PRIVACY POLICY – Mowat Mackie & Anderson LLP
Effective date: November 6, 2018
Scope
Mowat Mackie & Anderson LLP (“MMA”, “we” or “us”, as appropriate), provides this Privacy Policy to inform users of our policies, practices and procedures regarding the collection, use and disclosure of information received from users of the website located at https://www.mowat.com (“MMA website”). The MMA website is a business and commercial site. Protecting your Personal Information is our priority
This Privacy Policy governs how we collect, use, disclose, transfer and store the information you submit to us as a user or a visitor (collectively “user” or “you” or “Your”) to the MMA website. This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time, and you are advised to consult this policy regularly, noting any changes since the last update, which is stated on this page
This Privacy Policy does not apply to any information you may provide to us offline or through any means other than our Website. For example, this Privacy Policy does not apply to information that you provide to us when you respond by telephone or any other instances in which we may collect information from you offline. This Privacy Policy also does not cover any information collected through any other site or application even if the other site or application is linked to our Website (see the Section below entitled “Third Party Links”)
Please take a moment to carefully read and familiarize yourself with our privacy practices. Your continued use of and/or participation on our Website indicates your acceptance of this Privacy Policy and how we collect, use, disclose, transfer and store your information as a user of our Website. You also understand and agree that any dispute regarding our privacy practices is governed by this Privacy Policy based on the laws of the State of California, including but not limited, to the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) and, as applicable, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) compliance data relating to International Transfers (see the Section below entitled “International Transfers”).
Those who choose to access our Website do so at their own initiative and are responsible for complying with all local laws, rules and regulations.
By using and participating in our Website or providing us with your information, you consent to the collection, transfer, storage, access and processing of your information in and/or outside of the state and jurisdiction in which you reside.
Additionally, in limited circumstances, described in further detail below, we may also be required by law to collect and further process some of the data you provide or upload to the MMA website or social media platforms.
If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy or our use of Personal Information, as herein defined, please contact us at information@mowat.com or by telephone at (510) 893-1120.
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Third Party Links
The MMA website may contain links to third party websites, services or applications. This is for your convenience. However, we do not exercise control over any third-party links provided to you as part of our Website or other third-party sites that may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, smart phone, and similar mobile devices, or apps in order to collect data or solicit Personal Information directly from you. In addition, we are not responsible for the privacy policies and practices of any third party and any information you submit to a third party is subject to their privacy policy. Therefore, we cannot be responsible to you at law or otherwise for how the information, inclusive of your Personal Information, you submit to such third parties is used, collected and disclosed. The inclusion of a link on the MMA website to a third-party website does not imply endorsement of the linked site or service by us or by our affiliates. Once you leave our website or are redirected to a third-party website, application, or other online service, we encourage you to read the privacy policy applicable to that third party.
Information You Provide
“Personal Information” is information that specifically identifies you as a “natural” individual. Personal Information may include, without limitation, your name, email address, postal address and telephone number, geo-location, social security number and credit card information. MMA may access or collect Personal Information, when you voluntarily provide us with such information, or through information you provide us via technology.
We collect this Personal Information as well as non-personal information discussed below in a number of different ways.
Personal Information
For example, we may collect your email and name if you ask us to contact you. In the process, we may ask you to provide us with contact information so we can respond to your question or concern.
We may collect and process your Personal Information to the extent necessary to allow us to monitor and respond to website messages. Our ability to collect and process your personal data may be limited by your browser privacy settings.
Non-Personal Information. We also collect non-personal information – data in a form that does not permit direct association with any specific individual and this information is collected automatically as described in the Section below (“Information We Collect Automatically”)
For example, we may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code unique device identifier location, geo location and the time zone where our Website is accessed and used so that we can better understand user behavior and improve our products and services.
If we do combine non-personal information with Personal Information the combined information will be treated a Personal Information for as long as it remains combined.
Information We Collect Automatically (Technology)
We may also automatically collect information you provide through technology, such as through a “cookie” or tracking pixel placed on your computer when you visit the MMA website. This information can include your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses. This information is used to help us operate and maintain the quality of our services to you, to improve the personalization of our service, to detect fraud and to provide general statistics regarding use of the MMA website.
