Privacy Policy

Introduction

Our firm, (referred to as “LLH”, “we”, us”) has always been committed to protecting the privacy of our clients and other parties which have dealings with our firm. We recognise the importance of collecting and handling personal information in a responsible manner on their behalf. Personal information generally means information or an opinion about an individual which can be used to identify that individual.

LLH‘s management, use and disclosure of personal information and credit related personal information is based on our obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Act”) (including Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs”) and Part IIIA (“credit reporting”)).

Our Privacy Policy (below) outlines the way in which LLH manages the collection, recording, use and disclosure of personal information and credit related personal information provided to us.

We may amend or update our Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect updates to our internal processes and systems, or changes in legislative requirements. Any amendments to our Privacy Policy will be notified to you by posting an updated version on our website link as below:

If you reside in the European Union or United Kingdom, we handle your data in accordance with the General Data Regulations (EU Regulations 2016/679) and Data Protection Act 2018 (UK) (GDPR). Please see our GDPR addendum that contemplates the rights you have to your data.

GDPR addendum

By providing your personal information (including credit related personal information) to LLH, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of our Privacy Policy set out below.

The main parties who have dealings with our firm and from whom we may collect personal information include but are not limited to:

  • clients, business associates, potential clients and their employees;
  • suppliers and their employees;
  • prospective employees; and
  • contractors.

Even though our obligations under the Act do not apply to information directly related to employee records of existing or former employees, LLH treat these records in the same confidential manner as other records held.

Please note that LLH’s website contains links to other websites. When a user has clicked on a link to another site, they leave the LLH site and are no longer protected by LLH’s Privacy Policy.

You should contact a Partner if you have any concerns about LLH requests for information. You are not obligated to provide the information, but choosing not to do so may prevent us from being able to provide some of our services to you.

PRIVACY POLICY

1. Collection of information

Personal information

“Personal information” is defined under the Act as information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information or opinion is true or not, and whether it is recorded in a material form or not.

LLH will collect personal information about you that you voluntarily submit to us. The types of personal information which we may collect include your:

  • name;
  • contact details, including:
    • residential, business and postal addresses;
    • phone numbers; and
    • email addresses;
  • date of birth;
  • gender;
  • job title;
  • any other information that may be relevant to the provision of our professional accounting, business and taxation services, including:
    • bank account details;
    • tax file numbers;
    • Australian business numbers;
    • details of investments and shareholdings;
    • details of assets and liabilities;
    • superannuation and insurance details;
    • social security entitlements; and
    • details of dependants.

Although we do not usually seek sensitive information, on occasion it may be necessary for LLH to collect sensitive information about you, including:

  • professional memberships;
  • health information; and
  • criminal records.

In such circumstances, we will only collect sensitive information as permitted under the Act. Where necessary, we will obtain your explicit consent to collect and use such information.

Credit related personal information

LLH may collect, use, hold or disclose the following types of credit related personal information:

  • identification information- name, date of birth, current or previous address, name of current employer, drivers licence number;
  • type and amount of credit sought;
  • publicly available information about an individual’s creditworthiness;
  • consumer credit liability information- name of credit provider, type of consumer credit, details of the consumer credit provided;
  • default information;
  • repayment history information;
  • payment information in relation to an overdue payment;
  • new arrangement information;
  • court proceedings information;
  • personal insolvency information; or
  • opinion that a serious credit infringement has been committed by an individual.

LLH may also use “cookies” or similar technologies to collect data. A cookie is a small file, typically of letters and numbers, downloaded on to a device when you access our website. Our website collects the following information from users:

  • your server address;
  • your top level domain name (for example, .com, .gov, .au etc);
  • the date and time of your visit to the site;
  • the pages you accessed;
  • the previous site you have visited; and
  • the type of browser you are using.

This information will only be used to assist with the provision of professional accounting, business and taxation services to you or for internal administrative purposes.

