Privacy Policy

Your rights in relation to privacy

Adroit Conveyancing understands the importance of protecting the privacy of an individual’s personal information and adopts the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Act).

This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use and disclose information about you, how we aim to protect the privacy of your personal information and your rights in relation to your personal information.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By providing personal information to us, you consent to us collecting, holding, using and disclosing your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You do not have to provide personal information to us, however, if you do not, it may affect your use of this Site or the products and/or services offered on or through it.

We may modify this policy from time to time by publishing it on our website. Your continued use of our website will indicate your acceptance of any changes to this Privacy Policy.

Kinds of personal information

During the provision of our services or through your use of our website, Adroit Conveyancing may collect your personal information. Personal information is information or an opinion about an identified, or reasonably identifiable, individual, whether or not the information or opinion is true and whether or not it is recorded in a material form.

If you’re a client (or potential client), it is highly likely that you will share some personal information with us. This includes:

• contact details such as your name, business or personal addresses, email addresses, phone and fax numbers;
• your employment or professional details;
• your marital status and/or anniversary;
• your age and/or date of birth;
• your preferences and/or opinions;
• information you provide to us through customer surveys;
• details of your company’s ABN and/or ACN;
• financial information including bank account and credit card details;
• your browser session and geo-location data, device and network information, statistics on page views and sessions, acquisition sources, search queries and/or browsing behaviour;
• additional personal information that you provide to us, directly or indirectly, through your use of our website, associated applications, associated social media platforms and/or accounts from which you permit us to collect information; and
• any other personal information requested by us and/or provided by you or a third party.

We will sometimes collect “sensitive information” from you. Sensitive information is defined in the Privacy Act to include, information and/or opinions about sexual preference, political affiliations, religious beliefs and health information. We will only collect sensitive information with your consent or as required by law.

Collection of personal information

Generally, Adroit Conveyancing will collect your personal information through:

• direct contact with you, whether in person, over the phone, or via a video-conferencing platform (including recording and transcribing video and telephone calls so they can be saved to your file), email, or more rarely, snail mail; or
• the completion of online contact forms, intake forms or booking forms on our website.

We may also collect information from publicly available sources, other professional advisors or government and statutory authorities in connection with your matter.

When you use our website, the following information may be logged for statistical purposes and for the purposes of marketing and advertising to you:

• the date and time of your visit to our website;
• your IP address;
• pages that you accessed and documents downloaded; and
• the type of browser you were using.

Cookies may be used on our website. Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to a computer’s hard drive for record keeping purposes. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies and do not personally identify the user.

Purpose of collection

Adroit Conveyancing may need your personal information for the following reasons:

• to respond to your enquiries or consultation request via our website;
• so we can provide you with conveyancing services;
• for accounting, billing and other internal administrative purposes;
• to add you to our mailing list where you have subscribed to our newsletter;
• any other legal requirements including any that we need to comply with under our profession rules, such as the Conveyancers Act 2006.

We will not use or disclose any information about you other than the purpose for which it was collected, without your consent, unless the use or disclosure is permitted under the Privacy Act, required by law or authorised by you.

We are bound by professional obligations of confidentiality and legal professional privilege. We will continue to treat and protect any personal information we receive in accordance with these obligations.

Adroit Conveyancing may also use and disclose your personal information in order to inform you of legal updates and/or services that may be of interest to you. In the event you do not wish to receive such communications, you may, at any time, request not to receive direct marketing communications from us or use any opt-out mechanism provided.

Management and security of your personal information

We take reasonable precautions to safeguard your information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We use a number of means to protect your information including:

we engage BITS Managed Security Services to ensure we comply with the cybersecurity framework established by the Australian Cyber Security Centre, train our team in cyber awareness, perform simulated phishing attacks to test our systems, monitor spam and phishing emails, monitor the dark web for data breaches and ensure all devices are regularly updated and compliant;

regularly updating and enforcing our Responsible AI Use Policy;

IT password protection including multi factor authentication on all databases containing personal information;

business grade anti-virus and firewall software;

employment conditions and staff policies requiring confidentiality of information and the privacy of individuals.

All information that you provide to us or is entered into our website, software applications, phone system or collected from your visiting our website is automatically transferred to our system. When you contact or engage us, you consent to your personal information being held by our system as outlined in this Privacy Policy.

Despite our best efforts, the internet itself cannot be trusted as a secure environment. Whilst we choose services that we think offer appropriate levels of security for our information, we are unable to give an absolute promise that your personal information will always be safe. Your personal information may be stored in locations outside our direct control and may be held outside Australia. If you are not comfortable with this, you should not provide us with your personal information. If we become aware of any security breach relating to your personal information, we will advise you as soon as we can.

We may disclose personal information to external service providers including IT service providers. Where we engage external service providers we take reasonable steps to ensure these providers comply with the APPs.

If you need to use your credit card for any of our services, we will not store your credit card details. However your credit card details may be encrypted and securely stored by our chosen payment provider.

We use email to send out various general information that we think will be useful to our clients. You have the option to opt-out of these emails when you first engage us. There are clear instructions on the emails explaining how to remove yourself from our   mailing   list if you change your mind in the future.   If   you   choose   to   opt   out,   this   will   not   remove   you   from   receiving   emails   about breaches (if relevant).

Overseas disclosure

We may disclose personal information to overseas recipients in order to provide necessary legal services and for administrative or other business management purposes. Before disclosing any personal information, we take steps reasonable in the circumstances to ensure the overseas recipient complies with the APPs or is bound by a substantially similar privacy scheme, unless you consent to the overseas disclosure or it is otherwise required or permitted by law.

