Privacy Policy

This privacy policy (policy) describes how we, Kelly Hazell Quill Pty Ltd (ABN 79 118 059 224), trading as KHQ Lawyers (we, us, our, KHQ) handle your personal information.

This policy provides information only as required under data privacy laws and it is not intended, and must not be relied on by you, as a representation, warranty, contract or an acknowledgement of a duty of care.

Please read this policy carefully. If you have any questions or if you do not understand anything explained in it, please contact us using the form on this website.

What kind of personal information do we collect or hold?

“Personal information” generally means information about you that identifies you. It does not include anonymous or de-identified information, as determined in the circumstances.

We may collect and hold the following kinds of personal information about you:

  • Identification information
  • Contact details
  • Details of your enquiry
  • Client matter details
  • Professional details and opportunity records
  • Communication records
  • Feedback
  • Public data
  • Online usage data
  • Marketing preference information
  • Other personal information from time to time

We do not generally collect or hold your sensitive personal information unless this is necessary in connection with our legal services (e.g. in the context of drafting a will for you, assisting with a family law matter, representing you in a matter about discrimination or workplace injury, etc.) or as required by law. “Sensitive personal information” includes personal information about an individual’s race or ethnicity, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional, trade or political association, sexual orientation or practices, criminal record, health information, genetic data, and biometric data.

How do we collect and hold your personal information?

We may collect your personal information in the following ways:

  • From you. When you contact us, speak to us, attend our event, sign up for our service, use our third party tools and platforms (for example, your communications may be recorded and transcribed), or otherwise interact with us, online or offline.
  • From third parties. Where applicable, from our client, your lawyer or other representative, investigative agent, a witness or expert, government agency, a referral agent, a person who referred you to us or to whom we referred you to, third party referral platforms, your employment referee, our service provider or professional adviser, and other third parties.
  • From the public domain. Information we obtain from social media, official public records such as court registry or company register and other public sources.
  • From our security devices. From CCTV or other security devices when you visit our premises.
  • From your device or online platform. From your device, browser, cookies and other tracking technologies, automatically provided information such as your device’s internet protocol (IP) address, usage data, monitoring data, machine generated outputs, inferences and predictions about you, and similar information.

We will rely on the information provided by you as accurate, complete and up to date, and we will be grateful if you would inform us of any changes without delay. Providing incorrect information to us could, among other things, hinder our services, result in counterproductive or inappropriate action, or, in extreme cases, result in contempt of court.

If you provide to us another person’s personal information, please only do so if they would reasonably expect it and they did not object, or with their consent, or where it is appropriate for you to share your concerns about a person in their best interest on a confidential basis. Where possible, you should inform them that we may share such information with relevant third parties where appropriate.

Why do we use and disclose your personal information?

We list below some (but not all) of the purposes, functions and activities why we collect, hold, disclose and otherwise use your personal information. Other purposes, functions and activities may become obvious or expected by you when we collect your personal information.

  • Assist with your enquiry. For example, we may record and transcribe your communications, ask you to use our case-management platform, we may take steps to confirm your identity including by interrogating public records, contact relevant third parties about necessary information, and engage in other lawful activities in resolving your enquiry. We use your official identification documents and information only where reasonably necessary to verify your identity. Without all relevant personal information, we may be unable to completely resolve your enquiry. We will store information in our communications and case management systems.
  • Provide legal services. For example, we will take steps to verify the identity of our clients as required by law including by interrogating public records, contact relevant third parties about necessary information, disclose your information to third parties as appropriate, take steps to identify counterparties, witnesses, beneficiaries, and other individuals with an interest in your client matter, and take steps as necessary and appropriate in advancing your client matter. We use your official identification documents and information only where reasonably necessary to verify your identity. Any lack of relevant personal information may hinder our legal services. We will store information in our communications and case management systems.
  • Provide our online services. For example, when you visit our website, your browser will provide certain technical information to enable us to display our content in a compatible manner. This information will be held in automated logs. Some of our features allow you to input your information, for example, to sign up for a service or to contact us. We will hold this information in our customer record management system. If you block non-essential cookies and similar technologies in your browser, some of our online services may be reduced. If you fail to input all information when asked to do so, we may be unable to provide the requested service.
  • Promotional and business development activities. For example, we may identify new target clients from public sources such as social media or by being introduced by third parties. We will contact you, as appropriate, to build our relationships and referral networks. We will organise events and keep in touch with our attendees. We will conduct direct marketing by email, display ads, social media posts, mail and other channels, about our services, events, research, knowledge sharing and other activities including jointly with our referral partners, if we have an existing relationship, or contact is otherwise reasonably expected by you or with your consent, where required by law. We will use profiling for personalisation and targeting, where appropriate, based on information known, observed or inferred from your activity or information about you, including information provided by our third-party marketing and advertising partners. We may use cookies, pixels and similar technologies for these purposes. We store information on our systems including our third party marketing and market research platforms and services. Without the relevant information, we may be unable to deliver marketing which is relevant to you, keep you informed about legal updates, our services and activities, or to identify you as our prospective client.
  • Recruitment. For example, interviewing, assessing qualifications, experience and fitness for a particular role, background checks, selecting and hiring staff, agreeing your terms of engagement and similar activities. We may use automated tools that help us shortlist suitable applicants. We use your official identification information only where reasonably necessary to verify your identity as part of our recruitment process. We will store information on our systems including third party platforms. We will be unable to consider anonymous applications.
  • Business administration. For example, we will take steps to collect debt, enforce our terms, review your feedback, engage in CSR activities, etc. We store information on our systems. Without all relevant personal information, we will be unable to administer our business.
  • Safety and security. For example, when you attend our premises, we may ask for your name and purpose of your visit, your image may be captured by our CCTV, we may escort you to the relevant meeting room. We may record the detail of any incident or accident at our premises for health and safety compliance purposes and share details with emergency services, as appropriate. We will deploy digital information security measures that monitor network traffic, access to our online properties, and other activities (e.g. as required to comply with our information security duties under the Privacy Act 1988(Cth)), which might result in the tracking of your online activity. We may use cookies, pixels and similar technologies for these purposes. We will hold information on our systems including third party platforms. Without relevant information, our ability to ensure safety and security and mitigate any risk will be limited.
  • Research and development. For example, we may track and review our past interactions with our contacts, clients and industry sectors to inform our business development strategy. We may use cookies, pixels and similar technologies for these purposes. We store information on our systems including our third party insights and business intelligence platforms and services. Without the relevant information, we may be unable to carry on research and development which is essential for our business.
  • Regulatory compliance and audits. For example, we will collect relevant information and make available our records to a duly appointed auditor (e.g. under Corporations Act 2001(Cth), we collect relevant information and provide it in response to lawful regulatory enquiries (e.g. under Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2014 (Vic) and report to regulators as lawfully required, etc. We store information on our systems including third party platforms. Some compliance and audit activities may be hindered without the relevant personal information.
  • Disputes, compliance and crime prevention. For example, we will handle personal information as is required for compliance with the law, exercising legal rights, defending legal claims, detecting or preventing crime, as authorised or required by law.

