Privacy Policy
Platfirm AI Pty Ltd (ABN 24 679 859 744) operates Legal Hotline in New Zealand at nz.legal-hotline.com. We are an Australian company, but because we carry on business in New Zealand the Privacy Act 2020 applies to the personal information we collect from people in New Zealand. We handle that information in accordance with the Act and its Information Privacy Principles.
What we collect
When you contact Legal Hotline, we do not record your call. However, our system creates a written transcript and enquiry record so we can understand your enquiry, assess what assistance you may need, and arrange follow-up where appropriate.
We may collect:
- Your first name and, where provided, your full name
- Your mobile phone number from caller ID
- Your email address, where you provide it
- Your region of New Zealand and, optionally, your postcode
- A description of your legal enquiry
- The area of law involved and how urgent the enquiry is
- Court dates, court locations, appointment dates, deadlines, and other time-sensitive information you choose to provide
- Information about whether you want to book a paid consultation or receive follow-up
- A written transcript, summary or record of the information you provide during the call
- Any other information you choose to provide during the call, through our website, by SMS, by email, or through another contact method
Because Legal Hotline is a legal-information service, the information you provide may include sensitive information. This may include information about criminal allegations, family disputes, family violence, children, health, disability, ACC claims, alcohol or drug use, employment, immigration status, financial hardship, court proceedings, police matters, disputes with other people, and other private legal or personal circumstances.
When you book a paid consultation through our website, we additionally collect your full name, email address, postcode, and your selected consultation type, such as phone, video, or in-person. Payment card details are handled directly by a secure payment processor. We do not see or store your full payment card details.
Technical metadata, such as IP address, browser type, pages viewed, device information and cookies, may be collected automatically when you visit our website.
How we collect it, and what happens if you do not provide it
We collect personal information directly from you: during your call, through our website and booking forms, and in the SMS and email messages you send us. Providing information is voluntary, but without it we may not be able to understand your enquiry, arrange a consultation or follow up with you.
We collect it to run the Legal Hotline service and for the purposes described below. The people and organisations we may pass it to are listed under “Who we share your information with”. You have the right to ask for access to, and correction of, the information we hold about you, as described under “Your rights”.
Call transcription and enquiry records
Legal Hotline does not record or retain audio recordings of calls.
Calls may be transcribed, summarised and classified for intake, follow-up, referral, booking, compliance, dispute-resolution and service-delivery purposes.
By continuing with the call after the call begins, you consent to:
- a written transcript or enquiry record being created
- the transcript or enquiry record being used to understand your enquiry
- the transcript or enquiry record being summarised and classified
- your enquiry being assessed for urgency, area of law, location and suitability for referral
- follow-up by SMS, email or telephone where appropriate
- your information being shared with a participating lawyer or law firm if you book or request a paid consultation
- your information being handled in accordance with this Privacy Policy
You may end the call at any time.
If you do not agree to a transcript or enquiry record being created, you should end the call and contact us through another contact method listed on our website, where available.
How we use your information
We use your information to:
- Deliver our free legal-information service
- Understand, summarise and classify your legal enquiry
- Assess the area of law, urgency, location and type of assistance you may need
- Match you with a participating New Zealand law firm if you book a paid consultation
- Send you SMS and email notifications about your enquiry, booking or consultation
- Process your payment
- Improve the quality, reliability, safety and compliance of our service
- Review enquiry handling and service performance
- Detect, prevent and respond to misuse, fraud, abuse, security issues or unlawful activity
- Respond to complaints, disputes, legal requests and regulatory obligations
- Comply with our legal obligations
We use your information only for the purposes for which we collected it, or for a directly related purpose, unless the Privacy Act 2020 allows another use.
We may use de-identified or aggregated information to understand service performance, improve call flows, improve quality assurance, monitor compliance and develop our services.
AI processing and service improvement
Legal Hotline uses AI systems and related technology to operate the hotline, transcribe calls, summarise enquiries, classify matters, assist with follow-up, and support the allocation of enquiries to participating lawyers or law firms.
We do not sell your transcripts, enquiry records or legal enquiry information.
We do not permit our service providers to use your transcripts, enquiry records or legal enquiry information to train their general AI models.
We may use de-identified or aggregated information to improve our own service quality, compliance processes, call flows, internal systems and user experience. Where practical, we remove or reduce identifying information before using information for these purposes.
