Privacy notice

This document is the Australian Privacy Policy of Norton Rose Fulbright Australia (ABN 32 720 868 049) and its Australian affiliates (together, we or us). We respect your rights to privacy under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Act) and we comply with all of the Act’s requirements in respect of the collection, management and disclosure of your personal information.

This document does not apply to the handling of personal information by any other Norton Rose Fulbright member firms. In this context, Norton Rose Fulbright refers to Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, Norton Rose Fulbright Australia, Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP, Norton Rose Fulbright South Africa Inc, Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP, each of which is a separate legal entity, and their respective affiliates. Please refer to our Global Privacy Notice at nortonrosefulbright.com/privacy-notice/ for further information on how other Norton Rose Fulbright member firms handle personal information.

What personal information do we collect?

When used in this privacy policy, the term “personal information” has the meaning given to it in the Act. Generally speaking, personal information is any information that can be used to personally identify you. This may include your name, address, telephone number, email address and profession or occupation. If the information that we collect personally identifies you, or you are reasonably identifiable from it, then we will treat that information as personal information.

When you visit our website or request a service from us, we may collect personal information such as your name, employing entity and title or position, contact details such as telephone number and postal or email address, and any other information relating to you which you may provide.
In some cases, we may collect sensitive information about you (including health information) if it is relevant to the services that we provide to you.

How do we collect your personal information?

We collect your personal information directly from you unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so. When collecting personal information from you, we may collect it in various ways, including:

  • through your access to and use of our website;
  • when you register to receive any of our publications or newsletters or attend any of the events that we host or organise;
  • during conversations between you and our representatives; or
  • when you communicate with us via email, post or fax.

We may also collect personal information about you from third parties, including from your employer, your authorised representatives or your other professional advisors.

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.

For what purposes do we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information?

We will normally hold your personal information in a database. We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for some or all of the following purposes:

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 Norton Rose Fulbright 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 Norton Rose Fulbright office 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 applicable professional rules.

We may disclose your personal information outside of Australia as follows:

  • to other Norton Rose Fulbright offices located in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East (for a full list, please see our global coverage); and
  • to our data hosting and other service providers in the United Kingdom, the United States, the Philippines and Singapore.

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 au.privacyofficer@nortonrosefulbright.com 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. For details of the cookies employed by us please see our Cookies Policy, which forms part of this Privacy Policy. 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

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. Personal information is destroyed or de-identified when no longer needed or when we are no longer required by law to retain it (whichever is the later).

How can you access and correct 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.

What is the process for complaining about a breach of privacy?

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 20 August 2015.

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 our Privacy Officer using the details set out below.

Our Privacy Officer can be contacted via:

Post: Privacy Officer
Norton Rose Fulbright Australia
GPO Box 4592SS
Melbourne VIC 3001

Tel: (03) 8686 6000

Email: au.privacyofficer@nortonrosefulbright.com

Privacy collection notice

Your personal information is being collected by Norton Rose Fulbright Australia (ABN 32 720 868 049) and its Australian 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 services you have requested and in promoting our legal services.  If we cannot collect that information we may not be able to provide legal 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 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 our offices in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East (for a full list see here), as well as our data hosting and other service providers in the United Kingdom, United States, the Philippines and Singapore.

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 about our treatment of your privacy, please make a written request to our Privacy Officer by sending an email to au.privacyofficer@nortonrosefulbright.com or by mail to Privacy Officer, Norton Rose Fulbright Australia, GPO Box 4592SS, Melbourne, Victoria 3001.