Legal and privacy

Disclaimer

Visitors to our Web Site and Users in general should note that:

The use of our Web Site is solely at their own risk on an “as is”, “as available” basis. Information on our Web Site is provided for general purposes only and is not intended to render accounting, tax, consultative, investment, legal or other professional advice or services, in any form. Laws, regulations and circumstances change constantly. Our Web Site is not intended to constitute the basis for any decision or course of action of any User’s specific circumstances and Users are cautioned to consult with their professional advisors before making any decision or taking any course of action. BDO Canada LLP makes no warranty or representation as to the accuracy, quality or completeness of any information on our Web Site. BDO Canada LLP expressly disclaims all warranties and conditions including merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, and also disclaims any liability for loss or damages which result directly or indirectly from the use in any form of any of the information on our Web Site including any personal information provided by Visitors and Users in general. Where such warranties or conditions are legally incapable of exclusion then BDO Canada LLP’s liability shall be limited to the sum of $100.00 in the aggregate regardless of the number of occurrences. Users assume all risks concerning the suitability to their needs and the accuracy of information on our Web Site and any publications therein.
The use of this Web Site or any e-mail communication to any one at BDO Canada LLP or to BDO Canada LLP itself does not give rise to a client relationship notwithstanding receipt of such communication. A client relationship shall only arise upon our mutual agreement in writing.
Internet communications may not be confidential and BDO Canada LLP does not guarantee the confidentiality of any e-mail or internet transmissions. Users are cautioned not to send any information via e-mail or the internet where confidentiality or privacy is an issue. BDO Canada LLP assumes no liability whatsoever for any confidential information sent to us over the internet. BDO Canada LLP reserves the right to make changes at any time to the Web Site which may include information, services and technical specifications without notice.
BDO Canada LLP expressly disclaims any liability regarding links to other web sites or any information, products, or services that they contain.
Any legal questions or disputes arising from the use of our Web Site shall be governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario, and the laws of Canada applicable therein, and the courts of the Province of Ontario shall have primary jurisdiction.
For the purposes of this Disclaimer, BDO Canada LLP shall include its related or affiliated partnerships, its partners, principals, employees, agents and authorized representatives and includes affiliated corporations and their respective officers, directors, shareholders, employees, agents and authorized representatives.

Privacy Statement

July 2020

BDO Canada LLP is a member of BDO International Limited and forms part of the international BDO network of independent member firms. Each member firm is a separate legal entity. Each member firm may have its own privacy statement.

This Privacy Statement applies to BDO Canada LLP and its Canadian affiliated organizations (BDO Canada).

Collection

BDO collects personal information from different sources depending on the services that we are providing or whether we are collecting this personal information for our internal business operations. For example, we may collect personal information directly from you when you retain us or your employer when your employer retains us. We may also collect personal information from other BDO member firms that we are assisting. We may also collect personal information through third parties who perform background checks and credit checks for us. In addition we may collect personal information through third party analytics and advertising firms who assist us in our marketing. These firms may provide us with data about your online activities on other sites where we show our advertising and marketing material.

We collect the following types of personal information:

Contact information, such as your name, title, role, employer, telephone, email address, and mailing address.
Visitor information when you attend at our offices or events, such as your name, company, and person you visited at our offices and events
Mandate information, such as information about the services you have requested or the matters that you are involved in
Services information, such as information that you provide or that we generate as part of our services. This information may include: financial, spousal and dependent, beneficiary, residency and other information relevant to providing tax, estate planning, and business planning, tax-related information when we are providing tax or financial advisory services; employee information, including salaries and benefits, when we are conducting restructuring services and management advisory services; customer and vendor information when we are conducting an audit or assisting with information technology implementation
Public profiles, such as information that you have made public such as on LinkedIn or your company’s website
Communications, such as the content of your emails, voicemails, and other communications with us
Communication preferences and interests, such as when you subscribe to receive our newsletters, updates, or other materials
Feedback, such as when you fill out client surveys or feedback forms at our events
Recruitment information, such as CVs, references, and other information you may provide if you apply for employment or an internship, or that we collect as part of our recruitment activities
Background check information, such as credit checks, criminal records checks, economic and other sanctions checks, credential checks and other background information
Portal registration information, such as email address, password and activities using our client portal
Device and browser information when you use our website bdo.ca, a BDO Canada microsite (such as our client portal) or mobile apps, such as your IP address, browser type and version, time zone setting, operating system, device type, hardware model, MAC address, and network information
Browsing information when you use our website bdo.ca, a BDO Canada microsite or mobile app, such as URL clickstream data about your visit to, through and from our website, page response times, downloads, length of visits and interaction information
Marketing interaction information, such as whether you opened one of our electronic newsletters or clicked on an advertisement or otherwise interacted with our marketing materials

