{mds} law > Privacy Policy

{mds} law privacy Policy

MDS Law is committed to respecting your privacy.  We will always collect, store, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1993, and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.  By providing us with personal information, you consent to our collection, storage, use and disclosure of personal information in accordance with this privacy policy.

Personal Information

Personal Information is any information that relates to an identifiable individual.

We may collect Personal Information from you, including any of the following information:
  • Identification information (name, date of birth, residential address)
  • Contact information (email address telephone numbers, etc)
  • Copies of your identification (passport, drivers licence)
  • Work information (job title, company and location)
  • Online/digital information (more information below)
  • Billing information (address for service, bank account details)
We collect information about you whenever you interact with us, for example when you visit our website or if you instruct us to represent and advise you (or the client, if you are representing the client).  We may also collect information using small pieces of data stored on a user's device (Cookies) via our website, as more particularly set out below.

How do we collect this information?

Personal information can be collected by us by any of the following methods.
  • Speaking to us
  • Writing to us (including by email or via any other mobile or digital platform)
  • Filling in a form (in writing or online) such as a contact form or payment instructions.
  • From Cookies put in place by our marketing tools. More information about using Cookies is included below.
We may store Personal Information we collect in any format we choose at our offices or at premises outside our offices, including data storage facilities or online storage located within or outside New Zealand, which may be operated by independent service contractors.

Purposes for which we use your Personal Information

Personal Information we collect and hold may be used by MDS Law (as applicable):
  • To represent and advise you (if you are the client) or to represent and advise the client (if you are representing the client).
  • For dealing with commercial or legal conflicts.
  • To comply with our legal obligations (such as confirming identity).
We may also use Personal Information (as applicable):
  • For sending you MDS Law publications and invitations to seminars and functions.
  • For internal business purposes such as invoicing and receipting, making payments to you or on your behalf and debt recovery (which may involve disclosing information to debt collectors).
  • For specific purposes we tell you about or you authorise.
When you visit our website, we may also collect general user information such as users internet protocol addresses, browser type and internet service provider details and other technical information.  We use this information to administer the website and to gain a better understanding of our users and how they use the website.  However, this information is not Personal Information - it does not include any personal identifiable information.

We may not be able to properly advise you or provide you with the information or other services you require if you do not provide us with necessary Personal Information when requested to do so.

Legal basis for the collection of your Personal Information

We process your Personal Information based on your written or oral consent, and/or in accordance with certain legal exceptions to explicit consent requirements.  You may withdraw your consent at any time.  The withdrawal of consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

Disclosures

We may need to disclose personal information to third parties (including other entities or individuals who assist us in providing services or who perform functions on our behalf, such as email newsletter software, hosting and data storage providers), including in the course of representing or advising you (if you are the client) or the client (if you are representing the client). We may disclose personal information if:
  • it is required or authorised by you or your client (if you are representing the client)
  • it is required or authorised by law or the Law Society's Rules of Professional Conduct
  • it is required by law (including the laws of any foreign jurisdiction).
What online/digital information do we collect through our marketing tools?

On our website, we have a number of online marketing tools that use a combination of Cookies to track what you do on our website and other online interactions.  These may include:
  • Google Analytics :This uses Cookies to let us know things like how you got to our website, what pages were viewed, news posts read, any interactions such as watching a video or filling in a form.
  • Google Analytics and Google Adwords Remarketing :These let us build an anonymous list of visitors who have been to our website before. As a result, we can serve you our advertisements on other websites you’re looking at.
  • Google Display Network Impression Reporting : This tells us if you’ve seen one of our advertisements listed elsewhere.
  • Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting :Tells us your age, gender, potential interests, what you’ve been looking for online.
  • Integrated services : This is a fancy way of saying how these tools can combine and analyse all the data above to help us (as advertisers) target more specifically.
This information is still anonymous.  We won’t know your name or address but we can see a virtual “you”.  This combination of data might have been more than you intended to give.

Why do we collect this online/digital information through these tools?

The data collected above is primarily used for research and advertising purposes.
Google Analytics is a tool that we use to analyse visitor behaviour on a website.  We analyse what people are doing and we guess why they are doing it.  So, over time, changes to the website might be made as a result of that analysis.  For example, we see people aren’t filling in our contact form, so we highlight more benefits of working with us or we make the contact form shorter.

The other major reason for collecting this data is for marketing and advertising purposes. We may also use the data to help optimise our websites for search engines (SEO).

How do we control this online/digital information that we’ve been given?

You are not required to give us this information.

If you wish to prevent Cookies being set before you visit this website (or most other websites) you can set your browser to block Cookies.  Most browsers allow you to do this in their settings.

Otherwise, Cookie information set on your browser will generally update in some way each time you visit our website.
If you would like to know more about Cookies, please visit the ICO website.

How do we keep your data secure?

MDS Law will ensure that the Personal Information we hold is protected (against loss, unauthorised access, unauthorised use, unauthorised modification, unauthorised disclosure, and other misuse) by such security safeguards as it is reasonable in the circumstances for us to take.  This extends to Personnel Information held or processed on our behalf (such as in a cloud environment).

Rights of access and correction

Under the Privacy Act 1993, individuals have rights of access to, and to request correction of, their personal information.  You may also have rights under the EU General Data Protection Regulation for deletion of your personal information or restriction of processing of personal information or to object to processing, as well as the right to data portability and the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

Please notify us of any changes to your Personal Information to ensure it is accurate and as up to date as possible.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or if you would like to request a copy of your information or to have it updated, transferred or deleted, please contact our Business Manager at MDS Law by email WayneChristie [at] mdslaw.co.nz.

If you would like to update any of your subscription details, please contact MDS Law at mds [at] mdslaw.co.nz, or click “Unsubscribe” at the bottom of one of our newsletters that have been emailed to you.

Third party content

Our website may contain hyperlinks to third party websites.  We are not responsible for the content of such websites, or the manner in which those websites collect, store, use, and distribute any Personal Information you provide.  When visiting a third party website from hyperlinks displayed on our website, we encourage you to review the privacy statements of those websites so that you can understand how the Personal Information you provide will be will collected, stored, used and distributed. 

Unsolicited electronic messages - approval

To the extent you provide us with an email address, you agree that we may send you commercial electronic messages.

Updates to this policy

MDS Law reserves the right to update this Privacy Policy from time to time.  Any change we make applies from the date the updated Privacy Policy is posted on our website.

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