External Privacy Policy
We respect the privacy of every person who visits or registers with https://www.mccarthy.ca/en (the “Site”). We also respect the privacy of every person who uses the products and services that we make available from the Site or who engages with us to use the products or services that McCarthy Tétrault provides (be it through the Site or not) (our “Services”) or whose personal information we may process as a result of providing the Services to others, or who applies to work at McCarthy Tétrault.
This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) explains our approach to any personal information that we might collect from you or which we have obtained about you from a third party and the purposes for which we process your personal information.
This Privacy Policy will inform you of:
This Privacy Policy is intended to assist you in making informed decisions when using the Site and our Services and/or to understand how your personal information may be processed by us as a result of providing the Services to others or when you apply to work at McCarthy Tétrault. Please take a moment to read and understand it. Please note that when using the Site it should be read in conjunction with our Website Terms of Use.
Please also note that this Privacy Policy only applies to the use of your personal information obtained by us, it does not apply to your personal information collected during your communications with third parties.
The Site is operated by McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Canada (the “Canadian offices”).
The data controller responsible for your personal information processed in relation to the Services provided from our UK office is MT Services Limited Partnership (“McCarthy Tétrault”, “we”, “us” or “our”). McCarthy Tétrault office in the UK is at City Tower – 18th Floor, 40 Basinghall Street, London, EC2V 5DE.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or want to exercise your rights set out in this Privacy Policy, please contact us by sending an e-mail to our Chief Privacy Officer at chiefprivacyofficer@mccarthy.ca
You can also view and amend any preferences from any communications you receive from us.
Our primary goal in collecting personal information from you may be to: (i) verify your identity; (ii) help us deliver our Services; (iii) improve, develop and market new Services; (iv) carry out requests made by you on the Site or in relation to our Services; (v) investigate or settle inquiries or disputes; (vi) comply with any applicable law, court order, other judicial process, or the requirements of a regulator; (vii) enforce our agreements with you; (viii) protect the rights, property or safety of us or third parties, including our other clients and users of the Site or our Services; (ix) provide support for the provision of our Services; (x) recruitment purposes; and (xi) use as otherwise required or permitted by law.
To undertake these goals we may process the following personal information:
Primarily McCarthy Tétrault is engaged by corporate instructors (i.e. other corporate entities) and as such those instructors are not data subjects. However as part of such instructions, personal information about other persons may be provided to us (e.g. personal information relating to, without limitation, any of our corporate clients’ or prospective clients’ workers, any opponents or vendors or purchasers’ personal information including personal information relating to their legal advisors or workers as relevant or similar).
If you are an individual whose personal information may be processed by us as a result of providing the Services to others (including individual clients and corporate clients) we will process a variety of different personal information depending on the Services provided in question.
This may include personal information relating, without limitation, to any of our corporate clients’ or prospective clients’ workers, any opponent or vendor or purchaser personal information including personal information relating to their legal advisors or workers as relevant or similar.
This is a non-exhaustive list which is reflective of the varied nature of the personal information processed as part of a law firm providing legal services:
Please also note that we do not have to provide information to you about how we process your personal information when we do so as a result of providing the Services to others. We do so, however, because McCarthy Tétrault believes in being as transparent as possible about its data privacy practices and wants you to be able to understand how we may process your data (and about how you can exercise your resultant rights).
In particular, we may use your personal information for the following purposes:
We collect and maintain personal information that you voluntarily submit to us during your use of the Site and/or our Services to enable us to perform the Services. Please also note that our Terms of Use also apply when we provide the Services.
We may share personal information with a variety of the following categories of third parties as necessary when providing the Services:
Please note this list is non-exhaustive and there may be other examples where we need to share with other parties in order to provide the Services as effectively as we can.
It is necessary for us to use your personal information to perform our obligations in accordance with any contract that we may have with you or where it is in our legitimate interests or a third party’s legitimate interests to use the personal information to ensure we provide the Services in the best way that we can.
The Site uses various user interfaces to allow you to request information about our Services. Contact information may be requested in each case, together with details of other personal information that is relevant to your enquiry. This information is used in order to enable us to respond to your requests.
We do not share your personal information for this purpose.
It is in our legitimate interests or a third party’s legitimate interests to use your personal information in such a way to ensure that we provide the very best client service we can to you or others.
From time to time we will contact you to invite you to provide feedback about our Services in the form of online or postal. We use this information to help us improve the quality of service provided by our staff. We also use your feedback to monitor the quality of our Services.
We use a third party service provider to assist us with client surveys and feedback requests.
It is in our legitimate interests to use the information you provide to us in your feedback for the purposes described above.
We may use your personal information for the following business administration and legal compliance purposes:
We will share your personal information with professional advisers such as lawyers and accountants and/or governmental or regulatory authorities.
Where we use your personal information in connection with a business transition, to enforce our legal rights, or to protect the rights of third parties it is in our or a third party’s legitimate interests to do so. For all other purposes described in this section, it is our legal obligation to use your personal information to comply with any legal obligations imposed on us.
We use your personal information for the following recruitment purposes:
We will share your personal information with third parties who assist us in carrying out our recruitment activity.
