Privacy Policy
Your rights in relation to privacy
Nest Legal understands the importance of protecting the privacy of an individual’s personal information and adopts the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Act).
This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use and disclose information about you, how we aim to protect the privacy of your personal information and your rights in relation to your personal information.
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By providing personal information to us, you consent to us collecting, holding, using and disclosing your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You do not have to provide personal information to us, however, if you do not, it may affect your use of this Site or the products and/or services offered on or through it.
We may modify this policy from time to time by publishing it on our website. Your continued use of our website will indicate your acceptance of any changes to this Privacy Policy.
What is personal information?
Personal information is defined under the Privacy Act as information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information or opinion is true or not; and whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not. Personal information also includes "sensitive information" about an individual.
What is sensitive information?
Sensitive information is defined under the Privacy Act as a sub-category of personal information which includes information or an opinion about an individual's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association or trade union, sexual preferences or practices, criminal record, health information, genetic or certain biometric information.
What personal information do we collect and hold?
We collect information about you and your interactions with us. The type of personal information we may collect about you will depend upon the nature of our interaction with you.
If you’re a client (or potential client), it is highly likely that you will share some personal information with us. This includes:
contact details such as your name, business or personal addresses, email addresses, telephone and mobile numbers;
your gender;
your occupational, employment or professional details including employment status;
your marital status and/or anniversary;
your age and/or date of birth;
your preferences and/or opinions;
information you provide to us through customer surveys;
details of your company’s ABN and/or ACN;
financial information including bank account and credit card details;
your browser session and geo-location data, device and network information, statistics on page views and sessions, acquisition sources, search queries and/or browsing behaviour;
additional personal information that you provide to us, directly or indirectly, through your use of our website, associated applications, associated social media platforms and/or accounts from which you permit us to collect information; and
any other personal information requested by us and/or provided by you or a third party.
We will sometimes collect “sensitive information” from you. We will only collect sensitive information with your consent or as required by law or for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim.
How we collect personal information
Generally, Nest Legal will collect your personal information through:
● direct contact with you, whether in person, over the phone, or via a video-conferencing platform (including recording and transcribing video and telephone calls so they can be saved to your file), email, or more rarely, snail mail; or
● the completion of online contact forms, intake forms or booking forms on our website.
We may collect personal information directly from a third party. We will only collect personal information from a third party if it is unreasonable or impracticable to collect this information directly from you or if we are otherwise permitted to do so. Third parties may include your nominated representative; insurers; your current or former employer; government agencies; other service providers including health service providers.
We may also collect information from publicly available sources, other professional advisors or government and statutory authorities in connection with your matter.
When we collect personal information from a third party, we will take reasonable steps to tell you that we have done so as close as possible to the time we collected the personal information.
When you use our website, the following information may be logged for statistical purposes and for the purposes of marketing and advertising to you:
● the date and time of your visit to our website;
● your IP address;
● pages that you accessed and documents downloaded; and
● the type of browser you were using.
Cookies may be used on our website. Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to a computer’s hard drive for record keeping purposes. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies and do not personally identify the user.
Why we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information
Nest Legal may need your personal information for the following reasons:
● to respond to your enquiries or consultation request via our website;
● so we can provide you with requested information, legal services or products;
● for accounting, billing and other internal administrative purposes;
● to send marketing and promotional material to you and other information that has been requested or which may be of interest (unless you tell us not to);
● to perform our organisational functions and activities and operate our business efficiently;
● to respond to any queries or complaints you have made;
● to comply with our legal obligations and any other legal requirements including any that we need to comply with under our legal profession rules, such as the Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2014.
We will not use or disclose any information about you other than the purpose for which it was collected, without your consent, unless the use or disclosure is permitted under the Privacy Act, required by law or authorised by you.
We are bound by professional obligations of confidentiality and legal professional privilege. We will continue to treat and protect any personal information we receive in accordance with these obligations.
Nest Legal may also use and disclose your personal information in order to inform you of legal updates and/or services that may be of interest to you. In the event you do not wish to receive such communications, you may, at any time, request not to receive direct marketing communications from us or use any opt-out mechanism provided.
