Privacy Policy
1. About this policy
- 1.1 Boyle Litigation Lawyers Pty Ltd ACN 696 899 297 (‘BL’, ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’) is a specialist commercial litigation firm based in Brisbane and acting nationally.
- 1.2 This policy explains how we collect, hold, use, and disclose personal information, and how you can access it, correct it, or complain.
- 1.3 We handle personal information under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (‘Privacy Act’) and the Australian Privacy Principles (‘APPs’).
- 1.4 This policy covers our website, our legal work, and our dealings with suppliers, contractors, referrers, and job applicants.
- 1.5 Our duties of confidentiality and legal professional privilege apply in addition to this policy. Where those duties are stricter, they prevail.
- 1.6 We provide a copy of this policy free of charge. Ask our Privacy Officer if you need it in another format.
- 1.7 This policy does not apply to the employee records of our current and former staff. Those records are exempt under the Privacy Act.
2. What personal information we collect
- 2.1 Personal information is information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.
- 2.2 We usually collect:
(a) name, contact details, date of birth, and occupation;
(b) identity documents, including driver licence and passport details;
(c) company, trust, and beneficial ownership details;
(d) financial information, including bank account details and records relevant to a dispute;
(e) information about the matter, including correspondence, contracts, file notes, and court documents;
(f) billing and payment records; and
(g) website usage information (clause 5).
- 2.3 Sensitive information includes health information, criminal record information, and information about membership of a professional or trade association.
- 2.4 We collect sensitive information only where it is reasonably necessary for our work and you consent, or the law allows or requires it. Personal injury, insurance, and employment matters often require health information.
- 2.5 Litigation regularly requires us to collect personal information about people who are not our clients, including other parties, witnesses, and company officers. Where the law requires and it is practicable, we take reasonable steps to notify them.
- 2.6 We do not adopt, use, or disclose government related identifiers, such as driver licence, passport, or Medicare numbers, as our own identifier for you, except where the Privacy Act allows. We handle tax file numbers under the Privacy (Tax File Number) Rule 2015.
3. How we collect personal information
- 3.1 We collect personal information directly from you where we can, including by phone, email, our website enquiry form, and in meetings.
- 3.2 We also collect personal information from:
(a) other lawyers, barristers, mediators, and experts;
(b) courts, tribunals, and regulators;
(c) public registers and searches, including ASIC, the PPSR, land titles, bankruptcy, and court records;
(d) your accountants, brokers, insurers, and other advisers;
(e) other parties to a dispute and their representatives; and
(f) referrers, where someone refers you to us.
- 3.3 If we receive personal information we did not ask for, we decide within a reasonable period whether we could have collected it under the APPs. If we could not, and it is lawful and reasonable to do so, we destroy or de-identify it.
4. Dealing with us anonymously or by pseudonym
- 4.1 You can make a general enquiry anonymously or using a pseudonym.
- 4.2 We cannot act for you anonymously. We must identify you to run conflict checks, to meet our obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth), and to conduct proceedings.
5. Our website
- 5.1 You can browse the website without telling us who you are.
- 5.2 Our web server records standard technical information, including IP address, browser type, pages visited, and the date and time of access.
- 5.3 The website uses cookies to operate correctly and to measure traffic.
- 5.4 You can set your browser to refuse cookies. Parts of the website may not work if you do.
- 5.5 If you complete an enquiry form, we collect the information you provide and use it to respond to you and to run a conflict check.
6. Why we collect, hold, use, and disclose personal information
- 6.1 We collect and use personal information to:
(a) provide legal services and conduct disputes;
(b) identify and verify clients and run conflict checks;
(c) meet our obligations under anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing law;
(d) bill for our work, manage our trust account, and recover unpaid fees;
(e) manage our practice, including file management, supervision, insurance, audit, and external examination;
(f) meet our obligations under the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld) and the professional conduct rules;
(g) respond to enquiries and assess whether we can act; and
(h) send you information about our services and legal developments, where you have not opted out.
- 6.2 If you do not give us the information we ask for, we may be unable to act for you or to act effectively.