We encourage you to review the privacy statements of websites and social media platforms you may choose to visit which may be linked to from the MMA website, so that you can understand how those websites and platforms collect, use and share your information. We are not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on websites or platforms outside of the MMA website.
Social Networking
You can engage with our content such as applications, video, and other offerings, on or through third party social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and other third-party social media plug-ins and applications. When you engage with our content on or through third party social networking sites, plug-ins and applications, you may allow us to have access to certain information from your social media profile (e.g. name, email address, photo, gender, birthday, location, your list of friends, people you follow and/or who follow you, the posts or the “likes” you make) to deliver the content or as part of the operation of the application. We may also obtain non-personal identifiable information (e.g. content viewed) from your interaction with our content.
When you provide information from your social media account, it can help enable us to do things like:
- Give you exclusive content
- Personalize your online experience with us within and outside our site
When you provide us with information via social networks, you consent to the use of this information in accordance with our Privacy Policy. When you provide Personal Information to us through an application on our social network site(s) or on social networking sites, it may be publicly viewed by other members of these sites and/or applications and we cannot prevent or be responsible at law or otherwise for further use of such information by third parties inclusive of such information becoming public.
However, through some social networking sites’ privacy settings, you can control what data you share. For more information about how social networking sites hand your Personal Information, please refer to and read their privacy policies and terms of use/service, including those of our service providers, partners and sponsors as applicable, through whom you may access and use our files.
How MMA Uses the Information We Collect
MMA collects and uses your Personal Information to
- operate our website,
- to communicate with you when you ask us to do so, and
- deliver the services you have requested.
- We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those that are set out in this Privacy Policy
We may also use your information to track you as a visitor to our Website. This lets us see which of our features are the most popular so we can better serve our users’ needs. It also lets us provide aggregate data about our traffic (not identifying you personally, but allowing how many visitors used which features, for example) to outside parties.
You may contact us at any time to opt-out or update your preferences on the information we collect. To do so, please see the “Contact Information” section below.
For your convenience, the MMA website includes a link to https://clientaxcess.com – a service provided by CCH Incorporated, a third-party vendor that provides a secure documents portal for MMA clients. If you choose to use this website feature, CCH Incorporated will give you access to the secure documents’ portal through the login feature by using the Personal Information you provide at the time of login. MMA does not have access to your login credentials to this portal at any time. If you choose to use this service, CCH Incorporated may use your Personal Information to upload and host your files and documents.
Disclosures and Transfers
MMA will not disclose your Personal Information to third parties, except as set forth in this Privacy Policy, when we have your permission to make the disclosure or for legal reasons:
- To meet any applicable law regulation legal process or information or governmental request
- To detect prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues
- To protect against harm to the right property or safe of MMA; our users or the public as required or permitted by law
You may request to remove your Personal information from our current customer records or to amend your Personal information. Please notify us of your wishes by contacting us in one of the ways specified in the Section below entitled “Control of Your Personal Information including Opt-Out & Unsubscribe”. For our record keeping purposes, we will retain certain Personal information you submit in conjunction with commercial transactions in accordance with applicable law.
MMA cooperates with government and law enforcement officials or private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We may disclose any information about you, including Personal Information, to government or law enforcement officials or private parties that we, in our sole discretion, believe to be necessary or appropriate to respond to claims, court orders or legal process (including subpoenas), to protect the property and rights of MMA or a third party, to address issues of security or fraud, to protect the safety of the public or any person, to prevent or stop any illegal, unethical, or legally actionable activity, or otherwise to comply with the law.
Business Use
We may access, preserve, use, or disclose your Personal Information in order to protect the rights of our business, our property, our employees or to enforce our contracts.
Use of Cookies
Like many websites, the MMA Website may use “cookies” to help you personalize your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.
One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize MMA pages, or register with the MMA Website or services, a cookie helps MMA to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your Personal Information, such as billing addresses. When you return to the same MMA Website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the MMA features that you customized.
Although many internet browsers automatically accept cookies, you can set your browser options to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the MMA services or websites you visit.
