What is Personal Information?
Personal Information is defined as information about an identifiable individual, but does not include the name, title or business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization. This is a very broad definition and may encompass most types of information held such as race, medical, criminal, employment and financial history. The legislation only applies to information collected, used or disclosed in the course of commercial dealings.
It also includes, for example, an individual's address, telephone number, date of birth, family status, marital status, occupation, medical and health records, assets, liabilities, income, credit rating, credit and payment records, an individual's previous insurance experience including claims history, individual's driving record, policy number and vehicle identity number.
Federal Legislation:
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) sets standards and regulations governing the collection, use and disclosure of personal information by private sector organizations.
This law impacts the way private corporations, federal agencies, not-for-profit organizations and associations handle personal information. At the same time, it clearly establishes a code of practices to ensure that the personal information of Canadians is handled respectfully and privately.
PIPEDA is based on ten principles established by the Canadian Standards Association's Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information (CSA Model Code). These principles were recognized as a Canadian standard in 1996 and address the ways in which organizations should collect, use, and disclose personal information. They also address an individual's right to access his/her personal information and his/her right to have it amended where appropriate.
The federal law was implemented in three stages. The first stage, which came into effect on January 1, 2001, affected federally-regulated organizations including Canadian banks and airlines, and organizations that collect, use, or disclose personal information for profit on an inter-provincial or international basis. On January 1, 2002, this law was extended to cover personal health information. On January 1, 2004, most organizations regardless of their size, which collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activity, became subject to the provisions of this Act.
Provincial Legislation:
The province of Quebec was the first jurisdiction in North America to enact comprehensive personal information protection legislation for the private sector. An Act respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the Private Sector sets out fair information practices for businesses operating in Quebec.
The provinces of Alberta and British Columbia enacted their own privacy laws, the Personal Information Protection Act of British Columbia and the Personal Information Protection Act of Alberta, on January 1, 2004.
As other provinces enact similar legislation, organizations conducting commercial activity within a province will be subject to the provisions of their provincial laws rather than PIPEDA. However, PIPEDA will continue to regulate cross-border, inter-provincial and international trade and commerce.
Our Commitment:
At Commercial Marketing, we are committed to protecting the privacy of our customers. For that reason we have taken, and will continue to take, measures that protect the privacy of personal information and personal health information held by us.
Since we regularly review our policies and practices, your comments are always welcome. We reserve the right to change this Privacy Statement at any time. We encourage you to review our Privacy Statement to make sure that you understand how information that you provide will be used.
Information Collected:
No automatic gathering of personal information is done on this site, including visitors’ names, phone numbers, e-mails or addresses on our e-commerce stores. This type of information is only obtained if supplied voluntarily, usually through contacting us via e-mail, purchasing of products or registering a user account with us. This means that at any specific point of collection you will be aware that your personal information is being collected, the purpose for which it is being collected and that you have a right of access to the information. Commercial Marketing is the sole owner of any information collected from this site. We will never willingly expose information to a third party and will not sell, share, or rent any information to other parties. However, we may release personal information when we believe such release is appropriate in order to comply with the law, for example, in the unlikely event of receiving a subpoena or court order. You can visit our e-commerce stores through the internet without revealing any information about yourself. We only collect your personal information when you knowingly provide it on our sites.
However, we do automatically collect information from your computer's web browser or internet device when you visit www.commercialmarketing.com through the internet. This information includes the amount of time spent on the site by a visitor with a unique internet identifier, the pages visited, the choice of web browser, referring web site and any keywords used to find our site on a search engine web site. These server logs contain no personal information and can only be accessed by Commercial Marketing. Server log files are used solely to track visits to our web site and improve the experience, content and layout of our web site.
From time to time, we may send you email messages about new products or services, site updates, special offers and promotions, or other information of special interest to you. However, if you prefer to ease your email load or just aren't interested in the information, you can opt-out of our email program by simply following the "unsubscribe" instructions contained in each email message.
Correcting, Updating or Deleting Your Personal Information. It may become necessary for you to alter the personally identifiable information we have about you or your account (a new postal code, phone number, title, etc.). We have established simple ways for you to correct, update or remove your personal data.
Technologies Used To Collect and Protect:
Through the use of tools such as secure servers, passwords, firewalls, Secure Socket Layers (SSL), encryption and security software, your personally identifiable information is safeguarded to the maximum extent possible. We take every measure necessary to ensure that your information, including credit transactions and order fulfillment activity, is protected from loss, misuse, alteration or theft while under our control - both online and offline.
Like most standard websites, our website uses log files. These include: Internet Protocol addresses (IP addresses), browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and the number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user movement in the aggregate, and to gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses, etc., are not linked to personally identifiable information.
Web cookies (also known as HTTP cookies, or just cookies) are parcels of text that are sent by a server to a Web browser, and then sent back unchanged by the browser each time it accesses that server. In other words, a cookie is a piece of data stored on a user’s computer that is tied to information about the user. Through the use of the cookie, we can personalize your experience during each visit and save you time online. We are also able to track and target your interests and purchases to better meet your product and service needs. Your browser allows you to reject cookies, if you choose. However, this may limit your ability to fully take advantage of all the functions, features and benefits of our Websites. The cookie is not linked to any personally identifiable information about you and in no way does it compromise your privacy or security. Our websites utilize cookies to enhance your experience while you are browsing or shopping on our sites.
