How we handle your personal information

This policy explains how James Dowsley & Associates handles personal and health information.

Personal and health information handled by James Dowsley & Associates is managed in accordance with the privacy principles contained in the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic), and the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic). Some information will also be protected by other legal obligations. These include client confidentiality, legal privilege and the Legal Aid Act 1978 (Vic).

Personal information is almost any information, including numbers or images, that relates to an identifiable living person. Some personal information is considered sensitive, such as ethnic origin, sexual orientation or criminal record.

Health information is information that relates to an identifiable living or deceased person and concerns their health, disability or genetic make-up.

We only collect the minimum information we need to fulfil our statutory functions and to run our organisation. When collecting personal information, we will take reasonable steps to advise you of:

• what information is being sought

• for what purpose the information is being sought

• whether any law requires its collection

• the main consequences for you, if any, of not providing us with the information.

The main kinds of information we collect are:

• information about people’s legal problems and personal and financial circumstances

• complaints, enquiries and submissions from members of the public

• education and employment history from people who work for us, or apply to work for us

• contact details of our clients, staff, contractors and members of the public

The main ways we use personal and health information are to:

• help people with their legal problems

• answer enquiries and resolve complaints

• recruit and manage staff

• meet our workplace safety obligations

We also use this information, after removing identifying details, to meet our reporting obligations.

We generally only disclose information to the extent needed to help someone with their legal problem, to resolve a complaint or to respond to a submission or enquiry.

In some cases, and in accordance with the law, we may disclose documents to an external body, such as a court, tribunal or review organisation such as the Victorian Ombudsman or Legal Services Board and Commissioner.

We might make other disclosures with your consent or otherwise in accordance our legal obligations.

We take reasonable steps to ensure the information we have about individuals is accurate, complete and current. We ask people to tell us when their personal or health information changes so we can update our records. Where possible, we check the accuracy of information before we use it.

We do our best to protect information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. To do this we use procedural, physical and software safeguards.

We limit and record access to our buildings and systems. We encrypt our internal communications. We only use external information storage partners when we are confident they will protect the information as well as we can.

We require our staff to handle information with care and access only what they need to do their job. We support this with usage policies, information barriers and access controls.

We destroy or de-identify information when it is no longer required. We do this in accordance with our obligations under the Public Records Act 1973 (Vic) and the Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2014. (Vic)

We provide an anonymous service through our website. We do not collect any personal information from people who browse the website, unless they choose to provide it through an online form.

People can be anonymous when contacting us, but it may limit the level of service we can provide.

We create a client number for each person to whom we provide legal advice. This helps us keep a record of the services we provide, make appropriate referrals and avoid conflicts of interest. We do not share client numbers with any other agency.

We generally do not send information outside Victoria. Some exceptions apply, for example, if we are helping a person with a legal matter outside Victoria. If we do this, we take care to ensure we comply with legal protections on trans-border data flows.

We sometimes ask for sensitive information. For example, if helping a person with a criminal matter we may need their criminal history to give legal advice. We only seek such information with the person’s consent or if required by law.

You can contact us to request access to your personal information or to ask us to correct an error. We will arrange this as soon as possible, or we will assist you to put in a more formal request under the Freedom of Information Act 1982.

Alternatively, those who have received legal services from us can request copies of documents from their legal file by contacting their James Dowsley & Associates lawyer. Lawyers’ professional obligations entitle clients to certain documents on their file.