Privacy Policy – New Zealand

For HPX Group Australian Privacy Policy – click here

Introduction

  1. Hamilton Locke New Zealand and Source New Zealand (“HL NZ, we, us) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This policy outlines the way in which we manage the personal information we hold about our clients, potential clients, contractors and others.  HL NZ is an incorporated law firm, which has entered into a licensing and management arrangement with Australian company HPX Group Pty Ltd and its subsidiaries (HPX Australia), which provides Hamilton Locke NZ with the exclusive use of the “Hamilton Locke” brand in New Zealand, and pursuant to which HPX Australia provides various management services to HL NZ.
  2. We provide tailored professional legal advice and related services. Accordingly, we must comply with the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act.  This means that you will have to identify yourself when dealing with us.
  3. This Policy applies to the collection of Personal Information when you engage with us, engage our services, access our website, or when you attend a HL NZ event or otherwise interact with us. It also sets out your rights in relation to our handling of your Personal Information.
  4. Please read the following carefully to understand how we will collect, use, and maintain your Personal Information.

 

Purpose and Scope of this Policy

  1. HL NZ is bound by the Privacy Act 2020 (Privacy Act) and the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008 (the Rules). The Rules require all Barristers and Solicitors of New Zealand to protect and hold in strict confidence all information concerning a client which is acquired in the course of the professional relationship.  If there are any inconsistencies between the Privacy Act and the Rules, the Rules will take precedence.
  2. There is the possibility of overseas disclosure of Personal Information, in certain circumstances. HL NZ’s IT infrastructure is provided by HPX Australia, which consists of cloud servers located in New Zealand and Australia, and utilises third party software which may store data in cloud servers located elsewhere. For the purpose of the Privacy Act, HL NZ remains responsible for any private information stored on offshore cloud servers.  Further information on HL NZ’s obligations under the Privacy Act in regard to overseas disclosure is listed at paragraphs 36 and 37 of this Policy.
  3. In addition to the specific purposes set out below, we collect, hold, use and disclose Personal Information from you or about you where:
    1. it is reasonably necessary for us to carry out our business functions and activities, and to provide our services such as legal advice;
    2. it is required or permitted by law;
    3. we otherwise have your specific consent; or
    4. for a purpose related to the purpose for which it was collected where you would reasonably expect us to do so.

 

Definitions

  1. “Personal Information” means information about an identifiable individual.
  2. “Website” means the website located at www.hamiltonlocke.com.au

 

Information Collected

  1. The types of Personal Information we collect from you or about you will depend on your relationship with us.

 

Clients

  1. If you are a client, a prospective client, or a representative of them, we may collect Personal Information about you or them related to the matter for which we have been engaged. If you do not provide all Personal Information requested, we may not be able to properly advise you or provide you with the information or services required.
  2. This Personal Information may include:
    1. your name, address, phone, fax and mobile phone number and email address;
    2. job title, organization or company name;
    3. identification documents, such as credit/debt card information if you provide them directly to us, however, typically your credit card information is processed by our payment service providers, and we do not have access to that information;
    4. the history of, and your relationship with, others involved in the matter; and
    5. other relevant Personal Information or sensitive information, depending on the nature of the matter.

 

Service Providers

  1. Service Providers are third-parties providing services directly to us or HPX Group (such as IT service providers and marketing firms) or on behalf of our clients (such as barristers, experts, valuers, accountants, and tax advisers).If you are a Service Provider, we may collect Personal Information, such as:
    1. your name, address, phone, fax and mobile numbers and email address;
    2. your job title, job history, organisation or company name; and
    3. financial details such as bank account information to make payments to you.

 

Other Parties

  1. If you are another party in respect of one of our client’s matters, or if you represent such a party, we may collect Personal Information about you in the course of the matter. The type of information collected will depend on the nature of the matter, but it is likely to include:
    1. your name, and possibly contact details; and
    2. the history of, and your relationship with, other involved in the matter.

 

Current and prospective employees

  1. We may collect and use your Personal Information when you apply for a job with us and during the course of your employment. We may receive the Personal Information directly from you when you complete an online job application, or through and external party, such as a recruitment agency.  The Personal Information collected may include:
    1. your resume, covering letter and academic transcript;
    2. information provided on your application form, including name, address, telephone number, personal email address, education level, tertiary institution, language skills, jurisdictions you are qualified to practice in and any other background information related to your right to work in New Zealand; and
    3. information provided to us during an interview.

 

General collection

  1. In addition to the above information, we will also collect information that you give to us in the course of our relationship. This information will depend on the nature of the relationship, but may include:
    1. details of correspondence you give to us;
    2. details of complaints;
    3. information included in requests for support; and
    4. calling line identification when you call us.

 

Information we collect automatically

  1. Like most Website operators, we automatically collect information from you and your devices when you access our Website. Some of this information may include Personal Information.  The purpose is to better understand how visitors use the Website.  We may use this information to provide, operate, maintain, and improve our website.
  2. When you visit our Website, the information automatically collected may include:
    1. your internet protocol (IP) address;
    2. browser type;
    3. language preference;
    4. referring site;
    5. the date and time of each visitor request; and
    6. Website usage statistics, such as the pages viewed, and the length of time viewed.

