In the course of doing business, Wildeboer Dellelce (“WD”) collects personal information for various reasons. WD recognizes the importance of an individual’s privacy and appreciates the sensitivity of an individual’s personal information. As lawyers, we have a professional obligation to keep confidential all information we receive within a lawyer-client relationship. Moreover, from January 1, 2004, all businesses engaged in commercial activities in Canada must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”) and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information, which it incorporates. These obligations extend to lawyers and law firms. We are committed to protecting any personal information we hold and to complying with PIPEDA and the Privacy Act.
This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, maintain and secure all personal information and answers frequently asked questions in respect thereof.
What is Personal Information?
“Personal information” means any information about an identifiable individual, but does not include the name, title, business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization. Essentially, personal information is any information that identifies you, or by which your identity could be deduced, including such information as your address, age, name, gender, ID numbers, income and ethnic origin.
From time to time, WD will need to collect personal information to provide our legal services. In addition to collecting personal information directly from an individual, we may collect information about an individual from a variety of other parties in the course of providing legal services, including financial advisors, accountants, other legal advisors, consultants, government agencies or registries, parties involved in a transaction, employers, insurance companies and medical professionals.
How Does WD Collect Personal Information?
WD collects information only by lawful and fair means and not in an unreasonably intrusive way. Whenever possible we collect your personal information directly from you at the start of a retainer and in the course of our representation. We may obtain information about you from sources such as the following:
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Stock exchange personal information forms |
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Retainer agreements |
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Direct written communication by mail, fax or email |
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Searches of public records |
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Verbal communication at interviews and client meetings |
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Directors’ and Officers’ Questionnaires |
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Information from existing or proposed agreements, contracts, records and files |
What Types of Personal Information Does WD Collect?
In the course of providing legal services, WD may collect various personal information about you, including the following:
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Name |
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Telephone/fax numbers |
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Postal/email addresses |
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Social insurance number |
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Driver’s license number |
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Passport number and issuing country |
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Income and other compensation |
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Age, date and place of birth |
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Citizenship and residency |
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Marital status |
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Name, address and occupation of spouse |
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Intentions (change of employment, claims, proceedings, business plans) |
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Employment history |
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Education history |
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Residential history |
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Credit records |
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Financial records |
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Medical records |
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Criminal records |
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Proceedings/claims, judgments, injunctions |
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Securities holdings |
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Affiliations with organizations (e.g. directorships) |
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Names of immediate family members, or trust/estate beneficiaries |
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Personal assets |
Why Does WD Collect Personal Information?
WD uses your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you, to administer our legal practice (such as time and billing databases) and to include you in direct marketing activities. In providing our legal services, we will collect your personal information for a variety of reasons, such as the following:
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To submit to regulatory agencies to conduct background and security checks |
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To comply with regulatory agency disclosure requirements (e.g. SEDI) |
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To conduct searches, e.g. PPSA, bankruptcy |
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To verify our records |
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To consider suitability/eligibility to act as an officer, director, employee or consultant of an entity involved in a transaction for which we provide legal services |
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To establish and manage client relationships |
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To provide legal advice, perform legal services and fulfill legal duties |
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To establish and maintain commercial relationships with clients |
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To collect and process payments |
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Potential litigation |
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Marketing purposes, e.g. mailings for social events and to distribute newsletters |
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To use in working group lists |
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Employee applications |
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Record keeping, statistics and our financials |
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To prevent fraud and money laundering |
If you do not wish to receive any mailings from WD, you may notify WD’s Privacy Officer and we will discontinue mailings to you. WD does not disclose your personal information to any third party to enable them to market their products and services.
Access and Updating Your Information
You may ask for access to any personal information we hold about you at any time.
Since we use your personal information to provide legal services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up-to-date. If, during the course of the retainer, any of your information changes, please inform us so that we can make any necessary changes.
Disclosure of Personal Information
At times, WD has an obligation to disclose certain personal information as follows:
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when we are required or authorized by law to do so, for example if a court issues a subpoena; |
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when you have consented to the disclosure; |
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when the legal services we are providing to you requires us to give your information to third parties (for example a lender in a real estate mortgage transaction), in which case your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise; |
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where it is necessary to establish or collect fees; |
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if we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us (like computer back-up services or archival file storage); |
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if we retain other law firms in other jurisdictions, on your behalf; |
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if the information is already publicly known. |
When required to disclose personal information to third parties in order to fulfill service obligations to its clients, WD will ensure that such information will only be used for the purposes of completing the required task.