Where we use your personal information in connection with recruitment it will be in connection with us taking steps at your request to enter into a contract we may have with you or it is in our legitimate interests to use personal information in such a way to ensure that we can make the best recruitment decisions for McCarthy Tétrault. We will not process any special data except where we are able to do so under applicable legislation or with your explicit consent.
We may use your personal information to ensure we are meeting our duty of care and health and safety responsibilities in relation to Covid-19. Where reasonable and necessary, we may do the following in relation to Covid-19:
This applies to anyone working at a McCarthy Tétrault office, including employees, workers and contractors, as well as any visitors to an office.
We will only share your personal data with those within McCarthy Tétrault. We may have to share your data with third parties (including third-party service providers) or local health authorities (and similar) where required to do so by law and for legitimate interest reasons. Other than as set out here, your results will not be shared with any other third party.
Where we use your personal information in connection with maintaining the health and safety of everyone on site at a McCarthy Tétrault office, it is in our (or a third party’s) legitimate interests to do so, and it is our legal obligation to use your personal information to comply with any legal obligations imposed on us under employment law or where it is in the public interest to do so.
We analyse your contact details with other personal information that we observe about you from your interactions with the Site, our email communications to you and/or with our Services.
Where you have given your consent (where lawfully required), we use cookies, log files and other technologies to collect personal information from the computer hardware and software you use to access the Site, or from your mobile device. This includes the following:
Our web pages and e-mails contain “cookies” "web beacons" or “pixel tags”. (“Tags”). Tags allow us to track receipt of an e-mail to you, to count users that have visited a web page or opened an e-mail and collect other types of aggregate information. Once you click on an e-mail that contains a Tag, your contact information may subsequently be cross-referenced to the source e-mail and the relevant Tag. In some of our e-mail messages, we use a “click-through URL” linked to certain websites administered by us or on our behalf.
Please see our Cookie Policy for further information.
By using this information, we are able to measure the effectiveness of our content and how visitors use the Site and our Services. This allows us to learn what pages of the Site are most attractive to our visitors and which parts of the Site are the most interesting.
We share your personal information with a variety of third party service providers to assist us with client insight analytics.
Where your personal information is completely anonymised, we do not require a legal basis to use it as the information will no longer constitute personal information that is regulated under data protection laws. However, our collection and use of such anonymised personal information may be subject to other laws where your consent is required. Please see our Cookie Policy for further details.
Where your personal information is not in an anonymous form, it is in our legitimate interests to use your personal information in such a way to ensure that we provide the very best products and services to you and our other clients.
Your contact details may be sent to our Canadian offices to be used by the marketing team there.
The marketing team at our Canadian offices carry out the following marketing activities using your personal information:
They may use your name and address to send you marketing communications by post.
Such postal marketing will include personalised and non-personalised postal marketing. Personalised marketing is marketing which has been specifically tailored to you. For example, personalised postal marketing will feature those of our Services that we think are most likely to appeal to you. Non-personalised marketing is marketing about our Services generally and is not tailored to any particular individual.
Where the Canadian offices send you personalised postal marketing, it also uses information that it observes about you from your interactions with the Site, with our email communications to you and/or with our Services in order to decide what sort of personalised marketing communications to send you. Please see the “Client Insight and Analysis” section above for more details about the personal information collected and how it is collected.
The Canadian offices share your personal information with a variety of third party postal providers who assist them in delivering our postal marketing campaigns to you.
Where your personal information is not in an anonymous form, such as your postal address, it is in the Canadian offices’ legitimate interest to use your personal information for postal marketing.
The Canadian offices use your name and email address to send you marketing communications by email, where you have consented to receive such marketing communications or where they have another lawful basis to do so.
Such email marketing will include personalised and non-personalised email marketing. Personalised marketing is marketing which has been specifically tailored to you. For example, personalised email marketing will feature those of our Services that we think are most likely to appeal to you. Non-personalised marketing is marketing about our Services generally and is not tailored to any particular individual.
Where the Canadian offices send you personalised email marketing, they will also use information that we observe about you from your interactions with the Site, with email communications to you and/or with our Services in order to decide what sort of personalised marketing communications to send you. Please see the “Client Insight and Analysis” section above for more details about the personal information collected and how it is collected.
The Canadian offices share your personal information with our third party email marketing providers who assist us in delivering our email marketing campaigns to you.
Where your personal information is completely anonymised, we do not require a legal basis to use it as the personal information will no longer constitute personal information that is regulated under data protection laws. However, our collection and use of such anonymised personal information may be subject to other laws where your consent is required. Please see our Cookie Policy for further details.
Where your personal information is not in an anonymous form, it is in the Canadian offices’ legitimate interests to use your personal information for marketing purposes.
The Canadian offices will only send you marketing communications via email where you have consented to receive such marketing communications, or where they have a lawful right to do so.
Any other purposes for which we wish to use your personal information that are not listed above, or any other changes we propose to make to the existing purposes will be notified to you using your contact details.
