Privacy policy

Carew Counsel Solicitors – Privacy Policy

Carew Counsel Solicitors Pty Ltd [ACN: 082-601-205] (‘Carew Counsel Solicitors’) is committed to protecting your privacy and maintaining the confidentiality of personal information we collect in the course of providing legal services.

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, hold, use, disclose and protect personal information. It also explains how you may request access to, or correction of, your personal information and how you may make a privacy complaint.

We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (‘the Privacy Act’), including the Australian Privacy Principles. Where applicable, we also handle personal information in accordance with other legal and professional obligations, including our duties of confidentiality, legal professional privilege, Court obligations, trust accounting obligations and obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) (‘AML/CTF laws’).

What information do we collect?

Carew Counsel Solicitors collects and hold personal information that is reasonably necessary for us to provide legal services and operate our legal practice.

The Privacy Act defines personal information as information or an opinion about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion. Some examples are names, dates of birth, and bank account details.

The types of personal information we may collect include:

• your name, date of birth, residential address, postal address, email address and telephone number;
• identity information, including copies or details of identity documents (where required);
• information about your occupation, employment, income, assets, liabilities and financial circumstances;
• bank account details, billing information and payment information;
• information relevant to your legal matter, including information about your relationship, family circumstances, children, health, property, financial arrangements, Court proceedings, agreements, estate planning and related matters;
• sensitive information such as health information, information about children, family violence or risk issues, and other information relevant to the legal services we provide;
• government related identifiers, where we are lawfully permitted or required to collect them; and
• information required for client identification, verification and compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing obligations.

Our firm will only collect personal information where it is reasonably necessary for our functions or activities, where you have consented, or where we are otherwise permitted or required by law to do so.

Our ability to provide you with legal services may be impacted if the personal information requested is not provided to us.

How do we collect information?

We generally collect personal information directly from you. This may occur when you contact us, complete an enquiry form, meet with us, speak with us by telephone or video conference, correspond with us by email, provide documents to us, or give us instructions.

We may also collect personal information from third parties where it is necessary or appropriate for your matter, including from:

• your authorised representatives;
• other parties to your matter;
• other law practices;
• barristers, mediators, experts, valuers, accountants, financial advisers, counsellors and other professional advisers;
• Courts, tribunals and government agencies;
• banks, financial institutions and superannuation funds;
• schools, medical providers and other organisations relevant to your matter;
• public registers, searches and publicly available sources;
• identity verification, client onboarding or AML/CTF service providers (Legl); and
• other persons or organisations where you have authorised us to obtain information or where collection is permitted by law.

Where we collect personal information about you from someone else, we will take reasonable steps, where required, to make you aware of that collection. There may be circumstances where it is not appropriate or lawful for us to notify you, including where doing so would breach confidentiality, legal professional privilege, Court obligations, or another legal obligations.

Any personal information submitted via one of our online forms will be processed by one of our employees working from our office located in Melbourne, Australia. By submitting personal information via one of our online forms, you automatically consent to the disclosure of that information to someone at our firm.  

Why do we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information?

We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information for the purpose of providing legal services and operating our legal practice. This includes:

• assessing whether we can act for you, including conflict checks;
• opening and managing your file;
• obtaining instructions and providing legal advice;
• preparing correspondence, Court documents, agreements and other documents;
• communicating with you and others involved in your matter;
• briefing barristers, experts, mediators and other professional advisers;
• filing documents with Courts;
• complying with Court orders, subpoenas and legal obligations;
• managing trust money, billing and accounts;
• responding to complaints, enquiries or regulatory requirements;
• maintaining insurance, audit, risk management and practice management records;
• providing client updates and administrative communications; and
• improving our services and internal systems.

We may also collect, use and disclose personal information where required or authorised by law.

We generally do not disclose personal information outside of Australia, however, there may be times where we disclose personal information to recipients located overseas, for example, where the party to the matter you have instructed us on is located overseas or where we have engaged the services of an overseas recipient such as Google for their data storage centres. We presently do not have any limitations on where personal information may be disclosed overseas.

Our firm aims to keep all personal information strictly confidential. There may be times when providing legal services to you that we need to disclose personal information to other third parties, such as law firms involved in your matter, barristers and mediators, valuers and conveyancers, government departments, and courts. The personal information we provide to such parties will depend on the circumstances requiring disclosure of that personal information and will not always be the same because of this.

How do we maintain personal information and its security?

We will generally maintain personal information in physical records (both at our office premise and at our storage facility), and as electronic records on our local servers.

We take reasonable action to hold all hard copy and electronic records of your personal information in a secure way to ensure that it is protected from misuse, loss and interference, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Where your personal information is no longer required by us for a valid purpose or needed to be kept by law, we will destroy or de-identify your personal information.

Please note that personal information collected may also be used to send automated emails and SMS messages. Such correspondence is automated using Vision6, an online marketing platform. Our firm may access the data captured by Vision6 online from time to time, for example, to ensure that automated correspondence has been received. It is your responsibility to ensure that the personal information you have provided to our firm for such correspondence is secure and only accessible by you alone.

Anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing obligations

From 1 July 2026, any firm supplying designated services must verify their clients’ identity and undertake customer due diligence (‘CDD’). In some matters, we may be required to collect, verify, use, disclose and retain your personal information to comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing obligations.

These obligations may apply where we provide certain designated services, including services connected with real estate transactions, companies, trusts, legal arrangements, managing client money or property in connection with transactions, or other services regulated under the AML/CTF laws.

Where applicable, we may be required to:

• verify your identity;
• identify and verify beneficial owners or persons who control a company, trust or other legal arrangement;
• obtain information about the nature and purpose of the matter;
• obtain information about source of funds or source of wealth;
• assess and monitor money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation financing risk;
• keep CDD and transaction records; and
• make reports to AUSTRAC where required by law.

In some circumstances, the law may restrict what we can tell you about reports or enquiries made under AML/CTF laws. Our obligations are subject to applicable legal professional privilege and other legal protections.

Technology, cloud services and artificial intelligence

We may use third-party software and secure cloud services to manage, store, process and transmit documents and information connected with your matter. These services are chosen having regard to confidentiality, security and efficiency.

Where appropriate, we may use Large Language Models (LLM), artificial intelligence (AI) tools or other technology tools to assist with drafting, research, analysis, document review or administrative work in relation to your matter. These tools may process limited personal or sensitive information. We will take reasonable steps to remove or anonymise identifying details where appropriate and will only use tools that maintain confidentiality and security safeguards.

We do not use automated systems to make decisions that would have a significant legal or similar effect on you without human review.

Who may we disclose personal information to?

We may disclose personal information to:

• our solicitors, paralegals, administrative staff and other personnel;
• barristers, mediators, experts, valuers, accountants, financial advisers and other professional advisers;
• other law practices and parties involved in your matter;
• Courts, registries, and government departments;
• banks, financial institutions and trust account service providers;
• process servers, enquiry agents, investigators and search providers;
• insurers, auditors, consultants and professional advisers to our firm;
• technology providers, including providers of practice management systems, document management systems, secure cloud storage, email, video conferencing, transcription, electronic signing, payment processing, cyber security and related services;
• identity verification and AML/CTF compliance service providers;
• AUSTRAC and other agencies where required or authorised by law; and
• any other person or organisation where you have authorised the disclosure or where disclosure is required or permitted by law.

We do not sell personal information.

Data breaches

If we become aware of a data breach involving personal information, we will take steps to assess and respond to the breach. Where the breach is likely to result in serious harm and we are required to do so, we will notify affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in accordance with the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

Accessing and correcting your personal information

At any point in time, you may request to access or correct your personal information if you think that it is, erroneous, incomplete, out-of-date, unrelated or misleading. A reason is not needed when you make a request.

We may need to verify your identity before responding to a request.

No fee is charged by our firm for a request to update or correct your personal information, but a small fee may be charged by our firm for providing access to your personal information if it involves a substantial amount of time to collect or locate it or to present it in a suitable form.

Please note that the Privacy Act allows us to deny you access in some situations. This may include circumstances where providing the personal information would constitute a breach of our obligations of confidence, or legal professional privilege. If we do not allow you access to your personal information, or we are not able to make your requested amendments, a reasonable explanation for doing so will be provided to you.

Direct marketing and client communications

We do not sell personal information to third parties.

We may use your contact details to send administrative communications about your matter or our firm, including information about appointments, office closures, fee updates or changes to our business operations. This is an automated process using Vision6, an online marketing platform, and will only be in the case that we have collected the information to do so directly from you.

If you do not wish to receive these emails, you can contact our reception on 03 9071 4450 or via email info@carewcounsel.com.au and they will remove you from the automated email list.

Website, forms and analytics

When you use our website or online enquiry forms, we may collect information such as your name, contact details, enquiry information, IP address, browser type, device information and information about how you use our website.

Our website may contain links to third party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of third-party websites.

Unsolicited Information

If unsolicited personal information is received by our firm and it has been determined that we could not have acquired the information by lawful means, reasonable action in accordance with the law will be taken to de-identify or destroy the personal information.

Contact us or make a privacy complaint

Our firm wants to ensure our services meet all client expectations. We therefore take complaints seriously, and we will aim to investigate and resolve your complaint in a timely manner.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or if you wish to request access to or correction of your personal information, please contact:

Privacy Officer (Practice Manager)
Carew Counsel Solicitors
Level 10, 313 La Trobe Street
MELBOURNE VIC 3000

Telephone: 03  9670 5711

Email: info@carewcounsel.com.au

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of Australian Information Commissioner via its enquiries line: 1300 363 992 or their website https://www.oaic.gov.au/ where you can lodge a complaint.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. The current version will be made available on our website.

This document reflects our Privacy Policy as at TBC 2026.