Privacy Policy

Last updated: January 29, 2020

Who this Privacy Policy applies to

This Privacy Policy applies to Van York Agency Inc., with registered office address at 151 West Hastings St. Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 1H4, Canada (“Van York”, “we”, “us” or “our”). We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your information in an open and transparent manner. This Privacy Policy sets out how we will collect, handle, store and protect information about you when:

  • providing services to you or our clients;
  • you use “our Website” or;
  • performing any other activities that form part of the operation of our business.

When we refer to “our Website” or “this Website” in this policy, we mean the specific webpages of vanyork.agency. This Privacy Policy also contains information about when we share your personal data with other third parties (for example, our service providers.)

In this Privacy Policy, your information is sometimes called “personal data” or “personal information.” We may also sometimes collectively refer to handling, collecting, protecting and storing your personal information as “processing” such personal information.

What information do we collect?

In the course of providing services to you or our client, and performing due diligence checks in connection with our services (or discussing possible services we might provide,) we will collect or obtain personal data about you. We may also collect personal data from you when you use this Website or through digital interactions with you.

We may collect or obtain such data because you give it to us (for example in a form on our Website,) because other people give that data to us (for example your employer or adviser, or third party service providers that we use to help operate our business) or because it is publicly available.

We may also collect or obtain personal data from you because we observe or infer that data about you from the way you interact with us or others. For example, to improve your experience when you use this Website and ensure that it is functioning effectively, we (or our service providers) may use cookies (small text files stored in a user’s browser) and Web beacons which may collect personal data. Additional information on how we use cookies and other tracking technologies and how you can control these can be found in our cookie notice below.

The personal data that we collect or obtain may include but is not limited to: your name; age; date of birth; gender; e-mail address; home address; country of residence; lifestyle and social circumstances (for example, your pastimes); family circumstances (for example, your marital status and dependents); employment and education details (for example, the organization you work for, your job title and your education details); financial and tax-related information (for example your income and tax residency); your postings on any blogs, forums, wikis and any other social media applications and services that we provide; your IP address; your browser type and language; your access times; complaint details; details of how you use our products and services; details of how you like to interact with us and other similar information.

The personal data we collect may also include so called ‘sensitive’ or ‘special categories’ of personal data, such as details about your: dietary requirements (for example, where Van York would like to provide you with lunch during a meeting,) health (for example, so that we can make reasonable accommodations for you in our buildings, products and services) and sexual orientation (for example if you provide us with details of your spouse or partner.)

The types of personal data and special categories of personal data that we collect may vary depending on the nature of the services that we provide to you or our client, or how you use our Website. In some rare circumstances, we might also gather other special categories of personal data about you because you volunteer that data to us or we are required to gather that data as a result of legal requirements imposed on us.

Where we are provided with personal data about you by our client, we take steps to ensure that the client has complied with the privacy laws and regulations relevant to that information; this may include, for example, that the client has provided you with notice of the collection (and other matters) and has obtained any necessary consent for us to process that information as described in this Privacy Policy.

We understand the importance of protecting children’s privacy. Our Website and services are not designed for, or intentionally targeted at, children. It is not our policy to intentionally collect or store information about children.

How do we use information about you?

We will use your personal data to provide you or our client with services. As part of this, we may use your personal data in the course of correspondence relating to the services. Such correspondence may be with you, our client, our service providers or competent authorities. We may also use your personal data to conduct due diligence checks relating to the services.

We will only collect personal information that is necessary to fulfill the following purposes:

  • To verify identity;
  • To identify preferences;
  • To open and manage an account;
  • To ensure you receive a high standard of service;
  • To meet regulatory requirements;
  • Other legal reasons as applicable to the goods and services requested.

We will obtain your consent to collect, use or disclose personal information. In some cases, we can do so without your consent (see below.) You can provide consent orally, in writing, electronically or through an authorized representative. You provide implied consent where our purpose for collecting, using or disclosing your personal information would be considered obvious or reasonable in the circumstances. Consent may also be implied where you have notice and a reasonable opportunity to opt-out of having your personal information used for mail-outs, marketing or fundraising, and you do not opt-out. We may collect, use or disclose personal information without consent:

  • When permitted or required by law;
  • In an emergency that threatens an individual’s life, health, or personal security;
  • When the personal information is available from a public source;
  • When we require legal advice from a lawyer;
  • For the purposes of collecting a debt or protection from fraud;
  • Other legally established reasons.

We will not sell your personal information to other parties unless consent has been provided or implied. We retain your personal information for the time necessary to fulfill the identified purposes or a legal or business purpose. We will make reasonable efforts to ensure that your personal information is accurate and complete. You may request correction to your personal information to ensure its accuracy and completeness. A request must be in writing and provide sufficient detail to identify your personal information and the correction being sought. We are committed to ensuring the security of your personal information and may use passwords, encryption, firewalls, restricted employee access or other methods, in our discretion. We will use appropriate security measures when destroying your personal information such as shredding documents or deleting electronically stored information, in our discretion.

Log Data

We may also collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our Website (“Log Data.”) This Log Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our Website that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages and other statistics. In addition, we may use third party services such as Google Analytics that collect, monitor and analyze this type of information in order to increase our Website’s functionality. These third party service providers have their own privacy policies addressing how they use such information.

Cookies

A cookie is a data file that certain Websites write to your computer’s hard drive when you visit such sites. A cookie file can contain information, such as a user identification code, that the site uses to track the pages you have visited, but the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can’t read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. We may collect information from your web sessions by using cookies, to determine, for example, user traffic patterns, and the effectiveness of our navigational structure.

Most Website browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually change your browser settings to display a warning before accepting a cookie, or to refuse all cookies. You don’t need to have cookies turned on to use/navigate through many parts of this Website, however, you may have to accept the receipt of cookies to access some resources on this Website.

Behavioural Remarketing

Van York uses remarketing services to advertise on third party websites to you after you visited our Website. We, and our third party vendors, use cookies to inform, optimize and serve ads based on your past visits to our Website. In certain circumstances, your implied consent to our accessing, using or disclosing may be provided if you do not instruct your web browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is sent or if you do not opt out of Google Analytics or other services.

Service Provider

We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our Website, to operate the Website on our behalf, to perform Website-related services or to assist us in analyzing how our Website is used. These third parties have access to your personal information only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.

Communications

We may use your personal information to contact you with newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information that may be of interest to you. You may opt out of receiving any, or all, of these communications from us by following the unsubscribe link or instructions provided in any email we send.

Compliance with Laws

As set out above, and for clarity, we will disclose your personal information where required to do so by law or subpoena or if we believe that such action is necessary to comply with the law and the reasonable requests of law enforcement or to protect the security or integrity of our Website.

Security

The security of your personal information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

International Transfer

Your information, including personal information, may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from your jurisdiction. If you are located outside of Canada and choose to provide information to us, please note that we transfer the information, including personal information, to Canada and process it there. Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.

Links to Other Websites

Our Website may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third party link, you will be directed to that third party’s website. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit. We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page. If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you either through the email address you have provided us, or by placing a prominent notice on our website.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us.