McCabes Privacy Policy

McCabes ACN 626 085 685 and its related entities (McCabes, we, us or our) are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), including the Australian Privacy Principles (Privacy Law).

This Privacy Policy describes the way that we collect, hold, store and disclose your personal information. We will treat your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Law.

By providing personal information to us, you consent to us collecting, holding, using and disclosing your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

What personal information do we collect and hold?

Personal information means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable from the information.

The personal information we collect about you will usually include your name, title, address, e-mail address and contact numbers (telephone and mobile). To provide legal or other services to you, we may also need to collect and hold:

  1. additional general personal information, such as your date of birth, nationality, driver’s licence number, employment history, reference and background check information, identity verification information, your right to work in Australia, your expertise, business interests, educational qualifications, financial records, income details, asset listings, financial or billing information, such as billing address, bank account, payment and credit card details, and your marketing and communication preferences; and
  2. sensitive information, such as your family composition, racial or ethnic origin, criminal record, medical records, disability status, sexual preferences, religious belief or health information.

We will only collect sensitive information about you with your consent or when permissible under Australian law and will only use this information for a legitimate purpose where it is reasonably necessary.

You are not required to provide us with any of your personal information. However, if you do not provide us with your personal information, we may not be able to provide you with our services, communicate with you or respond to your enquiries.

How do we collect personal information?

We may collect personal information about you when:

  1. request us to provide legal and other services to you, your organisation or other representative;
  2. or the organisation that you work for, are a counterparty, or provide services to a counterparty, of our client;
  3. access, use, or browse our website, our MC Max application or any other application that we may release from time to time (Applications);
  4. or the organisation you work for, is a regulator, government agency, court, tribunal or other law enforcement agency and have a relationship with our client;
  5. subscribe to a McCabes newsletter;
  6. provide personal information to us in the course of our provision of legal and other services to you;
  7. attend an event hosted or sponsored by us;
  8. supply products or services to us; or
  9. apply for or register your interest in employment with us.

We will primarily collect your personal information directly from you, from our clients or their counterparties or from your authorised representatives.

We may also from time to time collect personal information about you from third parties such as regulatory authorities, your employer, other organizations with whom you have dealings, government agencies, credit reporting agencies, recruitment agencies, your other professional advisers or publicly available records.

If we receive personal information from you about your customers, employees or other individuals, you are responsible for ensuring that such information has been disclosed to us in accordance with the Privacy Law.

Why do we collect personal information?

We may collect, hold and use your personal information so that we can:

  1. provide legal and other services to you and your organisation;
  2. provide you with legal updates and information about events we are hosting or sponsoring;­
  3. identify and develop new services that may interest you and your organisation;
  4. communicate with you and manage our relationships with you and your organisation;
  5. provide you with work experience opportunities, discuss any potential roles, consider your application and assess your suitability for roles;
  6. comply with applicable laws and our legal and professional obligations;
  7. comply with court orders and protect, exercise or defend our legal rights;
  8. manage client referrals;
  9. verify your identity;
  10. conduct market research and analysis;
  11. maintain user profiles within the Applications;
  12. improve and develop the Applications; and
  13. assist you with your requests, enquiries or complaints.

We may also use your personal information to send you promotional material in relation to our services from time to time. If we do so, we will provide you with the option to opt ­out of receiving this material.

To whom do we disclose personal information?

We may disclose your personal information to our related companies operating as law firms under the McCabes brand in order to provide you with legal services and otherwise as required for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We may also disclose your personal information to other third parties from time to time, including:

  1. our clients, where we have collected your personal information to provide legal or other services to our clients;
  2. third parties involved in the provisions of services to our clients including barristers, local counsel and other professional advisers;
  3. our professional advisers, auditors and insurers;
  4. regulatory bodies, courts, tribunals, government agencies, law enforcement agencies and as otherwise required or authorised by law;
  5. third party service providers to whom we outsource services, for example for archiving, auditing, reference checking, professional advisory (including legal, accounting, financial and business consulting), IT support, mailing house, delivery, website, social media, research, banking, payment, client contact, data processing, insurance, forensic, litigation support, data room, marketing and security services; and
  6. third party service providers and their related bodies corporate which host our Applications.

