The
Law Office of E. Jean Polak recognizes the importance of privacy and the
sensitivity of personal information. As a lawyer I have a professional
obligation to keep confidential all information received by me or my office
within a lawyer-client relationship. We are committed to protecting any
personal information we hold. This Privacy Policy outlines how my office
manages your personal information and safeguards your privacy.
Your Privacy Rights
Since January 1, 2004, all businesses engaged in commercial activities must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information, which it incorporates. These obligations extend to lawyers and law firms, including the Law Office of E. Jean Polak. The Act gives you rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.
The Law Office of E. Jean Polak is responsible for the personal information we collect and hold. To ensure this accountability, we have developed this policy, and trained our staff about our policies and practices.
Why does the Law Office of E. Jean Polak need personal information?
The Law Office of E. Jean Polak provides legal services and products to a wide range of clients. From time to time, we may engage in direct marketing concerning the services offered.
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.
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,
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your insurance company;
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from a government agency or registry;
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from prosecution records if we are defending you in a criminal or quasi- criminal matter;
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your employer, if we are acting for you, at your request;
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your accountant.
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.
Use of Your Information
We use your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you, to administer our client (time and billing) databases, for collection purposes, and to include you from time to time in any direct marketing activities. If you tell us that you no longer wish to receive information about our services, we will not send any further material.
The Law Office of E. Jean Polak 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.
Disclosure of your personal information
Under certain circumstances, the Law Office of E. Jean Polak will disclose your personal information:
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when we are required or authorized by law to do so, for example if a court issues a subpoena;
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when you have consented to the disclosure;
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when the legal services we are providing to you requires us give your information to third parties (for example as part of disclosure requirements in litigation) your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise;
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where it is necessary to establish or collect fees;
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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;
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if we engage expert witnesses on your behalf;
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if we retain other law firms in other jurisdictions, on your behalf;
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if the information is already publicly known.
Updating your information
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 during the course of the retainer, any of your information changes, please inform us so that we can make any necessary changes.
Is my personal information secure?
The Law Office of E. Jean Polak 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:
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premises security;
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restricted file access to personal information;
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deploying technological safeguards like security software and firewalls to prevent hacking or unauthorized computer access;
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internal password and security policies.
Access to your personal information
You may ask for access to any personal information we hold about you.
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.
Correcting errors
If the Law Office of E. Jean Polak holds information about you and you can establish that it is not accurate, complete and up-to-date, the Law Office of E. Jean Polak will take reasonable steps to correct it.
Can I be denied access to my personal information?
Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute.
We may deny access when:
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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);
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information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings against you;
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when granting you access would have an unreasonable impact on other people's privacy;
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when to do so would prejudice negotiations with you;
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to protect our firm's rights and property;
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where the request is frivolous or vexatious.
If we deny your request for access to, or refuse a request to correct information, we will explain why.
The Law Office of E. Jean Polak does not use your Social Insurance Number as a way of identifying or organizing the information we hold upon you.
Can I request anonymity?
Whenever it is legal and practicable, we may offer the opportunity to deal with general inquiries without providing your name (for example, by accessing general information on our website). The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act requires us to confirm the identity of all new clients. It may also require us disclose information to FINTRAC in relation to certain large cash transactions.
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.
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.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
Since the Law Office of E. Jean Polak regularly reviews all of its policies and procedures, we may change our Privacy Policy from time to time.
Requests for access
If you have any questions, or wish to access your personal information, please write to our Privacy Contact at
32 Robert Boyer Lane
Bracebridge, Ontario
P1L 1V5.
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.
Employment inquiries
If you apply to the Law Office of E. Jean Polak for a job, we need to consider your personal information as part of our review process. We normally retain information from candidates after a decision has been made, unless you ask us not to retain the information. We may also retain unsolicited personal information submitted by you although no job is open at that time. If we offer you a job, which you accept, the information will be retained in accordance with our privacy procedures for employee records.
Web site
Our website contains links to other sites, which are not governed by this privacy policy.
On our website, like most other commercial websites, 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.
