NIKA LAW LLP will manage and take steps to safeguard all personal information held by us in accordance with the Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”) and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information incorporated by reference into PIPEDA. We also recognize our obligations as lawyers to the Law Society of Ontario in respect of protecting personal information. This is our Privacy Policy.
PERSONAL IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION (“PII”)
PII refers to information about an individual but does not include the name, title, business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization.
Pursuant to our obligations to identify our clients at NIKA LAW LLP, upon retaining us, you will be asked to provide photo identification (drivers’ licence / passport /residency card etc.). We will retain a copy of your photo ID on file within our system.
COLLECTION & USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
If you have retained our firm for the purposes of Estate Planning, we will collect other information about your assets directly from you or from other professionals such as your financial advisor/wealth planner and accountant. No information will be obtained from your professionals without your express consent which shall be in writing, oral and sometimes implied. We will not store or retain personal account numbers. In the course of a litigation matter, we may require additional personal information about you or your business obtained for the benefit of your file. Sometimes your consent may be implied through your conduct with us or the nature of our retainer. Our ability to serve you and provide the legal services that you your consent, that may impact on our ability to serve you and to maintain our relationship.
MARKETING ACTIVITIES
From time to time, we may use your email contact information to issue marketing materials to you or to distribute information about our services, our firm, and about legal issue and updates generally. You will always have the option of opting out of receiving these updates and information at which point you will be removed from our distribution list.
THIRD PARTY DISCLOSURE
NIKA LAW LLP will not disclose your personal information to third parties unless:
• you have provided consent to the disclosure; or
• where we are required to do so by law or by court order;
• such third-party provides services to NIKA LAW LLP and is also bound to the NIKA LAW Privacy Policy (e.g. law firms, technology services, expert witnesses)
Your consent to disclose your information to a third party may be implied in certain circumstances, particularly when the legal services we have been retained to provide to you requires disclosure.
SECURITY
NIKA LAW LLP has taken precautionary measures to keep your personal information safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification and disclosure. We maintain a secure office premises and have licenced secure software systems which provide bank-level security to prevent hacking.
E-MAIL
We prefer to use e-mail communication with our clients during the course of an engagement. E-mail however is not a guaranteed secure forum and you should refrain from sending us personal identity information over e-mail.
CLIENT PORTAL
Clients who have retained NIKA LAW LLP will receive access to a secure online client portal within our licenced software system which will allow you to share confidential information with us securely.
REQUEST FOR PERSONAL INFORMATION
At any time, you may request a full report of personal information held by NIKA LAW LLP about you. Detailed requests which require archive or other retrieval costs may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees.
Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute. There are a number of situations where we may deny access. If we deny your request for access to, or refuse a request to correct personal information, we will provide a reason or reasons for doing so.
www.nikalaw.com and www.nikalaw.ca
Our website may contain links to third-party sites from within the NIKA NEWS section which third-party sites are not governed by this Policy.
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.
We do not use any electronic means to automatically collect personal information from you or your computer. Our NIKA NEWS feature on our website operates as a blog feature that you may subscribe to – this functionality install a ‘cookie’ to facilitate navigation however this information is not collected or stored by NIKA LAW for use in anyway other than the blog’s navigation support.
ESCALATION OF ISSUES
If you have a privacy concern or issue which is not addressed by NIKA LAW LLP to your satisfaction you may escalate your issue to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at:
112 Kent Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 1H3
1 (800) 282-1376
POLICY UPDATES
NIKA LAW LLP reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time.