Privacy Policy

 

MTE Paralegal Professional Corporation recognizes the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information. As paralegals we have a professional obligation to keep confidential all information we receive within a paralegal-client relationship.

We are committed to protecting any personal information we hold. This Privacy Policy outlines how we manage your personal information and safeguard your privacy

 

Your Privacy Rights

From January 1, 2004, all businesses engaged in commercial activities must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information, which it incorporates. The Act gives you rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.

MTE Paralegal Professional Corporation is responsible for the personal information we collect and hold. To ensure this accountability, we have developed this policy, and trained our staff about our policies and practices.

 

Why Does MTE Paralegal Professional Corporation Need Personal Information?

MTE provides services and products to a wide range of clients. In doing so, it produces direct marketing materials concerning its services and developments in the municipal and provincial policy and the tax and assessment landscape. What personal information do we collect? Personal information is any information that identifies you, or by which your identity could be deduced. How do we collect your personal information? We collect information only by lawful and fair means, and not in an unreasonably intrusive way. Wherever possible we collect your personal information directly from you in the course of providing our services. Sometimes we may obtain information about you from other sources, for example; your employer, the Assessment Review Board or other Agency files and documents or from a government agency or registry.

 

Consent In most cases, we shall ask you to specifically consent, if we collect, use, or disclose your personal information. Normally, we accept your oral consent but in some circumstances, we may ask for your consent in writing. Sometimes, your consent may be implied through your conduct with us.

 

Use of Your Information We use your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you, to administer our client (time and billing databases) and to include you in any direct marketing activities. If you tell us that you no longer wish to receive information about our services, or about new developments in the law, we will not send any further material. MTE Paralegal Professional Corporation does not disclose your personal information to any third party to enable them to market their products and services. For example, we do not provide our client mailing lists to other law firms.

Disclosure of your Personal Information Under certain circumstances, MTE Paralegal Professional Corporation will disclose your personal information:

• when we are required or authorized by law to do so, for example if a court issues a subpoena;
• when you have consented to the disclosure;
• when the services we are providing to you requires us give your information to third parties your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise;
• where it is necessary to establish or collect fees;
• if we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us (like computer back-up services or archival file storage) and the third party is bound by our privacy policy;
• if the information is Publicly Available Personal Information, as it is defined under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

 

Updating Your Information Since we use your personal information to provide legal services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up-to-date. If any of your information changes, please inform us as soon as possible so that we can make any necessary changes.

Is My Personal Information Secure? MTE Paralegal Professional Corporation takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. Among the steps taken to protect your information are:

• premises security;
• restricted file access to personal information;
• deploying technological safeguards like security software and firewalls to prevent hacking or unauthorized computer access;
• internal password and security policies

 

Access to Your Personal Information You may ask for access to any personal information we hold about you. Summary information is available on request. More detailed requests which require archive or other retrieval costs may be subject to our normal professional and disbursement fees.

Can I be denied access to my Personal Information? Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute. We may deny access when:

• it is required or authorized by law (for example, when a record containing personal information about you is protected by solicitor-client privilege);
• to do so would reveal confidential commercial information, and the personal information cannot be severed from the record;
• to do so could reasonably be expected to threaten the life or security of another individual, and the personal information cannot be severed from the record; or
• the information was generated in the course of a formal dispute resolution process.

If we deny your request for access to, or refuse a request to correct information, an explanation shall be provided to you.

Communicating with Us You should be aware that e-mail is not a 100% secure medium, and you should be aware of this when contacting us to send personal or confidential information.

 

Changes to this Privacy Policy Since MTE Paralegal Professional Corporation regularly reviews all of its policies and procedures, we may change our Privacy Policy from time to time.

 

Requests for Access If you have any questions, or wish to access your personal information, please write to our Privacy Contact at gregw@mte.ca. If you are not satisfied with our response, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada can be reached at 112 Kent Street, Ottawa Ontario, K1A 1H3.

 

Employment Inquiries If you apply for a career with MTE Paralegal Professional Corporation, we need to consider your personal information, as part of our review process. We normally retain information from candidates after a decision has been made, unless you ask us not to retain the information. If we offer you a job, which you accept, the information will be retained in accordance with our privacy procedures for employee records.

 

Web Site Our website contains links to other sites, which are not governed by this privacy policy. On our website, like most other commercial websites, we may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information in order to optimize our web service. We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but these statistics do not include any identifiable personal information.