Personal information that is maintained by WD is physically stored in the following locations and is kept indefinitely:
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Client files which are located in filing cabinets, desks, private offices, WD’s file room and offsite storage |
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Transaction record books which are located in WD’s file room and offsite storage |
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Computer system |
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Diskettes and CD-ROM’s |
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Blackberries |
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Firm laptops |
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Fax and Photocopiers (limited memory) |
The personal information that WD maintains may be accessible to all members of WD. In addition, in certain circumstances, personal information may be accessible to the following providers of services to WD:
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Iron Mountain and other similar storage companies |
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Kwik Copy, The Printing House, commercial printers such as Bowne and Quebecor and similar service providers |
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Searchers |
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Conveyancers |
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Translators |
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Outside lawyers acting as agents |
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Fax and Photocopier service people who can access memory |
All of the above are bound by their individual privacy policies so when WD enlists any of these services, your privacy continues to be safeguarded in accordance with their respective privacy policies.
Correcting Errors
If WD holds information about you and you can establish that it is not accurate, complete and up-to-date, WD will take reasonable steps to correct it.
Can I be Denied Access to My Personal Information?
Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute. WD may deny you access to your personal information when:
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required or authorized by law (for example, when a record containing personal information about you is subject to a claim of legal professional privilege by one of our clients); |
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information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings against you; |
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when granting you access would have an unreasonable impact on other people’s privacy; |
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when to do so would prejudice negotiations with you; |
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to protect our firm’s rights and property; or |
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where the request is frivolous or vexatious |
If we deny your request for access, or refuse a request to correct information, we shall explain why.
Safeguarding Your Personal Information
WD takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is safeguarded. Among the steps WD takes to protect personal information are: using passwords to log on to computers; using security codes on all doors gaining entrance to the firm where personal information is stored; firewalls and other security software to prevent unauthorized entry into our databases; confirming that third party service providers who might have access to personal information comply with privacy laws; and the implementation of this Privacy Policy amongst all members of WD, advising that this Privacy Policy must be strictly adhered to.
Employment Inquiries
If you apply to WD for a job, we need to consider your personal information as part of our review process. We normally retain information from candidates after a decision has been made, unless you ask us not to retain the information. If we offer you a job, which you accept, the information will be retained in accordance with our privacy procedures for employee records.
Consent
In most cases, your specific consent to the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information will be sought. However, any time you provide personal information to WD, it is understood that you have consented to the collection, use and disclosure of such personal information subject to the terms set out in this Privacy Policy. You may refuse or withdraw consent but, in so doing, you must be aware that certain services and information provided by WD will be impeded.
If any personal information about another individual is provided to WD by you, it is understood that you have obtained all required consents and authorizations to do so.
We note that while we take the utmost care in protecting the privacy of our clients, we do not assume responsibility for any information that has been obtained by theft, via email or other illegal means. You should be aware that whenever you disclose personal information online, that information may be intercepted, collected and used by an outside party.
Website
WD collects information through our website which you provide to us of your own accord when you submit forms or send us an email message using the links found on our website. We also collect personal information when you subscribe to our newsletter by using the newsletter subscription link on our website. This information includes, but may not be limited to, your full name and email address.
WD’s web server uses cookies to track visitors to our website. A cookie is a text record of your visit sent to your browser and placed on your hard drive that identifies some technical characteristics of your browser so that our web server can remember information about you for future visits to our website . WD’s web server also creates a session (temporary) cookie, stored on the web server for the duration of your visit only, which tracks your activities while you are browsing. Once you leave WD’s website, this information is discarded from our server. The cookies do not contain any personally identifiable information.
WD’s web server uses cookies and session cookies to record technical information which is anonymous and does not identify you personally. This information is compiled in the aggregate and may include the Internet Service Provider (ISP) you are using, the domain you are visiting from, the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer you are using to access our website, the date and time you visited the website, which pages were visited on our website, and how long you stayed on each page . This information is collected to help us compile demographic information about the users who visit our website and to help us diagnose problems with our servers in order to improve the design and features of our website .
Date
This Privacy Policy is current as of the date indicated at the top of the policy. WD reserves the right to change certain aspects of this Privacy Policy but not anything that must remain the same in compliance with the law.
If, at any time, changes to this Privacy Policy are made, we will post such changes on our website. Our Privacy Officer will provide a copy of such revised Privacy Policy upon request.
Inquiries and Requests for Access
If you have any further questions or inquiries with respect to our Privacy Policy, or wish to access your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer in writing at:
Suite 800
Wildeboer Dellelce Place
365 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5H 2V1
Attention: Privacy Officer
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