Privacy Notice

Our Commitment to Your Privacy

We value your trust and are dedicated to keeping your personal information accurate, confidential, and secure. BY PROVIDING PERSONAL INFORMATION TO CANSO, YOU AGREE THAT CANSO MAY COLLECT, USE AND DISCLOSE SUCH PERSONAL INFORMATION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THIS PRIVACY NOTICE AND AS PERMITTED OR REQUIRED BY LAW.

1. Background

Canso Investment Counsel Ltd. (Canso) provides portfolio management and exempt market dealer services and follows Canadian information protection laws. We handle your personal information responsibly and securely.

2. Personal Information We Collect

We may collect the following information about you from our website:

Contact information: this information allows us to identify you as well as send you materials. It lets us communicate with you for instructions and requests. It includes your name, mailing address, email address, and telephone number.
Computer information: this includes information like device type, device identifier, IP address, medium access control address, location, browser type, operating system, duration of use, user behaviour, length of time spent on the services, and frequency of use.
Marketing and communications information: this includes communication preferences and your preferences in receiving marketing or other communications from us and third parties.
Other information voluntarily provided to us, our service providers, or our contractors.

When you engage Canso for our services, we may collect the following information about you depending on the service engaged:

Banking information: including your bank account information, billing address, or other banking and financial information required to complete your trades and/or process your payments.
Date of birth: this information allows us to fulfill our legal obligation to establish your identity and helps protect against error, identity theft, and fraud.
Employment History: we collect this information to better understand your unique financial situation and investment needs, and to help us fulfill our ‘know your client’ and suitability determination obligations.
Social Insurance Number: we obtain your Social Insurance Number (SIN) for tax reporting purposes. We may also use your SIN for credit reporting or monitoring purposes, and to distinguish you from other persons or clients.
Information required to comply with applicable laws and regulations: including your date of birth, home address, marital status, employment history, criminal record history, bankruptcy history, disciplinary history, passport, driver’s license, SIN, Tax Identification Number, investment history, account numbers, if there is a spousal account or not, performance of investments, and size of investments.
Profile information: may include your username and password, requests made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback, and survey responses.
Transaction information: includes details about payments to and from you and other details of subscriptions and redemptions you have requested from us, including product information and dollar values.

Information will be collected by fair and lawful means. We will only collect the information we need to provide our services.

3. Why We Collect Your Information

Providing services: including but not limited to portfolio management, exempt market dealer services and subscription/redemption requests.
Business and website operations: to administer and protect our business and this website, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data.
Marketing and advertising: to be presented on our website. We may also administer and offer tailored content, and other promotional materials to you based on your interests.
Cookies: which may be used to: (i) recognize you when you visit our website, remember your preferences and give a personalized experience that’s in line with your settings, (ii) make your interactions with the website faster and more secure and (iii) bring advertising and customized experiences through personalization. Further, cookies are used for authentication, security and research.
Regulatory requirements: complying generally with all applicable laws and regulatory requirements, including securities legislation and regulations, ‘know your client’ obligations, account statements and client reporting, money laundering and terrorist financing regulations, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act and Common Reporting Standard reporting, Canada Revenue Agency obligations, and confirmation of resident status.
Business development and market research: we may use data to understand demographics, interests, usage patterns, and other characteristics of clients and to track and analyze trends and patterns.

4. Sharing Your Information

We may share your information with:

Our Affiliates and Related Companies: When servicing clients in common with our affiliates and related companies.
Service Providers: Companies that help us store, process, and deliver services.
Technical Support: IT and data analytics providers.
Financial Institutions and Payment Processors: For facilitating subscription/redemption requests and distribution payments.
Regulators: For legal compliance.
Law Enforcement: When required by law.
Legal and Accounting: Law firms, accounting firms and consultants.

5. Cookies

We use cookies on our website. Cookies are small files that help us recognize you and tailor our content to your needs. You can refuse cookies by changing your browser settings, but this might limit your access to some parts of our website. By using our website, you agree to our use of cookies.

Cookies help us:

Recognize you and remember your preferences.
Make your website interactions faster and more secure.
Provide personalized advertising and experiences.

For more about cookies and how to manage them, visit sites like wikipedia.org or aboutcookies.org.

6. Personal Information Retention & Destruction

We keep your personal information only as long as needed for business or legal reasons. After that, we destroy it permanently.

