Pension Planning Centre – Privacy Principles and Practices (“the Policy”)
At Pension Planning Centre (PPC), we respect your privacy
Privacy legislation is relatively recent but, for years, PPC has safeguarded the sensitive personal information of its customers. Protecting your personal information and respecting your privacy is important to us. As a financial services firm, the collection and use of personal information is fundamental to our business. Equally important is your trust in our handling of your personal information.
Pension Planning Centre Privacy Policy
- The Ten Privacy Principles
- What our customers should know about our privacy practices
Ten Privacy Principles
Pension Planning Centre abides by Ten Privacy Principles. These principles are based on the federal government’s privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.
- Accountability: We are responsible for personal information under our control.
- Identifying purposes: The purposes for which personal information is collected will be identified by us or through our, or your, authorized representatives.
- Consent: Your consent is required for the collection, use and disclosure of personal information, subject to certain exceptions. Such exceptions are set out in the law and include where legal, medical or security reasons make it impossible or impractical to seek consent. Your consent may be expressed in writing. It may also be given verbally, electronically or through our, or your, authorized representatives. In certain circumstances, it may also be implied.
- Limiting collection: The collection of your personal information must be by fair and lawful means and be limited to that which is necessary for the purposes identified.
- Limiting use, disclosure and retention: Your personal information may only be used or disclosed for the purposes for which it was collected, other purposes you consent to or as required or permitted by law. It may only be kept for as long as is necessary to satisfy the purposes for which it was collected or as required or permitted by law.
- Accuracy: Any personal information that is collected, used or disclosed should be as accurate, complete and as up-to-date as is necessary for the purpose for which it is to be used.
- Safeguards: Personal information shall be protected by security safeguards that are appropriate to the sensitivity of the information, in order to protect your personal information from unwarranted intrusion, release or misuse.
- Openness: Information about our privacy policies of your personal information shall be made available to you.
- Individual access: Upon written request, you will be informed of the existence, use and disclosure of your personal information and you will be given access to it, subject to certain exceptions, as permitted by law. You may also verify the accuracy and completeness of your information and request that it be amended, if appropriate.
- Inquiries and concerns: You may contact us if you have any inquiries or concerns about our privacy policies.
What our customers should know about Pension Planning Centre’s privacy practices
- The information we collect
- What we need to know and why
- Your consent
- Who has access to your information
- Accessing and amending your information
- We are committed to protecting your information
The information we collect
Personal information is information that refers to you, specifically. For any product or service you obtain, we will tell you the purposes for which we need the personal information we collect.
We will use fair and lawful means to collect your personal information. We will only collect information that is pertinent and consistent with the purposes of the collection. Whenever practical, we will collect the required information directly from you in completed applications and forms, through other means of correspondence, such as the telephone, mail or the Internet and through your business dealings with us.
What we need to know and why
We collect information from you and about you, only with your consent or as required or permitted by law. In general, we will collect personal information such as your name, address, telephone number(s) or other identifying information, such as your Social Insurance Number (SIN) or date of birth.
The type of additional information we gather will depend on the type of product or service involved. For example, it would depend on whether the product or service is a request for a loan or a bank account. The information gathered may be financial, which would include such information as occupation and place of employment, annual income, assets and liabilities. It may also include information such as your date of birth or reference numbers of identification documents, such as your passport or other documents.
Generally, we collect, use and disclose your personal information to:
- confirm your identity and to protect both you and us against errors, fraud or other misrepresentations
- evaluate your financial needs and determine the suitability of our services for you
- properly administer the services we provide to you
- comply with a variety of legal requirements, including any tax reporting obligations under the federal Income Tax Act, or the Quebec Act respecting the Ministère du Revenu
- assist us to understand the current and future needs of our customers.
- We will only keep your personal information in our records for as long as it is needed to fulfill the identified purposes or as required or permitted by law.
- Personal information that is no longer required will be destroyed, erased or made anonymous.
When we destroy personal information, we will use safeguards to prevent unauthorized access to the information during the destruction process.
Your Social Insurance Number
There are a number of reasons why we may ask for your Social Insurance Number (SIN).
Where there may be interest income or other income to be reported, your SIN is required by law, in order to meet tax-reporting requirements under the Federal Income Tax Act or the Quebec Act respecting the Ministère du Revenu.
Your consent
We collect, use and share your personal information only for disclosed purposes related to the products and services we offer and only with your consent or as permitted or required by law. Your consent may be expressed in writing or it may be given verbally, electronically, or through our, or your, authorized representative(s), such as your financial services advisor.
Your consent may also be implied or inferred from certain actions. For example, if you present your driver’s license as identification to your advisor, it is understood that you are giving your consent to your advisor with your driver’s license reference number to be kept in our files.
Who has access to your information?
Generally, the disclosure of your personal information will be restricted to those who have a need for, and the right to, the information. Your personal information will only be provided to, or be accessible by:
- Our employees who need the information in the performance of their duties for us
- Our affiliates, to:
- resolve your concerns about any related services with us
- assist in other required investigations
- Service providers who need the information in the performance of their duties for us, and to satisfy their obligations to us
- Credit grantors with whom you have dealings or credit bureaus and personal information agents with respect to your credit or financial history
- Any person or organization to whom you gave consent
- Anyone who is otherwise authorized by law, for example regulators, law and enforcement agencies and other government agencies.
In some cases, your personal information may be provided to these people, organizations and service providers in other provinces or jurisdictions outside Canada and would, therefore, be subject to the laws of those provinces or jurisdictions.
Accessing and amending your information
We will make all reasonable efforts to ensure that any personal information we collect and keep is as accurate, complete and as up-to-date as required for the identified purposes. To do so, we will rely to a large extent on you to provide us with accurate information and to inform us of changes, such as changes in your contact information. You have the right to access and verify your personal information maintained in our files and to request that any factually inaccurate personal information be corrected, if appropriate.
We are committed to protecting your information
We are committed to protecting your personal information from unauthorized access or use by ensuring that the necessary physical, organizational and technological safeguards are in place that are appropriate to the sensitivity of the information. Essentially, this means that personal information is protected:
- Physically, by building security measures and physical barriers
- Organizationally, by our policies and procedures
- Technologically by, for example, where appropriate, the use of passwords encryption, firewalls and anti-virus.
All of our employees, who act on our behalf, are required to abide by our privacy policies.