Where we do so, disclosure will be as permitted under the Privacy Law and/or with your consent if required. If the nature of services you request requires it, we may disclose your personal information to a person located in another country. Before we disclose personal information to an overseas recipient, we will take reasonable steps to obtain your consent and to ensure that the overseas recipient does not breach the Privacy Principles in respect of that personal information. Those countries to which we are most likely to disclose personal information include Canada, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Germany.

We do not sell or trade personal information about you to or with third parties.

How do we store and secure personal information?

We value the security and confidentiality of the personal information we collect and hold about you and we take reasonable steps to hold information securely in electronic or physical form and to prevent unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

We store most personal information we collect and hold about you in computer systems and databases operated either by us or our external service providers. We also record some information about you in paper files which we store securely.

We implement and maintain processes and security measures to protect personal information we hold from misuse, interference, loss, or unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These processes and systems include:

  1. confidentiality agreements for our employees and contractors;
  2. security measures for our systems access;
  3. periodic evaluation of information protection practices;
  4. acceptable use agreements for our employees with respect to personal smart phones, laptops and tablets;
  5. ensuring that our service providers have appropriate security safeguards to keep the personal information we hold about you secure; and
  6. use of secured offices and data storage.

We will retain your personal information for as long as it is required for our business functions, or for any other lawful purpose. For example, we necessarily retain records of client names and the names of opposing parties indefinitely, so as to avoid conflicts of interest.

When we no longer need to retain your personal information for the purposes outlined above, we will destroy or de-identify the information as required by law.

While we take these reasonable steps to protect the personal information we hold about you, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information. You should take appropriate care to help safeguard your information.

The Applications may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. We do not share your personal information with those websites and we are not responsible for the privacy practices of the owners or operators of those websites. The privacy policies that apply to those other websites may differ from our privacy policy, so we encourage you to read them before using those websites.

Cookies

We may use ‘cookies’, web beacons and other similar technologies on the Applications. Cookies are small text files stored on your computer, mobile device or the web page you are viewing.

We may use this information to provide the Applications to you, for statistical, marketing and website development purposes, and to enhance your personalised experience of the Applications. To the greatest extent possible, this data is anonymous.

For example, when you visit our website, we collect general anonymous information (such as your browser type, information downloaded, pages visited and the domain name and country from which you request information) periodically for statistical and website development purposes.

We will not make any attempt to use this information to personally identify you.

You may choose not to use cookies by selecting the appropriate settings in your browser. However, please note that if you do so, this may affect your ability to use the full functionality of the Application.

Access to and correction of personal information

You can request access to, and request us to update or correct, the personal information we hold about you.

If you would like to do so, or if you would like any furtherinformation about our privacy policy and practices, please contact our Privacy Officer, using the contact details below:

  • The Privacy Officer
  • Level 38, 25 Martin Place, Sydney, NSW, 2000
  • Telephone: + 61 2 92611211
  • Email: [email protected]

If you request access to your personal information or ask us to correct or update it, we may need to verify your identity. In some circumstances, we may refuse your request if permitted by relevant legislation. If we do refuse your request, we will provide written reasons and inform you of how to make a complaint, as required by law.

Complaints

If you wish to make a complaint about how we handle your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact details above. We will endeavour to respond to your request promptly.

If you are not satisfied with our response or we do not respond within 30 days, you can make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at [email protected] or on 1300 363 992. More information is available on the OAIC’s website at https://www.oaic.gov.au/.

Currency of this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 09 August 2024.

Changes to this Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect any changes in legal requirements or the way in which we deal with your personal information. We will publish the most recent version of our Privacy Policy on our website which will take effect as soon as it is published on our website. By continuing to use our services, you will be deemed to have accepted any changes to our Privacy Policy.

You can obtain a copy of our current Privacy Policy from our website or by contacting us at the details above.