7. Who we disclose personal information to
- 7.1 We disclose personal information to:
(a) barristers, experts, mediators, process servers, and agents engaged for your matter;
(b) courts, tribunals, other parties, and their representatives, where the rules or an order require it;
(c) regulators, AUSTRAC, and law enforcement, where the law requires;
(d) our information technology, document management, cloud storage, and practice management providers;
(e) our accountants, bookkeepers, external examiner, auditors, insurers, and costs assessors;
(f) search and settlement platform providers used to conduct your matter; and
(g) debt recovery agents, if our fees are unpaid.
- 7.2 We do not sell personal information.
- 7.3 We do not disclose privileged or confidential client information except on instructions or where the law requires.
- 7.4 Anti-money laundering law may prevent us from telling you that we have made a report about a matter. Where that applies, we cannot tell you what was reported or that a report was made.
8. Disclosure outside Australia
- 8.2 Before we disclose personal information to an overseas recipient, we take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient handles it consistently with the APPs, unless an exception under APP 8 applies, such as your informed consent or a disclosure required by Australian law or a court order.
- 8.3 Where your matter involves a party, court, or adviser outside Australia, we may need to disclose personal information to that jurisdiction to conduct the matter.
9. Direct marketing
- 9.1 We may send you information about our services, seminars, and legal developments.
- 9.2 Every marketing message includes an unsubscribe function. You can also ask us to stop at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer.
- 9.3 We do not disclose personal information to other organisations for their marketing.
- 9.4 On request, we tell you where we got your personal information, unless that is impracticable or unreasonable.
10. Security
- 10.1 We hold personal information in electronic systems and in paper files.
- 10.2 We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. Those steps include access controls, multi-factor authentication, encryption in transit, secure disposal, staff training, and confidentiality obligations.
- 10.3 No system is completely secure. We cannot guarantee the security of information you send us by email or through the website.
11. Data breaches
- 11.1 If we suspect a data breach, we assess it promptly.
- 11.2 If a breach is likely to result in serious harm, we notify affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.
12. How long we keep personal information
- 12.1 We keep client files for at least seven years after a matter closes. Some records must be kept for longer under anti-money laundering law, the professional rules, or a court order.
- 12.2 We destroy or de-identify personal information when we no longer need it and we are not required to keep it.
13. Access and correction
- 13.1 You can ask for access to the personal information we hold about you. Send the request in writing to our Privacy Officer.
- 13.2 We respond within 30 days. We do not charge for making a request or for correcting information. We may charge a reasonable fee for giving access, but the fee will not be excessive.
- 13.3 We may refuse access where the APPs allow, including where the information is subject to legal professional privilege, where access would unreasonably affect another person’s privacy, or where the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings and would not be accessible through the disclosure process. If we refuse, we give you written reasons, tell you how to complain, and, where reasonable, consider giving access through a mutually agreed intermediary.
- 13.4 If information we hold about you is wrong, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading, ask us to correct it and we will take reasonable steps to do so.
- 13.5 If we refuse to correct information, we give you written reasons and tell you how to complain. You can ask us to attach a statement to the information recording your view that it is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading, and we will take reasonable steps to do so.
- 13.6 If we correct information we have earlier given to another APP entity, you can ask us to tell that entity about the correction. We will take reasonable steps to do so unless it is impracticable or unlawful.
14. Automated decision making
- 14.1 We do not use computer programs to make, or substantially assist in making, decisions that could significantly affect your rights or interests.
15. Complaints
- 15.1 If you think we have breached the APPs, complain in writing to our Privacy Officer using the details in clause 17.
- 15.2 We acknowledge complaints within five business days and aim to respond within 30 days.
- 15.3 If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner:
Phone: 1300 363 992
Post: GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001
Website: www.oaic.gov.au
- 15.4 Complaints about our legal services or costs can be made to the Legal Services Commission (Queensland).
16. Changes to this policy
- 16.1 We may update this policy. The current version is always available on our website.
- 16.2 This policy was last updated on the date shown at the top of this page.
17. Contact our Privacy Officer
Lachlan Boyle, Privacy Officer
Boyle Litigation Lawyers Pty Ltd
ACN 696 899 297 | ABN 13 686 899 297
Santos Place, Level 27, 32 Turbot Street, Brisbane QLD 4000
Email: lboyle@boylelitigation.com.au Phone: 1300 320 016