You have the option of not identifying yourself or of using a pseudonym when dealing with us, unless you are required to identify yourself to us in accordance with Australian law or a Court/Tribunal Order. You can deal with us anonymously or using a pseudonym when making a general enquiry about the services that we can offer to you including via telephone or in person. However, in most cases it will be impractical for LLH to undertake any dealings with you or provide you with our services, unless you properly identify yourself to us.

How we collect personal and credit related personal information

At or before the time of collection of your information, if practicable, we will notify you of the following:

  • our identity and contact details;
  • the facts and circumstances of collection;
  • whether the collection is required or authorised by law;
  • the purposes of collection;
  • the consequences if personal information is not collected;
  • to whom the information is usually disclosed;
  • information about the LLH Privacy Policy; and
  • whether the information is likely to be disclosed to overseas recipients and details of which countries (where applicable).

If not practicable at or before the time of collection of your information, we will notify you of the above matters as soon as practicable after the collection of your information.

LLH will collect information directly from you wherever it is practicable. This may include by way of face to face meetings, phone calls, or written correspondence (letters, faxes or via electronic correspondence such as emails.)

At times, it may be necessary to collect your personal or credit related personal information from a third party, such as a nominated family member, an authorised legal representative, a referee or from a publically available record. LLH does not collect any credit related personal information from credit reporting bodies.

Where you provide us with information about another individual, you should do so only after obtaining that individual’s permission and after taking all reasonable steps to inform them of the contents of our Privacy Policy.

If LLH receives information about you that we did not solicit, we will take such steps as are necessary to lawfully destroy or de-identify the information if we cannot establish that we could otherwise have lawfully obtained the information.

Our records

There are continuous developments in Information Technology regarding data storage and cloud based software and LLH are acutely aware of these changes and scrutinise the security of them. LLH will generally hold your information as either physical records, electronic records on our servers, and in some circumstances, records on third party servers (which may be located interstate or overseas). LLH may also need to store your personal information utilising cloud based databases and/or servers.

2. Use and disclose of your personal and credit related personal information

LLH will ensure that your information is treated as strictly private and confidential.

Your personal and credit related personal information will only be used or disclosed for:

  • purposes which directly relate to our provision of professional accounting, business and taxation services (primary purposes), including;
    • assisting you in managing your financial and corporate affairs; and
    • organising other services on your behalf from third parties related to our services;
  • any other functions or activities in the course of undertaking our business (secondary purposes);
  • other purposes where it can be reasonably inferred from the circumstances, that you have given your consent for LLH to use and disclose your personal information (implied consent); or
  • any other purpose disclosed in this Privacy Policy, or disclosed at the time of the collection of the personal information.

Other purposes for which your information may be used or disclosed include, but are not limited to, internal administrative services, recruitment of staff, the engagement of third party service providers, contractors and suppliers, compliance with our legal obligations, and the management and improvement of our services.

LLH will not disclose your personal information to a third party unless it is in accordance with this Privacy Policy, as permitted by law, or otherwise with your consent.

If LLH is required to disclose your personal information to a third party, we undertake to do so in accordance with the purpose for which the information was collected. Circumstances where disclosure to a third party may be necessary include obtaining third party professional advice under an engagement.

We will seek your express authority to disclose personal information in respect of a request for information from a third party, where the request is not directly related to a primary purpose. Such circumstances may include a request for personal information from a financial institution or insurance adviser.

Disclosure of information to overseas recipients

In some circumstances, it may be necessary for LLH to disclose your personal information to recipients outside of Australia in order to provide our services to you. In such circumstances, LLH will take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipient complies with the APPs in relation to the information and that you have given your direct consent to the information disclosure.

LLH may also disclose information to overseas recipients in circumstances where Australian law or a Court/Tribunal Order has authorised or requires LLH to disclose the information to an overseas recipient.

