Are you looking for Clearway’s privacy policy? Our company does not currently handle personal information from EU citizens, but this might change in the future.

This privacy policy is for all jurisdictions we operate, even though it discusses the GDPR. We wrote about the GDPR because we heard it is the most strict. We like the idea of an internal policy protecting people’s data. Our company puts a lot of effort into cybersecurity and preventing cyber issues. This article will discuss GDPR and PIPADA compliance and how it works. It will also act as a disclaimer for anyone who is interested in how our company protects data.

We will update this article every six months to provide up-to-date information. For those who are looking for information about changing their lawyer profile, please see the link.

We use photos/memes in this privacy policy to make the page look nicer and to keep people reading. We want people to read the entire notice. Clearway has also added links to other pages and websites in this article so readers can learn more.

Note: This Privacy Notice was last updated on August 1, 2024.

As explained below, Clearway’s collection, use and disclosure of information about regulated legal professionals is reasonable and in accord with PIPEDA. 

Clearway, a platform designed to improve access to legal services in the public interest, collects and uses information about lawyers from publicly available sources for its database. This letter provides information on Clearway’s compliance with PIPEDA and how it collects data.

Data Collection from Google Images and Google Search

Clearway uses web indexing technologies to collect data from Google, Bing Search, and Google and Bing Images.

This involves scripts that navigate the web and gather information, targeting keywords like lawyer names or law firms and extracting relevant data from search results and image metadata. Clearway does not scrape data from any one website but instead compares and organizes it from the internet as a whole.

All of Clearway’s information comes from the internet, like this. Clearway’s business model is the same as that of Bing and Google. The collected data in Excel is parsed into a structured format that is usable in Clearway’s database. Clearway does not index any “social media” sites.

Data Collection from Law Society Websites

Targeted web indexing at Law Society and legal association websites is employed, as these sites often contain detailed, reliable, and vetted information about licensed lawyers. This information is published by the Law Societies, which consider it to be in the public interest to disseminate.

Clearway might collaborate with law societies or related organizations to produce direct data feeds, offering a more efficient and reliable data collection method than scraping. This would enable Clearway to update our database in real-time. Other lawyer directories in Canada include Best Lawyers, lawyers.com, Lexpert, lawyer.com, Lawyer Friday, and many more.

Data Integration and Processing

A sophisticated database management system organizes, indexes, and manages the information. This process involves removing duplicates, correcting errors, and ensuring data consistency across different sources to the best of Clearway’s abilities.

User Interface and Experience

By integrating data into a user-friendly search interface, Clearway optimizes image load times and quality to the best of its ability.

Clearway is constantly looking for improved ways to do things.

Continuous Updating and Maintenance

Regular database updates reflect changes in the legal field. Clearway also spent $200,000, enabling lawyers to update their information for free.

Regular checks are conducted to maintain data accuracy, automated by the lawyers and manually by the Clearway team.

Practices developers used

Clearway always follows a website’s robots.txt file guidelines to determine permitted data retrieval activities.

Clearway ensures that data extraction activities do not overload or negatively impact the website’s server performance.

Clearway prefers using official APIs for data extraction, offering a controlled and authorized access method.

Clearway employs a descriptive user-agent string to identify its data collection tools.

Clearway collects data that does not interfere with the website’s session management or disrupt normal user interactions.

Clearway’s Compliance With PIPEDA

Clearway has designated a privacy officer to ensure compliance with PIPEDA. This shows a commitment to the accountability principle of PIPEDA, which requires organizations to be responsible for the personal information under their control.

Identifying Purposes

Clearway collects personal information for clearly identified purposes: connecting individuals seeking legal advice with lawyers.

Clearway’s data concerns professional information about lawyers, which is generally considered less sensitive than other information, like biometric data or facial images.

“Business contact information” is excluded from PIPEDA’s scope (see s. 4.01), and most of the information that Clearway collects, uses and discloses is business contact information. You will also note that the definition of “business contact information” is very broad: 

Business contact information is any information used to communicate or facilitate communication with an individual about their employment, business or profession, such as the individual’s name, position name or title, work address, work telephone number, work fax number, or work electronic address. (coordonnées d’affaires)

The Clearway system uses all of the information to facilitate communication with individuals in their profession. We also note that there is zero risk of harm to individuals.

