Privacy Policy

 

Protecting the privacy of your personal information is important to Landry McGillivray. We are committed to using personal information responsibly and only to the extent necessary for the services that we provide. We are committed to being open about how we handle your personal information. This document describes our privacy policies.

Effective Date & Changes
We will comply with the terms of this privacy policy while it is in effect. We reserve the right to modify the policy at any time as may be required to comply with privacy legislation and the revised privacy policy will then apply to all personal information. This policy will be in effect from January 1, 2004 until the date an amended policy is published. If we change the privacy policy, we will post the amendments in our office and have copies available.

What is Personal Information?
Personal Information is information about an identifiable individual. Personal information includes information that relates to any personal characteristics (e.g. gender, age, income, home address or phone number, ethnic background, family status), health (e.g. health history, health conditions, health services received by them) or activities and views (e.g. religion, politics, opinions expressed by an individual, an opinion or evaluation of an individual). Personal information does not include such things as your business address and telephone number which is not protected by privacy legislation.

Who We Are
Landry McGillivray includes all employees and staff authorized to collect, use or disclose personal information. We use a number of consultants and agencies that may, in the course of their work for us, where necessary, have limited access to personal information we hold. These include, computer consultants, office security and maintenance, bookkeepers and accountants, temporary workers to cover the holidays, credit card companies, collection agencies, and website managers. We restrict their access to any personal information we hold as much as is reasonably possible. We also have their assurance that they follow appropriate privacy principles.

Collecting Personal Information: Primary Purposes
Landry McGillivray collects, uses and discloses personal information in order to contact you, advance your claim or transaction, bill and collect fees and other purposes appropriate in the conduct of your file. We may communicate this information to other lawyers and law firms, insurance adjusters, parties to actions and transactions, government officials. It would be rare for us to collect information without your written, oral or implied consent, but this could occur in an emergency or where we believe you would consent if asked and it is impractical to obtain consent.

About Contract Staff, Volunteers & Students
For people who are contracted to do work for us (e.g. temporary workers), our primary purpose for collecting your personal information is to ensure we can contact you in the future (e.g for new assignments) and for necessary work-related communication (e.g. sending our pay cheques, year-end tax receipts). Examples of the type of personal information we collect for those purposes include home addresses and telephone numbers. It is rare for us to collect such information without prior consent, but it might happen in the case of an emergency or to investigate a possible breach of law. If you, as a contract staff person, volunteer or student wish a letter of reference or an evaluation, we will collect information and your work-related performance and provide a report as authorized by you.

Collecting Personal Information: Related & Secondary Purposes
Like most organizations, we also collect, use and disclose information for various additional purposes. The most common examples of our secondary purposes are as follows:

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1. To invoice individuals for services or products that were not paid for at the time the service or product was provided, to process credit card payments or to collect unpaid accounts either ourselves or through a collection agency.

2. To contact you, by telephone, mail or email with respect to an ongoing legal matter.

3. To advise clients, prospective clients and others of legislation changes or legal developments we feel may be of interest.

4. Landry McGillivray reviews personal information for the purpose of administration, business, planning and ensuring that we provide high quality products and services, including assessing the performance of our staff. In rare cases, our firm or our consultants may make inquiries to verify that the information we have about you is accurate.

5. We retain personal information for a period of five(5) years after the last contact to enable us to use it for subsequent transactions or litigation on your behalf.

6. If Landry McGillivray or its assets were to be sold, the prospective purchaser would want to conduct a “due diligence” review of our records to ensure that it is a viable business that has been honestly portrayed to the prospective purchaser. This due diligence may involve some review that may include releasing personal information. The prospective purchaser would not be allowed to remove or record personal information and, before being provided a review of the files and records, the prospective purchaser must provide a written commitment to keep all personal information confidential. Only reputable purchasers who have already agreed to purchase the practice or its assets would be provided, at closing, complete access to personal information. The purchaser would be required to maintain the same principles of privacy as established under the present privacy legislation.

You can choose not to be part of some of these secondary purposes (e.g. by declining to receive notice of special events or opportunities, by paying for your services in advance). We do not, however, have much choice about some of these primary or secondary purposes (e.g. external regulation).

Protecting Personal Information
We understand the importance of protecting personal information. For that reason we have taken the following step

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1. Employees, including temporary staff, are trained to collect, use and disclose personal information only as necessary to fulfill their duties and in accordance with the privacy policy.

2. Paper information is either under supervision or secured in a locked or restricted area.

3. Electronic hardware is either under supervision or secured in a locked or restricted area at all times. In addition, passwords are used on computers. All of our cell phones use digital signals, which are more difficult to intercept.

4. Paper information is transmitted through sealed, addressed envelopes or boxes by reputable companies or collected by the client who asks for the information.

5. Electronic information is transmitted either through a direct line or is anonymized or encrypted.

6. Verbal personal information is collected and used in such a manner that the information is not overheard by persons other than the client, our lawyers or support staff.

7. External consultants and agencies with access to personal information must enter into privacy agreements with us.

Retention & Destruction Of Personal Information
We need to retain personal information for some time to ensure that we can answer any questions you might have about the services we provided to you and for our own accountability.

You can ask us, in writing, to restrict our uses and disclosures of personal information at any time. We will also discontinue to use or to disclose your personal information after a written revocation of your implied or informed consent is received, unless we have already acted in reliance upon this consent.

We destroy paper files containing personal information by shredding. We destroy electronic information by deleting it and when the hardware is discarded, we ensure that information on the hard drive is destroyed.

You Can Look at Your Information
With rare exceptions, you have the right to see what personal information we hold about you. All you have to do is ask. We can help you identify what records we might have about you. We will also try to help you understand any information you do not understand (e.g. short forms, technical language, etc.). We will need to confirm your identity, if we do not know you, before providing you with this access. We reserve the right to charge a nominal fee for such requests.

We may ask you to put your request in writing. If we cannot give you access, we will notify you within thirty (30) days if at all possible and provide the reason, as best we can, as to why we cannot give you access.

If you believe there is a mistake in the information we have about you, you have the right to ask for it to be corrected. This applies to factual information and not to any professional opinions we may have formed. We may ask you to provide documentation that our files are incorrect. Where a mistake has been made, we will make the correction and notify anyone to whom we sent this information. If we do not agree that a mistake has been made, we will include in our file a brief statement from you on the point and we will forward that statement to anyone else who received the earlier information.

Do You Have a Question?
Our Privacy Officer, Norman Hill, can be reached at : PO Box 1200, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, B2Y 4B8, phone number: 463-8800 and fax number: 463-0590. He will attempt to answer any questions or concerns you might have.

If you wish to make a formal complaint about our privacy practices or the application of those practices, you may make it in writing to our Privacy Officer. He will acknowledge receipt of your complaint, ensure that it is investigated promptly and that you are provided with a formal decision and reasons in writing.

This policy is made pursuant to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. That is a complex Act and provides some additional exceptions to the privacy principles that are too detailed to set out here. There are some rare exceptions to the commitments set out above.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada oversees the administration of the privacy legislation in the private sector. The Commissioner also acts as a kind of ombudsman for privacy disputes. The Privacy Commissioner can be reached at: