1. Who are we?
CWS Lawyers (CWS Lawyer Ply Ltd ACN 635 542 059 ("CWS") is an Incorporated Legal Practice.
2. Your privacy is important to us
CWS cares about your privacy. We want to tell you in detail about the practices, which we have adopted to protect your privacy. We want you to feel confident about how we handle information about you. Please read this policy and contact us via phone or email with any questions in relation to this privacy policy:
T: (08) 6210 7070
E: query@cwslawyers.com
3. What information may CWS hold about me?
CWS may hold information about you, which is 'personal information'. Personal information is information that identifies you as an individual or allows your identity lo be reasonably ascertained. The information may include a personal opinion.
Examples of personal information are your name, address, telephone numbers, income, bank, and credit card details.
We may also need to collect sensitive information about you with your consent. Sensitive information is personal information that includes information relating to your racial or ethnic origin, political persuasion, memberships in trade or professional associations or trade unions, sexual preferences, criminal record, or health.
The personal information we collect about you is information that you consent to give us directly, or consent to allow us to enquire about.
In most circumstances it will be necessary for us to identify you in order to successfully do business with you, however, where ii is lawful and practicable to do so, we will offer you the opportunity of doing business with us without providing us with personal information, for example, if you make general inquiries about our services and our fees.
4. Why does CWS collect my personal information and what is it used for?
We only collect personal information that assists us to assess the nature and scope of a matter upon which we are asked to act, to provide legal and conveyancing services, satisfy regulatory requirements, carry out administrative tasks, recruiting, managing our client's rights and obligations, referring our clients to supplier and conducting market or client satisfaction research. We also may collect your personal information for the following reasons:
• To contact you
• To ensure that you are kept adequately informed about the progress of your matter
• For billing and other administration purposes
• When dealing with other parties to a matter
• When required by law
• When dealing with certain government agencies
• When dealing with Courts or Tribunals
We keep your personal information on our database.
5. How does CWS collect my personal information?
We collect your personal information when you provide it to us in a number of ways including directly from you, for example when you fill out a services agreement and annexures, by email or in writing or documents given by you and through answering your questions during an interview.
Sometimes, we may need to collect information from third parties, in the course of carrying out our instructions, ensuring that our information is correct, or trying to get a clearer picture of all the issues in a matter upon which we have taken instructions.
These third parties may include:
• Other parties to a transaction or litigation;
• Other parties lawyers or representatives;
• Your agents and contractor, including your finance broker, builder, settlement agent, financial advisor, insurance broker, insurer, mortgage brokers, banks, and other financial bodies;
• Credit-referencing agencies and other information-providing bodies;
• Statutory bodies such as Landgate and ASIC, and other government agencies and instrumentalities;
• Referees.
In each case, we will treat personal information in accordance with the principles set out above.
6. How does CWS protect my personal information?
CWS places great importance on the security of all information associated with our customers, clients and contractors. We have security measures in place that attempt to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of personal information under our control.
Personal information is de-identified or destroyed securely when no longer required by us.
CWS retains the information you provide to us, which may include your contact and credit card details, to enable us to verify transactions and customer details and to retain adequate records for legal and accounting purposes. This information is held on secure servers in controlled facilities.
Information stored within our computer systems can only be accessed by those entrusted with authority and computer network password sanctions.
No data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100 per cent secure. As a result, while we strive to protect users' personal information, CWS cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information transmitted to it or from its online products or services, and users do so at their own risk. Once CWS receives your transmission, it makes every effort to ensure its security on its systems. Ultimately, you are solely responsible for keeping your passwords and/or account information secret. You should be careful and responsible whenever you are online.
If we collect government identifiers, such as your tax file number, we do not use or disclose this information other than required by law. We will never use a government identifier in order to identify you.
7. Does CWS share my personal information with anyone else?
Your personal information is collected for the primary purpose of providing you with the service that we are asked to provide.
