Chu & Huang Law Professional Corporation Privacy Policy

Dated October 12, 2018 for reference

At Chu & Huang Law Professional Corporation (“CHL”) our office recognizes the importance of protecting the privacy and confidentiality of our clients’ personal information received in the course of our legal practice.

In addition to our professional obligations under the Law Society of Ontario Rules of Professional Conduct to maintain the confidentiality of client information, we acknowledge our obligations concerning personal information that we collect, use or disclose in our law practice under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”). PIPEDA is legislation that regulates the way lawyers and law firms in Ontario deal with personal information.

This Privacy Policy has been developed with our obligations in mind and outlines how we manage your personal information to safeguard your privacy.

Collection of Personal Information

To provide legal advice and represent our clients, CHL needs access to all relevant facts and information that relate to our retainer and to the representation of our clients. This information will necessarily include personal information about our clients and other individuals.

Personal information is any information that identifies you, or information that can be used to determine your identity. We collect personal information only by lawful and fair means. Where possible, we collect personal information directly from the person to whom it pertains. When necessary, we may collect personal information from other sources. By retaining CHL for legal advice or representation, you consent to our collection, use or disclosure of your personal information in order to properly advise and represent you.
In some cases, we will ask you to consent, either in writing or orally, if we collect, use, or disclose your personal information. In many cases, however, your consent will be implied through your conduct with us.

Giving CHL your personal information means that you consent and agree that we may collect, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, please refrain from providing any personal information to us on the understanding that this will limit our ability to provide certain services to you that require our use and disclosure of your personal information.

Use of Personal Information

CHL uses your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you, to administer our client (time and billing), and to include you in direct marketing activities. In compliance with Canadian anti-spam legislation, our electronic marketing materials include the option for you to opt out if you no longer wish to receive information about our services or about new developments in the law that may affect you. When you opt out we will not send you any further electronic information.

During the course of providing legal services to our clients, CHL obtains and uses personal information to:

• provide legal advice and services to you;
• comply with land registry system requirements to process residential and commercial real estate transactions including, but not limited to, purchases, sales, mortgage refinancing, and title transfers;
• satisfy lawful requirements relating to obtaining mortgage insurance and other types of insurance, if they are required as part of your real estate transaction;
• assist in confirming identity in order to sign documents for real estate and other legal transactions;
• to assess employment applications. We will retain information from candidates after a decision has been made, unless you ask us not to. If you accept a job with CHL, the information will be retained in accordance with the privacy procedures for employee records; and
• to conduct conflict checks required as part of our professional responsibilities as members of the Law Society of Ontario.

CHL does not use Social Insurance Numbers (S.I.N.s) to identify clients or organize client information.

CHL does not disclose your personal information to any third party to enable them to market their products and services.

Website

Emailing CHL: We remind you that email is not a completely secure form of communication. Therefore, please do not send confidential, proprietary or sensitive personally identifiable information (e.g., S.I.N.; date of birth; driver’s license number; or credit card, bank account or other financial information) (collectively, “Sensitive Information”) by email. If you submit Sensitive Information by email, you do so at your own risk and CHL will not be liable to you or responsible for consequences of your submission.

Third party links: Our website (chrischulaw.ca) may contain links to other sites, which may not be governed by this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy only applies to information collected by our web site. We are not responsible for the privacy practices and policies of third parties.

Website analytics and server logs: You do not have to submit any information to visit our website. However, like most commercial websites, we monitor website traffic patterns, site usage and related site information to optimize our website. We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but this information does not include identifiable personal information unless that third party is bound by our Privacy Policy.

When you visit our website, we may track information about your visit and store that information in web server logs (electronic records of the activities on our sites). Examples of the information we may collect include:

• your unique Internet protocol (IP) address;
• the name of your Internet service provider;
• the town/city, county/state and country from which you access our website;
• the kind of browser or computer you used to access our website;
• the number of links you click within our website;
• the date and time of your visit;
• the web page from which you arrived at our website;
• the pages you viewed on our website; and
• certain searches/queries that you conducted via our website(s).

The information we collect in web server logs helps us administer the site, analyze its usage, protect the website and its content from inappropriate use and improve the user’s experience.

Cookies: Our website may use cookies to store and help track information about you to help you navigate our website. Cookies also can tell us where visitors go on our website and allow us to save preferences for you so you won’t have to re-enter them each time you visit. The use of cookies is standard and Internet browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, however you can disable cookies from our website using your browser. By visiting our website, you consent to the use of cookies and similar technologies in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Disclosure of your Personal Information

Under certain circumstances, CHL may need to disclose your personal information. Such circumstances may include:

• when we are required or authorized by law to do so, for example if a court issues a subpoena or disclosure is required under the rules of civil procedure where a transaction occurs;
• when you have consented to the disclosure;
• when the legal services we are providing to you require us give your information to third parties involved in a transaction you have authorized (for example a lender in a real estate mortgage transaction) your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise;
• when the disclosure is requested by a third party who, in our reasonable judgment, is acting as your agent;
• where it is necessary to establish or collect fees;
• if we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us 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; or
• if the information is already publicly known.

If we use the services of any third party to process personal information, we will enter into legal agreement that require them to protect the personal information in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Policy and acceptable to us.

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.

Security of Personal Information

CHL 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;
• technological safeguards such as security software and firewalls to prevent unauthorized computer access; and
• 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. Requests for more detailed information which require archive or other retrieval costs may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees.

Correcting Errors

If CHL holds information about you and you can establish that it is not accurate, complete and up-to-date, CHL 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:

• 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 another person’s privacy;
• when to do so would prejudice negotiations with you;
• to protect our firm’s rights and property; or
• 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.

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 (Canada) 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 completely secure medium, and you should be aware of this when contacting us to send personal or confidential information.

Requests for Access

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

Chu & Huang Law Professional Corporation
31 Elm Street
Toronto, ON M5G 1H1
Attention: Christopher C. Chu

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

Changes to this Privacy Policy

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