privacy Policy.

Table of Contents

What Is “Personal Information?”

“Personal Information” is information or an opinion about a reasonably identifiable individual. The types of personal information that we collect includes the following information about you which is relevant to our relationship or the service you are enquiring about: name, address, contact details, date of birth and the reason or reasons you may have made an enquiry with us.

We may also collect information regarding your internet activity (including your location) when you use our website or online services.

Sensitive Information

“Sensitive Information” is a subcategory of personal information. We may be required to collection sensitive information about you and we realise that this is often very personal and we will treat it with the highest degree of security and confidentiality.

Why Do We Collect Personal Information?

We only collect, hold and use personal information about you which is necessary for us to establish and administer the services you retain us for and to provide the services to you or to comply with the law.

We will tell you the main reasons for collecting your personal information when we ask for it, however, the purposes for which we will generally collect and use your information include considering any inquiry you make with us and providing services to you, performing administrative functions, conducting client satisfaction research, improving our services and developing new services and telling you about our other services.  You may tell us at any time that you do not want us to advise you about other services (see Marketing below for more details).

We may also collect your personal information to comply with legislative and regulatory requirements for example under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth).

How Do We Collect Personal Information?

We ordinarily collect personal information directly from you or where it is provided to us with your authority (e.g from a person appointed to act on your behalf). For example, we collect personal information through forms you fill out or through your ongoing interaction with us for example by telephone, mail and electronic communications or when you visit us.

We may be also required to collect personal information about you from a third party. These parties may include your representatives such as financial advisers or accountants, your insurers, publicly available sources (e.g telephone directories), brokers, referrers or other intermediaries, government agencies (e.g Centrelink and the ATO).

Sometimes we may be required to collect sensitive health information about you from a third party, for example a doctor or a hospital.

In addition to the above, we may use technology called “cookies” to collect statistical information on our website use. When you call us on the telephone, we may monitor and in some cases record the telephone conversation for staff training and record-keeping purposes. Further, when we communicate with you by email, we may use technology to identify you so that we will be in a position to know when you have opened the email or clicked on a link in the email.

If personal information about you is collected by third parties on any website you have accessed through our websites, we may also collect or have access to that information as part of our arrangement with those third parties.

We may also collect basic personal information about third parties (e.g. an employer or a health provider) if provided by your as part of providing our services.

Finally, from time to time we may receive information that we have not asked for about you from third parties. We will only keep, use and disclose this information if permitted by law.

 How Do We Store Personal Information?

We store your personal information in a number of ways including:

  • In electronic systems and devices;
  • In telephone recordings; and
  • In paper files.

This may include storage on our behalf by third party service providers. See our comments below about how we protect your personal information.

How Do We Protect Personal Information?

We take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These include;

  • Using appropriate information technology and processes;
  • Restricting access to your personal information to our employees and those who perform services for us who need your personal information to do what we have engaged them to do;
  • Protecting paper documents from unauthorised access or use through security systems we deploy over our physical premises;
  • Using computer and network security systems with appropriate firewalls, encryption technology and passwords for the protection of electronic files;
  • Securely destroying or “de-identifying” personal information if we no longer require it subject to our legal obligations to keep some information for certain prescribed periods; and
  • Requesting certain personal information from you when you wish to discuss any issues relating to the services we provide to you.

Whilst we take reasonable measures, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed as fully secure and accordingly, we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you send to us using our online forms or contacts. You submit information over the internet at your own risk.

Why Do We Exchange Personal Information with Third Parties?

We may need to disclose information about you to certain organisations in connection with the services we provide you.

The types of organisations to which we may disclose this information include regulatory bodies and government agencies, courts and external dispute resolution schemes, your agents, brokers, referrers and other intermediaries, agents, contractors and professional advisors who assist us in providing our services, your referees and guarantors, your or our insurers, organisations that carry out functions on our behalf including mailing houses, data processors, researchers, debt collectors, system developers or testers,  accountants, auditors, valuers and lawyers.

We may also disclose your personal information to third parties where you request us to or consent to us doing so or in order to fulfil our legal obligations.

