This statement applies to personal information collected by Dorrington Poole Lawyers.  Personal information is any information about an identifiable person (a natural person).

 

Dorrington Poole Lawyers collects, holds, manages, and discloses Personal Information as is reasonably necessary for the purposes of providing legal services, and in accordance with privacy laws in New Zealand including the Privacy Act 2020.

 

Collection of Personal Information

 

We collect personal information about you during the pre-client stage to determine if we are able to assist you with your legal matter.  We hold onto this information to ensure any future communication with you is relevant. 

 

We may collect personal information from you, including but not limited to:

• Contact details,

• Date of birth,

• Gender,

• Financial details,

• Employment information,

• Identity documents,

• Account details,

 

How do we Collect Personal Information?

 

• You may provide personal information directly to us, including through our website or via a related service, through our on-boarding process, or through contact and communication with us.

• We may collect information from third parties when you have authorised us to do so, or where the information is in the public domain.

 

How will we use your Personal Information?

 

We will use your personal information in various circumstances, not limited to and including the following:

• To verify your identity,

• To deliver and provide services to you,

• To market our services to you,

• To invoice you and to collect money that you owe us,

• To authorise and process transactions,

• To communicate with you,

• To protect and/or enforce Dorrington Poole Lawyer’s legal rights and interests,

• For any other purpose authorised by your or the Privacy Act 2020.

 

Beside our staff, we may share this information with:

 

• Any third parties we have engaged to assist to provide you with our legal services,

• Any business that supports our provision of services, including technology providers who assist us in providing services or who perform functions on our behalf, such as providers that provide generative AI technologies to assist us in legal research, document review, document drafting and other legal tasks. 

       Our technology providers (including generative AI providers) may use your personal information to provide services to us,

       to administer, maintain, analyse, improve and/or develop their services, to undertake their business processes, to comply

       with their legal obligations and to conduct research.  Unless we state otherwise, our technology providers will not use your

       personal information to improve AI training models, train, retrain or improve foundation models, improve third party

       products or services, conduct user profiling, advertising or similar commercial purposes, or to market products and services

       to you.

       Our technology providers may rely on and make your personal information available to their third-party providers (which

       may be located in countries other than New Zealand) in the course of delivering their services to us, including for hosting,

       cloud storage, email communication and web analytics purposes, such as the Azure OpenAI Service operated by

       Microsoft.  Our technology providers may share your IP address and other information about your device to Microsoft for

       security reasons.  Our technology providers may also share your personal information with their affiliates, any other entity

       that they merge with or sell their business or assets to, and other third parties (such as government agencies) if legally

       required to do so.

• A credit reference agency,

• Any other person authorised by the Act or another law,

• Any other person or agency authorised by you.

 

We may also be required to disclose your personal information where:

 

• There is a legal or professional duty to disclose the information, or

• To comply with legal or regulatory obligations or requests, such as under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009.

 

Protecting your Personal Information

 

We will take reasonable steps to keep your personal information safe and we will comply with the Privacy Act 2020.

 

We hold all your information electronically.  Your information (about you and your matter) is stored in Sydney Australia on servers owned by Microsoft Azure who address is Level 24-30, 1 Denison Street, North Sydney, New South Wales 2600.

 

Retention of Personal Information

 

When you become a client at Dorrington Poole Lawyers Limited, we collect all information necessary to process your legal matter.  We are required by law to keep this information for seven years once your matter is closed.

 

Breach Notification

 

If there is a breach of privacy involving your personal information, we will comply with any legal obligations pursuant to the Privacy Act 2020.

 

Accessing and Correcting your Personal Information

 

You have the right to access your personal information and correct your personal information, subject to the withholding grounds set out in the Privacy Act.  If you wish to access your personal information or seek to have it corrected, you must contact the practice manager (mail@dorrington.co.nz).

 

If you require further information on the Privacy Act 2020, the Privacy Commissioner’s website has useful guides (www.privacy.org.nz)

 

Security

 

We will take all reasonable steps to keep your personal information secure and prevent unauthorised access or disclosure.  However, we cannot prevent, and are not responsible for interception or “hacking” of information transmitted through the website or our business email accounts by unauthorised third parties.

 

Failure to provide information

 

If the personal information you provide to us is incomplete or inaccurate, we may be unable to provide you, or someone else you know, with the services you, or they, are seeking.

 

Updates                                                                        

 

We may update or modify this Privacy Policy at any time without giving you prior notice.  By continuing to use this website, you accept this Privacy Policy as it applies from time to time.

 

Contact

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, please email us at mail@dorrington.co.nz