Consent

While PIPEDA generally requires consent for collecting, using, or disclosing personal information, exceptions exist for publicly available information. Clearway gathers information from public sources, such as professional directories and search engines, so this aligns with the consent exceptions under PIPEDA.

Under PIPEDA, knowledge and consent for specific purposes are not required when information meets the “publicly available” definition under the Act and the relevant Regulation. The relevant PIPEDA Regulation defines “publicly available” information in telephone directories, professional or business directories, government registry information, and records of quasi-judicial bodies available to the public. 

Generally speaking, no consent is required as long as the collection, use and disclosure of such information relates directly to the purposes for which it was made publicly available. (See s. 7(1)(d), 7(2)(c.1) and 7(3)(h.1)) The majority of information collected, used or disclosed by Clearway is excluded from the requirement for consent. 

On rare occasions, Clearway manually updates Clearway profiles with information from Linkedin, a professional directory where lawyers consent to add information about themselves, including education and previous work experience.

To the extent that this information is not business contact information or “publicly available information as specified by the regulations”, this information has been voluntarily disclosed to inform the world at large about their profession. Clearway, like anybody, would have implied consent to use it for these purposes. 

Lawyers are not civilians but professional individuals. The lawyers consented to their information being put online, as it’s a requirement for being a lawyer with the Law Societies.

Limiting Collection

Clearway collects information limited to what is necessary to connect legal professionals with potential clients. It is targeted, reasonable, and proportional, aligning with PIPEDA’s principle of limiting collection to necessary information for identified purposes.

Limiting Use, Disclosure, and Retention

Clearway uses personal information solely for the purposes it was collected, i.e., within the context of legal services. This adheres to PIPEDA’s principle of using information only for original purposes unless additional consent is obtained.

Clearway does not use data for facial recognition and does not charge for review takedowns.

Accuracy

The platform collects data from accurate sources and allows lawyers to claim and manage their profiles, ensuring that the information is accurate and up-to-date, which is in line with PIPEDA’s accuracy requirement.

Clearway also regularly re-indexes and manually checks information. Suppose Clearway notices a lawyer is not in the Law Society database or there is a notable news article about the lawyer. In that case, Clearway will often manually update the profile to benefit the public.

Challenging Compliance

Individuals can challenge Clearway’s compliance with PIPEDA principles. Clearway’s appointment of a privacy officer supports this, ensuring a clear point of contact for such challenges.

Clearway receives hundreds of emails daily and cannot reply to everyone. However, it always responds to all privacy requests. Clearway’s practices comply with PIPEDA, and the complaint is not well-founded. 

Our Company Privacy Policy

Clearway is a lawyer directory and online community for attorneys. We do not provide legal advice or services. All data that we collect comes from people filling out our contact forms.

The Law Societies do not regulate us.

You can see our data privacy contact below. If you have any questions about our use of your data, contact our privacy manager (William Hong) at: intakemanager (at) clearwaylaw (dot) com

We will collect the following personal data

Contact information: your name, position, role, company or organization, address, city, telephone as well as email and postal address;

Information about your legal dispute: we retain the data you send us on your legal issue.

Your logon ID and password: this is only for lawyers who sign up for our community or to edit profiles.

Information from public sources: search engines, lawyer directories, social media, and law firm websites.

Subscriptions: when you sign up for our newsletter.

Tech information: When you access this website, third-party analytic companies may send us data such as your IP address, which URLs you visited, how long you spent on the website, and what browser you are using.

Privacy Policy – Communicating With Clearway

We are not a law firm, so we do not have ethical or legal duties to keep your submissions confidential. However, we do not sell data or share information with third parties outside the law firm.

It is our internal policy to keep the information confidential, but a regulator does not mandate it.

Privacy Policy – The Ways We Use Information And Data

We may use your data for the following purposes:

Service provision: We will attempt to forward your request to an attorney best suited to assist you. If you are looking for a specific attorney, we will try to contact them. We may forward your email to another attorney if they are not reachable.