Where our use of your personal information requires your consent, you can provide such consent:
The Site uses certain cookies, pixels, beacons, log files and other technologies of which you should be aware. Please see our Cookie Policy to find out more about the cookies we use and how to manage and delete cookies.
As mentioned above, we may appoint sub-contractor data processors as required to help us to deliver the Services, such as but not limited to, a legal translation service. Where we do so, they will process personal information on our behalf and at our direction. We conduct an appropriate level of due diligence and put in place necessary contractual documentation in relation to any sub-contractor to ensure that they process personal information appropriately and according to our legal and regulatory obligations.
Further, we may appoint external data controllers in common with us where necessary to deliver the Services, such as but not limited to, barristers. Where we do so, we will comply with our legal and regulatory obligations in relation to the personal information including but without limitation (where necessary) putting appropriate safeguards in place to ensure any personal information is processed according to our legal and regulatory obligations.
If you are based within the EEA, please note that where necessary to deliver the Services we will transfer personal information to countries outside the EEA (for instance, McCarthy Tétrault's IT systems are based in the Canadian offices). Not all countries provide the same level of protection in relation to personal information as within the EEA. Where necessary to make such transfers, we will comply with our legal and regulatory obligations in relation to the personal information. This will include having a lawful basis for transferring personal information and putting appropriate safeguards in place to ensure an adequate level of protection for the personal information.
Regarding visitors to the Site, we will retain relevant personal information for at least 12 months from the date of our last interaction with you and in compliance with our obligations under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (or similar legislation around the world), or for longer where we are required to do so according to our regulatory obligations or professional indemnity obligations.
Regarding personal information we have processed as part of providing the Services to any client, we will retain relevant personal information for at least six years from the date of our last interaction with that client and in compliance with our obligations under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (or similar legislation around the world) or for longer where we are required to do so according to our regulatory obligations or professional indemnity obligations. See our Terms of Business for further details.
If personal information is only useful for a short period e.g. for specific marketing campaigns being run by the Canadian offices, we may delete it.
We are committed to keeping the personal information provided to us secure and we will take reasonable precautions to protect personal information from loss, misuse or alteration.
We have implemented information security policies, rules and technical measures to protect the personal information that we have under our control from:
All of our members, employees, workers and data processors (i.e. those who process your personal information on our behalf, for the purposes listed above), who have access to, and are associated with, the processing of personal information, are obliged to respect the confidentiality of the personal information of all visitors to the Site and all users of our Services.
You have the following rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you. Please note that these rights are subject to certain exemptions which may be applicable to any request you make.
If you ask us, we’ll confirm whether we’re processing your personal information and, subject to any applicable exemptions, provide you with a copy of that personal information (along with certain other details) within the timescales or extended timescales provided for by the GDPR for complex requests, or where applicable, provide you with an explanation as to why we will not be complying with your request. If you require additional copies, we may need to charge a reasonable fee.
If the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you’re entitled to have it rectified. If you are entitled to rectification and if we’ve shared your personal information with others, we’ll let them know about the rectification where possible and where this would not involve disproportionate effort. If you ask us, where possible and lawful to do so, we’ll also tell you who we’ve shared your personal information with so that you can contact them directly.
You can ask us to delete or remove your personal information in some circumstances such as where we no longer need it or if you withdraw your consent (where applicable because that was the legal basis on which we were processing your personal information). If you are entitled to erasure and if we’ve shared your personal information with others, we’ll take reasonable steps to inform those others where possible and where this would not involve disproportionate effort. If you ask us, where it is possible and lawful for us to do so, we’ll also tell you who we’ve shared your personal information with so that you can contact them directly.
You can ask us to “block” or suppress the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances such as where you contest the accuracy of that personal information or you object to us. If you are entitled to restriction and if we’ve shared your personal information with others, we’ll let them know about the restriction where it is possible for us to do so. If you ask us, where it is possible and lawful for us to do so, we’ll also tell you who we’ve shared your personal information with so that you can contact them directly.
With effect from 25 May 2018, you have the right, in certain circumstances, to obtain personal information you’ve provided us with (in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format) and to reuse it elsewhere or to ask us to transfer this to a third party of your choice.
You can ask us to stop processing your personal information, and we will do so, if we are:
You have the right not to be subject to a decision when it’s based on automatic processing, including profiling, if it produces a legal effect or similarly significantly affects you, unless such profiling is necessary for entering into, or the performance of, a contract between you and us.
If we rely on your consent (or explicit consent) as our legal basis for processing your personal information, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
If you have a concern about any aspect of McCarthy Tétrault’s privacy practices, including the way we’ve handled your personal information, you can report it to Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”). You can find details about how to do this on the ICO website at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or by calling their office on 0303 123 1113.
If you want to exercise any of these rights you can do so by contacting us.
The Site contains links to other sites whose information practices may be different from ours. Visitors should consult the other sites' privacy notices as McCarthy Tétrault has no control over information that is submitted to, or collected by, these third parties.
We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time.
To ensure that you are always aware of how we use your personal information we will update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect any changes to our use of your personal information. We may also make changes as required to comply with changes in applicable law or regulatory requirements. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to be informed of how we use your personal information.