Privacy Policy
Cardinal Law Professional Corporation (“Cardinal Law”) understands and recognizes the importance of everyone’s privacy. While providing our services, we are committed to collecting, preserving, and protecting your personal information in line with Federal and Provincial legislation.
Consent
By providing Cardinal Law with your personal information, you are providing Cardinal Law, our third parties, service providers and agents, your consent to collect, retain, use, and distribute your personal information in the course of providing legal services to you. This consent is provided after a review of our privacy policy and an understanding that we have developed our policy and practices in accordance with the applicable legislation. At any point you may withdraw your consent for us to use your personal information, however, you must understand that our knowledge of your personal information is often critical in the course of providing you with legal services and as such, we may be unable to provide you services. Should you provide us with personal information of another individual, you are representing to us that you have the necessary authority and/or consent to provide us with the ability to collect, retain, use and distribute said information.
Why Do We Need to Collect Your Personal Information?
We need to collect, retain, use and disclose your personal information in order to provide legal services to you. The specific purposes we would be collecting, retaining, using and disclosing your information for are:
– Determining whether or not we will retain you as a client
– Providing you with tailored and personal legal advice and services;
– Sharing information with third parties as required in the performance of our legal services (for example, data service providers, registry agents, suppliers of products and services and other lawyers);
Creating and issuing invoices, processing payments and collecting debts owed to us;
Avoiding conflicts of interest;
Ensuring we comply with all regulatory and legal requirements;
Advising you of any upcoming events or information/developments in law that you may pertain to you through e-mail;
Developing and managing our knowledge-management precedent systems and databases;
Monitoring and analyzing our business and website operations;
Protecting our firm and third parties against error, negligence, breach of contract, fraud, theft and other illegal activities; and
Any other purposes for which you provide your consent.
Should we need to use your personal information for anything other than the purposes listed above, we will contact you to receive your consent for such disclosure.
What Personal Information Do We Collect?
Canada’s privacy legislation defines personal information as information about an identifiable individual or information that can be used to identify an individual. Personal information does not include business contact information such as your name, title/position, business address, telephone number, facsimile number or e-mail address. Information that does constitute personal information and therefore falls within the scope of this privacy policy is information such as: age, marital status, medical, education or employment history, financial information, identifying numbers such as your social insurance number, or driver’s license, address and any details about your matter.
Who Do We Disclose Your Personal Information To?
We may have to disclose your personal information to third parties in the course of providing legal services to you. We will only do so when it is absolutely necessary. We may disclose your personal information to:
Our insurers and regulatory agencies in order to comply with professional or legal obligations, laws or rules they have in place;
Service providers that we retain to provide services for us (such as online storage facilities);
Third parties who evaluate credit worthiness or aid us in the collection of debts;
Financial institutions involved in the matter you have retained us for;
Other law firms or businesses should we ever grow or merge with another law firm; and
To any other third parties in situations where you have consented to such disclosure.
In situations where we disclose your personal information, we will ensure any such third party is bound by similar privacy obligations.
How Do We Store and Protect Your Personal Information?
Your personal information is stored in secured locations and on servers controlled by Cardinal Law, located either at our offices or at the offices of our service providers. While we make every possible effort to ensure your data is stored within the borders of Canada to prevent it from being accessible to the Government of the United States of America, as is allowed under the
American “Patriot Act”, occasionally we have circumstances where it is necessary for us to utilize data servers located within the borders of the United States of America and as such said data may be accessible to the governmental authorities of said country.
What Happens if You Need to Access or Correct Your Personal Information?
Should you need access to your personal information or would like to be made aware of the existence, use and disclosure of your personal information, please contact our Chief Privacy Officer whose information is located at the end of this policy. Subject to certain restrictions she will be able to provide you will access to your personal information.
Privacy on Our Web Site – Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that contains data about the user that visits our website. We use cookies when individuals visit our site in order to obtain information about them. Cookies will never inform us of the identity of the actual user. Cookies provide information on data such as the type of internet browser and operating system of the individual, length of time on our site and pages viewed. We may share these cookies with third parties who will use this data to help us improve the functionality of our website. Users can refuse to accept cookies, however, that may limit the content they can view on our site. Any information that you submit to us through our site will be combined and stored together with any personal information we have already received from you.
Communications
Unless you specifically direct us otherwise, we may use cell phones, e-mail, and facsimile machines throughout the duration of our work for you. These forms of communication are not 100 percent secure and may place your personal information at risk. We do our best to ensure the safe delivery and receipt of all such information.
Changes to Our Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to make changes to our Privacy Policy at any time. Should we make any changes, we will ensure such changes are posted on our website and will also be available to you should you request a copy from our Chief Privacy Officer.
Accountability
Should you feel we are not complying with our privacy policy or protecting your personal information in line with the policies we have outlined herein, please contact our Chief Privacy Officer with such complaints and we will investigate your issue fully.
Further Information
Should you have further questions about our privacy policy and our use of your personal information, please contact our Chief Privacy Officer, Kayla MacLeod-Brown at
Phone: 613-935-5919 ext. 204
Email: admin@cardinallaw.ca
902 – Second Street West, Cornwall, Ontario K6J 1H7