Business relationship: Our company keeps the information about who has contracted us. We also use this information to provide updates to our law firm clients.

Communication: We send out legal articles that we think the public will find interesting. We also follow up with people who have contacted us to confirm they have spoken with a lawyer.

Events: We do not run events at this time.

Client surveys and feedback: We will send you a follow-up email to ensure you received legal help from a third-party law firm.

Client legal compliance: We do not conduct client intake screenings. The law firm to which we will send your information will comply with “know your client” regulations.

Legitimate interest: to pursue the legitimate business interests listed in this policy’s “Legitimate Interests” section below.

Our reasons for using your data

We will process your data for several reasons.

For example, You gave us consent when you sent us your information.

Processing is necessary for our legitimate business interests or those of a third party, provided this does not override any interests or rights you have as an individual. Our legitimate interests are listed in the next section.

Legitimate Interests

We have legitimate business interests in:

• Helping the public find an attorney
• Managing our business and relationships with the community
• Receiving feedback from those who use our website
• Improving our website to make it easier for the public to find a law firm
• Improving our business model
• Receiving information from law firms that we work with
• Please make sure everyone who uses our website follows our Terms of Use
• Improving our cyber security
• Make sure law firms pay us money when they owe it
• Educating the public about legal issues

Privacy Policy- Special Category Data In The EU

Special category data in Europe means sensitive data. The only sensitive data that we receive is information about legal issues. 

We have the public consent to have this data because it is sent to us.

Who do we send data to?

We share your information with others as follows:

Third-party law firms:  We send “leads” to law firms so that the law firm can contact the person with a legal issue. A lead is someone who is looking for an attorney. Let’s say someone contacts us looking for an immigration lawyer in Calgary. We will attempt to forward the data to an immigration law firm in Calgary.

Marketing and IT agencies: We will not send data to these agencies, but they may have our website log-in information. They can see data from people who use our contact forms.

Call centers: We do not currently use or intake customer support centers.

Appropriate parties in emergencies: We may send information to the police if we think someone is in danger.

Sharing information with us about others

If you share information about third parties with us, please make sure they know about it and have access to this notice. You can send them the website link (URL.)

Privacy Policy – Cyber Security

At Clearway, we take cyber security very seriously. We do not want to post about how we protect client data and our methods. If you have questions, please email us.

Where will your information be held?

Your information may be transferred out of your local jurisdiction or region. It will not be sent to China.

Data protection laws vary by country, and those applicable in China and elsewhere are not equivalent to those in Europe or certain other jurisdictions.  Clearway will take steps to protect your information in line with locally applicable data protection requirements.  

Clearway has implemented Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs), which the European Commission approved. If you would like copies of the SCCs, please email us.

How Long Will We Keep Your Data?

We generally keep your information as long as needed. Typical retention periods range from two to ten years. You can contact us to request that we delete the data sooner.

What Data Rights Do You Have?

If you are in Europe, you have data protection rights. You can read about your rights below.

If you want to discuss your rights or make a request, please email us at the top of this notice. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact a privacy regulator in your jurisdiction.

Access: You are allowed to ask us if we have any data about you, update or correct the information, remove data, or send data to someone else.

Consent: where we are processing personal data with consent, you can withdraw your consent.

Privacy Policy- Being On a Mailing List

You have the right not to receive emails from us. The only mailing list we use is MailChimp. There will be an “unsubscribe button” at the bottom of each email.

The Privacy Policy and Website Cookies

We use cookies that identify your browser. They collect and store information about how you use our website when you visit it, through which it is possible to record your use. They also provide a better service and experience when browsing and for analytics.

The personal data we collect through these technologies will also be used to manage your session.

Backlinks To Other Websites

Our website, newsletters, email updates, and other communications may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of others. The personal data you provide through these websites is not subject to this privacy notice, and the treatment of your data by such websites is not our responsibility. 

We provide backlinks to other websites because we think the information will be helpful to our readers. We do not earn money from those backlinks.

If you follow a link to any other websites, please note that these websites have privacy notices that set out how your information is collected and processed when you visit them.

People Under The Age of Sixteen

If you are under sixteen years old, do not send us data.

Updating This Privacy Policy

This notice may be changed from time to time.