The information we provide to other organisations will be limited to what is required to provide the service or comply with the law.

Marketing

From time to time we may also use your personal information to let you know about other services that you might be interested in.

If you do not want to receive advertising materials, please contact us.

Accessing and Correcting Personal Information

We take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up-to-date.

You may request access to the personal information we hold about you at any time by:

Baker O’Brien & Toll
PO BOX 380
BUNDABERG QLD 4670

In certain circumstances, we may be unable to give you access to all of your personal information in our possession. Some of these circumstances include;

  • Where giving you access would compromise some other person’s privacy;
  • Where giving you access would disclose commercially-sensitive information of ours or any of our agents or contractors;
  • Where we are prevented by law from giving you access; or
  • Where the personal information you request relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings.

If we are unable to give you access, we will consider whether the use of an intermediary is appropriate and would allow sufficient access to meet the needs of both parties.

Where we do grant access to your information, we may charge you a fee for accessing your personal information.

Under the Privacy Act, you also have a right to request that we correct information that you believe to be inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading.

If at any time you believe that personal information about you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, please advise us by;

Baker O’Brien & Toll
PO BOX 380
BUNDABERG QLD 4670

We will take all reasonable steps to correct the information. If we do not correct the information, you can also ask us to include with the information held, a statement from you claiming that the information is not correct.

If there is a denial of access to your personal information or a dispute as to the correctness of any personal information held, we will provide you with reasons for the denial or its refusal to correct the personal information. If you disagree with our decision for the denial or refusal to correct the personal information, you may request that we review the decision via our complaints handling procedures which are outlined below.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

This statement sets out our current Privacy Policy. It replaces any other Privacy Policies which have been issued before the date of this Privacy Policy.

Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will notify you of any change by posting access to an updated version on our website at www.bot.com.au.

You may also obtain a copy of our current Privacy Policy by:

  • Visiting us at 7 Maryborough Street, Bundaberg QLD 4670;
  • Via our website at bot.com.au; or by
  • Telephoning us on 07 4152 4555.

We encourage you to periodically review our Privacy Policy for any changes.

Our Internet Website

This Privacy Policy applies to our website operated by us at the following domain name, www.bot.com.au and any other website/s operated by us or on our behalf which we authorise to provide a link to this Privacy Policy.

When you use a link from our website or from any other website to which this Privacy Policy applies, to the website of third parties, those websites are not subject to our privacy standards. Those third parties are responsible for informing you of their own privacy policies.

Lodging Complaints

We are committed to resolving any complaint you may have. Complaints can be received in several ways:

  • In person;
  • By phone;
  • In writing;
  • Via email;
  • Via the Baker O’Brien & Toll’s website.

Internal Dispute Resolution

Our representative will be in contact with your regarding your complaint and will let you know who will be assisting you, their contact details and the expected resolution date of your issue within 72 hours.

If the issue is a more complicated one, we may ask you for additional documentation to help resolve the issue. In turn, we will keep you updated on the progress of your complaint. We may also provide you with information on how to contact an external dispute resolution scheme.

If you are not satisfied that the matter has been resolved, we can forward the complaint to our Senior Partner.  The Senior Partner will review the complaint and take further actions in an attempt to resolve it.

Customers may contact the Senior Partner by any of the following means;

Baker O’Brien & Toll
PO BOX 380
BUNDABERG QLD 4670

In the unlikely event that your complaint remains unresolved to your satisfaction through the internal procedures outlined above, you may elect to refer your complaint to external dispute resolution. You may also obtain more information about privacy protection from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). If you wish to proceed with external dispute resolution and/or make a complaint about how we handled your personal information then you may elect to contact the OAIC;

GPO BOX 5218
SYDNEY NSW 2001

Contacting Us

If you have any further questions or concerns about the way we manage your personal information, including if you think we have breached the Australian Privacy Principles, Part IIIA of the Privacy Act please contact:

  • Privacy Officer

Baker O’Brien & Toll
PO BOX 380
BUNDABERG QLD 4670

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