Disclaimer and Privacy Policy

Valuations.ca is a British Columbia valuation firm that provides professional services in a variety of practice areas.

This Privacy Policy outlines how Valuations.ca (“we”) handle your personal information to protect your privacy.

Privacy Legislation

Since January 1, 2004, all Canadian organizations engaged in commercial activities have been required to comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”) and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information incorporated by reference into PIPEDA. These obligations extend to professional firms, including Valuations.ca.

In addition, an Act respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the Private Sector has been in force in Quebec since 1994 and sets out rules regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information within that province.

Lastly, as a professional services firm, we have professional and ethical obligations to keep confidential the information we receive in the context of a professional engagement.

Personal Information

Personal information is defined in PIPEDA 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. In other words, it does not include the information that one expects to find on a business card.

Consent to Our Collection of Personal Information

In most cases, we obtain your consent to collect, use, and disclose your personal information. Usually, if you engage our firm, we assume that we have your implied consent to our collection and use of your personal information, however, at times we may ask for your express consent, either verbally or in writing.

Generally, we collect your personal information directly from you at the start of or during the course of your engagement with our firm. Sometimes we may obtain information about you from other sources such as other professionals who serve you.

Use of Personal Information at Valuations.ca

We use your personal information to provide professional advice and services to you, to issue invoices and to maintain our database of clients. 

Lastly, we may use your contact information (name, email, and postal address) so that we may communicate with you about recent developments in valuations, keep you informed of Valuations.ca news.

Withdrawal of Consent

You may withdraw your consent to our collection, use, storage, and disclosure of your personal information at any time, subject to legal and/or contractual restrictions and upon reasonable notice. Your withdrawal of consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information may impact our ability to provide professional advice.

You further acknowledge that the practice standards of the Chartered Business Valuators Institute requires Chartered Business Valuators to retain certain information obtained in the course of an engagement.  Some of this information may be considered personal information.  The terms of data retention necessary to comply with practice standards is outlined in our engagement letters.

You can ask us not to send you marketing communications by following the opt-out instructions in each communication or you may let us know by contacting evan@valuations.ca.

Disclosure of Personal Information

Generally, we do not disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent unless permitted or required by applicable laws or court orders. The following are some examples where we may disclose your personal information: such disclosure is necessary to collect fees or disbursements; we contract with a third party to provide us with certain services such as archival file storage, outsourcing of data processing and storage such as but not limited to externally hosted or “cloud” computing resources and services, or insurance.

In such cases, by providing data and information to us you acknowledge and consent to such data and information being stored by us or third party service providers in Canada or elsewhere as long as the same privacy protection exists as under PIPEDA. In addition, we will use contractual or other means to ensure third party service providers are bound by obligations regarding privacy which are consistent with this policy..

Accuracy of Your Information

It is important that the information that we have on file be accurate and up-to-date. If, during the course of the engagement, any of your information changes, please inform us so that we can make any necessary changes. We may also ask you from time to time whether your personal information is up-to-date.

Safeguards

Valuations.ca uses various safeguards to ensure that your personal information is protected against loss, theft, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying or alteration. These include: security of our physical premises; our professional obligations; and security software and firewalls to prevent unauthorized computer access or “hacking”.

Access to your Personal Information

You have a right to challenge the accuracy and completeness of your personal information and to have it amended, as appropriate. You also have a right to request access to your personal information and receive an accounting of how that information has been used and disclosed, subject to certain exceptions prescribed by law.

For example, if the requested information would reveal personal information about another individual, your request for access may be limited or denied. If your request for access is denied, Valuations.ca will notify you in writing of the reason for the denial.

To request access or to amend your personal information, please contact evan@valuations.ca. Valuations.ca will respond within thirty (30) days of receipt of your written request.

Challenging Compliance

Valuations.ca will respond to inquiries about its policies and practices relating to its handling of your personal information. Inquiries should be directed to evan@valuations.ca.

Valuations.ca will investigate all complaints and will respond within 30 days of receipt of a written inquiry. If the complaint is found to be justified, Valuations.ca will take appropriate measures to resolve it, including, if necessary, amending this Policy and its procedures.

Information Collected through this Website

We may collect information as submitted by you through the website. This includes inquiries about our services. We also track website usage statistics such as the number of pages you visit, which pages you visit, the referring search engine and search engine terms entered into the website. In addition, our website server automatically logs IP addresses, but we do not link the IP addresses to other personally identifiable information.

How Information is Collected through this Website

Valuations.ca uses Google Analytics to track general statistics about which pages are visited (or not visited) on our site. This enables us to edit the site to be as relevant as possible for our visitors. We do not track identifiable information about individuals visiting the site, unless they have submitted a request for us to contact them via an email or submission form enquiry.

Information collected through the website is used for internal purposes only. Other than Google Analytics non-identifiable website usage information which is viewed by Valuation.ca, no information collected via our website is passed to any outside source unless we are required to do so via court order. In addition, we may view the IP log, for example, to maintain the security of our website.

Privacy Contacts

If you have any questions or complaints about this Policy or the handling of your personal information, if you wish to withdraw your consent to our use of your personal information, or to request access to or update any information we have on file, please contact evan@valuations.ca.

If any complaint or inquiry is not handled to your complete satisfaction, you may contact:

Privacy Commissioner of Canada
112 Kent Street
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1A 1H3
Telephone: 1.613.995.8210
Toll free: 1.800.282.1376

Commission d’acces a l’information du Quebec
480 St. Laurent
Suite 501
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H2Y 3Y7
Telephone: 1.514.873.4196
Toll free: 1.888.528.7741

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on our website at www.valuations.ca and will be made available upon request.

Please check back from time to time to ensure you are aware of our current policy.

This Privacy Policy is effective June 22, 2021.
Last updated: June 22, 2021.