Privacy
Introduction
Building Reports Canada Inc. (“BRC”) is committed to providing the best service in the mobile collection, analysis, and reporting of building inspection data. Because we respect your right to privacy, we have developed this Acceptable Use and Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) to inform you about our privacy practices, and the acceptable use of any data gathered in relation to the use of the sites www.buildingreports.com and www.buildingreports.ca (the “BRC Website”) or Authorized Member Services (“Services”) that can be used to directly or indirectly distinguish, identify, or contact a specific individual (“Personal Information”). BRC may collect and store Personal Information to provide access and use of its services.
The Scope of this Privacy Policy
In keeping with our commitment to your privacy, this Privacy Policy will apply to:
- The information BRC collects, uses, and discloses
- How the information we gather is used and to whom it is disclosed
- Your ability to opt-out of future notifications and withdraw consent
- Security procedures in place to protect your information from loss, misuse, or alteration
Overview
Privacy is of great concern to most users of the Internet, and is a critical part of an enjoyable and satisfactory user experience. We at BRC are acutely aware of and are sensitive to the privacy concerns of our members and other visitors to our website. Whether you are a member of BRC or a visitor to our site, we assure you that we do not collect personal information from you unless you provide it to us. If you are enrolling in a BRC membership, you will be asked to provide certain Personal Information. Please note that we are asking for this information for the limited purpose of creating user accounts from which we will track the collection of building and inspection data from your organization and provide other related services. You should also be assured that we do not disclose or sell information about our members or site visitors to any third parties without your consent.
Application
This Privacy Policy applies to all information collected by BRC for the purpose of using and accessing the BRC Website and any Authorized Services. Each of our members, partners and affiliates maintains its own privacy policy that may be viewed on their respective websites. We strive to provide our members and visitors with the highest level of privacy possible, and therefore require that our members, partners and affiliates offer no less protection than that offered in this Privacy Policy and as otherwise required by law. In addition, each of our affiliates must meet the data protection requirements of Canadian and other relevant national laws.
Information We Gather from You
Personal Information
We do not collect any Personal Information from a visitor to the BRC Website unless that visitor explicitly and intentionally provides it. Under no circumstances do we collect any sensitive personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health, or sexual orientation. If you are simply browsing our site, we do not gather any personal information about you.
Personal Information will only be collected for the specific purposes identified by BRC and consented to at the time of collection or as otherwise outlined in this Privacy Policy.
Consent to the Collection of Personal Information
BRC collects, uses, and discloses Personal Information with only the valid legal consent of the representative individual, except as otherwise permitted by law. There are two ways in which you may explicitly and intentionally provide us with, and consent to, our collection of certain personal information:
- E-Mail Request for Information - We use links throughout our site to provide you with the opportunity to contact us via e-mail to ask questions, request information and materials, or provide comments and suggestions. You may also be offered the opportunity to have one of our representatives contact you personally to provide information about our products or services. To do so, we may request additional personal information from you, such as your name and telephone number, to help us satisfy your request.
- Enrollment - If you choose to enroll for one of our products or services, we will request certain information from you. Depending on the type of product or service that you request, you may be asked to provide different Personal Information. For certain products and services, we may require your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, credit card number, and bank account information. Other products and services may require different or supplemental information from you in order to complete your transaction. For a detailed list of the type of personal information requested for our various products, please refer to the Organization setup online.
By becoming a member, maintaining a membership, corresponding with BRC, or otherwise receiving the Services provided by BRC, you consent to the BRC’s collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy.
New Consent Required
In the event that Personal Information is required for a new purpose, BRC will disclose the new purpose and request consent to collect Personal Information.
When No Consent is Provided or Consent is Withdrawn
Although not legally required to provide Personal Information, BRC reserves the right to withhold or deny services where the appropriate Personal Information is not provided to carry out the purpose in question.
Accuracy of Collected Information
BRC implements policies and procedures to ensure that the Personal Information in its possession is accurate, complete, and up-to-date. Members and other users can submit updates to their Personal Information to BRC’s Privacy Officer at any time or can edit their member profile via the BRC Website. Any changes to Personal Information used by third parties or Affiliates will also be updated of any new changes.
Withdrawal of Consent
Members and other users (including the Member’s Authorized Users) can withdraw their consent to the collection, use, and disclosure of their Personal Information at any time by contacting BRC and informing the BRC Privacy Officer at 416.483.2895 or emailing info@BuildingReports.ca of their request.
Access to Personal Information
An individual may request access to their Personal Information held by BRC about themselves at any time. BRC will respond to requests for access promptly and within the legally mandated time frame subject to any refusals required by law. Any refusals to grant access will be accompanied by associated reasons and information regarding available recourse. Requests for access to personal information can be directed to the BRC Privacy Officer at 416.483.2895 or via email info@BuildingReports.ca.
Retention of Personal Information
BRC retains Personal Information only for as long as needed to perform the purposes identified in this Privacy Policy. Once Personal Information is no longer required for the purpose for which it was collected, BRC applies all commercially reasonable safeguards to safely and securely destroy said Personal Information.
De-identification of Personal Information
BRC may de-identify and aggregate information it collects by removing any identifier of a specific individual or property from Personal Information, such that it no longer falls within the definition of Personal Information (“De-identified Information”). De-identified Information may be retained and used by BRC for the purposes of reporting and analyzing data collected in connection with its products, services, and website. BRC may share De-identified Information and resulting reports and analyses publicly and with other third parties.
BRC Websites
BRC provides public information and access to its membership services via its websites www.buildingreports.com and www.buildingreports.ca.
