This is the Privacy Policy of Meares Williams Lawyers ("Meares Williams"). Meares Williams Lawyers is a Christchurch law firm with a reputation for providing quality legal services to a broad range of national and international clients.

Introduction
Meares Williams Lawyers complies with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (the Act) when dealing with personal information.  Personal information is information about an identifiable individual (a natural person).
This policy sets out how we will collect, use, disclose and protect your personal information.
This policy does not limit or exclude any of your rights under the Act.  If you wish to seek further information on the Act, see www.privacy.org.nz.
 
 
Changes to this policy
From time to time we may change this policy by uploading a revised policy onto our website.  The change will apply from the date that we upload the revised policy. This policy was last updated on 26 February 2021.
 
 
Who do we collect your personal information from
We collect personal information about you from:

• you, when you provide that personal information to us, including via the website and any related service, through any registration or subscription process, through any contact with us (e.g. telephone call or email), or when you  use our services and products;
• third parties where you have authorised this or the information is publicly available. 

If possible, we will collect personal information from you directly.
 
 
How we use your personal information
We will use your personal information:

• to verify your identity
• to provide services and products to you
• to market our services and products to you, including contacting you electronically (e.g. by text or email for this purpose)
• to improve the services and products that we provide to you
• to bill you and to collect money that you owe us
• to respond to communications from you, including a complaint
• to protect and/or enforce our legal rights and interests, including defending any claim
• for any other purpose authorised by you or the Act.

 
By providing us with your personal information, you consent to your personal information being held and used as set out in this policy.
 
We include a summary of your rights below.
 
Disclosing your personal information
Besides our staff, we may disclose your personal information to:

• any business that supports our services and products, including any person that hosts or maintains any underlying IT system or data centre that we use to provide the website or other services and products;
• a credit reference agency for the purpose of credit checking you;
• other third parties (for anonymised statistical information);
• a person who can require us to supply your personal information (e.g. a regulatory authority);
• any other person authorised by the Act or another law (e.g. a law enforcement agency);
• any other person authorised by you.

 
 
Protecting your personal information
We will take reasonable steps to keep your personal information safe from loss, unauthorised activity, or other misuse.
 
 
STORING THE INFORMATION
 
We use a third party cloud service provider (Infinity Law) to store and process the information we collect. We are satisfied that Infinity Law has sufficient and suitable security and information handling protocols and the information they hold on our behalf is subject to confidentiality obligations.
 
 
Accessing and correcting your personal information
Subject to certain grounds for refusal set out in the Act, you have the right to access your readily retrievable personal information that we hold and to request a correction to your personal information.  Before you exercise this right, we will need evidence to confirm that you are the individual to whom the personal information relates.  The statutory timeframe for us to respond to your request is 20 working days which can be extended in certain cases.  If we do request an extension, we will tell you the reason why and when we expect to have the information available.
In respect of a request for correction, if we think the correction is reasonable and we are reasonably able to change the personal information, we will make the correction.  If we do not make the correction, we will take reasonable steps to note on the personal information that you requested the correction.
If you want to exercise either of the above rights, email us at rjc@meareswilliams.co.nz. Your email should provide evidence of who you are and set out the details of your request (e.g. the personal information, or the correction, that you are requesting).
We may charge you our reasonable costs of providing to you copies of your personal information or correcting that information.
 
 
Internet use
While we take reasonable steps to maintain secure internet connections, if you provide us with personal information over the internet, the provision of that information is at your own risk.
If you post your personal information on the website’s (message board/ chat room), you acknowledge and agree that the information you post is publicly available.
If you follow a link on our website to another site, the owner of that site will have its own privacy policy relating to your personal information.  We suggest you review that site’s privacy policy before you provide personal information.
Whenever you visit our website, you acknowledge that our servers automatically record information about your usage of our website through cookies. We use cookies (an alphanumeric identifier that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive so that we can recognise your browser) to monitor your use of the website so that we may improve our website and the service offered through it.  You may disable cookies by changing the settings on your browser, although this may mean that you cannot use all of the features of the website.
 
COMPLAINTS
If you think we have breached a privacy principle, or you think we have interfered with your privacy, please contact us first.
Our privacy officer can assist you with any query or complaint you may have.  We may be able to solve the matter quickly for you. If the issue cannot be resolved internally then you can make a formal complaint to the Privacy Commissioner.