Sharee Cassel & Associates - Privacy Policy

The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) forms part of the service that is offered to you by Sharee Cassel & Associates. Any information that you provide which is of a personal, sensitive or confidential nature whether it relates to you personally or to your organisation will be treated with utmost confidentiality by Sharee Cassel & Associates.

This means that Sharee Cassel & Associates will protect all personal and confidential information from misuse, loss, unauthorised access and disclosure. We do this by securing the personal and confidential information in files, computer systems, safes, locked storage rooms, as we consider reasonable and appropriate. We also take advantage of modern technology, including firewalls and security databases, to ensure that only those whom an individual or organisation would reasonably expect will come into contact with the information. We ensure that all of our offices are securely locked and protected after hours.

Sharee Cassel & Associates primarily uses personal or confidential information that comes into our possession for the purpose of the matter or transaction in which we are instructed.

In the course of performing legal work, Sharee Cassel & Associates may come into contact with personal or confidential information about individuals or organisations without their direct or express authority. For example, when a client provides us with information about a third party or another party involved in the matter or transaction in which we are instructed, or documents are produced by an entity whether or not pursuant to a court order.

If a person or entity provides personal or confidential information to us about another individual or organisation then Sharee Cassel & Associates considers it that person or entity's responsibility to ensure they are entitled to disclose that information to us for our use in legal work without us taking any further steps required by privacy laws. Sharee Cassel & Associates recommends that any person or entity providing personal or confidential information to us about others ensures that the other individual or organisation is provided with this privacy policy as is applicable from time to time.

If Sharee Cassel & Associates come to hold personal or confidential information about persons or organisations that they would not reasonably expect us to hold, in circumstances where we believe the information is of such a personal and confidential nature that they would reasonably expect us to inform them that we hold the information, then we endeavour to contact such individuals or organisations.

Sharee Cassel & Associates may use personal information obtained for our own internal marketing purposes, for example to provide an update to individuals or organisations about legal developments, to suggest that an individual or organisation may wish to consider seeking advice from us in relation to aspects of their affairs, for our policy planning and research and development of our services, to perform credit and fraud and other checks, and to maintain and develop our business systems and infrastructure including the testing and upgrading of these systems.

We often will need to disclose relevant personal or confidential information for the purpose of obtaining opinions from experts, including accountants, financial advisers, medical practitioners, and so on. If a matter involves a dispute we may need to serve the personal or confidential information on another party to the dispute or disclose it to a tribunal or court to protect or advance that particular client's position. Occasionally, the use of the personal or confidential information may result in the disclosure taking place in another State, Territory, or Country. We may also be compelled by a court, or other regulatory order to disclose personal or confidential information. In these circumstances, we will consider whether we are entitled to refrain from making the information available on the basis that we can exercise a right to exercise legal professional privilege over the personal information.

Sharee Cassel & Associates will not intentionally disclose personal or confidential information unless it is incidental to the conduct a matter or transaction in which we are involved or unless we have an individual or organisation's express or implied authority to do so. In particular, we will not disclose personal information, other than to related organisations for the purpose of allowing them to directly market their products and services to an individual or organization.
We take reasonable steps to ensure that third parties deal with personal information according to the same standards that we subscribe to.

At any time you can write to Sharee Cassel & Associates to update or correct personal or confidential information that we hold about you.
Should you or your organisation no longer wish for Sharee Cassel & Associates to use personal or confidential information that we hold about you then you can write to us and request that we refrain from using the personal or confidential information for that purpose and we will take reasonable steps to ensure that this use no longer occurs.

Should you wish to view personal or confidential information that we hold about you then upon written request we will endeavour to make that information available to you. We require identification from the individual or organisation as we reasonably consider appropriate and for the individual or organisation requesting the availability of the information to pay the reasonable costs and expenses that we incur in complying with the request.

On occasions, we may consider that it is not reasonable or appropriate to comply with an individual's or organisation's request to make personal or confidential information about them available. For example, if we consider that the costs and work that we would incur in making personal or confidential information available would be disproportionate to the personal or confidential nature or importance of the information, or if we consider that it would invariably result in the disclosure of personal information belonging to another entity and we reasonably consider that we may expose ourselves to risk of a breach of the National Privacy Principles, breach of fiduciary or other duty, or an allegation that it is inappropriate professional conduct to make the disclosure. If we deny access we will provide the reason for doing so.

Please contact Sharee Cassel & Associates should you have a question about this privacy policy or if you have a complaint about personal information that you think we may hold about you or your organisation. Also contact us if you consider that your business may require a privacy policy, or if you require advice in relation to your rights and obligations pursuant to the law on privacy, confidentiality, or legal professional privilege.