Jeremy Scott Law is committed to your privacy. Our privacy commitment is based on Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada) (“PIPEDA”).
This privacy commitment adopts the definition of personal information from PIPEDA: “personal information” means information about an identifiable individual, but does not include the name, title or business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization.
Our obligations as a legal professional is also subject to the Rules of Professional Conduct as set out by the Nova Scotia Barrister’s Society. As a lawyer we have a professional obligation to keep confidential all information received within the lawyer-client relationship.
Personal Information Collected?
Personal information is collected in order to provide legal services and products to you.
How do we collect your personal information?
Personal information is collected when reasonably necessary for the legitimate purposes identified and for which consent has been obtained.
How do we use your information?
Your personal information may be used for the following purposes:
- to provide legal services;
- for billing, record-keeping and other client contact and service matters;
- for audit and record-keeping purposes;
- for account collection purposes;
- to manage and develop our business and operations;
- to follow up on client comments and suggestions.
Disclosure of your personal information
Jeremy Scott Law will only disclose your personal information for the legitimate purposes identified to you and for which consent has been obtained, or if required or authorized by law. For example, we may disclose your information:
- when the legal services we are providing to you require us to give your information to third parties (for example to the Canada Revenue Agency under a CRA audit);
- where it is necessary to establish or collect fees;
- if a court issues a subpoena;
Consent and exceptions
It is important that we obtain consent in particular where required by law for collection, use and disclosure of your personal information. For the purpose of obtaining your consent, Jeremy Scott Law will consider the following:
- we may obtain your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your information either expressly for stated purposes or impliedly when the purposes are not stated expressly but are indicated by the relevant circumstances or follow logically from other expressly stated purposes;
- for the consent to be informed, we will make reasonable efforts to advise you of all the purposes for which the personal information is being sought, unless the purposes are plain and obvious;
- we will make reasonable efforts to obtain consent for all anticipated purposes at the time of the collection of the personal information;
- we will obtain additional consent if we propose to use your personal information for a purpose for which express or implied consent was not initially obtained;
- we will not, as a condition of the supply of a product or service, require you to consent to the collection, use, or disclosure of information beyond that required to fulfill the explicitly specified purposes; and
- you may withdraw or amend any consent previously given by contacting any of our Privacy Officers, subject to any legal or contractual restrictions and upon reasonable notice to us.
The law provides certain exceptions to the usual requirement to obtain an individual’s consent, for example:
- when collection and use is clearly in the interests of the individual and consent cannot be obtained in a timely way;
- in emergencies;
- where consent would compromise investigating a breach of contract or law;
- to collect a debt;
- to comply with rules of court relating to the production of information;
- in other circumstances where permitted or required by law.
Keeping your personal information secure
Jeremy Scott Law uses appropriate security measures to protect against loss, theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, use or modification of personal information. Such measures will vary depending on the sensitivity, amount, format, nature and storage of the personal information and will involve, as applicable, physical, organizational and electronic security measures, including premises security, restricted file access, technological safeguards including security software and firewalls to prevent unauthorized computer access, and password and security policies.
In communicating with us, you should be aware that e-mail is not a fully secure medium.
Updating your information and correcting errors
Since we use your personal information to provide legal services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up-to-date.
If any of your information changes, is inaccurate or incomplete, please inform us so that we can make any necessary changes.
Access to your personal information
Jeremy Scott will respond promptly to any request for access to your personal information. We may not respond to requests for access to personal information that are frivolous, vexatious or repetitious.
In certain circumstances, we may be unable to provide access to some or all of the personal information that we hold about you. Such circumstances include those in which the personal information cannot be separated from the records of others, cannot be disclosed for reasons of personal security or commercial confidentiality or is protected by professional standards relating to confidentiality or solicitor-client privilege.
Changes to our privacy policy
As part of our regular review of all of our policies and procedures, we may change our privacy policy from time to time.
Questions, concerns or requests for access
If you have any questions or concerns, please Jeremy Scott.