Security of your Personal Information
MMA takes the security of your Personal Information seriously and maintains certain physical, electronic, and managerial safeguards to protect the integrity and confidentiality of your Personal Information. When Personal Information (such as an email address) is transmitted to other websites, it is protected using encryption, such as the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. While no transmission over the Internet or method of data storage is 100% secure, we take reasonable precautions to prevent unauthorized access, use, or disclosure of your Personal Information.
Children Under Thirteen
MMA does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen. The MMA Website is not directed at or intended for use by children. If we become aware that a child under the age of thirteen has provided personally identifiable information, we will take steps to immediately delete it. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that their child has provided us with Personal Information without their consent, they should contact us immediately at information@mowat.com.
Your California Rights and Do Not Track Disclosure
If you are a California resident, this Privacy Policy is governed by California law. California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits you to request information regarding the disclosure of your Personal Information for direct marketing purposes.
Do Not Track is a privacy preference that can be set in a web browser. Currently, we are unable to respond to Do Not Track browser settings or signals. For more information about Do Not Track, please visit https://allaboutdnt.com.
Control of Your Personal Information Including Opt-Out & Unsubscribe
We respect your privacy and give you an opportunity to manage how we collect and use your information at any time. You also have the option to opt-out of receiving announcements of certain information or email communications by following the unsubscribe instructions in email communications. Users may also opt-out of receiving any or all communications from MMA by contacting us at information@mowat.com or contacting us by phone at (510) 893-1120 or postal mail at the address in the Contact Information section below.
International Transfers
Your Personal Information may be transferred to and maintained on computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the privacy laws may not be as protective as those in your jurisdiction. If you are located outside the United States and choose to provide your Personal Information to us, we may transfer your Personal Information to the United States for processing in accordance with the GDPR as described below:
General
Information Security: Our web servers will log your IP address and other information (e.g., browser information, operating system, request date/time, user agent string, referral and exiting URL) in order to maintain an audit log of activities performed. We use this information for our legitimate interests in tracking website and platform usage, combating DDOS or other attacks, and removing or defending against malicious visitors on the Site and Platform.
Business Contacts
General Business Development: Our legitimate interest in furthering business relationships, ensuring customer satisfaction, and answering inquiries.
Site Visitors
Web Audience Measurement: Our legitimate interest in use of Google Analytics to understand how website visitors interact with the website and where website visitors are located (to city-level only) to optimize the visitor’s website experience. Note that the last octets of website visitors’ IP addresses have been anonymized and ‘Sharing With Google’ and ‘Demographics/Advertising’ features have been disabled within Google Analytics.
How you can verify your information
You may check the Personal Information we collect at any time to verify, update or correct it, and to have any obsolete information removed. You may also ask to review any of the Personal Information we have retained about you, how we have used it and to whom we have disclosed it by contacting us as indicated below in the Contact Information section. Subject to certain exceptions prescribed by law, and provided we can authenticate your identity, you will be provided with reasonable access to your personal information and will be entitled to challenge the accuracy and completeness of the information and to have it amended as appropriate. You may also ask MMA to change your preferences regarding how we disclose your information, or let us know that you do not wish to receive any further communication from us.
Contact Information
For questions about this Privacy Policy, to make choices about receiving marketing communications, or if you have a request to access, correct or delete your Personal Information, please contact us at information@mowat.com or call us at (510) 893-1120. You may also contact us via postal mail at the following address:
Mowat Mackie & Anderson LLP
1999 Harrison Street, Suite 1500
Oakland, California 94612
In all communications to MMA, please include your name and the email address you initially used to communicate with us (if applicable), and a detailed explanation of your request. If you would like to delete or amend your Personal Information and are contacting us by e-mail, please put “Deletion Request” or “Amendment Request”, as applicable, in the subject line of the e-mail. We will do our best to respond to all reasonable requests in a timely manner. Please be aware that we cannot delete information if we are required by law to preserve it.
Privacy Policy Changes and Effective Date
MMA will occasionally update this Privacy Policy to reflect company and customer feedback. We encourage you to periodically review this policy to be informed of how MMA is protecting your information.
MMA reserves the right to amend this Privacy Policy without notice to reflect technological advancements, legal and regulatory changes and good business practices. If MMA changes its privacy practices, a new Privacy Policy will reflect those changes and the effective date of the revised Privacy Policy will be set forth in this paragraph.