Privacy Policy

Brooks Business Lawyers (“Brooks”) recognizes the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information.  As lawyers we have a professional obligation to keep confidential all information we receive within a lawyer-client relationship.  To ensure accountability, we have developed this policy, and trained our professionals about our policies and practices.  This document explains how we use and disclose that information, the choices you have regarding such use and disclosure, and how you may correct and have access to that information.

1. WHY DOES BROOKS NEED PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Brooks provides legal services and products to a wide range of clients.  In doing so, we also produce direct marketing materials concerning its services and developments in the law.

2. WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

Personal information is any information that identifies you, or by which your identity could be deduced.  If we did not collect and use your personal information we could not provide you with legal services. According to the Privacy Commissioner’s Guidelines, the definition encompasses such information as name, age, weight, height, medical records, income, purchases, spending habits, race, ethnic origin, colour, blood type, DNA code, fingerprints, marital status, religion, education, home address and telephone number.  

3. HOW DO WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We collect information only by lawful and fair means and not in an unreasonably intrusive way.  Wherever possible we collect your personal information directly from you, at the start of a retainer and in the course of our representation.

Sometimes we may obtain information about you from other sources: for example,

• your insurance company;
• your real estate agent in a property transaction;
• from a government agency or registry;
• your employer, if we are acting for you, at its request;
• your accountant.

 

4. WHEN AND HOW DO WE OBTAIN CONSENT?

In most cases, we shall ask you to specifically consent, if we collect, use, or disclose your personal information.  Normally, we ask for your consent in writing, but in some circumstances, we may accept your oral consent.  Sometimes, your consent may be implied through your conduct with us.

In certain circumstances, as permitted or required by law, we may collect, use or disclose personal information without your knowledge or consent. These circumstances include (where applicable): personal information which is subject to solicitor-client privilege; information on individuals which is publicly available where collection or use is clearly in the interests of the individual and consent cannot be obtained in a timely way; to investigate a breach of any agreement or contravention of a law; to comply with a subpoena, warrant, court order or as required or otherwise permitted by law.

When your consent is required, you can withdraw consent at any time (unless withdrawing the consent would frustrate the performance of legal obligations), and upon providing us with a 30-days notice. However, the withdrawal of your consent may impact on our ability to serve you and to maintain our relationship.

5. HOW DO WE MAKE USE OF YOUR INFORMATION?

Brooks only collects the personal information necessary to fulfill the purposes identified to you prior to or at the time of collection, or any other reasonable and legitimate purposes or as required by law.

Brooks does not, as a condition of supplying a service to you, require consent to the collection, use or disclosure of personal information beyond that reasonably required for such purposes, or to comply with its obligations under applicable law.

Brooks usually collects and uses your personal information for the following purposes:

1. collecting, recording and using the information relevant to the performance of the services rendered to and for you;
2. recording and determining your various services in your relationship with us;
3. administration, billing, accounting and collection in relation to your business and relationship with us;
4. protecting against fraud and error;
5. providing direct marketing materials to you regarding our services;
6. communicating with you generally or to ensure your satisfaction; and
7. communicating the information to a sub-contractor (or other agents or intermediaries) in the course of a contract or mandate for the performance of any of the purposes listed above.

Brooks does not disclose your personal information to any third party to enable them to market their products and services.  For example, we do not provide our client mailing lists to other law firms.  We ensure that third parties which are engaged to perform services on our behalf and are provided with personal information are required to observe the intent of this Privacy Policy by having comparable levels of security protection or, when required, by ensuring us (through a confidentiality agreement) that they will not use or disclose the personal information for any other purpose that for which the personal information was communicated.

6. HOW DO WE DISCLOSE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Under certain circumstances, Brooks will disclose your personal information:

• when we are required or authorized by law to do so, for example if a court issues a subpoena;
• when you have consented to the disclosure;
• when the legal services we are providing to you requires us give your information to third parties (for example a lender in a real estate mortgage transaction) your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise;
• where it is necessary to establish or collect fees;
• if we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us (like computer back-up services or archival file storage) and the third party is bound by our privacy policy;
• if we engage expert witnesses on your behalf;
• if we retain other law firms in other jurisdictions, on your behalf;
• if the information is already publicly known.

 

8. HOW LONG WILL WE UTILIZE, DISCLOSE OR RETAIN YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We may keep a record of your personal information, including correspondence or comments, in the applicable file specific to you. We will utilize, disclose or retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected and as required or otherwise permitted by law. We will establish minimum and maximum retention periods and procedures for maintaining and destroying your personal information.

9. WHY IS UPDATING YOUR INFORMATION IMPORTANT?

Since we use your personal information to provide legal services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up-to-date. We will not routinely update your personal information, unless such a process is necessary.  If during the course of the retainer, any of your information changes, please inform us so that we can make any necessary changes.

10. HOW DO WE CORRECT ERRORS?

If Brooks holds information about you and you can establish that it is not accurate, complete and up-to-date, Brooks will take reasonable steps to correct it.

13. HOW DO YOU ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Subject to the exceptions provided by the applicable law, we will make available to you any specific personal information about you that we have collected, utilized or disclosed, upon your written request.

Summary information is available on request.  More detailed requests which require archive or other retrieval costs may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees.

12. HOW FAST WILL WE RESPOND TO YOUR WRITTEN REQUEST?    

We will make every reasonable effort to respond to each of your written requests not later than thirty (30) days after receipt of such requests. When applicable, we will advise you in writing if we cannot meet your requests within this time limit. When applicable, you have the right to make a complaint to the appropriate Privacy Authority in respect of this time limit.

14. CAN I BE DENIED ACCESS TO MY PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute.  We may deny access when:

• denial of access is required or authorized by law (for example, when a record containing personal information about you is subject to a claim of legal professional privilege by one of our clients) ;
• information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings against you;
• when granting you access would have an unreasonable impact on other people's privacy;
• when to do so would prejudice negotiations with you;
• to protect our firm's rights and property;
• where the request is frivolous or vexatious.

If we deny your request for access to, or refuse a request to correct information, we shall explain why.

Brooks does not use your Social Insurance Number as a way of identifying or organizing the information we hold upon you.  

11. IS MY PERSONAL INFORMATION SECURE?

Brooks takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.  Among the steps taken to protect your information are:

• premises security;
• restricted file access to personal information;
• deploying technological safeguards like security software and firewalls to prevent hacking or unauthorized computer access;
• internal password and security policies.

 

16.    CREDIT BUREAUS

To help us make credit decisions about clients, prevent fraud, check the identity of new clients and prevent money-laundering, we may on occasion, request information about you from the files of consumer reporting agencies.  

17. COMMUNICATING WITH US

You should be aware that e-mail is not a 100% secure medium, and you should be aware of this when contacting us to send personal or confidential information.

18. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

Since Brooks regularly reviews all of its policies and procedures, we may change our Privacy Policy from time to time.

19. REQUESTS FOR ACCESS

If you have any questions, or wish to access your personal information, please write to our Privacy Contact at:

Richard Brooks
Brooks Business Lawyers
2345 Yonge Street, Suite 301
Toronto, ON
M4P 2E5
416.920.2300 ext.22

If you are not satisfied with our response, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada can be reached at:

112 Kent Street
Ottawa Ontario
K1A 1H3
1.800.282.1376.

20. WEBSITE

Our Web site (www.brookslaw.ca) contains links to other sites, which are not governed by this privacy policy.  On our Web site, like most other commercial Web sites, we may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information in order to optimize our web service.  We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but these statistics do not include any identifiable personal information.