Management and security of your personal information
We take reasonable precautions to safeguard your information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We use a number of means to protect your information including:
we engage BITS Managed Security Services to ensure we comply with the cybersecurity framework established by the Australian Cyber Security Centre, train our team in cyber awareness, perform simulated phishing attacks to test our systems, monitor spam and phishing emails, monitor the dark web for data breaches and ensure all devices are regularly updated and compliant;
regularly updating and enforcing our Responsible AI Use Policy;
IT password protection including multi factor authentication on all databases containing personal information;
business grade anti-virus and firewall software;
employment conditions and staff policies requiring confidentiality of information and the privacy of individuals.
All information that you provide to us or is entered into our website, software applications, phone system or collected from your visiting our website is automatically transferred to our system. When you contact or engage us, you consent to your personal information being held by our system as outlined in this Privacy Policy.
Despite our best efforts, the internet itself cannot be trusted as a secure environment. Whilst we choose services that we think offer appropriate levels of security for our information, we are unable to give an absolute promise that your personal information will always be safe. Your personal information may be stored in locations outside our direct control and may be held outside Australia. If you are not comfortable with this, you should not provide us with your personal information. If we become aware of any security breach relating to your personal information, we will advise you as soon as we can.
Disclosure of personal information
We may disclose personal information to external service providers for the purposes listed above. Where we engage external service providers we take reasonable steps to ensure that that any third parties to whom your personal information is disclosed, undertake to comply with the APP so as to protect the personal information disclosed to them.
External service providers may include:
Professional infrastructure providers: Third party service providers that enable us to operate our practice, including IT service providers, practice management software, secure data storage, web-hosting and email server providers, marketing or advertising providers.
External business operations: Third party professionals engaged to perform administrative, marketing, or business management services.
Legal matter stakeholders: Courts, tribunals, barristers, expert witnesses or opposing legal parties as required to conduct or progress your legal matter.
Regulatory & collection bodies: Law enforcement, regulatory bodies, courts, or debt collection agencies where required by law, or in the event that you fail to pay for services provided.
AI & technology tools: Vetted AI and Generative AI service providers strictly for the purposes of document analysis, drafting assistance, legal research, transcription, or administrative efficiency.
Specific third party partner service providers of Nest Legal listed below
We will never sell the personal information we collect.
If you need to use your credit card for any of our services, we will not store your credit card details. However your credit card details may be encrypted and securely stored by our chosen payment provider.
We use email to send out various general information that we think will be useful to our clients. You have the option to opt-out of these emails when you first engage us. There are clear instructions on the emails explaining how to remove yourself from our mailing list if you change your mind in the future. If you choose to opt out, this will not remove you from receiving emails about breaches (if relevant).
Disclosure of personal information outside Australia
We may need to disclose information to recipients located overseas in order to provide necessary legal services and for administrative or other business management purposes. We may not always be able to take reasonable steps to ensure that they do not breach the Privacy Act and they may not be subject to the same obligations to protect personal information as applies in Australia by virtue of the Privacy Act.
By continuing to acquire our services and/or products you consent to us disclosing information to such persons and agree that you cannot claim relief from us and you may not have any right of action against the overseas recipient of the information.
When disclosing personal information to an overseas recipient as required or authorised by law, the firm may disclose personal information to an overseas recipient without complying with APP 8.1 where the disclosure is authorised by or under an Australian law or a court/tribunal order.
Data retention and deletion
We take reasonable steps to securely dispose of all information that is no longer needed for the reason that it was requested, or as required by law. Nest Legal will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.
In the event that we are required by law to retain your personal information for a longer period, we will comply with such legal obligations. However, we will ensure that the retention of your personal information is limited to what is necessary and will take appropriate measures to protect the privacy and security of your personal information during the retention period.
Nest Legal’s partner providers
Nest Legal partners with the following service providers for the purposes listed in this Privacy Policy:
Smokeball - Legal Practice Management - Smokeball Privacy Policy
Microsoft 365 - Document & email management & Teams video conferencing - Microsoft 365 Privacy Statement
Acuity - Online Booking Tool - Squarespace Privacy
Settify - Intake Form - Settify Privacy Policy
Google Cloud - Data storage - Google Privacy Statement
Formsite - Intake and Quotation Forms - Formsite Security Statement
Adobe Acrobat - PDF document reader - Adobe Privacy Statement
eBrief Ready - electronic briefing & document management platform - eBrief Ready Privacy & Security
VXT - cloud-based VoIP telephone & transcription service - Privacy Policy | VXT
Some of our third-party infrastructure and AI service providers utilise cloud storage or processing servers located outside of Australia (predominantly in the United States and Singapore). By providing your information to us, you consent to these overseas disclosures in accordance with this policy.