We will update this policy to include any new purposes from time to time and we will obtain your prior consent for such new purposes where we are required to do so at law. We may not require your prior consent if the secondary purpose is related to our primary purpose and reasonably anticipated by you or otherwise authorised or required by law.

Cookies, pixels and similar technologies

We may use cookies, pixels and similar technologies as described above, to collect information such as your domain, server, and IP address, date and time of your visit and previous visits, user activity such as clicks and downloads, browser and device information.

A cookie is a small text file that the website may place on your device to read and store information about your online activity. Pixels or tags are tiny graphics files that are downloaded when you interact with our online services and alert us about your activities, such as email opened, or content viewed. Tracking URLs are custom generated links that help us understand which page you come to us from and later go to. Local storage session storage and similar technologies are used to more efficiently manage the storage of information that allows you to access our online services on your device. Digital fingerprint is used to recognise your device based on your device and browser data without relying on cookies.

You may encounter first party trackers deployed by us or third party trackers controlled by third parties, such as our service providers or advertising partners. We may use temporary session trackers or persistent trackers which remain on your device even after you close your browser, including:

  • Functional trackers which are essential for the proper functioning, security of our online properties and to speed up your future use of our corporate resources or help display content in a compatible manner.
  • Analytics trackers which help us detect any bugs, improve our online properties, help us understand user trends but also inform marketing audience creation.
  • Marketing trackers which capture user preferences and create a marketing profile based on your online behaviour.

Please see our list of trackers at the end of this policy.

You may change your privacy settings or contact us to refuse trackers. Alternatively, you could prevent some tracking by:

  • turning off the automatic download feature in your browser to avoid tracking by pixels;
  • applying your browser’s do not track (DNT) feature, allowing you to opt out of all tracking, where DNT signals are recognised by our online property or our advertising partners;
  • opting out from online interest-based advertising from companies that participate in opt-out programs through the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) and YourAdChoices, Appchoices or Network Advertising Initiative (NAI). We do not participate but some of our advertising partners may do;
  • enabling Global Privacy Control (GPC) on your browser to automatically send opt-out signals to sites indicating that you do not wish to share your data for targeted advertising; or
  • opting out from Google Analytics or downloading the opt-out add-on and other third party services that deploy cookies and similar technologies.

Please be aware that if you opt-out of certain trackers, some or all of the functionality of our online services may be reduced. If you clear cookies in the browser on your device, the next time you visit our online services, cookies and similar technologies will be deployed again. However, you can prevent this by permanently blocking them in your browser.

Disclosure of your personal information

We will treat your personal information as confidential and only share it with third parties where this is necessary for our functions and activities, where a disclosure is in your best interest or where disclosure is required or authorised by law.  

Within our firm, we restrict access to your personal information to people who have a “need to know” such information.

