POLICY ON THE COLLECTION, USE AND DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
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Brett McGarry is a lawyer with an office located at 200 Elgin Street, Suite 800, Ottawa, Ontario. Brett McGarry offers and provides legal services and information to a wide range of clients. In order to do so, Brett McGarry collects, uses and discloses personal information as necessary to offer and provide clients and potential clients with legal services and information and generally to fulfil his professional legal responsibilities and manage his business. As a lawyer, he has a professional obligation to keep confidential all information obtained within a lawyer-client relationship.This Privacy Policy has been prepared to affirm our commitment to maintaining the privacy of our clients and others and to inform you of our practices concerning the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information (as defined below) collected by Brett McGarry and <www.mcgarrylaw.ca>.My obligation as a legal professional is governed, in part, by the Rules of Professional Conduct of the Law Society of Upper Canada. These obligations apply to all professionals, employees, contractors and agents who provide services to in connection with my delivery of legal and other services to my clients.For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” means any information, recorded in any form, about an identified individual, or an individual whose identity may be inferred or determined from the information, subject to more particular definitions or interpretations under applicable law. This Privacy Policy does not cover any information, recorded in any form, about more than one individual where the identity of the individuals is not known and cannot be inferred from the information (“Aggregated Information”). Brett McGarry retains the right to use Aggregated Information in any way that he reasonably determines is appropriate.This Privacy Policy does not apply to personal information about employees, or other temporary or permanent staff, consultants, volunteers or other individuals assigned to Brett McGarry, or to any information which is not personal information as defined in or interpreted under applicable law.Using contractual or other arrangements, Brett McGarry shall ensure that agents, contractors and third party service providers, who may receive Personal Information in the course of providing services protects that Personal Information in a manner consistent with the principles articulated in this Privacy Policy and applicable laws.
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As a general rule, all information concerning the business and affairs of a person or organization acquired
1- for the purpose of determining whether Brett McGarry will enter into a professional relationship or
2- in the course of a professional relationship shall be held in strict confidence and not revealed to anyone unless expressly or implicitly authorized by the person or organization concerned.A professional relationship develops when Brett McGarry agrees to be retained to provide services to a particular individual or organization. In order to protect their own interests, individuals or organizations should not send confidential information to Brett McGarry until they have had a direct discussion with him regarding his retention o to provide legal services. -
Your provision of Personal Information to Brett McGarry means that you agree and consent that he may collect, use and disclose your Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these terms, you are requested not to provide any Personal Information to Brett McGarry. Unfortunately, certain services can only be offered if you provide Personal Information. As a result, if you choose not provide us with any required Personal Information, Brett McGarry may not be able to offer you those services.Brett McGarry collects only such information from individuals or organizations as is required for the purposes of providing services or information to them. Brett McGarry collects e-mail and mailing addresses in connection with the provision of such services and information, including preparing retainer letters, complying with “know your client” rules, opening new files/matters, or to subscribe to a publication offered by Brett McGarry. He uses information collected through such subscriptions to send subscribers the publication they have requested, and to provide information that may be of possible interest.Brett McGarry, does not sell, trade, barter or exchange for consideration any Personal Information he has obtained. Unless permitted by law, no Personal Information is collected about an individual, without first obtaining the consent of the individual to the collection, use and dissemination of that information.Personal Information will be collected, to the extent possible, directly from the individual concerned.
Unless in the context of providing legal or other services, Brett McGarry does not knowingly collect Personal Information from anyone under the age of 18, especially children under 13, and does not use such information if it discovers that it is has been provided by a minor, except to the extent required to provide legal services to a minor (e.g. matters relating to the Youth Criminal Justice Act).Brett McGarry may disclose Personal Information to organizations that perform services on behalf of his professional activities. Personal Information will only be provided to such organizations if they agree to use such information solely for the purposes of providing services to Brett McGarry and under the instructions of Brett McGarry and, with respect to that information, to act in a manner consistent with the relevant principles articulated in this Privacy Policy.
Personal Information may also be subject to transfer to another organization in the event of a merger or new partnership or new employment relationship involving Brett McGarry. This will occur only if the parties have entered into an agreement under which the collection, use and disclosure of the information is restricted to those purposes that relate to the business transaction, including a determination whether or not to proceed with the business transaction, and is to be used by the parties to carry out and complete the business transaction.
Please note that there are circumstances where the use and/or disclosure of Personal Information may be justified or permitted or where Brett McGarry is obliged to disclose information without consent. Such circumstances may include:
– Where required by law or by order or requirement of a court, administrative agency or other governmental tribunal; for example, where the rules of court require us to provide personal information to the opposite side and the court in a litigation matter or where a court issues a subpoena or order.
– Where Brett McGarry believes, upon reasonable grounds, that it is necessary to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of an identifiable person or group.
– Where it is necessary to establish or collect monies owing to Brett McGarry.
– Where it is necessary to permit Brett McGarry to pursue available remedies or limit any damages that Brett McGarry may sustain.
– Where the information is public.
– Where we engage an expert or consultant on your behalf in a litigation matter.- Where we retain another law firm or agent to act or assist us in acting on your behalf.
– Where it is necessary to collect fees, for instance to a financial institution or collection agent.
To regulatory (including self-regulatory) or governmental authorities, for example, disclosure of personal information reasonably requested or required by governing bodies of the legal profession in the course of its oversight of our practice.
