How we protect your personal information

This policy describes the website’s information handling, including public enquiries and the restricted staff workspace. In this draft, “the practice”, “we” and “our” refer to the practice responsible for this website. Its legal identity and privacy contact must be confirmed before final approval.

A legal matter may involve additional information, documents and professional record-keeping obligations. Those arrangements will be explained separately when the practice agrees to act for you. This website is not a client case-file or document-upload portal.

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2 October 2026

1. About this policy

Chua Tan Associates ("we", "us", "our") is a law firm based in Melbourne, Victoria. Our clients trust us with sensitive information about their families, businesses and futures, and we take that trust seriously.

This policy explains how we collect, use, store and disclose personal information, and how you can access or correct your information or make a complaint. We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). As lawyers, we are also bound by strict duties of confidentiality and legal professional privilege, which in many cases give your information greater protection than privacy law alone.

This policy applies to information collected through this website, our online tools and courses, our consultations and Immigration Strategy Reports, and our legal services generally.

2. What personal information we collect

The information we collect depends on why you contact us and the services you use. It may include:

• Identity and contact details: your name, date of birth, gender, address, phone number, email address and WeChat or other messaging ID

• Identity documents: passports, visas, birth and marriage certificates, national identity cards and other government-issued documents

• Immigration history: current and previous visas, travel history, immigration applications, refusals or cancellations, and correspondence with the Department of Home Affairs

• Education and employment: qualifications, transcripts, English test results, skills assessments, employment history, references and CVs

• Family details: information about your partner, children, parents and other relatives, including information about relationships for partner and family visa applications

• Financial and business information: income, assets, business ownership, financial statements, tax records and, for employers, business and sponsorship records

• Payment details: information needed to process payments for our services. Card payments are processed by our payment provider, and we do not store full card details

• Website and technical information: IP address, browser type, pages visited and how you use our website, tools and courses

Sensitive information

Some visa and legal matters require us to collect sensitive information. This may include:

• health information, for example for health requirements or waivers

• criminal history and character information

• racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs or political opinions, for example in protection visa matters

• information about family violence

We collect sensitive information only with your consent, or where the law otherwise permits it, and only when it is reasonably necessary for the services we provide to you.

Information about other people

If you give us information about another person, such as a family member, partner, employee or business partner, please make sure they know you are providing it to us and that they can contact us about this policy. Where a matter involves children, we collect their information from their parent or guardian.

3. How we collect personal information

We collect personal information directly from you where possible, including when you:

• submit an enquiry or contact form, or contact us by phone, email, WeChat or in person

• book or attend a consultation

• order an Immigration Strategy Report or enrol in an online course

• use our free online tools

• provide documents and instructions as our client

We may also collect information from third parties where this is reasonable and necessary, for example:

• your employer or sponsor, migration agents or other professional advisers

• government agencies, tribunals and courts

• skills assessment bodies

• publicly available sources

If you would prefer not to identify yourself, you may make a general enquiry anonymously or using a pseudonym. However, we cannot provide legal advice or act for you without knowing who you are.

4. Why we collect and use personal information

We collect, hold and use personal information to:

• assess your enquiry and provide consultations, reports and legal services

• prepare and lodge visa, citizenship, sponsorship and other applications on your behalf

• represent you before government agencies, tribunals and courts

• check for conflicts of interest and verify your identity

• deliver our online courses and tools

• issue invoices and process payments

• communicate with you about your matter

• meet our legal and professional obligations, including record-keeping, anti-money laundering, and regulatory and insurance requirements

• improve our website, services and client experience

• send you updates and news about immigration law and our services, where you have agreed to receive them

We will not use your personal information for any other purpose without your consent, unless the law permits or requires it.

5. Our online tools and courses

Our free online tools use the information you enter to produce general estimates and checklists, such as indicative points scores or document lists. These results are generated automatically and are for general guidance only. They do not determine your eligibility for any visa, and we do not make decisions that significantly affect you based solely on automated processing.

Our online courses provide general information only and are not legal advice. When you enrol, we collect your name, contact details and payment information, and our course platform may record your progress through the course.

6. Who we may disclose your information to

We disclose personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected, or as otherwise permitted by law. Depending on your matter, this may include:

• the Department of Home Affairs and other Australian government agencies

• tribunals and courts, including the Administrative Review Tribunal

• skills assessment bodies, state and territory nominating authorities, and education providers

• your employer or sponsor, where relevant to your application and with your instructions

• barristers, translators, interpreters, medical practitioners, valuers and other professionals we engage on your behalf

• other parties to a matter and their lawyers, as required in the course of acting for you

• our service providers, including IT, cloud storage, practice management, payment processing, email, website and course platform providers

• our professional indemnity insurers, auditors and regulators, where required

We require our service providers to keep your information confidential and to use it only to provide services to us.