7. Safeguards

We protect your personal information with appropriate security measures. Our staff must keep your information confidential. We use industry-standard safeguards to protect electronic files.

Online storage and communication are never completely secure. We encourage you to provide only (a) the personal information you are comfortable with providing a third party, (b) keep watch for communications that are suspicious, and (c) report any suspicious activity to us as soon as possible. As a community, we can all help keep personal information safe.

8. Privacy Impact Assessments

We conduct Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) for:

Any new business project involving personal information; and
Any acquisition, development or overhauling of any information system or electronic service delivery system involving the collection, use or destruction of personal information.

PIAs enable Canso to assess the privacy risks associated with these activities and ensure our compliance with relevant legislation and regulations.

9. International Transfers & Transfers Outside of Québec and Canada

Your information may be stored outside Québec or Canada and subject to other countries’ laws. We conduct Transfer Impact Assessments (TIAs) to ensure your data is protected when transferred outside Québec or Canada.

After conducting a TIA, the information may only be transferred if (1) our assessment establishes that it would receive an adequate level of protection in the new province/country as afforded under applicable privacy laws and (2) we enter into a written agreement with the entity to which the information is disclosed or transferred to ensure accountability.

10. Access to and Accuracy of Personal Information

You have the right to access and rectify your personal information. To request access, send a written request with proof of identity to the address at the end of this Privacy Notice.

Canso will respond to your request within 30 days, subject to some exceptions.

If we refuse an access request in whole or in part, we will provide the reasons for the refusal, indicate the provisions of the applicable law that the refusal is based on, outline remedies that are available to you as a result of the refusal, and tell you the time limit you have to exercise your rights. In some cases where exceptions to access apply, we may withhold that information and provide you with the remainder of the record.

11. Privacy Rights of Children

Our services are not designated for children. We therefore do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under the age of eighteen (18). In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under the age of eighteen (18) we will take the appropriate steps to delete this information. Contact us if you believe that we have mistakenly or unintentionally collected information from a child under the age of eighteen (18).

12. Legal Rights

Subject to certain limitations and depending on the privacy laws applicable to you, you may have the following legal rights to your personal information:

Right to openness about our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information. You have the right to be informed in a manner that is clear, transparent, and accessible.
Right to access or rectify your personal information held by us (as detailed in the “Access to and Accuracy of Personal Information” process above).
Right to be forgotten, i.e., have certain personal information that is held by us destroyed or removed, with certain exceptions and limitations as allowed under law.
Right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information.
Right to object to certain processing of your personal information, including the right to object to marketing, and request that your personal information be moved to a third-party. You can object by changing your marketing and email preferences or disabling cookies as set out below in “Opting Out.”
Right to obtain your personal information in an accessible and transferable format so that you can re-use it for your own purposes with other service providers.
Where we rely on your consent to process personal information, you may have the right to withdraw or decline your consent at any time and where we rely on legitimate interests, you have the right to object.
Right to receive non-discriminatory treatment for choosing to exercise your rights under applicable privacy legislation.
Right to file a complaint: you have the right to file a complaint about the way we use or process your information with the applicable data protection authority in your jurisdiction.

13. External Links and Features of our Website

Our website follows this Privacy Notice. However, if you click on links to third-party sites or apps, their privacy policies will apply. We recommend checking their policies to see how they handle your information.

14. Opting Out

You can withdraw your consent for us to use your personal information at any time, but this might limit our ability to provide services to you.

To withdraw consent, contact us using the information at the end of this Privacy Notice. This will apply to future actions, not past ones.

You can also opt out of cookies through your browser settings and targeted ads via the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Opt-Out page or the Network Advertising Initiative’s Opt-Out page.

15. Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice at any time. If we make significant changes, we will post the new version on our website with the date of the update. By continuing to use our website and services after changes are posted, you agree to the new terms. If we need to use your information for new purposes, we will ask for your consent.

16. Addressing Your Inquiries and Concerns

We are happy to provide you with a copy of this Privacy Notice and to discuss any of its content with you.

We have designated a Privacy Officer who is responsible for maintaining and implementing this Notice. Please direct all questions or enquiries about this Privacy Notice to:

Attention: Privacy Officer
Email: privacy@cansofunds.com
Canso Investment Counsel Ltd.
100 York Boulevard, Suite 550
Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 1J8
Telephone: 905-881-8853

Last update: December 2024