Use

We use personal information to provide services to our clients, to fulfill legal requirements and to operate, market and improve our business. Examples of why we use personal information are:

Client services, such as conducting audits, preparing tax returns, providing management consulting and other advisory services to our clients and members of the BDO network
Vendor management, such as managing the services that third parties deliver to us or to clients on our behalf
Legal and regulatory compliance, such as conducting screening for conflicts, complying with anti-money laundering laws, conducting sanctions checks, and to maintain books and records that are required by law or that assist us in meeting our legal and regulatory obligations
Relationship management, such as establishing, maintaining, and administering our relationship with you or your employer, and which may include client account opening, accounting, invoicing, risk analysis, conflict checking, and customizing the services we offer to you
Business development, such as client pitches and offering you services that you may be interested in
Recruitment, such as processing your application for employment or an internship or when we proactively recruit new partners or employees
Communications, such as responding to your inquiries, sending you newsletters, updates, or other material, and managing your preferences
Events management, such as reserving your place at our events, noting dietary restrictions or choices, and other event related purposes
Feedback, such as client surveys, event feedback, and addressing concerns that you might have
Security, such as monitoring who has had access to our premises, and protecting our client portal our website from misuse
Website management, such as monitoring what visitors to our website, microsites and mobile apps find interesting and whether there are problems with features and functionality
Improvement of our business, understanding what our clients and prospective clients find interesting, improving our website, improving how we use vendors to provide services to us or to our clients

Sharing

We may share personal information in order to perform services for our client, to fulfill legal requirements or to operate, market and improve our business. The following are examples of who we may share personal information with:

BDO member firms, when it is necessary to provide cross-border services, to make referrals, to assess potential conflicts, or where other member firms provide services to us
Service providers, who provide outsourced business services to us, who assist us in marketing and advertising or events, or who assist us in providing or managing our information technology and communications systems
Screening service providers, who perform credit checks, sanctions screening, crime or anti-money laundering checks, and other background checks
Clients, as part of work product, such as when we are retained to conduct an audit or investigation or prepare a report or advice, and your personal information is relevant to that work product
Analytics providers and advertising networks, who support our analysis of the performance of our website, microsites and mobile apps and your interests, or who assist us in placing advertising on other sites,
Emergency responders, emergency contacts, or public health authorities, when necessary to respond to an emergency, or address an urgent occupational health and safety issue or outbreak of communicable diseases
Law enforcement bodies and regulators, when required under applicable laws, such as anti-money laundering reports, or where we are reporting a contravention of laws
Other third parties, in the course of a commercial transaction involving the acquisition of or transfer of any part of our business

Consent and other legal bases

There may be several reasons why we might collect, use, share or otherwise handle your personal information. These include:

With your explicit or implicit consent, such as when you provide the personal information as part of a request for services or a product, when you provide the personal information for a specific purpose or we ask you to consent to our use of your personal information for a purpose or for the purposes set out in this Privacy Statement
With the consent of someone with authority to provide the information to us, such as your employer or a third party who you provided the information and who has the legal right to share it with us
Where is necessary to fulfill our legal obligations, such as where we need to conduct client screening, anti-money laundering checks, or for other legal and compliance purposes where the law permits us to handle personal information with your consent
For the purposes of responding to legal claims against us
To conduct investigations where the law permits us to handle personal information without your consent

We may use your business contact information to contact you in your business, role, function, or occupation without your consent. If we send you commercial electronic messages, we will comply with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation, subject to any exceptions permitting us to send unsolicited commercial electronic messages. You may unsubscribe from our communications at any time.

