Privacy Policy
YOUR PRIVACY IS IMPORTANT TO US
Welcome to the Groupe Elite Canada Inc (“GEC“) website at https://www.groupelitecanad.com (the “Website“). We take your privacy and security of personal data very seriously. We have provided and will continue to provide a secure environment and this strict Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) that describes the limited ways your information is used and the limited access to such information. We ask that you read it carefully.
Groupelitecanada.com PRIVACY POLICY Last modified: August 24 2023 KEY ELEMENTS OF THIS POLICY Here are the key elements of this Policy so you can know the important parts right away to make an informed decision about your consent for our collection, use and disclosure of your personal data. By submitting any personal data to us via any means, you consent to such collection, use and disclosure. You can find the details in the rest of the Policy. SOME TERMS Before we get started with the details, here are a few terms we think you should know as you read this Policy. “Data Protection Laws” refers to the laws that are designed to protect your personal data and privacy in the place where you live. These include: (1) the “GDPR”, the European Data Protection Law which stands for “General Data Protection Regulation”, with the official name Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council; (2) “PIPEDA” (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act), which is the Canadian Data Protection Law that applies to our activities in Canada; (3) the Act respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the Private Sector (the “QC Privacy Act”) which applies to our activities in Quebec; and (4) the “UK GDPR” which applies to our activities in the United Kingdom; please note that when this Policy refers only to the “GDPR”, this includes the UK GDPR as applicable. GEC is committed to adhering to all these applicable Data Protection laws. “Personal data” – this is information we collect from you or about you and which is defined in the GDPR as “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.” It can be as simple as your name or your email, or something more complicated like an online identifier (usually a string of letters and / or numbers) that gets attached to you. Under PIPEDA and the QC Privacy Act, the equivalent concept is “personal information”, which is roughly the same. Any mention of “personal data” in this Policy shall also mean personal information. ABOUT US AND CONTACTING US The Website is owned and operated by Groupe Elite Canada Inc., a company located in Montreal, Canada at the address listed below. Where the present Policy refers to “GEC” it may refer to Groupe Elite Canada Inc. and / or its affiliates, shareholders, officers, directors, employees, agents, partners, principals, representatives, successors and assigns (collectively “Representatives”), depending on the context. Any reference to “we”, “our”, or “us” in this Policy shall also refer to GEC and / or its Representatives. In this Policy, a website visitor or user may be referred to as “you” or “your”. Under the GDPR, GEC is a “data controller”. That means we collect personal data directly from you and determine the purpose and means of “processing” that data. “Processing” is a broad term that means collection, use, storage, transfer or any other action related to your personal data; it is used in this Policy in that way. If you want to ask us anything about what’s in this Policy, or anything else privacy- or data- related, or exercise any of your available privacy rights, you can contact: GEC Privacy Officer This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or: GEC Privacy Officer 215 Jean Talon Est Suite 102 Montreal, Quebec H2R 1S9 YOUR RIGHTS You have the following rights regarding your personal data held by GEC, and other privacy rights. Please note that not necessarily all of these rights may be available to you; this depends on the Data Protection Laws where you are located that apply to you. These rights may be exercised without affecting any prices or costs charged by the H (though please note at this time we do not charge anything, and we do not expect to). Please note that exercising certain of these rights may affect your ability to use some or all of the Website or related activities. The right to withdraw at any time your consent for GEC to process your personal data. The right to have your personal data erased from GEC’s records. The right to access your personal data and any relevant information around its processing and use. The right to have a copy of your personal data given to you in an easy-to-read format so that you can transfer it to any data controller or data processor. The right to have your personal data corrected or updated if you believe it is inaccurate or out of date. The right to opt out of marketing communications we send you, at any time. The right to know whether GEC sells or shares your personal data (and if so, who gets it). Please refer to that information elsewhere in this Policy, though you can contact our Privacy Officer if you need additional information or clarifications. The right to demand that GEC not sell your personal data. The right to restrict the processing of your personal data if it is inaccurate or if our processing or use of it is against the law and The right to refuse any marketing or advertising targeted at you by GEC. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact our Privacy Officer at the contact information above or refer to certain relevant sections further in this Policy. PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED FROM YOU AND WHAT WE USE IT FOR In the table below, please find all the personal data we may collect from you directly, what we use it for, and the legal basis under the GDPR for us having and processing this personal data. Under PIPEDA and the QC Privacy Act, the legal basis is your informed consent, and by submitting this personal data you acknowledge having granted this consent to GEC. PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED ABOUT YOU FROM THIRD PARTIES AND WHAT WE USE IT FOR GEC may collect personal data about you from Centris to better allow us to serve your real estate needs. If you request information on a specific property from Centris, we will be provided with your name, email, phone number and any questions you may have regarding the property in question. Otherwise, GEC