 

How we collect Personal Information

  1. We aim to collect Personal Information only directly from you unless it is unreasonable or impracticable for us to so. For example, we collect Personal Information from:
    1. correspondence that you submit to us;
    2. meetings, calls and interviewed with us;
    3. the instructions you provide to us;
    4. submissions you make on our Website; and
    5. registration and feedback forms you may fill in for our marketing-related activities and events.
  2. In some instances, we may receive Personal Information about you from the following sources:
    1. third parties, such as associated businesses, government agencies, local councils, referrers (such as other law firms, accountants, real estate agents, financial planners, insurers and business consultants);
    2. third parties (such as barristers, experts, and accountants) we engage to provide services in respect of your matter;
    3. our client, or your legal representatives, where you are another party involved in a matter;
    4. references you provide to us in the course of a job application;
    5. authorised third parties; and
    6. publicly available sources.

 

Why we collect Personal Information

Clients

  1. We will disclose your Personal Information as necessary amongst the entities within the HPX Group and to our service providers for purposes including conflict checks, verifying your identity and the provision of our services.
  2. Our business works closely with other businesses, such as government departments and agencies, other law firms, barristers, accountants, real estate agents, financial planners, insurers, local business and industry networks, business and industry alliances, auditors, and other consultants. We routinely disclose your Personal Information to these third parties where it is reasonably necessary for them to assist us to provide our legal services to you, or to enable them to provide related service offerings that you have requested.  We may also disclose your Personal Information to banking institutions (to verify and process your payments).
  3. To assist in combating fraud, we may share information with credit reference agencies so far as it relates to clients who instruct their credit card issuer to cancel payment to us without having first provided an acceptable reason to us.

 

Communications with you

  1. We may use and disclose your Personal Information to send you marketing material or material specifically tailored to the industry you operate in, the services you or your organisation have engaged us to provide, or the services you or your organisation are or may be interested in. Marketing material may come from us or the HPX Group.
  2. Where required by applicable law, we will obtain your consent before sending any marketing communications to you. You may withdraw your consent to the use of your Personal Information for marketing purposes at any time by notifying us.  Opt-out procedures are also included in our communications.
  3. We will never provide your Personal Information to third parties (other than HPX Group) for marketing purposes without receiving your consent.

 

Other parties

  1. In respect of other parties in a matter, we will use your Personal Information to the extent necessary to provide our services.
  2. We may also need to disclose your Personal Information to legal authorities if required to do so by law. For instance, this may apply where there is an appropriate court order or the entity has legal authority to demand such information.

 

Employees

  1. Under the Privacy Act, Personal Information about a current or former employee may be held, used, or disclosed in any way that is directly connected to the employment relationship.
  2. Personal Information about prospective employees will be used to evaluate applications to work within the Halo Group.

 

Use of Personal Information

  1. We may use the Personal Information collected to perform a variety of purposes, including to:
    1. to represent and advise you (if you are the client) or to represent and advise the client (if you are acting on the client’s behalf);
    2. for identifying and dealing with commercial and/or legal conflicts;
    3. undertaking ‘know your client” checks and obligations;
    4. to comply with our legal obligations;
    5. to provide legal updated and communication on the law;
    6. to undertake invoicing and receipting, making payments to you or on your behalf, receiving payments and debt recovery (including disclosing information to debt collectors);
    7. to provide, operate, maintain and improve the Website;
    8. combine third party information, the information you give to us and the information we collect about you. We will use this information, and the combined information, for the purposes set out above (depending on the types of information we receive;
    9. enable you to communicate, collaborate, and share files with users you designate (to the extend possible); and
    10. for any other purpose we may notify you about from time to time.
  2. In addition to the specific uses listed above, we collect, hold, use and disclose Personal Information from you or about you where:
    1. it is reasonably necessary for us to carry out our business functions and activities, and to provide our services, such as legal advice; or
    2. it is required or permitted by law; or
    3. we otherwise have your specific consent; or
    4. for a purpose relate to the purpose for which it was collected where you would reasonably expect us to do so.

 

Sharing and Disclosing of Personal Information

  1. The Personal Information we collect may be stored or held in any format, at our office or premises or outside of our offices, including data storage facilities provided by our server provider or online storage. HL NZ’s IT infrastructure is provided by HPX Australia, which consists of cloud servers located in New Zealand and Australia, and utilises third party software (such as NetDocuments and Microsoft), which may store data in cloud servers located elsewhere.
  2. We will not share Personal Information about you otherwise than as set out in this Privacy Policy. For example, we may share Personal Information about you including as follows:
    1. with third-party vendors, consultants and other service providers who are working on our behalf and require access to your information to carry out that work such as hosting and data storage providers, IT support and word-processing support, including in the course of representing or advising you or the client, if you are acting on the client’s behalf; or
    2. where you have chosen to use collaboration features that by their nature support sharing with third parties of your choice. Your name, email address, and other information you choose to share may be shared with such third parties, and such third parties may communicate with you (such as by emailing you); or
    3. we may disclose your information to a third party, if:
      1. it is required or authorised by you or the client (if you are representing the client); or
      2. we believe that disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request (including in any foreign jurisdiction); or
      3. it is required or authorised by law or the Rules; or
      4. to enforce our agreements and policies; or
      5. to perform our obligations in accordance with our engagement.

