Effective Date: January 1st 2008
Updated: January 1st 2021

The purpose of this Privacy Statement is to inform you about the type of personal information Gauvreau Accounting, Tax, Law and Advisory’s (as follows, “Gauvreau”, “we” or “us”) collects, uses and discloses. It explains how we use and disclose that information, the choices you have regarding such use and disclosure and how you may correct that information.  

We are proud to demonstrate our commitment to your privacy by complying with the laws and regulations under applicable privacy laws in Canada, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. 

We will treat personal information in a manner that is consistent with the version of the Privacy Statement under which it was collected and our Privacy Policy, unless we have your consent to treat it differently. 

The Privacy Statement applies to any personal information we collect or receive about you, from nay sources, including through our website and other online platforms (the “sites”). We encourage you to read this Privacy Statement before providing us with any personal information and before using any of the Sites. By providing us with any personal information or using any of the sites, you are signifying that you agree with all the terms of this Privacy Statement, so please do not do so if you disagree with any part of this Privacy Statement. 

1. Collection of Personal Information

a. To which companies does this Privacy Statement apply?

This Privacy Statement applies to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information by Gauvreau Accounting, Tax, Law & Advisory and sub-brands. 

b. What is personal information

Personal information is any factual or subjective information about an identifiable individual. Your personal information may include but is not limited to your name, mailing address, phone numbers, email address, identification numbers, etc. Personal Information, however, does not include any information that is solely used to communicate with you in relation to your employment, business or profession, such as your name, position name or title, work address, work telephone number, or work electronic address.

c. How do we collect your personal information?

We will always collect your personal information by fair and lawful means. For example, you may provide your personal information when you complete a service form, subscribe to our newsletter, or complete a message form. You may also provide your personal information when you use one of our Sites, including by creating an account, completing a form, signing up for email communications or downloading a resource. We sometimes collect personal information from you through third party service providers including social media platforms.

We may also collect your demographic data, such as your address, and business information, when you provide this information to us. Demographic data may be used to tailor your experience on the Sites and the communications you receive from us, to determine aggregate consumer preferences and purchasing patterns, and promotion evaluation, development and implementation. 

d. How do we use technology to collect information through the Sites?

We collect anonymous information about any user of the Sites. This anonymous information may include a user’s browser type, type of computer operating system, and the domain name of the website from which the user linked to the Sites. This information is collected for Gauvreau’s internal use, such as to enhance website security, to detect broad demographic trends, to assist Gauvreau in providing content tailored to a user’s interests and to otherwise enhance the user experience on the Sites.

We may use a “cookie” or similar technology to assist us to customize the Sites. A “cookie” is a data file that a website sends to a user’s computer while that user is viewing the site. These data files include information that allows a website to remember information that will make that user’s use of the website more efficient and helpful to him or her. Cookies do not damage computer systems or files, and only the website that transferred a particular cookie to you can read, modify or delete such cookie.

What if I don’t want cookies?If you don’t want to use cookies with our Sites, there are simple procedures in most browsers that allow you to delete existing cookies, to automatically decline cookies or to be given the choice of declining or accepting the transfer of particular cookies to your computer. Please refer to your browser instructions or help screen to learn more about these functions. Declining cookies will not impair your use of our Sites.

2. Use of Personal Information

a. How do we use your personal information?

Whenever we collect your personal information, we will identify the purposes for which we will use that information. We may collect your personal information for a variety of reasons, including: sending you information and communications; responding to product/service inquiries and other requests; processing transactions; and for internal purposes such as analyzing and managing our business and improving our products, services, and marketing efforts. We may also use, or disclose your personal information, if we have reason to believe that using or disclosing such information is necessary to protect our rights, safety or property, including by detecting and preventing fraud. We may also use your personal information as otherwise permitted by law.

b. When and how do we obtain your consent?

We obtain your consent prior to collecting, using or disclosing your personal information for any purpose. The form of consent that we seek, including whether it is express or implied, will largely depend on the sensitivity of the personal information and the reasonable expectations you might have in the circumstances. In limited circumstances, we may rely on a third party to obtain your consent to the sharing of your personal information with us.

You may provide your consent to us either orally, in writing or through an action. For example, when you submit a service or message form on our website, you provide your consent to allow the us to disclose the information in the form to us so that we may identify your request and respond. From time to time, we may collect, use or disclose your personal information based on your consent and as permitted by law.

c. Where do we store your personal information?

We store your personal information in our offices in Canada.

Our service providers may, from time to time, also hold your personal information in connection with purposes for which you provided your consent. We may keep a record of your personal information, correspondence or comments in a file specific to you.

d. How long will we use, disclose or retain your personal information/

We will use, disclose or retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected and as permitted or required by law. We have established minimum and maximum retention periods and secure procedures for maintaining and destroying your personal information.

e. Gauvreau Communications

Through our Sites and various offline means, you may sign up or opt-in to receive communications from Gauvreau. If you do not opt-in, Gauvreau will not send you any communications. Each communication sent to you by Gauvreau contains an “unsubscribe” link or other unsubscribe mechanism, allowing you to opt-out at any time. If you opt-in to receive communications from multiple brands within the Gauvreau family of companies, and subsequently wish to opt-out, you may need to opt-out individually from each of the brands you elected to receive communications from. 