Privacy Policy – How To Get In Touch

You can contact us with any privacy questions or concerns via our contact form.

Please also learn about our company’s mission.

The UK GDPR

ClearwayLaw.com complies with the standards for consent as outlined by the UK GDPR for the following reasons…

Lawful Basis for Processing: ClearwayLaw.com primarily collects data from publicly available sources, reducing the reliance on consent as the primary lawful basis for processing data. This aligns with the UK GDPR’s guidance that consent is not always necessary and that other lawful bases can be more appropriate.

Genuine and Unambiguous Consent: The lawyers provide the information by claiming their profiles for the data where consent is applicable.

EU GDPR

We have determined that the following exemptions to Article 17 apply to the request in question:

Compliance with a Legal Obligation: The processing of personal data is necessary to comply with legal obligations that require the retention and public availability of lawyers’ information. This requirement ensures that the public can verify practicing lawyers’ professional status and standing.

Public Interest or Official Authority: The processing of this data is essential for performing a task carried out in the public interest. Publicly accessible information about lawyers is crucial for maintaining transparency, trust, and accountability within the legal profession.

Freedom of Expression and Information: The data processing in question is necessary for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information. Public access to information about lawyers supports the public’s right to access accurate information regarding legal practitioners.

Separation from Other Terms and Conditions

The privacy policy and consent requests are presented distinctly, separate from other terms and conditions, an essential requirement under the UK GDPR.

Transparency and Clarity: The organization clearly states its name, the purposes for data processing, and the types of processing activities in its consent requests, ensuring transparency and clarity as mandated by the UK GDPR.

Regular Review and Refreshment of Consent

The organization commits to regularly reviewing and refreshing consents (as much as possible), ensuring that any changes in the relationship, processing, or purposes are accounted for. The UK GDPR recommends this practice.

ClearwayLaw.com does not require consent to access its service, adhering to the UK GDPR guidelines that consent should not generally be a precondition of signing up for a service.

Consideration for Power Imbalances

As the data collected is mainly from publicly available sources and related to professional information, there is less concern about power imbalances that might affect the freedom of consent.

There is also no power imbalance between lawyers and Clearway. Lawyers are professionals. This is particularly relevant for organizations in positions of power, as highlighted in the UK GDPR guidelines.

Selection of Lawful Basis: ClearwayLaw.com has reviewed the purposes of its data processing activities and chosen the most appropriate lawful basis for each. This is in line with UK GDPR, which requires a valid lawful basis for processing personal data and recommends selecting the most suitable basis depending on the purpose and relationship with the individual.

Necessity of Processing: The platform’s data collection from public sources like Google and Bing, other lawyer directories, and Law Society websites indicates a targeted approach to data collection.

This suggests that ClearwayLaw.com has considered whether the processing is necessary for the relevant purpose and complies with the UK GDPR’s emphasis on processing being required for a specific purpose.

ClearwayLaw.com documents its decisions on which lawful basis applies, fulfilling the UK GDPR requirement to document and demonstrate compliance. This information is also reflected in their privacy notice, meeting the GDPR’s transparency requirements.

Since ClearwayLaw.com mainly collects professional information about lawyers from public sources, they are less likely to process special category data.

Lawful bases for ClearwayLaw.com

ClearwayLaw.com’s processing activities, like indexing and organizing publicly available data for legal professionals, likely fall under legitimate interests, especially since they do not seem to process data in ways unexpected by the data subjects or with a significant impact on them.

There is no indication that ClearwayLaw.com has changed its lawful basis inappropriately. The UK GDPR advises against changing the lawful basis without good reason, and ClearwayLaw.com appears to have a consistent approach to data processing.

Should ClearwayLaw.com develop new purposes for data processing, the UK GDPR requires considering if a new lawful basis is needed. This is particularly relevant if the new purpose is incompatible with the original purpose for which the data was collected.

ClearwayLaw.com’s approach to documenting its processing activities and making its privacy policy accessible demonstrates its commitment to the accountability principle of the UK GDPR.

ClearwayLaw.com’s practices in their approach to data collection and processing, demonstrate adherence to the high standards set by the UK GDPR.