The following privacy policy outlines how McKöena Law manages your personal information and safeguards your privacy.
McKöena Law recognizes the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information. As lawyers we have a professional obligation to keep confidential all information we receive within a lawyer–client relationship and are committed to protecting any personal information we hold.
McKöena Law is responsible for the personal information we collect and hold. To ensure accountability, we have developed this privacy policy and trained our lawyers and support staff about our policies and practices.
The law gives you rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.
Since January 1, 2004, all businesses engaged in commercial activities must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information, the key elements of which are incorporated in PIPEDA. These obligations extend to lawyers and law firms—including McKöena Law.
McKöena Law provides legal services and products to a wide range of clients. In doing so, we collect personal information from and about clients in order to serve their legal needs.
We ask you for your personal information so we can
Personal information is any information that identifies you or would enable someone to deduce your identity.
We collect information only by lawful and fair means and not in an unreasonably intrusive way. Whenever possible, we collect this information directly from you once we have been retained by you and during the course of acting for you as your lawyers.
Sometimes we obtain information about you from other sources. These may include
In most cases, we will ask for your specific consent if we need to collect, use or disclose your personal information. Normally, we ask for this consent in writing; however, in some circumstances, we may accept your verbal consent. Sometimes, your consent may be implied through our relationship or the nature of the work you have retained us to undertake.
We use your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you and to administer our time and billing databases. McKöena Law does not disclose your personal information to any third party to enable them to market their products and services to you.
McKöena Law does not use your Social Insurance Number as a way to identify you or organize the information we hold about you.
Under certain circumstances, McKöena Law will disclose your personal information:
Since we use your personal information to provide you with legal services, it is important that the information be accurate and current. If any of your information changes, please inform us so we can make any necessary changes.
McKöena Law takes all reasonable precautions to ensure your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. The following are among the steps we take to protect your information:
You may ask to for any personal information we hold about you. A summary of this personal information is available on request. Requests for more detailed information that require time to assemble or result in retrieval costs may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees.
If McKöena Law holds information about you and you can establish that it is not accurate, complete and current, McKöena Law will take reasonable steps to correct it.
Your right to access your personal information are not absolute. We may deny access when:
If we deny your request for access to personal information or refuse to correct information, we will explain why.
Whenever it is legal and practicable, we may offer the opportunity to deal with general inquiries without providing your name.
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 to disclose information, such as information about large cash transactions, to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).
To help us make credit decisions about clients, check the identity of new clients and prevent fraud and money laundering, we may, on occasion, request information from consumer-reporting agencies such as credit bureaus.
When contacting us, or when sending us personal or confidential information, please remember that email is not a secure method of communication.
Since McKöena Law regularly reviews all of its policies and procedures, we may change this privacy policy from time to time.
If you apply to McKöena Law for employment, we need to look at your personal information as part of our review process. Normally, we will keep the personal information of job candidates on file after a decision is made unless a request is made not to do so. If we offer you a job and you accept, the information will be retained in accordance with our privacy procedures for employee records.
Like most businesses, we may monitor our website’s traffic patterns, usage and related information to optimize our web service. We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but these statistics do not include any identifiable personal information.
If you have any questions, or wish to access your personal information, please write to us at the following address:
McKöena Law
285 Carruthers Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario
K1Y 1P1 Canada
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