Security

We use physical, technical, and organizational security measures that are consistent with standards in the accountancy and professional services industry. These security measures are designed to protect the confidentiality and integrity of personal information in our custody. We use contractual or other means to require our service providers to protect the confidentiality and integrity of personal information we entrust to them. Unfortunately, no system of security measures can guarantee the security and privacy of personal information. If you are sharing highly sensitive information electronically with BDO Canada, please speak with us about methods of secure file transfers.

Location and retention

Personal information is stored primarily in Canada. However, we may also use service providers or the assistance of BDO member firms in the United States and around the world, except where we are restricted by legal or contractual requirements. The laws of other jurisdictions may not be as protective as those in Canada and personal information held outside of Canada may be subject to disclosure to the governments, courts or law enforcement or regulatory agencies of these other countries in accordance with their laws.

We retain information for the purposes for as long as it is necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we collected it. We also retain personal information to meet obligations under applicable laws and regulatory requirements and to maintain records for possible litigation or investigations. Our retention period will vary depending on the nature of the information that is held. For example, we may retain information about you for as long as you are a client. We may retain matter specific information for as long as the applicable limitation period for claims, which may be 15 years or in some jurisdictions longer. In addition, copies of personal data stored in our electronic backups may be retained until they are destroyed in accordance with the ordinary lifecycle of our backups.

Children and minors

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children or other persons who are under 14 years of age except as part of a client engagement (e.g. the preparation of tax returns, estate planning, and other legitimate reasons). Our website and marketing materials are only for use by individuals who have reached the age of majority in their province or country of residence.

Cookies

Please see our Cookies Notice for information on how we use website cookies on our website www.bdo.ca. Please also see cookie notices or similar notices for any BDO Canada microsites or mobile apps that you may use.

Your rights

Canadian privacy laws provide you with certain rights. Please see “How to contact us” for the contact information of our Privacy Office in order to exercise these rights.

Access rights – you have the right to ask us if we have collected information about you and to obtain access to that information. If you wish to exercise this right, please send a written request to our Privacy Officer. We will ask you for information to confirm your identity and may ask you to assist us in describing your relationship with us so that we can locate the relevant personal information. Please note that we may withhold disclosure of personal information in certain cases under applicable laws.
Correction – you have the right to ask us to correct any incomplete or inaccurate personal information we hold about you. If we disagree with your correction request, we will insert a note in our files explaining the basis of our refusal to correct the information. We recommend that you raise any issue with incorrect, incomplete, or inaccurate personal information with the BDO personnel who are assisting you. However, you may also make a request to the Privacy Officer.
Withdraw of consent – you have the right to ask us to cease collecting, using, or sharing our personal information in some cases. We will do so if we have no further purpose for handling your personal information. You can unsubscribe from any of our electronic marketing communications using the unsubscribe links provided. You may communicate other requests to withdraw consent from the BDO personnel who are assisting you or you may make a request to the Privacy Officer.
Complaints – you have the right to make a complaint to our Privacy Officer about our compliance with this Privacy Statement or applicable privacy laws. We encourage you to raise your concern with the BDO personnel who are assisting you. However, if you make your complaint to the Privacy Office, we will investigate the matter and report to you about the investigation findings.

Changes

We may change this Privacy Statement from time to time. Please refer to the date at the top of this Privacy Statement for the last date. If there is an important change to our privacy practices, we will highlight the changes in this section.

How to contact us

To exercise your rights or to make a complaint, please contact:

Privacy Officer
BDO Canada LLP, National Office
500 – 20 Wellington Street East
Toronto, ON M5E 1C5, Canada
Tel/Tél.: 416 865 0111
or [email protected]