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information.

7. Disclosure overseas

Many of our clients have family, businesses and advisers outside Australia. We may disclose personal information overseas where:

• you instruct us to communicate with your family members, employers, lawyers or other advisers overseas

• documents need to be obtained, verified or certified in another country

• our service providers store data on servers located outside Australia

Where we use overseas service providers, we take reasonable steps to make sure they handle your information in a way that is consistent with the APPs.

8. Marketing communications

With your consent, we may send you newsletters, immigration updates and information about our services. You can unsubscribe at any time by using the link in our emails or by contacting us. We will not use your sensitive information for marketing.

9. Cookies and website analytics

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to help it function, remember your preferences and understand how visitors use the site. You can disable cookies through your browser settings, although some parts of the website may not work properly.

10. How we store and protect your information

We hold personal information in electronic and paper form. We take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, including:

• secure, access-controlled IT systems

• secure storage for physical files

• confidentiality obligations for all staff and service providers

Because no method of transmitting information over the internet is completely secure, we encourage you to take care when sending sensitive documents and to contact us if you would prefer a more secure method.

We keep client files for as long as required by law and our professional obligations, which is generally at least seven years after a matter ends. After that, we securely destroy or de-identify information we no longer need.

11. Data breaches

If a data breach is likely to result in serious harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

12. Accessing and correcting your information

You may ask to access the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct information that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. Please contact us in writing. We will respond within a reasonable time, usually within 30 days.

In limited circumstances, we may refuse access, for example where providing it would breach legal professional privilege or another person's privacy. If we refuse, we will explain why in writing.

13. Complaints

If you have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer in writing. We will investigate your complaint and respond within a reasonable time, usually within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner:

• Website: www.oaic.gov.au

• Phone: 1300 363 992

14. Contact us

Privacy Officer
Chua Tan Associates
Level 2, 262 Queen Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: +61 3 9602 3988
Email: chuatan@tpg.com.au

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version will always be available on our website, with the date it was last updated.

When you use this website, we may collect personal information that you choose to give us, along with some technical information collected automatically.

If you submit an enquiry or consultation request, we collect the details you enter in the form. These include your name, phone number, email address, the service you are interested in, and any information you include about your situation. If you request an Immigration Strategy Report, we also collect the scope information you provide, such as your current visa, location, occupation and goals.

If you use our free online tools, such as the PR Points Calculator or the Partner Visa Consultation Guide, the tools use the information you enter to produce an estimate or checklist. If you choose to send your results to us, we collect those results with your enquiry so that we can prepare for your consultation. [If tool answers are stored even when not sent, explain that here.]

If you enrol in an online course, our course platform collects your name, email address and payment information, and records your progress through the course. Card payments are processed by our payment provider, and we do not store your full card details.

We also collect technical information about how you use the website, such as your IP address, browser type, device, the pages you visit and how you arrived at the site. We collect this through cookies and analytics tools, including [analytics provider, e.g. Google Analytics]. We use it to keep the website secure, understand how visitors use it and improve our content and services. It is generally not used to identify you personally.

Please do not send confidential or time-sensitive documents through the website until we have confirmed that we can act for you. Sending an enquiry does not create a lawyer–client relationship.

Some immigration and legal matters require us to collect sensitive information. This may include health information, criminal history and character information, information about family violence, or, in protection visa matters, information about your racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs or political opinions.

We collect sensitive information only with your consent, or where the law otherwise permits it, and only when it is reasonably necessary to provide our services to you. We use it only for the purpose for which it was provided, and we never use it for marketing.

When you first contact us through the website, please give only a brief summary of your situation. You do not need to include sensitive details, identity documents or medical records in an enquiry. We will let you know what information we need, and how to provide it securely, once we have confirmed that we can act for you.

If you give us information about another person, such as a partner, family member, employee or business partner, please make sure they know you are providing it to us and that they can contact us about this policy.

Everything you tell us is also protected by our duty of confidentiality as lawyers. If you have concerns about sharing particular information, please speak with us before sending it.

Our free online tools, including the PR Points Calculator and the Partner Visa Consultation Guide, help you prepare for a consultation. They use the information you enter to produce an estimate, a summary or a checklist of documents you are likely to need.

The results are generated automatically and are for general guidance only. They do not determine your eligibility for any visa, and they are not legal advice. We do not make decisions that significantly affect you based solely on the automated results of these tools. A lawyer always reviews your circumstances before giving advice.

If answers are not stored: The information you enter is processed in your browser to produce your results and is not stored by us unless you choose to send it.