3. Management of information

Information security

LLH will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal and credit related personal information is securely protected. We have in place reasonable commercial standards of technology and operational security in order to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, including:

  • imposing confidentiality requirements on our employees;
  • implementing policies in relation to document storage security;
  • implementing security measures to govern access to our systems;
  • only providing access to personal or credit related personal information once proper identification has been given;
  • controlling access to our premises; and
  • our website protection measures.

Our firm requires all employees and partners to complete and sign an annual declaration, attesting to their knowledge and acceptance of the privacy and confidentiality of client information. All employees and partners are required to read this Privacy Policy and acknowledge that they understand their obligations with regards to personal information and credit related personal information.

LLH will retain your personal and credit related personal information in accordance with our documentation retention policies, unless Australian law (including the APPs) requires a different retention period.

Accessing and correcting your information

You are able to seek access to or correction of your information from us, subject to some limited exceptions permitted or required by Australian law. We require that requests for access to or to update or correct your information to be in writing outlining the details of your request. Such requests should be addressed to a partner or the Privacy Officer via the details provided in this Policy.

LLH will take appropriate steps to verify your identity (or verify that you act as a legal guardian or authorised agent of the individual concerned) before granting a request to access your information.

We will respond to your request for access to your information within a reasonable time after you make the request and if access is granted, access will be provided within 30 days from your request. LLH will, on request, provide you with access to your information or update or correct your information, unless we are lawfully excluded from granting your request, including if:

  • giving access would be unlawful;
  • we are required or authorised by law or a court/tribunal order to deny access; or
  • giving access is likely to prejudice one or more enforcement related activities conducted by an enforcement body.

Where your request for access is accepted, we will provide you with access to your information in a manner, as requested by you, providing it is reasonable to do so.

In situations where access to your information is denied, we will advise you of the reasons for our decision.

Your request for correction will be dealt with within 30 days, or such longer period as agreed by you. If we deny your request, we will provide you with a written notice detailing reasons for the refusal and the process for making a complaint about the refusal to grant your request. We will not accept your request for correction of your credit related personal information where we are satisfied that it is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading.

Upon accepting a request for correction of your information, we will take all steps that are reasonable in the circumstances, having regard to the purpose for which your information is held, to correct your information.

If your request for correction of credit related personal information is accepted we will provide written notice of this correction to any entity to which we have disclosed this information previously, to the extent that this is practicable.

We aim to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you believe that any information we have on our records is incomplete or requires updating, we ask that you contact LLH as soon as possible with the necessary details, preferably in writing.

There may be a charge to you to cover our costs of retrieving and processing the information, if it requires a significant amount of time to locate or collect your information, or present it in a suitable form. We will inform you of the likely charges in advance.

4. Questions and complaints

If you have a question in relation to our Privacy Policy, the Act, or have an issue about the management, use or disclosure of your personal or credit related personal information, please contact us in writing so that we may try to resolve the issue to your satisfaction.

If you would like access to or correction of your personal or credit related personal information, or if you are dissatisfied with the initial handling of a privacy-related complaint, please contact the LLH Privacy Officer in writing as follows:

The Privacy Officer

LeCornu Lewis Hancock

GPO Box 446

ADELAIDE SA 5001

T: +61 8 8232 1133

F: +61 8 8232 0088

E: privacy@llh.com.au

Our Privacy Officer will consider your complaint or question and will respond within a reasonable period of time, but not more than 30 days from receiving the complaint or question.

If you have lodged a written complaint and are not satisfied with our Privacy Officer’s response, you may ask the Privacy Officer to be referred to a higher authority within LLH, such as a Partner. If you still remain unsatisfied with the outcome, you may refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to be resolved at:

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218

SYDNEY NSW 2001

T: 1300 363 992

E: enquiries@oaic.gov.au

Last Review April 2020

1LeCornu Lewis Hancock, LAL Services Trust, LAL Services Pty Ltd, and Lecklewan Nominees Pty Ltd