We may share your limited personal information with authorised third parties that have a “need to know” or legal authority to access your information, in the following circumstances:

  • your representative such as your lawyer, next of kin or another third party acting for you, in your interest or in common interest;
  • your referrer, if you are referred to us by a person or organisation;
  • your principal such as your employer when you engage with us in your professional capacity;
  • interested third party in relation to your client matter, for example, your authorised advisor instructed by you or us on your behalf, your colleague from another department, an entity affiliated with your employer, your litigation funder, etc.;
  • counterparty in relation to your client matter, for example, a contractual party in a transaction, claimant or defendant in litigation, etc.;
  • our client, for example, if you are identified as a counterparty in our client’s matter;
  • state or federal agency, tribunal or court who we deal with on your behalf, for example, Department of Families, Fairness and Housing State Government of Victoria (DFFH), Fair Work Commission (FWC), Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), Treasury, Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC), Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC) and others, Magistrates’ Court of Victoria, county courts, Supreme Courts, probate registries, Federal Court, Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, High Court and others, to make an application, obtain information, seek permission, make a submission, etc.;
  • your bank or payment provider in connection with your payment to us;
  • any agency, organisation or person which holds information about you requested by us, for example, myID, Department of Home Affairs, an embassy of a foreign country, a data broker, etc.;
  • a digital platform that you ask us to use, for example, for information security questionnaires, vendor onboarding or billing, a collaboration platform accessed by multiple authorised third parties invited by you or us during a transaction, etc.;
  • our service providers who provide services to us to help fulfil our operational needs, such as technology, communications, information security, analytics services, word processing and work tools (including Microsoft Office or Adobe applications), venues and event organisers, marketing and communication agencies, call centres, mailing houses and others;
  • our external professional advisers such as accountants, insurers, lawyers, forensic experts, public relations experts and others, who are bound by confidentiality, for us to seek advice in connection with a legal, accounting or other matter or to advance your client matter;
  • auditors for our annual financial audit or ad hoc regulatory audit, as required by law or good practice;
  • a requestor where it is reasonable in the circumstances to disclose your personal information in complying with a personal information access request or freedom of information request;
  • law enforcement if we are compelled or permitted by law to provide your information, as appropriate;
  • a third party in connection with a corporate transaction such as a merger of our firm; and
  • as otherwise required or authorised by law, under a binding disclosure request, court order or with your consent.

Whilst we take reasonable steps to implement appropriate measures to safeguard your personal information in the hands of these third parties, we are generally not responsible for third parties accessing your personal information for their own purposes.

Your data rights 

Subject to certain conditions and exemptions, you may have the following data privacy rights:

  • Right to information as provided by us in this policy.
  • Right to remain anonymous. We will allow you to use a pseudonym or to not identify yourself unless this is impractical or against the law. However, we will not be able to act for you unless we verify your identity.
  • Right to withdraw consent at any time where our processing is based on your consent.
  • Right to access your personal information held by us.
  • Right to correction of your personal information held by us if it is incorrect or incomplete. We will take reasonable steps in the circumstances to ensure your personal information is accurate, up-to-date, complete, relevant and not misleading in the context of each relevant purpose. However, we also rely on you getting in touch to update your information in a timely manner.
  • Right to opt out from marketing by using the unsubscribe facility in our communications or by contacting us.
  • Right to know the source of marketing data.
  • Right to complain to the relevant authority, such as, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, for example, if you require further information about data privacy or if you remain dissatisfied with how we have handled your enquiry or complaint.

Please contact us if you wish to exercise your rights. In most cases, we will be able to respond free of charge. We will take reasonable steps to process your request and respond within one month.

To protect all personal information held by us, we may require you to confirm your identity before resolving your request.  If necessary, reasonable costs may be charged to you, where doing so is appropriate and lawful.

We may refuse requests on certain grounds, for example, if they are unreasonably repetitive, disproportionately demanding, impracticable or otherwise exempt. If we refuse your request, we will explain our lawful reason for doing so.

Complaints

For any enquiry or complaint, please contact us and provide relevant details.

We will endeavour to respond to any queries about data privacy without undue delay. If we receive a complaint from you about how we have handled your personal information, we will determine what (if any) action we should take to resolve the complaint and endeavour to respond to your complaint or request further information without undue delay and no later than within 10 working days of receipt.

If we cannot resolve a complaint related to your personal information or you are dissatisfied with the outcome or the handling of your complaint, you may wish to contact, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or other competent authority.

Third party services

Please familiarise yourself with the relevant privacy policies of third parties, including our partners, service providers, courts, and public authorities, who we disclose your personal information to, as explained above.

We use Settify Pty Ltd to provide free, early stage online information regarding family law and wills & estates matters. KHQ pays Settify a fee for providing this service to you. Settify will handle your personal information in accordance with this privacy policy. Settify will share your personal information with us so we can clear any conflict checks and further information once you are ready to be onboarded as our client.

Whilst we take reasonable steps to implement appropriate measures to safeguard your personal information in the hands of these third parties, we are not responsible for third parties.

Changes to our privacy policy

We may need to change our privacy policy from time to time.  When we do amend it, the changes will be effective immediately upon being made public on our website.  We will use reasonable measures to notify you of any relevant changes to this privacy policy, but please be aware that it is your responsibility to review our privacy policy regularly and make sure you keep us with any changes.

List of trackers
Cookies table - KHQ privacy policy

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