Data retention and deletion

We take reasonable steps to securely dispose of all information that is no longer needed for the reason that it was requested, or as required by law. Adroit Conveyancing will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

In the event that we are required by law to retain your personal information for a longer period, we will comply with such legal obligations. However, we will ensure that the retention of your personal information is limited to what is necessary and will take appropriate measures to protect the privacy and security of your personal information during the retention period.

Disclosure of personal information

Generally, Adroit Conveyancing will only disclose your personal information for the purpose of providing conveyancing services. This disclosure is always on a confidential basis or otherwise in accordance with law. This may include disclosing your personal information to:

• Third party service providers for the purpose of enabling them to provide their services to us including IT service providers, data storage, web-hosting and server providers, marketing or advertising providers
• Third party service providers engaged to perform administrative or other business management services, such as our outsourced accounting team.
• Courts, tribunals or debt collectors in the event that you fail to pay for services we have provided to you;
• AI and Generative AI service providers
• The third party service providers listed below:

TriConvey - Conveyancing Practice Management - https://www.trisearch.com.au/trisearch-privacy-policy/

Smokeball - Legal Practice Management - Smokeball Privacy Policy

InfoTrack - Legal Technology software www.infotrack.com.au/legal/PrivacyPolicy

PEXA - Electronic settlement network - https://www.pexa.com.au/privacy-policy/

State Revenue Office - https://www.sro.vic.gov.au/privacy-and-your-rights

Microsoft 365 - Document & email management - Microsoft 365 Privacy Statement

Snapforms - Intake Forms - https://snapforms.com.au/resources/security-privacy/

Myconnect - Utility connect provider https://www.myconnect.com.au/privacy-policy/

Stewart Title - Title Insurer - https://www.stewartau.com/privacy

Birdeye - Business review platform - https://birdeye.com/au/privacy/

Curia - Contract review platform - https://app.curia.com.au/privacy

Some of our third-party infrastructure and AI service providers utilise cloud storage or processing servers located outside of Australia (predominantly in the United States and Singapore). By providing your information to us, you consent to these overseas disclosures in accordance with this policy.

If the above service providers change in the future, we will update their Privacy Policy. We encourage you to frequently review our   Privacy   Policy   so   you   are   aware   of   any   changes. We also encourage you to review the privacy policies of these service providers at the links provided above.

Adroit Conveyancing may also disclose your personal information with your consent or if disclosure is required or authorised by law.

Use of Artificial Intelligence tools

Adroit Conveyancing uses approved artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help us work more efficiently and carefully. These tools may assist us with tasks such as summarising information, preparing draft chronologies, organising material, drafting outlines, improving internal workflows, and checking or refining written work.

We only use AI tools in accordance with our internal AI Use Policy. Our team is trained on that policy, and we regularly review how AI tools are used in our practice.

We currently use selected AI tools, including Archie AI Legal Assistant by Smokeball Australia, Microsoft Copilot, and Curia. We may update the tools we use from time to time, but we will only use tools that we consider appropriate for contact reviews work and client confidentiality.

We do not use AI as a substitute for contract reviews. Any work assisted by AI is reviewed by a Licensed Conveyancer before it is used or provided to a client. We do not use AI in any way that is prohibited by a court rule, practice direction, order, or professional obligation.

We will not enter confidential client information into an AI tool unless we are satisfied that appropriate safeguards are in place. This includes considering whether the information is kept in a controlled environment, whether it is protected from unauthorised access, whether it is used to train external AI models, where it may be stored or processed, and how long it may be retained.

Where possible, we limit the information entered into AI tools and remove identifying details if they are not needed for the task. We do not permit confidential client information to be entered into open public AI tools.

Please tell us if you do not want AI tools used in your matter. We will discuss this with you and explain any likely impact on timing, cost, or the way we carry out the work.

We also encourage our clients to use AI tools carefully. If you, your staff, or another adviser, such as an accountant, have used AI to prepare material, research legal issues, summarise events, draft documents, or prepare information for us, please tell us. This helps us protect the accuracy of your matter, maintain confidentiality, and preserve legal professional privilege where it applies.

For more information, please see engaging with artificial intelligence from https://www.cyber.gov.au/business-government/secure-design/artificial-intelligence/engaging-with-artificial-intelligence

Controlling your privacy

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. If you provide personal information to us, you understand that we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

You do not have to provide personal information to us, however if you do not, it may affect our ability to provide our services to you.

How you can access your personal information

Under the Privacy Act, you have a right to access and seek correction of your personal information that is collected and held by Adroit Conveyancing.

If at any time you would like to access or correct the personal information that Adroit Conveyancing holds about you, please contact our privacy officer:

Marie Keane admin@adroitconveyancing.com.au

75 King Street Bendigo Vic 3550

To obtain access to your personal information:

• you will have to provide proof of identity to ensure that personal information is provided only to the correct individuals and that the privacy of others is protected;
• you will need to be reasonably specific about the information you require; and
• Adroit Conveyancing may charge you a reasonable administration fee, which reflects the cost to us for providing access in accordance with your request.

If Adroit Conveyancing refuses your request to access or correct your personal information, we will provide you with written reasons for the refusal and details of complaint mechanisms.

Links to other websites

We may provide you with links to other websites. We do not have control over those websites and we are not responsible for the protection and privacy of any personal information which you provide whilst visiting those websites. Those websites are not governed by this Privacy Policy.

Complaints

Please direct all privacy complaints to our privacy officer. We will take any privacy complaints seriously and deal with them in a prompt and confidential manner.

You will be informed of the outcome of your complaint following completion of the investigation, which will take no more than 30 days.

In the event that you are dissatisfied with the outcome of your complaint, you may refer the complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.