POLICY ON THE COLLECTION, USE AND DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Margeit Pineda Law recognizes the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information. We are committed to protecting any personal information we hold. This Privacy Policy outlines how we manage your personal information and safeguard your privacy.

Lawyers have a professional obligation to keep confidential all information they receive within a lawyer-client relationship. No lawyer-client, advocacy, fiduciary or other relationship is created by accessing or otherwise using the contents and materials on our website or by communicating with a lawyer by way of email or through our website. Unless you have entered into a retainer agreement with us, Margeit Pineda Law and its lawyers do not represent you and have not entered into a lawyer-client relationship with you.

Your Privacy Rights
 

As of January 1, 2004, all businesses engaged in commercial activities, which are extended to include lawyers and law firms, must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. We encourage you to review the Act to become familiar with your rights concerning the privacy of your personal information. The following is a link to the Justice Law Website where the Act may be found:

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/ENG/ACTS/P-8.6/index.html

To ensure accountability, Margeit Pineda Law has developed the following policy, and trained our staff about our policies and practices.

Why Does Margeit Pineda Law Need Personal Information?


Margeit Pineda Law provides legal services to a wide range of clients. We can only provide these services if you provide Personal Information to us.

What Personal Information Do We Collect?
 

Personal information is any factual or subjective information, recorded or not, about an identifiable individual, such as:

Age, name, ID numbers, income, ethnic origin, or blood type

Opinions, evaluations, comments, social status, or disciplinary actions

Employee files, credit records, loan records, medical records, existence of a dispute between consumer and a merchant, intentions (for example, to acquire goods or services, or change jobs).

Personal information does not include the name, title, business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization.

We only collect that information which is necessary in an individual’s particular case to provide the legal services they have requested. We will identify those needs on an individual basis and inform each individual as to why the information is needed.

How Do We Collect Your Personal Information?


Personal information will be collected, to the extent possible, directly from the individual concerned at the time they retain our services and during the course of our representation. However, the collection of personal information will not be limited to collecting information directly from the individual concerned.

Consent


In most cases, we will ask you to specifically consent to the collection, use or disclosure your personal information. However, consent may be implied if the information has been provided to us, by you, directly.

Use Of Your Information


We collect the information submitted by visitors and users of the website to establish contact between our representatives and the potential or interested client. We use return email addresses to answer email requests we receive. We do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to complete the site visitor’s request.

We will use a client’s personal information for no other purpose than which it was collected, to provide legal advice and services to the client.

Margeit Pineda Law does not sell, trade, or exchange any Personal Information that it has obtained with regards to an individual or organization.

Personal information we have collected may be disclosed by Margeit Pineda Law under the following circumstances:

• When we are required or authorized by law to do so, such as in a court subpoena
• When an individual has, verbally or in writing, consented to the disclosure
• When the legal services we are providing to a client requires us to give the client’s information to third parties (for example a lender in a real estate mortgage transaction), the client’s consent will be implied unless they have communicated otherwise, in writing, to Margeit Pineda Law
• Where it is necessary to collect fees
• When we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us and the third party is bound by our privacy policy
• When we engage expert witnesses on a client’s behalf
• When we retain other law firms in other jurisdictions, on a client’s behalf
• If the information is already publicly known

By submitting your or another individual’s personal information to Margeit Pineda Law or its affiliates, service providers and agents, you agree, and confirm your authority from such other individual, to our collection, use and disclosure of such personal information in accordance with our privacy policy.

Accuracy
 

As we are using the personal information which we collected for a specific purpose in providing legal services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up to date.

If, in the course of the retainer, any of your information changes, please inform us so that we can make the necessary changes to our file.

You can correct factual errors in your personally identifiable information by sending us a request that credibly shows error.If at any time you can establish that the information we hold is not accurate, complete, and up to date, Margeit Pineda will take reasonable steps to correct it. To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections.

Is Your Personal Information Secure?
 

Margeit Pineda Law takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. Among the steps taken to protect personal information are:

• Secure premises
• Technological safeguards like security software and firewalls to prevent hacking or unauthorized computer access
• Bonded off site records storage facilities
• Internal password and security policies

While every measure is taken to respect each individual’s privacy, we would like to remind you that there is no method of transmitting or storing data that is completely secure in providing personal information to Margeit Pineda Law. E-mail, mail, telephone calls, faxes and transmissions over the Internet are all susceptible to misrouting, possible loss, interception and misuse of the information being transmitted or communicated.

The user and/or client acknowledges the risk associated with transmitting personal information to Margeit Pineda Law and having Margeit Pineda Law store said information. The user and/or client agrees to hold Margeit Pineda Law, its partners, and its affiliates harmless against any claims for damages arising from the transmission of personal information to Margeit Pineda Law and/or having Margeit Pineda Law store said information online.

Access To Your Personal Information
 

Within 30 days of receiving a written request from you, we will inform you of the personal information we hold about you and explain how it is to be or has been used along with a list of any third party to which it has been disclosed.

Providing the above noted information to you may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees. We will inform you of such costs in advance.

We will notify you within the 30 day period following your inquiry if additional time is required to fulfill your request.

Your right to access your personal information is not absolute. We may deny access when:

• We may be required or authorized by law to deny access to personal information under certain circumstances. For example, when a record containing personal information about you is subject to a claim of legal professional privilege by one of our clients.
• The information requested relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings against you.
• When granting you access would have an unreasonable impact on other people’s privacy.
• When to do so would prejudice negotiations with you.
• It is necessary to protect the firm’s rights and property
• The request if frivolous or vexatious

If we deny your request for access to or refuse a request to correct information, we shall explain why.

Credit Checks
 

To help us make credit decisions about clients, prevent fraud, check the identity of new clients and prevent money-laundering, we may on occasion, request information about you from the files of consumer reporting agencies.

Amendments To This Privacy Policy
 

Margeit Pineda Law may make amendments to this policy in accordance to any changes in the way in which it handles personal information. This policy has been in effect since January 1, 2019 with no further amendments.

Applications for Employment
 

If you apply to Margeit Pineda Law for a job, you may provide personal information as part of the application process.

We need to consider the personal information you have provided as part of our review process. Any resumes which we retain will be held in accordance with our privacy procedures for employee records.

The personal information contained in an employee’s or applicant’s file will be shared only with those individuals within the firm who are directly involved in human resource/payroll issues. Employees’ or applicants’ personal information will not be shared with a third party unless:

• It is felt that there are reasonable grounds to believe the information could be useful when investigating a contravention of a federal, provincial or foreign law and the information is used for that investigation
• For an emergency that threatens an individual’s life, health or security
• It is publicly available
• The use is clearly in the individual’s interest and consent is not available in a timely way
• Consent from the individual has been obtained
• It is required by law

Website 


Our website contains links to other sites, which may not necessarily be governed by this privacy policy.

We may monitor this websites’ usage, traffic patterns, and related site information in order to optimize our web service. We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but these statistics shall not include any identifiable personal information.

Questions
 

Any questions concerning this policy should be directed to the professional with whom you have had contact; the Managing Partner of Margeit Pineda Law or the Firm’s Chief Privacy Officer at jessica@margeitpineda.com or by phone at 613-282-4154. If you are not satisfied with the response to your inquiry, you may contact the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at 112 Kent St, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1H3 or via phone at 1-800-282-1376.