– Where you have instructed us to disclose your personal information to a third party for a designated purpose.
– Where we reasonably believe a third party requesting your information is your agent.
– Where obliged or permitted to disclose information without consent, Brett McGarry will not disclose more information than is required. -
Brett McGarry endeavours to ensure that any Personal Information provided and in its possession is as accurate, current and complete as necessary for the purposes for which Brett McGarry uses that information.
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Brett McGarry keeps Personal Information only as long as it is required for the reasons it was collected. The length of time we retain information varies, depending on the product or service and the nature of the information. This period may extend beyond the end of a person’s relationship with us but it will be only for so long as it is necessary for us to have sufficient information to respond to any issues that may arise at a later date. When your Personal Information is no longer required for Brett McGarry’s purposes, we have procedures to destroy, delete, erase or convert it into an anonymous form.
Currently, the principal places in which Brett McGarry holds Personal Information is at his office in Ottawa, Ontario. Brett McGarry does allow certain authorized third party providers to track and store certain information about visitors to Brett McGarry web sites (namely domain names, IP addresses and page views as described below) and such information will be stored outside of Canada if the third party provider is located outside of Canada. Individuals that use and access Brett McGarry’s web sites hereby acknowledge and agree that such information obtained by such third party providers located in countries other than Canada may be accessed by the courts, law enforcement or national security authorities of such country.
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Brett McGarry has taken steps to maintain adequate physical, procedural and technical security with respect to its offices and information storage facilities so as to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, or modification of Personal Information.
Brett McGarry further protects Personal Information by restricting access to it to those individuals that Brett McGarry has determined need to know that information in order that Brett McGarry may provide legal services.
In terms of communicating Personal Information to Brett McGarry, you may wish to note that there is no method of transmitting or storing data that is completely secure. While the physical characteristics of each are different, mail, telephone calls, faxes and transmissions over the Internet are all susceptible to possible loss, misrouting, interception and misuse of the information being communicated or transmitted.
Brett McGarry attempts to strike a reasonable balance between security and convenience. In communicating with clients and others, Brett McGarry often requests the right to use a method of communication that is less secure than some of its less convenient alternatives. An example of this is e-mail. At this time, when we use e-mail, it may be sent as unencrypted plain text. We do this because Brett McGarry believes that many of our clients and others cannot readily process encrypted e-mail. This is done for their convenience but we expect that our clients and others understand that if misrouted or intercepted, unencrypted email could be read more easily than encrypted e-mail. For this reason, Brett McGarry strongly suggests to client’s that they do not include confidential information concerning their criminal case or other legal matters to us by email.
Brett McGarry has implemented reasonable physical, organizational and technological security measures to safeguard the personal information in our custody or control. These include safeguards to protect personal information against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use, or modification. Authorized designates and agents of Brett McGarry have access to your personal information for the limited purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy.
You can generally visit Brett McGarry’s web site without providing any personal information. However, given that electronically submitted data is never 100% secure, we make no warranties as to the security of any such personal information that you submit, which you do at your own risk.
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The only personal information which we collect about you when you use our web site is what you tell us about yourself, for example, by completing any online form or information you provide to us through the “Contact Us” section or when you send us an e-mail.
As most web sites do, we do track usage patterns on our web site on an anonymous basis. Your identity cannot reasonably be ascertained from this information. Each time you visit our web site, our server (or the server of our agent/sub-contractor) records your Internet Service Provider, the date and time of your visit, the pages you visit and the documents downloaded, the searches you performed, and the referring URL’s you came from. We use this non-personal information to optimize our web site service.
For your convenience, we may offer links from our web site to other web sites. However, we are not responsible for, nor do we accept any liability for, the personal information collection, use and disclosure practices of other entities to which our web site may link. You should consult the privacy policies of these other entities before providing any personal information on their web sites.
During the course of an individual’s use of the Internet, he or she will learn of the common use of “cookies.” “Cookies” are files or pieces of information that may be stored in a computer’s hard drive when an individual visits a web site. Most Internet browsers are initially set to accept cookies. If you do not wish to accept cookies, you can set yours to refuse cookies or to alert you when cookies are being sent.
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This Privacy Policy is in effect as of May 1, 2012. Brett McGarry will from time to time review and revise privacy practices and this Privacy Policy. In the event of any amendment, an appropriate notice will be posted on Brett McGarry’s web site. Policy changes will apply to the information collected from the date of posting of the revised Privacy Policy to Brett McGarry’s web site as well as to existing information held by Brett McGarry.
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In the event an individual has questions about (a) access to Personal Information; (b) the collection, use, management or disclosure of Personal Information; or (c) this Privacy Policy, that individual should e-mail Brett McGarry at brett@mcgarrylaw.ca.
We maintain a file of your personal information for the above-mentioned purposes. This file is accessible at Brett McGarry Law, 200 Elgin Street, Suite 800, Ottawa, Ontario. If you wish to request access to, or correction of, your personal information in custody or control of Brett McGarry, please make your request in writing to our Privacy Officer at the address above. We may need to verify your identity before searching for or providing you with personal information. In some circumstances, we may not provide access to your personal information, for example if it contains the personal information of other persons, if it constitutes confidential commercial information, if it is protected by solicitor-client privilege, or if it is otherwise not properly the subject of an access request.