If you choose to send your results with an enquiry, we collect them, along with your contact details, so that we can prepare for your consultation. We handle that information in the same way as any other enquiry under this policy.

You do not need to enter your name or other identifying details to use the tools, and you can use them without sending us anything.

We use the personal information we collect to respond to your enquiry, arrange and conduct consultations, prepare Immigration Strategy Reports, and provide our legal services. This includes preparing and lodging applications on your behalf, representing you before government agencies, tribunals and courts, and communicating with you about your matter.

We also use personal information to check for conflicts of interest, verify your identity, issue invoices and process payments, deliver our online courses, and meet our legal, regulatory and professional obligations. With your consent, we may send you immigration updates and information about our services. You can unsubscribe at any time.

We share personal information only where it is needed for the purpose it was collected, or where the law permits or requires it. Depending on your matter, this may include the Department of Home Affairs and other government agencies, tribunals and courts, skills assessment bodies, state and territory nominating authorities, your employer or sponsor, and barristers, translators, interpreters and other professionals we engage on your behalf.

We also use trusted service providers to run our practice and this website, including IT, cloud storage, email, payment, course and analytics providers. We require them to keep your information confidential and to use it only to provide services to us. Some of these providers, and some of the people we deal with on your behalf, may be located outside Australia. Where this happens, we take reasonable steps to make sure your information is handled in a way that is consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles.

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information.

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies, such as browser storage, to help it work properly and to understand how visitors use it. Cookies are small files that a website stores on your device. Browser storage allows the website to remember information on your device between visits.

We use essential cookies and browser storage to keep the website secure, remember your preferences such as your chosen language, and keep the details you enter in forms and tools while you complete them. Without these, some parts of the website may not work properly.

We also use analytics tools, including [analytics provider, e.g. Google Analytics], to collect information about how visitors use the website. This includes the pages you visit, how long you spend on them, the device and browser you use, and how you arrived at the site. We use this information in aggregate to improve our content and services. It is generally not used to identify you personally.

We may also use advertising cookies, such as those provided by Google Ads / Meta, to measure the effectiveness of our advertising and show relevant advertisements to people who have visited our website.

You can control or delete cookies and browser storage through your browser settings, and most browsers let you block cookies altogether. If you block or delete them, some parts of the website may not work as intended. You can also opt out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.

We use trusted third-party service providers to help us run our practice and this website. These include providers of IT and cloud storage, practice management software, email, website hosting, online forms, payment processing, our online course platform, and website analytics.

These providers may handle personal information on our behalf, but only to provide services to us. We require them to keep your information confidential, protect it with appropriate security measures, and not use it for their own purposes.

Some of our service providers store or process information on servers located outside Australia. Many of our clients also have family members, employers, advisers and documents overseas, and with your instructions we may need to send information to them. As a result, personal information may be disclosed to recipients in countries.

Before disclosing personal information overseas, we take reasonable steps to make sure the recipient handles it in a way that is consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles, except where you have consented to the disclosure or the law otherwise permits it.

If you have questions about which service providers we use or where your information may be stored, please contact us.

We hold personal information in electronic and paper form. We take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These steps include secure, access-controlled IT systems, secure storage for physical files, and confidentiality obligations for all of our staff and service providers.

No method of sending information over the internet is completely secure. Please take care when sending sensitive documents, and contact us if you would prefer a more secure way to provide them.

If a data breach is likely to result in serious harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected, or as long as the law and our professional obligations require. Client files are generally kept for at least seven years after a matter ends. Enquiries that do not proceed to an engagement are kept for one week. When we no longer need personal information, we securely destroy it or de-identify it.

You may ask to access the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct information that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. Please contact us in writing. We will respond within a reasonable time, usually within 30 days, and we may need to verify your identity before releasing any information.

In limited circumstances, we may refuse access. For example, we may refuse where providing the information would breach legal professional privilege or another person's privacy. If we refuse, we will explain why in writing and tell you how you can complain.

If you have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer in writing and give us details of your concern. We will investigate and respond within a reasonable time, usually within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at www.oaic.gov.au or by calling 1300 363 992.

Privacy Officer
Chua Tan Associates
Level 2, 262 Queen Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: +61 3 9602 3988
Email: chuatan@tpg.com.au

If you have any questions about this policy, or about how we handle your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer:

Privacy Officer
Chua Tan Associates
Level 2, 262 Queen Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: +61 3 9602 3988
Email: chuatan@tpg.com.au

We can respond in English, Mandarin or Cantonese.

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in the law, our services or the way we handle personal information. The current version will always be available on this website, with the date it was last updated. If we make significant changes, we will take reasonable steps to let you know, for example by placing a notice on this website.

This policy was last updated on 3 October 2026.