 

How we hold, store, and protect Personal Information

  1. Your Personal Information is held and stored on paper, by electronic means, or both. We have physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards in place for Personal Information and take reasonable steps to ensure that your Personal Information is protected from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification, and disclosure.
  2. However, data protection measures are never completely secure and despite the measures we have implemented, we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Information. You should notify us as soon as possible if you become aware of any security breaches.  Any submission of Personal Information is at your own risk.
  3. If you have any questions about the security of your personal information, you can contact us at privacy@hpxgroup.co.nz.

 

Cookies

  1. To enrich and perfect your online experience, we use cookies and similar technologies and services provided by others to display personalised content, appropriate advertising, and store your preferences on your computer.

 

What are cookies?

  1. A cookie is a string of information stored on your device which is used to identify a unique visitor. We use cookies to help identify and track visitors, their usage of the Website, and their website access preferences.

 

What cookies do we use?

  1. We use cookies for a variety of purposes, including:
    1. to record whether you have accepted the use of cookies on our Website or not;
    2. to allow parts of our Website to operate for you;
    3. to operate our content management system;
    4. to operate the form that you use to contact us for any reason. This cookie is set on your arrival at our Website and deleted when you close your browser;
    5. to enhance security on our contact form. It is set for use only through the contact form. This cookie is deleted when you close your browser.
    6. to collect information about how visitors use our Website. We use the information to improve your experience of our Website.  This cookie collects information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the Website, where visitors have come to the site from, and the pages they visited; and
    7. to store your personal information so that you do not have to provide it afresh when you visit our Website next time. This cookie will last for 30 days.

 

Disabling cookies

  1. You can choose if and how cookies will be accepted by configuring your preferences and options in your browser. However, if you decide not to display cookies, you may not experience optimum performance of our Website.
  2. By continuing to navigate our Website without changing your cookie settings, you hereby acknowledge and agree to our use of cookies.

 

Destruction and de-identification

  1. We will retain your Personal Information for any of our business functions, for any other lawful purpose and as required by law. For example, we retain records of client names and the names of opposing parties indefinitely to avoid conflicts of interest.  We also retain client records for a minimum of seven years to comply with our legal and taxation obligations.
  2. We destroy or permanently de-identify Personal Information when it is no longer needed as follows:
    1. paper records are either destroyed securely or returned to you and/or relevant third parties; and
    2. electronic records may be archived to alternative storage (subject to the procedural safeguards described above) or destroyed when no longer needed.

 

Overseas disclosure

  1. In the course of doing business with you, your Personal Information may be disclosed to HL NZ and HPX Group’s Service Providers, some of whom may be based overseas, including in India and the Philippines. We will comply with the Privacy Act IPP 12 by:
    1. entering into agreements with our Service Providers that establish privacy safeguards for the Personal Information shared between Halo NZ and the Service Providers; or
    2. obtaining your express consent to overseas disclosure.
  2. The Service Providers based overseas engaged by us or HPX Group have agreed to be bound by New Zealand Privacy Law pursuant to the agreement between each Service Provider and us or the relevant HPX Gorup entity.
  3. You warrant that you have obtained the same consent from each individual whose Personal Information you provide to us.

 

Request for access and correction

  1. We take reasonable steps to ensure that your Personal Information we hold is accurate, complete, and up to date. However, we encourage you to tell us if your Personal Information changes or if you believe or suspect it may not be correct.
  2. Subject to the exceptions set out in the Privacy Act, you may seek access to, and you have a right to request to correct, your Personal Information held by us. We will require you to verify your identity and to specify what information you require.  A fee may be charged for providing access.  If a fee is to be charged, we will advise you of the likely cost in advance.
  3. In most cases, we will comply with requests to access or correct your Personal Information held by us. If, for whatever reason, we do not, we will give you written reasons why.  For further information, please contact us.

 

Complaints and concerns

  1. Please contact us at the address below if you would like any further information, or have any concerns or complaints, about our practices in relation to the Privacy Act, the Rules and any alleged breach of this Policy. We will promptly acknowledge your concern and will separately respond as soon as possible.

Contact

  1. Our Privacy Officer can be contacted to discuss any questions, concerns or complaints relating to this Policy or how we handle your Personal Information.
  2. Please contact:

Privacy Officer
Hamilton Locke New Zealand
Vero Centre
Level 35/48 Shortland Street
Auckland 1010

P:  +64 9 300 3196

E:  privacy@hpxgroup.co.nz

Updates to this Policy

  1. This Policy will be reviewed from time to time to take account of new laws and technology, changes to our operations and practices and the changing business environment. The most current version of this Policy is located at https://hpxgroup.com.au/privacy-policy-nz/ and can be obtained by contacting our Privacy Officer.

This Policy was last updated on 1 February 2023.

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