Privacy Statement

Our Privacy Promises

We at Gowling WLG offer legal services in a variety of countries around the world. As lawyers, we are strongly committed to respecting your rights and obeying the law - explaining your privacy and data protection rights is important to us.

In this statement, we explain generally how we protect your personal information.

Because privacy laws differ across the countries in which we have offices, we've included links to more detailed information on the different privacy laws in those countries.

Privacy and individuals

This statement is about the rights of individuals. While we are also committed to protecting information about companies and other businesses we act for, this policy isn't about them.

When we act for individual clients we need personal information to provide legal services. For example, if you ask us to help you draft a will, we need personal information about you and your family.

We may also get personal information about individuals when acting for businesses. For example, we protect trademarks and patents by registering them. We may need information about the individual creators to do that. We also often get information about employees when acting for businesses.

Our privacy commitments

  • We are accountable for the information you give us.
  • We will tell you why we need information when we ask for it
  • We will use your personal information only for that purpose, or as the law requires.
  • We do not sell your information.
  • We keep your information safe. We take security seriously.

If the work we are doing requires us to involve others - for example, other lawyers in another country or a different law firm - we may need to share your data with them.

But we will tell you - and ensure that they understand and respect your rights. They must also comply with local privacy laws  - which may be different from the law in your country.

We may also need to share your data with the courts or the government, if the law requires.

If you want to know what personal data we have about you, please ask us  - we will tell you unless the law prevents us doing so.

If you ask us for marketing material or attend an event, we will keep your contact information in a database so that we can contact you in the future. If you don't want this, please tell us and we will remove your name.

Please talk to us

A statement like this is only an overview of your rights and our commitments. You'll find more detail in the linked pages about privacy rights in the country where you live.

Our privacy staff will answer any questions you may have. You can contact them at chiefprivacyofficer@ca.gowlingwlg.com if you are in Canada, or data.enquiry@gowlingwlg.com if you are in the UK, Europe, UAE or Asia.

Privacy policy by country