This Privacy Policy outlines how Shift Law Professional Corporation (“Shift Law”) handles your personal information to protect your privacy.
Since January 1, 2004, all Canadian organizations engaged in commercial activities have been required to comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information incorporated by reference into PIPEDA. These obligations extend to lawyers and law firms, including Shift Law. As a professional services firm, we also have professional and ethical obligations to keep confidential the information we receive in the context of a lawyer-client and agent-client relationship.
Personal Information
Personal information is defined in PIPEDA as information about an identifiable individual, but does not include the name, title or business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization. In other words, it does not include the information that one expects to find on a business card.
Consent to Collection of Personal Information
If you retain our firm, we will assume that we have your implied consent to our collection and use of your personal information to provide legal services to you, to issue invoices and to maintain our database of clients. Generally, we collect your personal information directly from you at the start of or during the course of our retainer. Sometimes we may obtain information about you from other sources such as a government registry or other professionals who serve you.
Withdrawal of Consent
You may withdraw your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information at any time, subject to legal and/or contractual restrictions and upon reasonable notice. Your withdrawal of consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information may impact our ability to represent you and provide you with legal advice.
Disclosure of Personal Information
Generally, we do not disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent unless permitted or required by applicable laws or court orders. The following are some examples where we may disclose your personal information: such disclosure is necessary to collect fees or disbursements; we contract with a third party to provide us with certain services such as archival file storage or insurance. (In such cases, we will use contractual or other means to ensure the third party service provider is bound by obligations regarding privacy which are consistent with this policy); or we engage expert witnesses or other law firms on your behalf.
Accuracy of Your Personal Information
It is important that the information that we have on file be accurate and up-to-date. If, during the course of the retainer, any of your information changes, please inform us so that we can make any necessary changes. We may also ask you from time to time whether your personal information is up-to-date.
Website Privacy
Like most other commercial websites, we may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information to optimize your visit to our website. Our website server will automatically collect IP addresses. We may view the IP log from time to time, for example, to maintain the security of our website. We do not link the IP addresses to other personally identifiable information.