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MBAA Law Professional Corporation (MBAA) recognizes the importance of protecting personal information and an individual's right to privacy. This policy outlines the framework of MBAA's policies and procedures regarding its collection, use, retention and disclosure of personal information in respect of its clients and others and supplements, where applicable, our professional obligations of confidentiality and solicitor/client privilege. This Privacy Policy does not apply to personal information about employment candidates or our employees, partners, or contracted staff, which is dealt with in a separate policy. Our privacy policies and procedures only apply to personal information about identifiable individuals. They do not apply to business information. Personal information does not include the name, title, business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization. In the context of this policy, the term "clients" includes all current, former and prospective clients.
Why Do We Collect Personal Information?
Generally, we collect personal information in order to provide legal or other related services to our clients, to administer client accounts, to establish and manage client relationships and other commercial relationships, and to comply with regulatory requirements.
What Personal Information Do We Collect?
Personal information that we collect includes:
How Do We Collect Your Personal Information?
We collect your personal information only by lawful and fair means and only with your consent or as required or permitted by law. Whenever possible and appropriate, we collect your personal information from you directly or from persons whom you have requested to provide us with information. Sometimes we may collect information about you from other sources such as financial institutions, insurance companies, witnesses in litigation matters, other parties involved in your transaction or file, government agencies or registries, employers (if we are acting for you at your employer's request), accountants or other professional advisors, and credit bureaus.
How Do We Use Your Personal Information?
We may use your personal information for the following purposes:
Disclosure of Your Personal Information
Subject to our professional obligations of confidentiality, MBAA will only disclose your personal information for purposes related to its providing services to you, or with your express consent, or if required or authorized by law. For example, we may disclose your information:
Consent
We may obtain your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information either expressly, for stated purposes, or impliedly when the purposes are indicated by the relevant circumstances or follow logically from other stated purposes. By providing us with personal information, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of information relating to providing our services, managing our relationship with you, administering our business and as permitted or required by law, in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
We will seek your consent before using personal information for any purpose beyond the scope of your original consent. You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal and contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. Please note, however, that withdrawing consent may affect our ability to serve you and maintain our relationship.
Updating Information
Since we may use your information to provide legal services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up to date. Please inform us if any of your information changes so that we can make any necessary changes.
Security of Your Personal Information
We have policies and procedures in place to protect your personal information from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. In addition, we operate out of secure premises and have implemented technological safeguards including security software, passwords and firewalls to prevent unauthorized computer access.
Please note that no method of transmitting or storing information is completely secure. While we take appropriate measures to protect your personal information, there is always a risk that it may be lost, intercepted or misused. We may exchange electronic versions of documents and e-mails with you using commercially available software that is vulnerable to attack by viruses and other destructive electronic programs. We cannot guarantee that all communications and documents sent via e-mail will always be received, or that such communications and documents will always be virus free. We make no warranty with respect to the integrity of any electronic communications between us and you or with respect to the security of any such communication and you consent to our exchange of electronic communications, including confidential documents, unencrypted.
Storage of Your Personal Information
Your personal information is stored at secure locations and on servers controlled by MBAA. It may also be stored at the offices of our service providers.
Information Transferred to Service Providers
When we transfer your personal information to a third party to provide administrative and other services, we use appropriate measures to ensure that the third party will only use your personal information to perform the services we have specified.
Access to Your Personal Information
You may ask for access to any information that we hold about you. You also may ask how we collected the information, how we are using it, and to whom we have disclosed it. Your request for access must be in writing, and should be sent to your regular MBAA lawyer or to our Firm. We will acknowledge your request in writing. We may request that you provide us with information to allow us to confirm your identity before providing you with the information that you have requested. Access will generally be provided free of charge; however, if you request that information be copied or transmitted, we may charge a reasonable fee. We will notify you of the amount of the charge in advance, and provide you with an opportunity to withdraw your request. We will provide you with access to your information within 30 days of our receipt of your request, or provide written notice that additional time is required to comply with your request.
In certain circumstances we may be unable to provide access to some or all of the information that we hold about you. If we are unable or not permitted by law to provide you with access, we will provide you with an explanation and indicate further steps which are available to you.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We regularly review our privacy policies and procedures. Therefore, we may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. The most current version of our Privacy Policy will be posted on our website at www.mbaa.ca. Regardless of any changes we make to our Privacy Policy, we will only use your personal information in accordance with the version of the Privacy Policy in place at the time you provided your information, or as otherwise required or permitted by law, unless you have given your express consent for us to do otherwise.
Questions or Concerns
If you have any questions or concerns or wish to obtain further information about our personal information policies and procedures, or if you wish to access your personal information or change any consent regarding our use or disclosure of your personal information, please contact our Firm at the address set out below, or your regular MBAA lawyer. We will treat all privacy concerns seriously. We will investigate any concern and seek to resolve it within a reasonable time.