We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of personal information provided to us by our clients, staff and other third parties. Warburton Attorneys Inc. is the data controller of any personal information provided to us when our services are utilized as set out in section 2 below. This Privacy Policy explains how we may collect and use personal information that we obtain, and data providers’ rights in relation to that information. The use of our online services or provision of personal information to us constitutes your acknowledgment of the terms of this Privacy Policy. Please do not send us any of your information if you do not want it to be used in the ways described in this Privacy Policy. Our contact details are set out at section 11 below.
This Privacy Policy applies when we receive any personal information from, our clients or other third-parties, including in the following circumstances: • when information is requested from us or provided to us; • when our legal services are engaged, directly or as a counterparty; • due to relationships with one or more of our clients, including regulators, government agencies, courts, tribunals or other law enforcement agencies; • during recruitment processes; • attendees of our training workshops (online or at our offices) or other hosted events; • visitors to our websites and online services who may also complete online application forms; • if you are a current or former employee of the firm; and • recipients of our publications (such as our legislation update email alerts) and other marketing emails.
General In appropriate circumstances we collect personal information directly from our clients or their counterparties, authorised representatives and other representatives. We may collect personal information from third parties such as regulatory authorities, previous employers, government agencies, credit reporting agencies, recruitment agencies, information or service providers, publicly available records and the third parties described in section 5: ‘Disclosure of Personal Information below. 1 We may collect current and historical personal information including names, contact details, nationality, identification, gender, organisation, business interests, employment, positions held, special categories of data (such as information about health), billing and financial information (such as billing address, bank account and payment information) and enquiry/complaint details. Online Services For the use of online services, we may collect the following: • information provided by completing subscription, registration and application forms; • details of visits made to our online services such as the volume of traffic received, logs (including, the internet protocol (IP) address and location of the device connecting to the online services and other identifiers about the device and the nature of the visit) and the resources accessed. Recruitment The submission of a job application will constitute express consent to our use of the information contained in the application and supporting documents to assess suitability for the position on offer. We may also carry out screening checks, including but not limited to reference, background, identity, vocational suitability and criminal record checks. We may disclose personal information to recruiters, screening check providers, health service providers, professional and trade associations, law enforcement agencies, referees and current and previous employers. We may also collect personal information from these parties, in particular current and previous employers. Without this personal information we may not be able to process job applications and consider suitability for any position on offer at Warburtons. CCTV Our offices are protected by CCTV and record visitors to our offices to help provide a safe and secure environment for our employees and our visitors.
We may use personal information if: • it is necessary for the performance of a contract; • necessary in connection with a legal or regulatory obligation; • where consent has been provided; • we (or a third-party) have a legitimate interest which is not overridden by personal interests or rights and freedoms; and/or • we are otherwise required or authorised by law. We may use personal information to: • provide and improve our services and products, (including auditing and monitoring the use of those services and products); • maintain and develop our relationships with our clients; • monitor and analyse our business; 2 • facilitate our internal business operations; • fulfil our legal, regulatory (including in relation to anti-money laundering requirements), accounting, reporting, risk management or professional obligations; • identify services which clients or potential clients may be interested in; • send legal updates, publications, marketing and details of events; • protect, establish, exercise or defend legal rights; and • process and respond to requests, enquiries or complaints. We will only retain your personal information for as long as is reasonably necessary in the circumstances and in accordance with our Data Retention & Destruction Policy. Personal information provided in connection with the provision of our legal services will be retained in accordance with the firm's retention policies unless we agree otherwise with you, in writing. If you wish to know more about the firm’s retention periods, please contact admin@warburtons.co.za.
We may have to share personal information with third parties including: • our clients or our client’s professional advisers; • third parties involved in the provisions of services to clients including advocates and consultants; • our professional advisors, auditors and insurers; • third party service providers to whom we outsource services, for example archival, auditing, reference checking, professional advisory (including legal, accounting and financial consulting), IT support, mailing house, delivery, website, social media, research, banking, payment, client contact, data processing, insurance, forensic, data room, marketing and security services; • third party technology organisations, including cloud service providers, such as data storage platforms; • third parties with whom we have co-promotional arrangements (such as jointly sponsored events); or • regulatory authorities, courts, tribunals, government agencies, law enforcement agencies and other third parties.
We take reasonable steps to hold information securely in electronic or physical form and to prevent unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Our information security is supported by a number of security standards, processes and procedures and we store information in access controlled premises or in electronic databases with firewalls and requiring logins and passwords. We require our third party data storage providers to comply with appropriate information security industry standards. All partners and staff and third party providers with access to confidential information are subject to confidentiality obligations. The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. We cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our online services; any transmission is at your own risk. 3
Our Websites may contain links to other sites which are controlled by third parties. Visitors should consult these other sites' privacy policies and be aware that we do not accept responsibility for their use of information.
If you would like to request a copy of your data, or would like to take steps to exercise any of your rights please contact us in writing as set out below. We may refuse to provide access and may charge a fee for access if the relevant legislation allows us to do so, in which case we will provide reasons for our decision as required by law. In the limited circumstances where consent has been provided for the collection, processing and transfer of personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time, after reasonable notice is given to us in writing.
Any person who receives marketing materials relating to our services by email, may withdraw consent for us to send these to them at any time, by using the “unsubscribe” option included in the email or other material. Alternatively, preferences can be communicated to us by sending an email to admin@warburtons.co.za.
We review this Privacy Policy regularly and reserve the right to revise it or any part of it from time to time to reflect changes in the law or technology practices. It is the responsibility of data providers to review the amended Privacy Policy.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or want to submit a written complaint to us about how we handle your personal information, please contact us