Privacy Policy

ALA has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy. This document discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for the Australian Lawyers Alliance.

By submitting an application for membership you are agreeing to the ALA terms of membership, including this privacy policy (as amended from time to time).

Kinds of personal information collected and held

Members’ information

• Name
• Place of work
• Type of practice
• Contact details
• Areas of interest
• Events attended

Information of those attending seminars and conferences and subscribing to ALA publications (‘other users’)

• Name
• Place of work
• Type of practice
• Contact details

We may also collect other information not listed above that you provide to the ALA during the course of our dealings.

How information is collected and held

ALA collects information in the following circumstances:-

• As part of the registration process for membership or events,
• When receiving and evaluating content submissions,
• From community postings (e.g. forums), suggestions and transactional areas, and
• Upon specific request.

The information is held on the ALA database. Access to that part of the database is restricted to ALA staff members with direct responsibility for customer service or management of the website (‘authorised staff’).Non-staff affiliates of the ALA, such as executive members of state committees will also have access to the database containing personal information (‘affiliates’). Authorised staff and affiliates are not to provide information about members to non-authorised staff without the express permission of the Managing Director and for reasons otherwise in accordance with this policy.

We may verify your details from public information registers to ensure they are up to date from time to time.

The purposes for which ALA collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information

ALA members and other users (‘users’) are aware that ALA seminars and conferences rely on the financial and other support of sponsors. Those sponsors are provided with general information as to who will be attending, their positions and places of work. On occasion, sponsors will request contact details of attendees for the purpose of contacting them prior to and after seminars and conferences to invite them to events and information sessions and for direct marketing. ALA will provide those details to those sponsors for that specific purpose unless members or other users ask for their details to be withheld.

Those who wish to have their personal information withheld should email enquiries@lawyersalliance.com.au or call (02) 9258 7700.

Personally identifiable information on individual users will not be sold or otherwise transferred to unaffiliated third parties (not including sponsors) without the approval of the user at the time of collection. At such points of collection, the user will have the opportunity to indicate whether he or she would like to ‘opt out’ of receiving promotional and/or marketing information about other products, services and offerings and/or any third parties.

Further, notwithstanding any ‘opt out’ of promotional information by the user, ALA reserves the right to contact a member/subscriber regarding account status, changes to the subscriber agreement and other matters relevant to the underlying service and/or the information collected.

ALA reserves the right to perform statistical analyses of user behaviour and characteristics in order to measure interest in and use of the various areas of the site and to inform advertisers and sponsors of such information as well as the number of users that have been exposed to or clicked on their advertising banners.

Upon request, ALA will allow any user to ‘opt out’ of further promotional contacts at any time.

How to access your own personal information and correct such information.

Upon request, ALA will use reasonable efforts to allow users to update/correct personal information previously submitted which the user states is erroneous to the extent such activities will not compromise privacy or security interests. Also, upon a user's request, ALA will use commercially reasonable efforts to functionally delete the user and his or her personal information from its database; however, it may be impossible to delete a user's entry without some residual information because of backups and records of deletions.

How to complain about breaches of Australian Privacy Principles

Complaints should be made, at first instance, to ALA. Complaints should be made in writing addressed to the ALA General Manager. A response will usually be provided within 14 days. In the event that the response cannot be provided within that time, the General Manager will inform the complainant of the reasons for the delay and can take another 14 days to respond

At any time, complainants can make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner 1300 363 992 enquiries@oaic.gov.au

Storage of information

We may retain your information in digital form, hard copy or both.

Our standard procedure is for member information to be achieved 365 days after membership lapses. This archiving will be done either digitally, hard copy or both.

Overseas Recipients

It is likely that the ALA will disclose personal information to overseas recipients, specifically in the United States of America, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. We will take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipient does not breach the Australian Privacy Principles.

Generally

The Australian Lawyers Alliance reserves the right to change this policy at any time by notifying users of the existence of a new privacy statement. This statement and the policies outlined herein are not intended to and do not create any contractual or other legal rights in or on behalf of any party.

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Web site, you can contact:

Australian Lawyers Alliance

GPO Box 7052 Sydney NSW 2001