Privacy Policy
Project Advocates Pty Ltd (ABN 84 668 270 415) (“Project Advocates”)
(“Project Advocates”) is committed to providing quality services to you and this policy outlines our ongoing obligations to you in respect of how we manage your Personal Information.
We respect your rights to privacy and have adopted the Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs”) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the “Privacy Act”). The APPs govern the way in which we collect, use, disclose, store, secure and dispose of your Personal Information.
A copy of the Australian Privacy Principles may be obtained from the website of The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at https://www.oaic.gov.au/.
What is Personal Information and why do we collect it?
Personal Information is information or an opinion that identifies an individual. Examples of Personal Information we collect includes names, employing entity and title or position, addresses, email addresses, phone and facsimile numbers.
This Personal Information is obtained in many ways including meetings, correspondence, by telephone and facsimile, by email, via our website www.projectadvocates.com.au, from your website, from media and publications, from other publicly available sources, from cookies, and from third parties. We don’t guarantee website links or the policy of authorised third parties.
We collect your Personal Information for the primary purpose of providing our services to you, providing information to our clients and marketing. We may also use your Personal Information for secondary purposes closely related to the primary purpose, in circumstances where you would reasonably expect such use or disclosure. You may unsubscribe from our mailing/marketing lists at any time by contacting us in writing.
When we collect Personal Information we will, where appropriate and where possible, explain to you why we are collecting the information and how we plan to use it.
What happens if we can’t collect your Personal Information?
In most cases, you will be required to identify yourself when you deal with us, such as when you (or your associated company or other entity) become a client of ours. If you do not provide us with the personal information described above, some or all of the following may happen:
- we may not be able to accept you (or your associated company or other entity) as a client or provide our services to you or your associated company or other entity;
- we may not be able to provide you with our publications, brochures and newsletters; and
- we may be unable to tailor the content of our website to your preferences and your experience of our website may not be as relevant, enjoyable or useful as it could be.
Sensitive Information
Sensitive information is defined in the Privacy Act to include information or opinion about such things as an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious or philosophical beliefs, membership of a trade union or other professional
body, criminal record or health information.
Sensitive information will be used by us only:
- For the primary purpose for which it was obtained
- For a secondary purpose that is directly related to the primary purpose
- With your consent; or where required or authorised by law.
Third Parties
Where reasonable and practicable to do so, we will collect your Personal Information only from you. However, in some circumstances we may be provided with information by third parties. In such a case we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are made aware of the information provided to us by the third party.
Disclosure of Personal Information - Purposes
Your Personal Information may be disclosed in a number of circumstances including the
following:
- administering our relationship with you, including providing services, responding to enquiries and obtaining payment for our services;
- processing applications for employment;
- business development including sending legal updates, publications, and details of events and tracking and recording your opening of our email communications and clicking on any links in our email communications;
- providing and administering legal services;
- meeting legal or other regulatory obligations imposed on us;
- auditing and managing the usage of our website;
- to update our records and keep your contact details up to date;
- to process and respond to any complaint made by you; and
- to comply with any law, rule, regulation, lawful and binding determination, decision or direction of a regulator, or other governmental authority.
Who do we disclose your information to?
We may disclose your personal information to:
- our employees, related entities, contractors or third party service providers in connection with the services that we are providing to you, including to our IT service providers, couriers, data room operators and discovery service providers;
- any third parties that we engage on your behalf or which you engage directly in connection with the services we are providing to you, including barristers, auditors, accountants, third party experts and other consultants or advisors;
- our insurers and our professional advisors, including our accountants, business advisors and consultants;
- any legal industry regulatory body in any of the States and Territories that we operate in; and
- any other organisation or individual for any authorised purpose with your express consent.
Do we disclose your personal information to anyone outside Australia.
We may disclose personal information to other Project Advocates and third party suppliers and service providers located overseas for some of the purposes listed above.
In providing services to you, we may need to disclose your personal information to another Project Advocates office or advisor in another country. This does not diminish your rights and we will take all reasonable steps necessary to ensure transferred information is kept secure as required by applicable data privacy laws. By submitting your personal information to us you agree that you do not object to any such transfer, processing or storage. If we merge, combine or divest a part of our business, we may also pass on your details to our new colleagues and the manager of any entity through which they operate unless prohibited from doing so by law or applicableprofessional rules.
We may disclose your personal information outside of Australia as follows:
- to other Project Advocates offices or our network of advisors located currently in Asia, Africa and the Middle East (given our ever increasing global reach this list is subject to change);
- to our data hosting and other service providers in the United States and India; and
- Business development and marketing.
Occasionally we may use personal information to send you details of new services, legal updates, and invitations to seminars and events. However, we will only do this where you consent to being contacted in this way. These communications may be sent in various forms (including by post and by email) in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). If you indicate a preference for a method of communication, we will endeavour to use that method whenever practical to do so.
