Privacy Policy

Amendments

From time to time we will review our privacy policy. 

In the event of a change to this policy we will post a notice on our web site.

Personal Information

In this Privacy Policy, "Personal Information" means any information provided to or collected by the firm about an identifiable individual, or an individual whose identity may be inferred or determined from the information.

The Privacy Policy applies regardless of the method of collection and the way the information is stored.

Information where the identity of the individual cannot be known or inferred is not subject to this policy.

This Private Policy applies to the personal information of individual people and does not apply to corporations or other legal entities.

Accountability

As professionals our obligations are governed by the laws of Canada, the laws of the province of Ontario.

We require all staff members that work for us and agents which provide service to our firm and directly or indirectly through us our clients to comply fully with these Privacy Policy obligations.

Information we may collect

We may collect personal information for the purpose of determining whether the firm can enter into an engagement with you.

We may collect personal information in the course of our professional relationship with you.

We may collect personal information that you provide to us about yourself and or some one else associated with your need for the services we provide to you.

In all cases we will hold this information in strict confidence.  We will not reveal this information to anyone unless you expressly or implicitly authorize to do so or where we are compelled to do so in compliance with the law.

Given the nature of the services you may require from us, it is impractical to attempt to list all the various potential types of personal information we may request, collect and store about you.  However, the list below presents some of the types of personal information we may or may not collect from or about you

Your full name; 
Contact information; 
Information required to help establish your identity; 
Information regarding your service requirements, situation, interests, and the work you are asking us to do; 
Your status and history on our mailing list; 
Information regarding organisation(s) you are associated with including owners, clients, and all other parties associated with the organization as touches on the matter we are to assist you with; 
Information regarding you preference which might include but not be limited to your dietary requirements if you become our guest at our office or another function; 
Your payment information; 
Any personal information that you voluntarily provide to us.

In some cases, we collect personal information from third parties such as regulatory and legal authorities, other organizations with whom we or you have dealings, such as government agencies, credit reporting agencies, recruitment agencies, information or service providers, and from publicly available records.  

How might we use your personal information

Regardless of how the information was obtained, the firm will not sell, lease or otherwise trade your personal information.

Below lists some of the ways in which we may use and potentially disclose your personal information;

To establish your identity and fulfill our obligations under ‘Know your client’ rules, anti-money laundering requirements and any other legal obligation; 
Billing; 
Providing you with the services which you have engaged us to provide; 
Internal analytics; 
Internal record keeping; 
Marketing to you if you give us permission to do so; 
To obtain and maintain certifications and accreditations including the requirements of internal and external audits; 
To ensure regulatory compliance, for example to accurately perform conflict checks; 
To help detect fraud or other illegal activity; 
To meet requirements of insurers; 
To help ensure security and for crime prevention; 
Any purpose which is permitted or required by applicable law.

The firm allows certain authorized third-party providers to track and store certain information about visitors to our websites (including domain names, IP addresses and page views as described below).

The firm may disclose your personal information to third parties that we contract with to provide services to us.  These third parties are contracted to strictly adhere to our Privacy Policy with respect to your personal information.

Your personal information might be subject to transfer to another entity in the event of a change in our business structure, for example a merger.  Your personal information will only be transferred to the new entity if that new entity agrees to adhere to at least the standards for privacy we have set out in our Privacy Policy.

Lastly, we may disclose your personal information to carry out any other purpose which we disclose to you and to which you consent. 

Limits on what we collect, what we disclose and how long we retain it

The firm may collect data personal information in many ways and in many forms, for example paper notes, digital notes, email, faxes, phone recordings etc., but only by lawful means, and only for necessary and lawful purposes that have been disclosed to you.

Your personal information will only be retained by the firm for as long as necessary to;

To complete the work that you have engaged us to do on your behalf 
To comply with law 
To address issues that might arise at a later date 

Personal information that is no longer required for these identified purposes will be securely destroyed, deleted or converted to anonymous form. 

Cookies

As an anonymous visitor to our web site we will not collect any personal information from you.  We may record certain analytical information around the event of your visit using cookies, web beacons, pixel tags, log files and other methods to collect information about how our web site is being used.

As you use our web site we may collect the time and date of your engagement with the site, your IP address, type of web browser and the device you are using, your clickstream path through our site, the pages you viewed and the searches you made while on our site, the length of time you spent on each page among other measures.

We collect this information to help us improve our web site and make it more useful to you and to make it a better tool for us to present our skills and abilities to you.

Consent

By providing us with your personal information you have consented to our collection, use and disclosure of that personal information as we have set out in this Privacy Policy.  Do not provide us with any of your personal information if you do not consent to the terms of our Privacy Policy.  

There are some services we cannot offer you if you do not provide us with some of your personal information.

The firm can receive your consent either by your express agreement in the form of a signed document, either digitally or by hand, your verbal acceptance or by your implicit acceptance when you voluntarily provide us your personal information.

If personal information the firm has collected for one purpose is required for another purpose we will disclose that to you and ask for your consent unless the law requires or permits us to use it for this new purpose.

Certain laws might compel or permit the firm to collect, use and or disclose your personal information without your consent.

At any time, you may withdraw your consent to have your personal information collected, used or disclosed.  Withdrawing your consent may prevent us from performing the services that you have engaged us to do.  In some circumstances we will discuss your request with you to help us understand your reasons and for you to understand the implications, if any, of your request. 

Data Security

The firm will protect the personal information we have collected from you from unauthorized, unlawful and inappropriate access and use. We maintain physical, procedural and technical security around your data and its access.

Your personal information may be collected, used, disclosed and or stored outside the jurisdiction in which you live.  Your personal information may be subject to the governmental and law enforcement authorities of the jurisdiction in which it is collected, used, disclosed and or stored.

Access

You have the right to request access to your personal information that we are storing.  If you find errors in that personal information you may request that we make corrections and we will do so, subject to verification of your identity.  If you wish to request access to your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer.

We cannot give you access that would disclose the personal information of another person without the consent of that other person.  We cannot give you access to information that is subject to privilege or other legal restrictions.