Privacy Policy

This policy explains how Lowndes Jordan collects, uses, holds and discloses ‘Personal Information’, meaning information about an identifiable individual.

Lowndes Jordan is bound by the Privacy Act 2020 (Privacy Act) and the information privacy principles in it, as well as by our professional obligations of confidentiality as lawyers. You can find out more about the Privacy Act at www.privacy.org.nz.

Whose information we collect

We may collect Personal Information about:

clients and potential clients, and their directors, shareholders, trustees, beneficiaries, beneficial owners and employees;
other parties to our clients’ matters, and their advisers;
business associates, referrers and other professionals;
suppliers and their employees;
prospective employees, employees and contractors; and
other people who contact us or visit our website.

What we collect

The Personal Information we collect may include (but is not limited to):

name, address, phone number, email address and occupation;
date of birth and identity documents (such as a passport or driver licence) and proof of address;
information about source of funds and wealth, and beneficial ownership, where needed for anti-money laundering checks;
bank account and credit information;
information relevant to the matter we are acting on; and
other information that helps us conduct our business, provide and market our services, and meet our legal obligations.

How and why we collect it

We collect Personal Information to provide legal and related services, to run our business, to provide and market our services, and to meet our legal obligations, including under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006, the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (AML/CFT) and other statutes and rules that govern how we operate.

We generally collect information directly from you, through emails, meetings, phone calls, forms and documents you give us. Because of the nature of legal work, we also collect information from others: our clients and their other advisors, other parties to a transaction or dispute and their advisors, public registers (such as the Companies Office and Land Information New Zealand), identity verification and credit reporting agencies, courts and tribunals.

If we do not obtain the information we ask for, we may not be able to act for you or to continue acting.

How we use and disclose it

We use and disclose Personal Information for the purpose for which it was collected, for directly related purposes, and as otherwise permitted by the Privacy Act. That includes disclosure to:

people who help us provide our services, such as barristers, experts, other law firms (including overseas), process servers and couriers;
our technology and service providers, including providers of cloud-based document management, email, trust accounting, identity verification and artificial intelligence tools. We use providers that give us contractual assurances of confidentiality, security and limited data retention, and that do not use our information to train their AI models. A list of these systems is available on request;
the New Zealand Law Society’s inspectors and our AML/CFT auditors, when they audit our practice;
credit reporting agencies, and debt collection agencies if invoices are unpaid;
courts, tribunals, regulators and government agencies (including Land Information New Zealand, Inland Revenue, the Companies Office and the Police Financial Intelligence Unit) where required or authorised by law; and
anyone else you authorise us to disclose it to.

Unless you tell us otherwise, if you are a client, we may identify you as a client of Lowndes Jordan in our marketing materials and on our website. We will not disclose confidential details of the matters we act on.

We may send you newsletters and updates we think will interest you. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Some of our service providers store information outside New Zealand. Where we send Personal Information overseas, we do so only as the Privacy Act permits, which means that we are satisfied that the recipient is subject to comparable privacy safeguards or has provided satisfactory contractual assurances.

Security and retention

We take reasonable steps to protect Personal Information against loss, misuse and unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure. Our people are bound to keep it confidential. We restrict access to electronic records, use secure systems, and keep physical records in secure storage.

We keep Personal Information only for as long as we need it for a lawful purpose, including the minimum periods we are required to keep records under the AML/CFT Act and our professional rules. After that we take reasonable steps to destroy it securely.

If a privacy breach occurs that is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify the Privacy Commissioner and affected individuals as the Privacy Act requires.

Our website

Our website may use cookies and analytics tools to collect anonymous information about how it is used. You can disable cookies in your browser settings. Information you submit through our website (for example, through any enquiry form we may provide) is handled under this policy.

Access and correction

You have the right to ask for confirmation of whether we hold Personal Information about you, for access to it, and for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong. We may need to verify your identity before responding. In some cases we may refuse access, for example where the information is subject to legal professional privilege or would breach our duty of confidentiality to a client. If we charge for providing information, the charge will be reasonable and we will tell you in advance.

To make a request, or if you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Privacy Officer:

Privacy Officer, Lowndes Jordan Email: mail@lojo.co.nz

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.org.nz.

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version will always be on our website.