At HKS Law, the trust our clients place in us is the foundation of everything we do. People come to us with sensitive matters; buying or selling a home, an immigration application, a family dispute, an insurance claim, or a lawsuit and they share information that is personal and, often, deeply important to them. Protecting that information is not only good practice; it is part of our professional duty as lawyers.
This Privacy Policy explains, in plain language, how we handle your personal information. We have written the most important points first, because we believe you should be able to understand how we treat your information without wading through legal fine print. The detailed terms follow, and they govern in the event of any question of interpretation. This Policy is consistent with our obligations under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and the Rules of Professional Conduct of the Law Society of Ontario.
What You Need to Know
The points below are a summary of the things our clients most often ask about. The full terms appear at the end of this document.
Your information stays confidential. As your lawyers, we are bound by solicitor-client privilege and a professional duty of confidentiality. We treat the information you give us with care and disclose it only where you have agreed, where it is necessary to carry out your matter, or where the law requires us to.
We only collect what we need. We ask for the information required to act for you to verify your identity, check for conflicts, and do the legal work you have retained us to do. We do not collect personal information we do not need.
We use it to serve you. We use your information to provide legal advice and services, to communicate with you and others on your behalf, to manage and bill your file, and only if you have agreed to keep you informed about legal developments and the Firm. We never sell your information.
We share it only when appropriate. Acting on a legal matter often means dealing with others — courts and tribunals, opposing counsel, land registries, title insurers, government and immigration authorities, and experts we engage for you. We share your information with them as needed to advance your matter, and otherwise only with your consent or as required by law.
We protect it. We use physical, organizational, and technological safeguards to keep your information secure, and we require any service providers we use to do the same. Please remember that ordinary email is not fully secure.
You stay in control. You may ask to see the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or withdraw your consent to certain uses — subject to the limits the law and solicitor-client privilege place on those rights. Withdrawing consent may affect our ability to continue acting for you.
You can reach us easily. Questions about your privacy can be directed to our Privacy Officer at lawyer@hkslaw.ca. Full contact details are at the end of this Policy.
Detailed Terms
The following sets out our privacy practices in full. In the event of any inconsistency, these detailed terms govern.
1. Your Privacy Rights and PIPEDA
Since January 1, 2004, all organizations engaged in commercial activities in Canada must comply with PIPEDA, unless the federal government has determined that substantially similar provincial legislation applies. To date, lawyers and law firms in Ontario are not subject to any such exemption and remain governed by PIPEDA. Although lawyers have always been obligated to maintain the confidentiality of client information, PIPEDA gives you additional rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.
2. What Is Personal Information?
“Personal information” means information about an identifiable individual, or information that allows an individual to be identified. It does not include the name, title, business address, or business telephone number of an employee of an organization. Examples of personal information we may collect include your name, home address, telephone number, email address, date of birth, government-issued identification, immigration and citizenship details, financial and real estate transaction information, insurance details, family circumstances, and other information relevant to the legal matter for which you retain us.
3. Why We Collect Personal Information
We collect, use, and disclose personal information only for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances. These purposes include:
- Providing legal services to you in accordance with your instructions, including civil litigation, real estate, immigration, family law, and related matters;
- Establishing and verifying your identity and meeting our obligations under applicable law, including client identification and verification requirements;
- Checking for and avoiding conflicts of interest;
- Communicating with you and with third parties on your behalf (for example, opposing counsel, courts and tribunals, government agencies, witnesses, experts, and other advisors);
- Administering, managing, and billing for our services, and collecting unpaid accounts;
- Responding to inquiries and consultation requests submitted through our website, by email, or by telephone;
- Providing you, where you have consented, with information about legal developments and Firm updates; and
- Detecting and protecting against error, fraud, theft, and other unlawful activity, and complying with our legal, regulatory, and professional obligations.
4. How We Collect Personal Information
We collect personal information directly from you at the start of a retainer and in the course of representing you. In some cases, and where permitted or required by law, we may also collect personal information from other sources, such as:
- Government agencies, registries, and courts or tribunals;
- Insurance companies and adjusters (for example, in real estate insurance and title insurance matters);
- Real estate agents, brokers, lenders, and title insurers in a property transaction;
- Your accountant, employer, or other advisors you have authorized;
- Opposing or other counsel and parties involved in your matter; and
- Publicly available sources.
If you provide us with personal information about another individual (for example, a family member, co-purchaser, or sponsor in an immigration matter), you confirm that you have the authority and any necessary consent to allow us to collect, use, and disclose that information for the purposes described in this Policy.
