Legal
How we handle personal information under the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles. Plain English.
This Privacy Policy applies to Lawyer Reviews Australia Pty Ltd (ABN pending), operating lawyerreviews.com.au ("we", "us", "our"). We are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).
Privacy enquiries: privacy@lawyerreviews.com.au
We collect personal information from three groups: consumers using the matching service, lawyers listed in the index, and visitors generally.
From consumers: name, contact details (email, phone), suburb or postcode, and information about the legal matter you wish to discuss with a lawyer, including any details you choose to include in a free-text field. Some of this is sensitive information under APP 3.3.
From lawyers: name, contact details, practising-certificate number, firm details, professional history, photograph, and any other content you choose to publish on your profile.
From visitors generally: IP address, device type, browser, pages visited, referring URL, and similar standard server-log data. We use this for security, analytics and product improvement.
We collect personal information directly from you when you submit an enquiry, claim a profile, or contact us. We also collect from publicly available sources where relevant — state law society practising-certificate registers, court appearance records, ABN registry, and the like — for the purpose of building a verified directory.
Consumer information is used to match you with up to three verified lawyers in your area. We share your contact details with the lawyers we match you to (and only those). We do not sell consumer information. We do not share it with third parties for marketing.
Lawyer information is used to operate the directory, route enquiries to your firm, and bill you for accepted enquiries. We do not share lawyer information with consumers beyond what appears on the public profile.
Site usage information is used to operate, secure, and improve the platform.
Some legal matter descriptions contain sensitive information under the Privacy Act (health information, criminal record, sexual orientation, etc.). When you submit an enquiry that includes sensitive information, we collect it only with your express consent for the specific purpose of matching you with a lawyer. We do not use it for any other purpose.
Personal information is stored in Australia on servers operated by reputable cloud providers under data-handling agreements. Access is restricted on a need-to-know basis. We use industry-standard encryption in transit and at rest. We retain personal information only as long as needed for the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law.
We do not routinely transfer personal information overseas. Some of our service providers (for example, email and analytics platforms) may process limited data in other jurisdictions; in each case we ensure equivalent protections under APP 8.
You have the right under APPs 12 and 13 to request access to your personal information and request correction of inaccurate information. Send requests to privacy@lawyerreviews.com.au. We respond within 30 days.
If you are not satisfied with our handling of a privacy matter, you may escalate to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au.
We use a small number of essential cookies (session state, accessibility preferences) and basic analytics cookies. We do not use third-party advertising or remarketing cookies. You can disable cookies in your browser settings without losing the core function of the site.
This service is intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from people under 18. If you believe we have, write to privacy@lawyerreviews.com.au and we will delete it.
If we change this policy materially, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify affected users by email.
This page is the operative version. Counsel sign-off is documented in our internal compliance file and available on request to regulators.