Data Protection & Privacy

In today’s online world, data protection and privacy are serious legal matters. After all, the loss of data or a breach of privacy can affect people’s lives, impact on business decisions and even influence markets.

For that reason, both state and federal based legislation contain strict rules for protecting people’s privacy as well as severe penalties for organisations that get it wrong.

That means it’s vital that every organisation - whether you’re a government organisation, academic institution or public or private enterprise - understands and acts on the privacy laws. It’s also important that these laws influence all your systems and processes, particularly when it comes to handling or using people’s personal information.

And that’s where we can help.

Our data protection and privacy team won’t simply help your organisation master the privacy laws, we’ll show you how to build their requirements into everything you do. We’re also experts at enforcing privacy obligations or defending claims that you’ve breached someone else’s privacy.

We can:

Draft contract terms and conditions that take account of the privacy and data protection laws.
Help you develop procedures, systems and protocols that protect people’s privacy while also protecting your organisation from claims you’ve breached privacy laws.
Develop a privacy compliance program that makes sure you meet your obligations under privacy legislation.
Advise you on electronic privacy issues including your rights and obligations under the Spam Act, Electronic Transactions Act and Do Not Call Register Act.
Advise you on your credit reporting obligations and other privacy and data protection obligations.
Help you settle a claim that you’ve breached someone’s privacy through negotiation and other informal alternative dispute resolution.
Represent you in a court or tribunal, including the Supreme Court and Federal Court of Australia.
Carry out a privacy impact assessment on your behalf to make sure you’re aware of the risks and that you have the correct procedures in place.
Train your staff so that they understand your privacy obligations and don’t expose you to unnecessary risk.