If you prefer not to receive promotional material from us, please email us at neveen.ayad@projectadvocates.com.au and put “unsubscribe” in the subject line together with the name of the publication you wish to unsubscribe from. Our email marketing communications will also include an “unsubscribe” link.
Our website
When you visit our website we may send a ‘cookie’ to your computer. This is a small data file stored by your computer to help improve functionality or tailor information to provide visitors to our website with more relevant pages. We may also analyse website traffic to identify what visitors find most interesting so we can tailor our website accordingly.
As our website is linked to the internet, and the internet is inherently insecure, we cannot provide any assurance regarding the security of transmission of information you communicate to us online. We also cannot guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the internet. Accordingly, any personal information or other information which you transmit to us online is transmitted at your own risk.
Our website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party website. Third party website providers are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices.
Security and data quality of Personal Information
We take reasonable steps to ensure your Personal Information is protected from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
We may hold your information in either electronic or hard copy form. When your Personal Information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was obtained, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify your Personal Information. However, most of the Personal Information is or will be stored in client files which will be kept by us until it is no longer needed or when we are no longer required by law to retain it (whichever is the later).
Access to your Personal Information
You may request access to any personal information that we hold about you at any time by contacting us (see the details below). Where we hold information that you are entitled to access, we will try to provide you with suitable means of accessing it (for example, by posting or emailing
it to you). We may charge you a reasonable fee to cover our administrative and other reasonable costs in providing the information to you. We will not charge you for simply making the request and will not charge for making any corrections to your personal information.
There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to the personal information we hold. For example, we may need to refuse access if granting access would interfere with the privacy of others or if it would result in a breach of confidentiality or legal professional privilege. If that
happens, we will give you written reasons for our refusal.
If you believe that any personal information that we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you may request that we correct it. We will consider if the information requires correction. If we do not agree that there are grounds for correction, then you may request that we add a note to the personal information stating that you disagree with it.
Maintaining the Quality of your Personal Information
It is important to us that your Personal Information is up to date. We will take reasonable steps to make sure that your Personal Information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you find that the information we have is not up to date or is inaccurate, please advise us as soon as practicable
so we can update our records and ensure we can continue to provide quality services to you.
Policy Updates
This Policy may change from time to time and is available on our website.
Privacy Policy Complaints and Enquiries
If you believe that your privacy has been breached, please contact us using the contact information below and provide details of the incident so that we can investigate it. We will treat your complaint confidentially, investigate your complaint and aim to ensure that we contact you and that your complaint is resolved within a reasonable time (and in any event within the time required by the Act, if applicable).
Agreement to terms of privacy policy
By using this website and/or providing information to us, you accept and agree to the collection, use, holding and disclosure of your personal information for the purposes described in this policy. We review our policies regularly and occasionally may need to change or update them. Any
updated versions of this privacy policy will be posted on our website and will be effective from the date of posting. This Privacy Policy was last reviewed and updated on 30 September 2023.
Contact information
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, any concerns or a complaint regarding the treatment of your personal information or a possible breach of your privacy, please contact us using the details below:
- Post: Att: Neveen Ayad
- Project Advocates Pty Ltd
- 701/29 Commonwealth Street, Sydney NSW Australia 2000
- Phone: +61427897638
- Email: neveen.ayad@projectadvocates.com.au
Privacy collection notice
Your personal information is being collected by Project Advocates Pty Ltd (ABN 84 668 270 415) and its affiliates (together, we or us). Under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act”), we are required to tell you that we collect Personal Information (as defined in the Privacy Act)
about you to assist in performing legal and commercial advisory services you have requested and in promoting our legal and commercial advisory services. If we cannot collect that information we may not be able to provide legal and commercial advisory services to you. We
collect this information mainly through our communications with you but we may do so also from other sources in the course of providing our services to you. We generally do not disclose information about you to any person except as required in the course of providing legal and
commercial advisory services to you or for the ordinary administration of our business. In certain circumstances, we may disclose information about you where permitted or authorised under the Privacy Act or other applicable law.
Our privacy policy contains information about accessing and seeking correction of your personal information, making a privacy-related complaint and our complaint handling process. It also lists the locations outside Australia where your information may be disclosed in accordance with this clause and the privacy policy, being offices or our network of advisors located currently in Asia, Africa and the Middle East (given our increasing global reach this list is subject to change), as well as our data hosting and other service providers in the United States and India.
If you would like to inform us that you do not wish to receive promotional material from us, request access to or the correction of information we hold about you or to make a complaint Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation about our treatment of your privacy, please make a written request to our Principal by sending an email to neveen.ayad@projectadvocates.com.au or by mail to Att: Neveen Ayad, Project Advocates Pty Ltd, 701/29 Commonwealth Street, Sydney NSW Australia 2000.