Human staff, contractors or participating lawyers may review transcripts, summaries or enquiry details where reasonably necessary for quality assurance, compliance, support, dispute resolution, referral management, booking management, legal obligations, or service improvement.
Who we share your information with
We share your information with:
- Participating law firms. When you book a paid consultation, the New Zealand lawyer or law firm who claims the referral sees your name, phone number, email address, region, postcode, area of law, urgency, and a summary of your situation. Before a referral is claimed, only de-identified summaries are visible in our marketplace.
- Participating law firms and referral partners connected with the hotline, where this is reasonably necessary to respond to your enquiry, arrange a consultation, manage a referral, or provide follow-up.
- Technology, payment, communications, database, security, analytics, hosting and business-support service providers.
- Third parties where required by law, or where necessary to enforce our legal rights, respond to legal processes, protect our systems, investigate misuse, or manage complaints or disputes.
If you tell us how we did, we may pass your name, email address and booking reference to Trustpilot so it can invite you to post a review.
We do not sell your personal information to anyone.
Where your information is stored, and disclosure outside New Zealand
Platfirm AI Pty Ltd is based in Australia. Your information is held by us in Australia and may be processed by our service providers in Australia, the United States and other countries where they operate, including for transcription, AI processing, communications, payment processing, database hosting, security, compliance, analytics and service delivery.
Our service providers process information only on our behalf and under our instructions. Under the Privacy Act 2020 we remain responsible for personal information that they hold for us.
If we disclose your personal information to a separate organisation outside New Zealand, we do so only where the Privacy Act 2020 allows it under Information Privacy Principle 12 — for example, where the recipient is subject to privacy laws or a binding agreement that provide comparable safeguards, or where you have authorised the disclosure after being told that the recipient may not be required to protect your information in a comparable way.
Confidentiality and legal enquiries
We treat legal enquiry information as confidential. However, Legal Hotline provides general legal information and intake assistance only. Using the hotline does not, by itself, create a lawyer-client relationship with Platfirm AI Pty Ltd, Legal Hotline, or any participating lawyer or law firm.
A lawyer-client relationship is only created when a New Zealand lawyer or law firm formally agrees to act for you.
If you book or request a paid consultation, relevant information from your enquiry may be shared with the lawyer or law firm for the purpose of assessing your matter, arranging the consultation, and providing legal services.
How long we keep your information
The Privacy Act 2020 requires us not to keep personal information for longer than it is needed for the purposes for which it may lawfully be used. We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.
Our usual retention periods are:
- Active matters: while the matter is in progress, plus 12 months after closure
- Booking records: 7 years, including for taxation and accounting requirements
- Transcripts, enquiry summaries and intake records: for as long as reasonably necessary for intake, referral, compliance, quality assurance, complaint handling, dispute resolution, legal obligations and business records
- De-identified analytics: indefinitely
We may retain information for longer where reasonably necessary to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, investigate misuse, respond to complaints, enforce our rights, protect our systems, or deal with actual or anticipated legal claims.
Security and privacy breaches
We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure. These steps may include access controls, technical security measures, contractual confidentiality obligations, internal policies, monitoring, and limits on who can access transcripts and enquiry records.
If a privacy breach happens that is likely to cause serious harm to anyone, we will notify the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and, where the Privacy Act 2020 requires it, the people affected.
No system is completely secure. You should not provide information to Legal Hotline unless you are comfortable with it being handled in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Your rights
Under the Privacy Act 2020 you have the right to ask for access to the personal information we hold about you (Information Privacy Principle 6) and to ask us to correct it (Information Privacy Principle 7). If we decline to make a correction you have asked for, you may ask us to attach to the information a statement of the correction you sought.
To exercise these rights, email us at admin@platfirm.ai. We may need to verify your identity. We will respond as soon as reasonably practicable, and no later than 20 working days after receiving your request.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz.
Messages we send you
We send SMS and email messages about your enquiry, booking or consultation, including a message asking how we did. Any marketing message we send will comply with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007, including giving you a way to unsubscribe.
Cookies
Our website uses cookies for session management, security, analytics and service improvement. You can disable cookies in your browser settings, but some features of the site may not work properly.
Updates to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page reflects the most recent change. Material changes will be communicated through our website.
Contact
Platfirm AI Pty Ltd
ABN 24 679 859 744
Level 17 & 18, International Tower 3, 300 Barangaroo Avenue, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia
Website: nz.legal-hotline.com
Email: admin@platfirm.ai