Privacy Policy
Amici Curiae Friendship Society Privacy Policy
The Personal Information Protection Act (“the Act”) regulates the way private sector organizations within British Columbia collect, use, keep, secure and disclose personal information. “Personal Information” means all information about an identifiable individual. The Firm recognizes the importance of privacy and recognizes the sensitivity of personal information received by us in the course of our legal practice. We recognize our professional obligation to maintain the confidentiality of our clients’ information, and recognize our obligations concerning the personal information of all individuals that we collect, use or disclose in our practice. This policy has been developed with those obligations in mind.
Personal Information
BC’s Personal Information Protection Act sets out rules for how organizations collect, use and disclose personal information. Personal information is recorded information about an identifiable individual. Personal information includes things such as an individual's name, address, birth date, email address and phone number.
Our Need for Personal Information
In order to be able to give legal services to our clients, we need access to all relevant facts and information that relate to our retainer and to the representation of our clients. This information will necessarily include personal information about our clients and about individuals other than our clients.
Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information
Where practical, we endeavour to collect personal information directly from the person to whom the information pertains. When necessary, we will collect personal information from other sources.
By retaining this firm for legal advice or representation, an individual consents to our necessary collection, use or disclosure of the individual’s personal information in order to properly advise and represent the individual.
It is our policy to collect personal information about individuals other than our clients in accordance with the provisions of the Personal Information Protection Act.
The Act deems that an individual has consented to our collection, use or disclosure of personal information about that individual if, at the time the consent is deemed to be given, the purpose would be considered obvious to a reasonable person. In such circumstances, we will collect, use or disclose personal information without obtaining a written or verbal consent to do so.
The Act also permits us to collect, use or disclose personal information about an individual in some circumstances without the individual’s consent. Those include (but are not limited to) circumstances in which:
• the collection, use or disclosure is clearly in the interests of the individual and consent cannot be obtained in a timely way; • it is reasonable to expect that the collection or use of personal information with the consent of the individual would compromise the availability or accuracy of the information, and the collection or use of the information is necessary for an investigation or proceeding; • it is reasonable to expect that the disclosure of personal information with the consent of the individual would compromise an investigation or proceeding, and the disclosure of the information is necessary for an investigation or proceeding; • the personal information is available to the public from a prescribed source; • the collection, use or disclosure of personal information is required or authorized by law.
When we collect, use or disclose personal information, we will make reasonable efforts to ensure that it is accurate and complete.
Security of Personal Information
We recognize our professional and legal obligations to protect the confidential information of our clients. We recognize as well our legal obligations to protect the personal information we have gathered about our clients and about other individuals during the course of our practice of law.
We have therefore made arrangements to secure against the unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification, disposal or destruction of personal information.
Request for Access to Personal Information
The Act permits individuals to submit written requests to us to provide them with:
their personal information under our custody or control; • information about how their personal information under our control has been and is being used by us; • the names of the individuals and organizations to whom their personal information under our control has been disclosed by us. We will respond to requests in the time allowed by the Act and will make a reasonable effort to assist applicants and to respond as accurately and completely as reasonably possible. All requests may be subject to any fees and disbursements the law permits us to charge. An individual’s ability to access his or her personal information under our control is not absolute. The Act provides that we must not disclose personal information when: • the disclosure could reasonably be expected to threaten the safety or physical or mental health of an individual other than the individual who made the request; • the disclosure can reasonably be expected to cause immediate or grave harm to the safety or to the physical or mental health of the individual who made the request; • the disclosure would reveal personal information about another individual; • the disclosure would reveal the identity of an individual who has provided personal information about another individual and the individual providing the personal information does not consent to disclosure of his or her identity. The Act further provides that we are not required to disclose personal information when: • the personal information is protected by solicitor-client privilege; • the disclosure of the personal information would reveal confidential commercial information that, if disclosed, could, in the opinion of a reasonable person, harm the competitive position of an organization; • the personal information was collected without consent for the purposes of an investigation, and the investigation and associated proceedings and appeals have not been completed; • the personal information was collected or created by a mediator or arbitrator in the conduct of a mediation or arbitration for which he or she was appointed to act:
a. under a collective agreement,
b. under an enactment, or c. by a court.
Requests for correction of personal information
The law permits individuals to submit written requests to us to correct errors or omissions in their personal information that is in our custody or control. We will: • correct the personal information and, if reasonable to do so, send correction notifications to any other organizations to whom we disclosed the incorrect information; or • decide not to correct the personal information, but annotate the personal information that a correction was requested but not made.
Third Party Privacy Policies
During the course of offering you the best client-service possible, we employ the use of third party software for internal system use. Each of these third-party services is screened internally to ensure compliance with Law Society Guidelines. The use, collection, and storage of your personal information is also subject to those third-party policies, and by use of our Services you agree to comply with such policies.
Our tech stack consists of the following programs, which you expressly consent to us using in order to store your personal information:
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Microsoft 365 suite including M365 Co-Pilot
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DivorceMate
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Sync
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Slack
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Adobe Acrobat
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Gmail
Privacy and our website
When an individual visitor accesses the our website, we may use a browser feature called a ‘cookie’ to collect information such as the type of Internet browser and operating system the visitor uses, the domain name of the website from which the visitor came, date and duration of the visit, number of visits, average time spent on our website, pages viewed and number of cookies accumulated. A cookie is a small text file containing a unique identification number that identifies the visitor’s browser, but not necessarily the visitor, to our computers each time our website is visited. Unless a visitor specifically informs us (e.g. by registering for an event or sending us correspondence from the website), we will not know who the individual visitors are. Similarly, we may use other technologies such as pixel tags, locally shared objects, clear GIFs and web beacons, to track what you view and interact with on our website.
In addition to the identified purposes described in our Privacy Policy, we may use this website information and share it with other organizations with whom we have a commercial relationship to measure the use of our website, to improve the functionality and content of the website and to facilitate usage by a visitor.
Visitors can reset their browsers either to notify them when they have received a cookie or refuse to accept cookies. However, if a visitor refuses to accept cookies, he or she may not be able to use some of the features available on our website.
Links
Our website may contain links to other websites which are provided as a convenience only. Visitors are advised that other third party websites may have different privacy policies and practices than macushlaw, and macushlaw has no responsibility for such third party websites.
Contacting or communicating with us
If you have any questions with respect to our policies concerning the handling of your personal information, or if you wish to request access to, or correction of, your personal information under our care and control, please contact our Privacy Officer at:
If you are dissatisfied with our handling of your personal information, we invite you to contact our Privacy Officer in writing, setting out the reasons for your concern. If, after our Privacy Officer has reviewed and responded to your concern, you remain dissatisfied, you may wish to contact the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner at: PO Box 9038, Stn Prov Govt Victoria; BC V8W 9A4 Telephone 250.387.5629 Fax 250.387.1696