Statistical Information About Your Visit
When you visit our site, our computers may automatically collect statistics about your visit. This information does not identify you personally, but rather about a visit to our site. We may monitor statistics such as how many people visit our site, the user's IP address, which pages people visit, from which domains our visitors come, and which browsers people use. We use these statistics about your visit only to help us improve the performance of our Website.
Use of Cookies
We only use "cookies" as described in this section. A "cookie" is a piece of information that our Website sends to your browser, which then stores this information on your system. Cookies are required to provide access the BRC Website and maintain the login state for a particular Authorized User account. When your browser window is closed, however, the cookie is automatically deleted from your system. You should be aware that cookies contain no more information than you volunteer, and they are not able to "invade" your hard drive and return to the sender any personal or other information from your computer.
A user has the option to restrict or deny the use of cookies on the BRC Website through their browser settings; however, this may result in the inability to access or adequate use the membership services and otherwise interfere with the use of the website.
Linked Third Party Websites
Please note that our site contains links to third party sites. BRC is not responsible for the privacy practices, privacy statements, acceptable use policies, or any other content regarding these other sites.
Purposes for Which BRC Collects Information
We assure you that the information we gather from you is used only by us for the following purposes:
- Sending You Responses and Updates
We respond to any e-mail questions, request for product or service information, and other inquiries that we receive. We may also retain this correspondence to improve our products, services, website, and for other disclosed purposes. Frequently we retain contact information so that we can send individuals updates or other important information about our services and products. Occasionally third parties, on our behalf, may send out these updates or other important information. Please be assured that any third party who contacts you in this capacity has executed a confidentiality agreement with us that contains a provision ensuring the privacy and security of any transferred information and limits the third party's use of the shared information to sending updates or providing services on our behalf. - Facilitating the Support, Renewal, and Purchase of our Products and Services
The information provided by you through the web site forms may be used to contact you to discuss the support, renewal, and purchase of our products and services. We may also provide the information you have submitted on the web site forms to a Building Reports Canada subsidiary, business partner, representative, or Affiliate (either within or outside of Canada) so that the subsidiary, business partner, representative or Affiliate can contact you and facilitate the support, renewal, and purchase of Building Reports Canada products and services. Please be assured that any subsidiary, business partner, representative or Affiliate who contacts you for one of these purposes has agreed to use the information we supply only in accordance with a confidentiality agreement.
BRC will not share this inspection data with any other members, partners, representatives, third parties or affiliates. Your building inspection data is considered proprietary and confidential to your organization. - Processing Payments
If payments are processed through credit card or electronic funds transfer, we may provide your personal information to appropriate financial institutions, processors, and third parties under contract with BRC or our Affiliates for providing a subset of the payment services (for example, tax calculations and fraud screening). In each case, the distribution of your Personal Information will be used by such entity for its internal use related to fulfilling the transaction services for BRC, will be treated as confidential by this entity, and will be transferred between BRC and this entity only via encrypted means. Credit card data will be handled in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). - If We Are Required to Disclose by Law
If we are required by law to disclose certain information to any government or law enforcement authority, we will do so. - Surveys
From time-to-time, we may request information from our members via surveys. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether to disclose this information. Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use of and satisfaction with the BRC Website.
Your Ability to Opt-Out of Further Notifications
From time-to-time, we notify our members of new products, announcements, upgrades, and updates. If you would like to opt-out of being notified, please contact us via email info@buildingreports.ca or at our mailing address 260 Church Street, Suite 203 Oakville, ON L6J 1N6.
Our Security Procedures and Safeguards
We consider the protection of all inspection data and personally identifiable information we receive from our website visitors and members as critical to our corporate mission. Please be assured that we have security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of any information we receive from you in accordance with applicable law.
- Procedural Safeguards: BRC maintains physical, electrical, and procedural safeguards in connection with the collection, disclosure, storage, and use of Personal Information. Proof of identity may be required upon request to disclose Personal Information to you. Members and other users should protect against of their Personal Information through safeguarding their passwords and devices.
- Technological Safeguards: As with any transmission over the Internet, however, there is always some element of risk involved in sending personal information. To try and minimize this risk, we encrypt all information that you submit in the ordering of one of our products or services and when requesting or viewing inspection reports. This encryption uses the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. We adhere to the PCI DSS When handling credit card data as described above under “Processing Payments”.
- Personnel Safeguards: BRC’s employees who have access to Personal Information receive privacy training and are required to respect the confidentiality of such information pursuant to their employment agreement with BRC. Restrictions to access to Personal Information at the personnel level include restricted access to physical locations in which Personal Information is held, as well as technological protections (e.g., passwords). Disclosure and access to Personal information by personnel is limited to the extent required to reasonable fulfill the specific purposes for which it was provided.
Notification of a Security Breach
In the event of a security breach of the abovementioned safeguards involving Personal Information in BRC’s control presents a real risk of significant harm, notice of the breach will be provided without undue delay to the affected individual(s).
Changes to this Privacy Policy
If a material change is made to this Privacy Policy and/or the way we use our members' personally identifiable information or inspection data, we will post prominent notice of the nature of such changes on the first page of this policy.
Questions, Complaints, and Requests regarding this Privacy Policy
Questions, complaints, or requests for further information regarding this policy or our practices related to Personal Information should be directed to the Privacy Officer info@buildingreports.ca Please specify "Acceptable Use and Privacy Policy" in the subject line of your email. All complaints we receive related to Personal Information are investigated.
End of Acceptable Use and Privacy Policy last updated July 26, 2022.