does not collect personal data about you from third parties. Exceptionally, to the extent that analytics or advertising identifiers are generated from third parties, these may be considered personal data collected from third parties, and you can find details about that further below in this Policy SENSITIVE PERSONAL DATA We do not collect any of what the GDPR considers sensitive personal data from you, unless you voluntarily submit it to us via email or other method, which we encourage you not to do. WHO WE TRANSFER YOUR PERSONAL DATA TO We routinely share some of your personal data with certain types of third parties who are identified in the table below along with what they do with it. Some of those third-party recipients may be based outside your home jurisdiction. If you are in the European Economic Area or the U.K. — please see the “Transfer of Your Personal Data Outside of the European Economic Area” further down in this Policy for more information including on how we safeguard your personal data when this occurs. We will share personal data with law enforcement or other public authorities if: (1) we are required by applicable law in response to lawful requests, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements; (2) if we believe it is necessary in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, fraud, or situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person; or (3) if we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding situations that involve abuse of the Website infrastructure or the Internet in general (such as voluminous spamming or denial of service attacks). We may also share personal data: (1) to a parent company, subsidiaries, joint ventures, affiliates or other companies under common control with GEC (in which case we will require such entities to honour this Policy); (2) if GEC merges with another entity, is subject to a reorganization, sells or transfers all or part of its business or assets (in which case we will require such entity to assume our obligations under this Policy, or inform you that you are covered by a new privacy policy). We will never share your personal data with other third parties except under these circumstances. We do not sell or rent your personal data to any third party for direct marketing purposes or any other purpose. EMAIL COMMUNICATIONS AND COMPLIANCE WITH ANTI-SPAM LAWS GEC uses Mailchimp to manage our mailing lists and send out our newsletter (the “Email Service Provider”). Personal data is transferred to the Email Service Provider in order to manage the mailing lists and for our newsletter to be sent out properly by email. Your Contact Information is only used to send out emails; the Email Service Provider does not use this personal data for any other purpose, and will not transfer or sell your personal data to any other third party. You may unsubscribe from the mailing list at any time, by following the link at the bottom of the GEC emails. GEC’s practices in regard to its email are designed to be compliant with anti-spam laws, including but not limited to the law unofficially called “CASL”, or Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (S.C. 2010, c. 23). If you believe you have received email in violation of these laws, please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact information further up in this Policy. GEC ADVERTISING AND OPTING OUT HPAA is continuously evaluating and modifying our use of various advertising networks, which may change from time to time. In this section you will find all the advertising networks that GEC currently uses and instructions for opting out of them. We will update this policy if we use additional advertising networks. GEC may advertise using Facebook Custom Audience, to display advertisements to you on Facebook or in Facebook Messenger that will be of interest to you, and by visiting the Website you consent to this use. Facebook may collect or receive information from the Website and other applications and websites and use that information to provide measurement services and targeted ads. If you do not want to receive such Facebook advertisements, you can opt-out of such advertising by adjusting your Ad Settings while logged in to Facebook. GEC may use Google Ads and Display Network and by visiting the Website you consent to this use. Specifically, GEC uses the remarketing features of interest-based advertising of Google Ads that delivers you advertisements that will be of particular interest to you, based on your browsing and activity history interacting with the Website. These advertisements will appear on third-party websites around the web. Google uses specific cookies to allow them to serve these ads around the web. You may prevent this type of advertising by deleting the appropriate Google cookie through your browser, though this may not be permanent. For a more permanent solution, you may opt out of such Google advertising by adjusting your Google ad settings or using the WebChoices online opt-out tool. LIMITED GATHERING OF INFORMATION FOR STATISTICAL, ANALYTICAL AND SECURITY PURPOSES GEC automatically collects certain information using the “Third-Party Analytics Program” Google Analytics, to help us understand more about our site visitors and users and how they use the Website, but none of this information identifies you personally, except via an alphanumeric string. For example, each time you visit the Website, we automatically collect (as applicable) your IP address, browser and computer or device type, access times, the web page from which you came, the web page(s) or content you access, and other related information. We use information collected in this manner only to better understand your needs and the needs of Website visitors and users in the aggregate, and to serve you content in the appropriate language. GEC also makes use of information gathered for statistical purposes to keep track of the number of visits to the Website, the specific pages on the Website, and users with a view to introducing improvements to the Website and our activities. Your IP address and other relevant information we collect using the Third-Party Analytics Program may be used in order to trace any fraudulent or criminal activity. TRACKING TECHNOLOGY ("COOKIES") AND RELATED TECHNOLOGIES GEC uses tracking technology (“cookies” and related technology such as tags, pixels and web beacons) on the Website and by visiting or using the Website