If the above service providers change in the future, we will update this Privacy Policy. We encourage you to frequently review our Privacy Policy so you are aware of any changes. We also encourage you to review the privacy policies of these service providers at the links provided above.
Nest Legal may also disclose your personal information with your consent or if disclosure is required or authorised by law.
Google Analytics
Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (Google). Google Analytics anonymously tracks how users interact with the websites, including where they came from, what they did on the website and whether they completed any transactions on the website.
The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of compiling reports on the websites activity and providing other services relating to the website and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate a person's IP address with any other data held by Google.
You can opt out of the collection of information via Google Analytics by downloading the Google Analytics Opt-out browser add-on here.
Use of Artificial Intelligence tools
Nest Legal uses approved artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help us work more efficiently and carefully. These tools may assist us with tasks such as summarising information, preparing draft chronologies, organising material, drafting outlines, improving internal workflows, and checking or refining written work.
We only use AI tools in accordance with our internal AI Use Policy. Our team is trained on that policy, and we regularly review how AI tools are used in our practice.
We currently use selected AI tools, including Archie AI Legal Assistant by Smokeball Australia, Microsoft Copilot, VXT and Odella AI by LAIW. We may update the tools we use from time to time, but we will only use tools that we consider appropriate for legal work and client confidentiality.
We do not use AI as a substitute for legal judgment. Any work assisted by AI is reviewed by a solicitor before it is used or provided to a client, another party, or a court. We do not use AI to generate a witness’s evidence, and we do not use AI in any way that is prohibited by a court rule, practice direction, order, or professional obligation.
We will not enter confidential client information into an AI tool unless we are satisfied that appropriate safeguards are in place. This includes considering whether the information is kept in a controlled environment, whether it is protected from unauthorised access, whether it is used to train external AI models, where it may be stored or processed, and how long it may be retained.
Where possible, we limit the information entered into AI tools and remove identifying details if they are not needed for the task. We do not permit confidential client information to be entered into open public AI tools.
Please tell us if you do not want AI tools used in your matter. We will discuss this with you and explain any likely impact on timing, cost, or the way we carry out the work.
We also encourage our clients to use AI tools carefully. If you, your staff, or another adviser, such as an accountant, have used AI to prepare material, research legal issues, summarise events, draft documents, or prepare information for us, please tell us. This helps us protect the accuracy of your matter, maintain confidentiality, and preserve legal professional privilege where it applies.
For more information, please see our AI Safe Use Guide.
Controlling your privacy
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. If you provide personal information to us, you understand that we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
You do not have to provide personal information to us, however if you do not, it may affect our ability to provide our services to you.
How you can access your personal information
Under the Privacy Act, you have a right to access and seek correction of your personal information that is collected and held by Nest Legal.
If at any time you would like to access or correct the personal information that Nest Legal holds about you, please contact our privacy officer:
Privacy Officer nest@nestlegal.com.au
PO Box 563 Northcote VIC 3070
To obtain access to your personal information:
● you will have to provide proof of identity to ensure that personal information is provided only to the correct individuals and that the privacy of others is protected;
● you will need to be reasonably specific about the information you require; and
● Nest Legal may charge you a reasonable administration fee, which reflects the cost to us for providing access in accordance with your request.
If Nest Legal refuses your request to access or correct your personal information, we will provide you with written reasons for the refusal and details of complaint mechanisms.
Links to other websites
We may provide you with links to other websites. We do not have control over those websites and we are not responsible for the protection and privacy of any personal information which you provide whilst visiting those websites. Those websites are not governed by this Privacy Policy.
Complaints
Please direct all privacy complaints to our privacy officer. We will take any privacy complaints seriously and deal with them in a prompt and confidential manner.
You will be informed of the outcome of your complaint following completion of the investigation, which will take no more than 30 days.
In the event that you are dissatisfied with the outcome of your complaint, you may refer the complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.