Privacy Policy
Phronesis Law LLP (“Phronesis”) is committed to protecting the privacy, accuracy and security of personal information in our possession. This Policy outlines how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard the personal information of our clients, potential clients, and other individuals who do business with Phronesis.
Phronesis has offices in Alberta and British Columbia and is subject to each of these provinces' respective privacy laws. Phronesis is also governed by the respective Code of Conduct adopted by the Law Societies of each of these provinces, which impose a professional obligation to protect client confidences and information covered by solicitor-client privilege.
Privacy Officer
Firm Privacy Officer: Kari Drinnan
admin@phronesis.law | 780 489 8269
You can contact our Privacy Officer to obtain further information about our policies and procedures or seek access to your personal information.
What is Personal Information
Personal information refers to most information about an identifiable individual (information that allows an individual to be identified), other than business contact information. Personal information may include your name and address, age and gender, personal financial records, or identification numbers.
Responsibilities
Phronesis will ensure that it has reasonable security arrangements in place against such risks as unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification, disposal or destruction of any personal information in its custody and control. The Privacy Officer is responsible for ensuring that Phronesis has the appropriate policies and practices to safeguard personal information in its custody and control. The Privacy Officer is also responsible for monitoring compliance with those policies and practices.
When Does Phronesis Collect Personal Information
Phronesis will collect personal information from a potential client to the extent required to perform a conflict check. Once Phronesis has been engaged by a client, Phronesis will collect personal information to fulfill our professional obligations, specifically:
Lawyers must retain copies of documents used to verify a client’s identity, as well as their documentation of a client’s identity, for at least six years following completion of the work for which the lawyer was retained (includes copies of driver’s licenses and other identity documents obtained while complying with the verification requirements); and
In situations where only client identification (but not verification) is required, lawyers must obtain the client’s name, address, and occupation.
Phronesis may also collect personal information from our clients and non-clients to provide legal services to our clients. Phronesis will only request sensitive personal information from other sources with consent from our clients (express or implied) or as authorized by law.
Our website does not directly store personal information. See below for information on analytics and cookies.
How Does Phronesis Use and Disclose Personal Information?
Phronesis may use or disclose personal information to provide legal services to our clients. We may also use or disclose personal information for the following reasons:
For billing and accounting services relating to our services;
To advise clients and others of our newsletters, courses and seminars;
To send holiday cards or other greetings from the firm;
For internal, external and regulatory audit purposes;
For any other purpose for which we have your consent;
For other reasons as permitted or required by applicable laws and regulations; and
To comply with legal and regulatory requirements (including Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements).
Consent
Phronesis requires consent to collect, use, or disclose personal information, except in circumstances where it is otherwise authorized by law. An individual’s consent is established if:
Phronesis obtains express written or oral consent;
The individual, or a representative of the individual, voluntarily provides personal information for an obvious purpose; or
The individual does not object to Phronesis’ collection, use, or disclosure of personal information within a reasonable time after Phronesis has given the individual clear notice of its intention to do so.
Clients provide express consent in our engagement letter to our collection, use and disclosure of their personal information.
An individual may withdraw consent to the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information at any time, unless Phronesis needs the personal information to fulfil its legal and regulatory obligations, or if the collection, use, or disclosure without consent is authorized by law. If a client decides not to give consent, or if the client withdraws or varies consent, Phronesis may not be able to provide legal services to the client.
Accuracy, Retention and Destruction
It is important for your personal information to be accurate and complete for us to provide legal services. You can help us keep your personal information up to date by keeping us informed of any changes, such as change of address, telephone number, or other circumstances.
Phronesis will keep personal information only for as long as it is reasonable to carry out business or legal purposes and to meet our professional obligations. After it is no longer needed for those purposes, personal information will either be securely destroyed or made anonymous.
Right to Seek Access to, and Correction of, Personal Information
An individual may request access to the personal information we have about them. The request must be in writing and be directed to our Privacy Officer and we may charge a reasonable fee for the retrieval and copying of the individual’s personal information.
Phronesis will deny an individual their right to access his or her information where access is prohibited by law. If Phronesis denies an individual’s request for access to personal information, then we will explain the reasons why.
Safeguarding Personal Information
At Phronesis we take all appropriate physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect our systems and all personal information under our control against unauthorized access and use. All safety and security measures are appropriate to the sensitivity level of the information collected.
As part of their contracts with Phronesis, our service providers and agents are bound to maintain client confidentiality and may not use the information for any unauthorized purpose.
While we take all appropriate steps to safeguard your personal information, there is a risk involved in the exchange and/or safeguarding of information using any form of communication –electronic or otherwise – including, but not limited to, the Cloud. We store personal information on the Cloud. Our legal practice management system is CLIO which stores data in Canada. Our web-based accounting system is Xero which stores data in the United States.
Phronesis regularly communicates by email and, unless you otherwise direct us in writing, we may use unencrypted plain text emails when communicating with you.
We assume no liability for any damages you may suffer due to any possible misuse of confidential information during exchanges of information.
Website Analytics and Cookies
Our website, www.phronesis.law, collects personal data to power our site analytics, including information about your browser, network, and device; web pages you visited before coming to our website; and your IP address. This information may also include details about your use of this website, including Clicks, Internal links, Pages visited, Scrolling, Searches and Timestamps. We share this information with Squarespace, our website analytics provider, to learn about site traffic and activity.
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies: small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website or app. For information about viewing the cookies dropped on your device, visit https://support.squarespace.com.