you agree to their use. Cookies are small text files placed on your computer or device when you visit a website, in order to track use of the site and to improve the user experience by storing certain data on your computer. Specifically, we use cookies and related technologies for the following functions: to facilitate online advertising, as described above in this Policy. to provide general internal and user analytics and to conduct research to improve the content of the Website Third-Party Analytics Program as described above in this Policy. to serve you the Website in the appropriate language; and to assist in identifying possible fraudulent activities. Your browser can be set to refuse cookies or delete them after they have been stored. You can refer to your browser’s help section for instructions, but here are instructions for the most commonly used browsers and operating systems: Google Chrome Mozilla Firefox Microsoft Edge Opera Apple Safari iOS Android Please note that deleting these cookies may reduce your user experience on the Website. Furthermore, deleting cookies may prevent certain functions from working at all. HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA We have implemented very strict technical and organisational procedures for ensuring that, by default, only personal data which are necessary for each specific purpose of the processing are processed by us. These procedures prevent your personal data from being lost; or used or accessed in any unauthorised way. We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable supervisory authority of a suspected data security breach where the Data Protection Laws requires us to do so, and within the time frame required by the applicable Data Protection Law. GEC uses only industry best practices (physical, electronic and procedural) in keeping any data collected (including personal data) secure. In addition, we use third-party vendors and hosting partners to provide the necessary hardware, software, networking, storage, and related technology required to operate the Website, and these third parties have been selected for their high standards of security, both electronic and physical. For example, GEC uses Webflow, who have very strict security protocols, for hosting of the Website and related data, and storage of data including personal data. Finally, all information, including personal data, is transferred with encryption using Secure Sockets Layer (“SSL”) or Transport Layer Security (“TLS”), robust security standards for Internet data transfer and transactions. You can use your browser to check HPAA’s valid SSL security certificate on the Website. TRANSFER OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA OUTSIDE OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA (EEA) AND THE U.K. For our European users, we endeavour to keep your personal data inside the EEA or the U.K. (as applicable). However, certain of our data processors (and GEC) are in other countries where your personal data may be transferred. However, these countries are limited to countries with particular circumstances that protect your data, specifically: The United States. Your personal data is only transferred to companies in the United States that: (1) have signed agreements with us or have informed us that they are GDPR-compliant; and (2) have concluded the Standard Contractual Clauses for the transfer of personal data outside the EEA. Canada. We transfer personal data to our operations in Canada, but Canada has been determined to have an “adequate level of protection” for your personal data under European data protection law. That’s it! You have the right, however, to refuse to have your data transferred outside the EEA or the U.K. Please contact our Privacy Officer to make that request. Please note that making this request may prevent you from being able to use a portion or all of the Website, or from receiving our newsletter. SUPERVISORY AUTHORITIES AND COMPLAINTS If you are in the EEA or U.K., under the GDPR you have the right to make a complaint to the appropriate supervisory authority. If you are not satisfied with the response received or the actions taken by our Privacy Officer, or if you would like to make a complaint directly about the GEC’s data practises, we invite you to contact the supervisory authority in your country. For example, if you are in the U.K., you should contact the Information Commissioner’s Office who is the supervisory authority. You can reach them in a variety of ways, including by phone (0303 123 1113 in the UK) and mail (Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF). If you are in France, you should contact the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés who is the supervisory authority there. Their contact information can be found here. The full listing of all Data Protection Authorities (the supervisory authorities) across the EEA can be found here. If you are in Canada and you are not satisfied with the response received or the actions taken by our Privacy Officer, you can make a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Instructions on how to do so can be found on their website. DATA RETENTION Your personal data will only be kept for as long as it is necessary for the purpose needed for that processing. For example, we will only retain your Contact Information for as long as you continue to consent to receive communications from us, including our newsletter. AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING GEC does not use any automated decision-making processes in providing the Website. CHILDREN’S PRIVACY STATEMENT The Website is not intended for children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect any personal data from a child under 16. If we become aware that we have inadvertently received personal data from a person under the age of 16 through the Website, we will delete such information from our records. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY The date at the top of this page indicates when this Policy was last updated. Every now and then, we will have to update this Policy, and we will update it no less than once every 12 months. You can always find the most updated version at this URL, and we will always post a notice on the Website if we make significant changes, and / or email you to inform you of such changes. © Groupe Elite Canada Inc. 2023 ***Subject to change as per provincial and federal regulations