We may disclose your personal information to third parties as follows:
• to other organisations that are involved in managing or administering your finance such as third party suppliers, printing and postal services, call centres;
• to companies that provide information and infrastructure systems to us;
• to anybody who represents you, such as builders, finance brokers, lawyers, and accountants:
• to anyone, where you have provided us consent;
• where we are required to do so by law, such as under the Anti-Money or Laundering and Courter Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth);
• to investors, agents or advisers, or any entity that has an interest in our business: or
• to your employer, referees, or identity verification services.
Prior to disclosing any of your personal information to another person or organisation, we will take all reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that:
(a) the person or organisation has a commitment to protecting your personal information at least equal to our commitment, or
(b) you have consented to us making the disclosure.
However, there are circumstances where we are not required to do so.
We may disclose your personal information to overseas entities that provide support functions to us. You may obtain more information about these entities by contacting us.
8. Links
Our web site may contain links to other web sites and those third party web sites may collect personal information about you. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other businesses or the content of web sites that are linked to our web site. CWS encourages users to be aware when they leave the site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information.
9. Cookies
We use 'cookies' to provide you with better and more customised service and with a more effective website.
A 'cookie' is a small text file placed on your computer by our web page server. A cookie can later be retrieved by our webpage servers. Cookies are frequently used on websites, and you can choose if and how a cookie will be accepted by configuring your preferences and options in your internet browser.
We use cookies for different purposes such as:
• to allocate a unique number to your internet browsers;
• to customise our website for you;
• for statistical purposes;
• to identify if you have accessed a Third Party Website; and
• for security purposes.
10. IP addresses
Your IP address is the identifier for your computer when you are using the internet.
It may be necessary for us to collect your IP address for your interaction with various parts of our website.
11. Online forms
When you send a completed online form to us, we retain the information contained in that form. We are able to then use that information to provide any information that you require.
12. Can I access my personal information?
Generally, you may access your personal information by writing to us at:
PO Box Z5084
St Georges Terrace PERTH WA 6831
Depending on the type of request that you make we may respond to your request immediately, otherwise we usually respond to you within seven days of receiving your request. We may need to contact other entities to properly investigate your request.
CWS will require personal presentation of appropriate identification before we will release personal information to maintain confidentiality. It is unlikely that we will permit personal information to be given to you via a telephone enquiry.
Where CWS does not allow access to your personal information, a full written explanation of the reasons why this decision was made will be provided to you. Any complaints that you may have regarding the handling of your privacy by CWS should be made in writing to the above address or to the Privacy Commissioner in Canberra.
13. What if I believe CWS has incorrect details regarding my personal information?
It is important to us that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. During the course of our relationship with you we may ask you to inform us if any of your personal information has changed.
If you believe that we hold any details about you that are incorrect, you may write to us at the above address outlining how and why these details are incorrect. We will generally rely on you to ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate and correct. We will endeavour to update the details as soon as possible after you have provided us with the correct details. Otherwise, we will provide an initial response to you within seven days of receiving your request. Where reasonable, and after our investigation, we will provide you with details about whether we have corrected the personal information within 30 days.
We may need to consult with other entities as part of our investigation.
If we refuse to correct personal information, we will provide you with our reasons for not correcting the information.
14. Complaints
If you are dissatisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information, or you have a complaint about our compliance with the Privacy Act, you may contact our complaints officer on 6210 7070.
We will acknowledge your complaint within seven days. We will provide you with a decision on your complaint within 30 days.
If you are dissatisfied with the response of our complaints officer, you may make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner which can be contacted on either www.oaic.gov.au or 1300 363 992.
15. How will I know if CWS changes this Privacy Policy?
We are constantly reviewing all of our policies and attempt to keep up to date with market expectations. Technology is constantly changing, as is the law and market place practices.
As a consequence, we may change this privacy policy from time to time or as the need arises.
You may request this privacy policy in an alternative form.
This privacy policy is accurate as at l January 2025.