3. Disclosure of Personal Information

Generally, we do not disclose your personal information, and where we do, we will identify to whom and for what purpose the disclosure will be made, and will obtain your consent to such disclosures. In any case, we will only disclosure your personal information as permitted or required by law. 

a. Service Providers and Personal Information

Aside from disclosures, we may use service providers (including our affiliates) to help us operate our business and our Sites and to administer activities on our behalf, such as sending emails, fulfilling services/products and conducting surveys. We may share your information with these third parties for those limited purposes. For instance, if you participate in a customer survey we may share your name and email for them to conduct activities on our behalf. Each of our service providers is required by contract or other binding means to comply with our privacy standards to protect the privacy of your personal information, and to only handle your personal information for Gauvreau purposes (and not for its own purposes).

Ad Networks and Anonymous Information. We may have relationships with third party service providers known as Ad Networks to serve ads on our behalf across the Internet. Using cookies and similar technologies (such as “pixel tags”, “web beacons”, “clear GIFs”), Ad Networks collect anonymous information about your visits to our Sites and other websites in order to deliver advertisements that may be of particular interest to you. In some chases this process may involve the collection of any personal information. For example, if you complete a Form on the Ad Networks it will collect your name and email address. We do not share any of this personal information about you with these Ad Networks.

In connection with these Ad Networks, we adhere to the “Canadian Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioural Advertising”. These Principles were developed by the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada, a consortium of leading Canadian advertising and marketing associations, with the aim of applying consumer-friendly standards to online behavioural advertising across the World Wide Web.

We do not operate or control Ad Networks, and we are not responsible for the opt-out choices available there.

4. Openness, Access and Security

Gauvreau has a variety of convenient methods available that allow you to review, correct, update or otherwise modify information previously collected from you, including communication preferences. You may:

• modify your information on your account profile page on the applicable Site
• use the Contact Us form on the applicable Site

We will make available to you any specific personal information of yours that we have collected, used or disclosed, upon your request, to the extent permitted by law. 

We will ensure that your personal information is kept as accurate, complete and up-to-date as possible. We will not routinely update your personal information, unless such a process is necessary. We expect you, from time to time, to supply us with updates to your personal information, when required.

As described in Section 4A above, you can, at any time, contact us to review, correct, update or otherwise modify the personal information we have for you. In each such case, you must clearly indicate the information that you wish to have changed or clearly indicate that you wish to have your personal information removed from our database. If you successfully demonstrate that the personal information we have for you is inaccurate or incomplete, we will amend our records of your personal information as required.

Note that despite any request for a change to or removal of your personal information, we may need to retain certain information for record keeping purposes, and there may also be residual information that will remain within our databases and other records, which will not be removed or changed.

We may make commercially reasonable efforts to transmit any amended information to third parties having access to your personal information, where necessary in the circumstances.

We may request that you provide us with sufficient identification before granting you access to information regarding the existence, use or disclosure of your personal information. Any such identification information shall be used only for this purpose.

We have implemented physical, organizational, contractual and technological security measures to protect your personal information from loss or theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification. The only personnel who are granted access to your personal information are those with a business “need-to-know” or whose duties reasonably require access to such information.

The security of all personal information collected through our Sites is of utmost importance to us. We have taken reasonable technical, contractual, administrative and physical security steps to protect the personal information collected from you through the Sites, consistent with standard industry practice and the sensitivity of the personal information collected. These security measures are periodically reviewed. However, there are some things that users of our Sites can do to help protect the security of their personal information as well. For instance, no user should ever give out their user name and password. Also, every user should sign out of their Internet account and close their browser window each time they finish using the Internet so that other people using the same computer will not have access to their information.

Our Sites may contain links to other websites that are not operated by Gauvreau. GAUVREAU IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PRIVACY PRACTICES OR THE CONTENT OF SUCH OTHER WEBSITES, INCLUDING WEBSITES OPERATED BY AFFILIATED ENTITIES. We provide such links only as a convenience and the inclusion of a link on any of our Sites does not imply endorsement of the linked to website by Gauvreau. If you provide any personal information through any such third party websites, your transaction will occur on such third party website (and not on our Sites) and the personal information you provide will be collected by and controlled by the privacy policy of that third party. Gauvreau recommends that you review the privacy policies of third party websites arrived at from links on our Sites before using those websites.

5. Privacy Statement Update

Gauvreau reserves the right to make changes in this Privacy Statement. Such changes will take effect immediately upon posting. For your convenience, the last revised date of the current Privacy Statement will be posted at the top of this page. By continuing to interact with us following such changes, including by using our Sites, you will be deemed to have agreed to such changes. If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Statement, please do not continue using our Sites.

6. Governing Law

This Privacy Statement is governed by, and interpreted and enforced in accordance with, the laws in force in the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada (excluding any conflict of laws, rule or principle which might refer such interpretation to the laws of another jurisdiction).