Privacy & Collection Statement

Privacy Policy

MAURICE BLACKBURN PTY LTD (ACN 105 657 949)

Maurice Blackburn Pty Ltd and its related entities (collectively ‘Maurice Blackburn’, ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’) respect your privacy. We will handle your personal data with care and according to law.

This policy explains our obligations and how we manage your information.

1         LEGISLATION THAT APPLIES TO US

• Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)
• Australian Privacy Principles (‘APP’)
• In some situations - European Union (‘EU’) data protection laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (EU 2016/679) (‘GDPR’) (in which the data controller is Maurice Blackburn Pty Ltd).

2         KINDS OF INFORMATION WE MANAGE

3         HOW AND WHY WE COLLECT YOUR INFORMATION

You are not obligated to provide information about you. However, if you don’t give it to us we may be unable to carry out the task i.e., provide legal services or consider a job application. You may interact with us anonymously or under a pseudonym where lawful and practicable (for example, for general enquiries and chat interfaces), until you choose to make a booking.

4         HOW WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE

We provide physical security to hard copy files and restricted access to electronic records. Sometimes we store your information with secure third-party storage providers.

We also require our employees and service providers to keep personal information confidential.

If we receive unsolicited information about you that we are not legally entitled to, we will destroy or de-identify it as soon as practicable, if it is legal and reasonable.

5         WE DISCLOSE YOUR INFORMATION TO SOME THIRD PARTIES

We disclose your information to the following third parties outside of Maurice Blackburn where it is reasonably necessary for the purposes in Section 3 above:

• courts, tribunals, ombudsmen, commissions and regulatory authorities (information provided to courts and tribunals may be made available to other parties to the litigation and will be on the public record);
• other parties involved in your matter and their solicitors (for example, counter parties to litigation or a transaction);
• third parties who help us in providing legal services or who provide services to you (including service providers we introduce or match you to with your consent);
• recruitment services, data storage, distribution and mailing services, direct marketing, technology support services, and business development services;
• insurers;
• litigation and disbursement funders; 
• unions;
• financial institutions;
• market researchers and analysts; and any entity or person with your authority.

We have contracts with service providers that require them to comply with privacy laws and meet strict confidentiality requirements. 

6        USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) technology for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy. We do not use personal information in publicly available AI tools or technologies. We ensure that personal information is not used to train public AI datasets. All AI technology we use is screened to ensure that it meets our stringent security, data privacy, professional, and ethical standards. We only use identified personal information for training or evaluating our internal AI systems with your consent.

7          AUTOMATED INTAKE AND REFERRAL TOOLS

We may use automated tools, including chatbot and intake tools, to assist with triage and referral decisions. These tools may use information you provide, such as contact details, matter category, location, eligibility responses, information about deadlines and the description of what you need help with.

These tools help us assess suitable next steps, including whether Maurice Blackburn may be able to assist you, whether a partner law practice may be better suited to assist you, or whether other information or support pathways may be relevant. A person may review outcomes where appropriate.

8        WE MAY SEND YOU MARKETING OR LEGAL UPDATES

If you give consent (and do not unsubscribe), we may send you marketing information about:

• changes or improvements to our services;
• changes to the law or potential legal claims that you may have.

To opt-out of marketing emails, email: support@mauriceblackburn.com.au.

We may provide your name and address to a mailing house for this. If you do not want us to use your information in this way, please tell the lawyer handling your matter or our Privacy Officer on 03 9605 2700 or by emailing privacy@mauriceblackburn.com.au.

We may also use information about you within Maurice Blackburn or provide it to a related body corporate to help enhance the quality of legal services we offer to other clients or to the wider community.

9         WHEN WE MAY DISCLOSE YOUR INFORMATION OVERSEAS

We do not generally transfer personal information from Australia to overseas parties, unless working with international service providers or required by law.

Clients/Prospective Clients

• Where we consult overseas-based experts and/or law practices regarding your claim.
• Where your matter is funded by an overseas-based litigation funder.
• Where we engage overseas-based services providers.

This can include providers that support our websites, chat interfaces, scheduling, payments, communications and analytics. We take reasonable steps under the APPs to ensure these overseas recipients protect your information.

At this time and to the best of our knowledge the overseas recipients could be located in Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Europe or the United States.

Careers and Recruitment

Some of our recruitment technology service providers may have data centres located outside of Australia. At this time and to the best of our knowledge the overseas data centre could be located in the United States, Singapore and in other countries.

10         WHEN WE MAY DISCLOSE FROM THE EU / EEA TO OUTSIDE THE EU / EEA

If EU data protection law applies to your personal data, the following section applies:

• We may collect your personal information in the EU and transfer it outside the EU or European Economic Area (‘EEA’) to countries such as Australia, the United States, Canada, Singapore or the United Kingdom.
• Your personal information may be processed by staff outside the EEA who work for us or our suppliers (for example, a data centre located in the United States or Australia).
• We will take all reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is secure in accordance with data protection laws
• We will not transfer personal information outside the EEA unless we have a safeguard, for example a data transfer agreement. This would have the European Commission’s published standard clauses. This won’t apply if the recipient is in a country that the European Commission has said is adequate (under Art. 45 GDPR). You can ask our Privacy Officer for a copy of these agreements.

11         YOUR RIGHTS UNDER AUSTRALIAN PRIVACY PRINCIPLES

12       YOUR RIGHTS UNDER EU DATA PROTECTION LAW (GDPR)

If EU data protection law (including the GDPR) applies, you may have the following rights:

You can send us a request to our Privacy Officer by email at privacy@mauriceblackburn.com.au or by mail to P.O. Box 523, Melbourne VIC 3001.

You can also lodge a complaint with the local data protection authority if you believe that we have not complied with applicable data protection laws. For a list of local data protection authorities in the other EEA countries go to https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en. 

Our authorised representative in the EU is Claims Funding International Plc, Hamilton House, 28 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2, D02 P283, Ireland.

13       DESTRUCTION, DE-IDENTIFICATION AND PUTTING BEYOND USE

Once we are no longer legally or contractually obliged to keep your information and no longer require that information for any lawful purposes, we will take reasonable steps to either destroy or de-identify it in accordance with our obligations under applicable privacy and data protection laws. If you are a client, we must keep information about your legal matter for seven (7) years once your case is closed. In some cases, we keep documents for longer than this (for example, a Will).

For general enquiries made through chat or similar tools where no booking is made, we retain transcripts for up to 12 months; for service quality and complaint handling purposes, then delete or de‑identify them, unless we are required to retain the information for legal or regulatory reasons (for example in response to a complaint, legal claim etc.).

Sometimes your information is held electronically and we can’t permanently destroy or de-identify it without compromising other information we have to keep. If this happens, we will put your information “beyond use”. This means we:

• won’t attempt to use your information;
• can’t give another entity your information;
• will restrict access to your information; and
• will take reasonable steps to destroy the information if this is possible in the future, in accordance with our Document Retention Policy and relevant laws.