5. Consent
By submitting personal information to HKS Law, or to our service providers and agents, you agree that we may collect, use, and disclose that information in accordance with this Policy and as otherwise permitted or required by law. Consent may be obtained orally, in writing, or electronically, and may be express or implied depending on the sensitivity of the information and the circumstances.
Subject to legal, regulatory, and contractual requirements, you may refuse or withdraw your consent to certain uses of your personal information at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer. Please note that withdrawing consent may limit or prevent us from providing certain legal services to you.
6. Use of Your Personal Information
We use your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you, including for identity verification, conflict checks, file management, and billing. Where you have consented, we may also use your contact information to send you information about developments in the law or about the Firm. If you tell us you no longer wish to receive such communications, we will stop sending them. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not disclose it to third parties for their own marketing purposes without your express consent.
7. Disclosure of Your Personal Information
In the course of providing legal services and operating our practice, we may disclose your personal information in the following circumstances:
- Where you have consented to the disclosure;
- Where the legal services we provide require us to disclose information to a third party (for example, to opposing counsel, a court or tribunal, a land registry, a title insurer, or a government immigration authority), in which case your consent is implied unless you tell us otherwise;
- Where we are required or authorized by law to disclose, such as in response to a subpoena, summons, court order, or regulatory request;
- Where it is necessary to establish, exercise, or collect our fees and accounts;
- To third-party service providers who perform services on our behalf (such as document storage, IT, accounting, or administrative support), who are bound by confidentiality obligations and required to protect your information; and
- To other lawyers, experts, or agents we retain on your behalf in connection with your matter.
8. Service Providers and Data Location
We may use trusted third-party service providers to help us operate our practice and website, including providers of cloud storage, practice-management software, email, and analytics. We require these providers to protect personal information through appropriate contractual and security measures. Some service providers may store or process information outside Ontario or Canada, in which case the information may be subject to the laws of the jurisdiction where it is stored. We take reasonable steps to ensure that any such providers maintain a comparable level of protection.
9. Privacy and Our Website
Our website, www.hkslaw.ca, may contain links to other websites that are not governed by this Policy. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites. When you visit our website, we collect only the information you provide voluntarily, for example by sending us an email, completing a contact or consultation request form, or otherwise submitting information through the site. We use this information to respond to your inquiry and, where you have consented, to provide you with information we think may be of interest to you.
Like most commercial websites, we may use cookies and similar technologies, and we may automatically collect limited technical information such as IP address, browser type, pages visited, and the date and time of your visit. This information is used to operate, secure, and improve our website and to understand how visitors use it. Where we use analytics tools, the resulting reports are generally aggregated and do not identify you individually. You can set your browser to refuse cookies or to alert you when cookies are being used, although some parts of the website may not function properly as a result.
10. Communicating With Us by Email
Email is not a fully secure medium of communication. While we take reasonable steps to protect electronic communications, you should be aware of this limitation when sending us personal or confidential information by email, and you may wish to use alternative means for highly sensitive information.
11. Retention of Personal Information
We retain personal information only as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, to provide our legal services, and to meet our legal, regulatory, professional, and insurance obligations, including the file-retention requirements applicable to lawyers in Ontario. Where we collect personal information during an initial consultation but are not retained, we retain only the information needed to address potential conflicts of interest, and we securely destroy or de-identify information that is no longer required.
12. How We Protect Your Personal Information
We take all reasonable precautions to protect personal information against loss, theft, and unauthorized access, use, modification, or disclosure. Our safeguards include:
- Maintaining secure premises and restricting physical access to files;
- Restricting electronic access to personal information to those who need it to perform their duties;
- Using technological safeguards such as passwords, encryption where appropriate, firewalls, and security software;
- Internal confidentiality and security policies, and the professional obligation of every lawyer at the Firm to maintain client confidentiality under the Rules of Professional Conduct of the Law Society of Ontario; and
- Requiring third-party service providers, through contract, to keep personal information secure.
13. Accuracy, Access, and Correction
We make reasonable efforts to keep personal information accurate, complete, and up to date. It is important that the information you provide remains current; if any of your information changes during your matter, please let us know so we can update our records. Subject to certain exceptions permitted or required by law (including solicitor-client privilege and the privacy rights of third parties), you have the right to access the personal information we hold about you and to request corrections. To make such a request, please contact our Privacy Officer.
14. Changes to This Policy
HKS Law reserves the right to modify or supplement this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make changes, we will post the revised Policy on our website and update the effective date above. We encourage you to review this Policy periodically.
15. Contact Us / Privacy Officer
If you have any questions about this Policy, wish to access or correct your personal information, or wish to withdraw your consent, please contact our Privacy Officer:
HKS Law — Privacy Officer
Email: lawyer@hkslaw.ca
Website: www.hkslaw.ca
