PRIVACY POLICY
Last update: October 16, 2023
This Policy records the measures and practices that RE/MAX 1er Choix (the “Agency” or “we” or “us” or “our”) has put in place to govern its management of personal information and protect the personal information of its customers, namely individuals from whom the Agency collects personal information through direct or indirect contact with an authorized representative of the Agency and the website https://remax1erchoix.com/ the “Website”) (the “Customers” or “you” or “your”), for the purposes described in section 4 below.
In this Policy, “personal information” means any information collected by the Agency that directly or indirectly identifies a Customer, alone or in combination with other information.
The main purpose of this Policy is to inform Customers about:
- the means used by the Agency to collect personal information;
- the nature of the personal information collected by the Agency and the purposes for which it is collected;
- how the Agency may use personal information and the third parties to whom the Agency may disclose such personal information, if applicable;
- the rights you have with respect to personal information collected by the Agency, including to access your personal information or request the correction of inaccurate personal information, if applicable;
- the various security measures put in place by the Agency to protect the confidentiality of personal information;
- how personal information is stored, destroyed and/or anonymized; and
- how you can contact the Agency to address your questions, share your comments or, if applicable, make a complaint related to this Policy.
By transmitting one or more pieces of personal information to the Agency through direct or indirect contact with an authorized representative of the Agency or through your use of the Website, you consent to the Agency collecting, using, disclosing and retaining such personal information in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in this Policy.
The Agency reserves the right to modify the terms and conditions set out in this Policy, at any time and at its sole discretion. In such case, the Agency will provide you with a version of this Policy containing the changes made. Your use of the Services (as defined in Section 4 below) from the date of receipt of this version will be deemed to constitute express acceptance of the changes made.
This Policy and any amended version thereof are subject to applicable legislation in the province of Quebec.
1. By what means does the Agency collect personal information?
The Agency collects personal information by the following means: (i) when such personal information is voluntarily provided to an employee or authorized representative of the Agency in writing, by email or verbally, (ii) information we collect from other companies and public bodies (including companies in the RE/MAX group with which the Agency is affiliated (RE/MAX Québec inc., RE/MAX Promotional Fund inc., National Relocation Services (RELONAT) inc. and RE/MAX, LLC (Denver, CO)) or (iii) when you use the Website.
Personal information provided when using the Website may be provided directly (for example through a web form or email) or automatically (see the list of automatically collected personal information in Section 3).
2. What personal information does the Agency collect?
The personal information that the Agency may collect is as follows:
- Your first and last name and contact information (civic addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers);
- Your date of birth, gender and preferred language;
- Personal information allowing the Agency, through its authorized representatives, to verify your identity and that of any other person in accordance with applicable legislation in the field of real estate brokerage, including the Real Estate Brokerage Act (CQLR, c. C-73.2) and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (S.C. 2000, c. 17) and their respective regulations, i.e., among others:
- Your main profession or occupation,
- A government-issued photo identification document that is authentic, valid and current,
- A document from a reliable source showing your name and address, a document from a reliable source showing your name and date of birth and a document showing your name and a confirmation that you hold a deposit account, a prepaid payment product account or a credit card or other loan account with a financial entity;
- Your Canadian citizenship or residency;
- The personal information you provide to us in the course of the performance of the Services (as defined in Section 4 below) that may constitute sensitive personal information, such as:
- information about your real estate transaction project; and
- financial information required to conduct credit inquiries and collect deposits and payments (credit card number, mortgage approval, tax returns, credit check report, etc.);
- Your communications and communications history with us (recordings of calls, chat sessions and instant messaging conversations, including via our social media);
- Personal information generated by you in the course of your use of the Services (complaints, requests for information, notices, comments and responses to surveys);
- Personal information provided in connection with an application for employment or engagement with the Agency (resume, information about education, work experience and professional affiliations);
- Personal information that you are required to, or requested to, provide to the Agency because of the nature of your relationship with it (for example, if you are an officer or employee of the Agency: social insurance number for employees and financial information for employees, photographs of employees for posting on the Website and identification documents for each of the Agency’s officers pursuant to the Act mainly to improve the transparency of businesses);
- Personal information automatically collected when you use the Website (see Section 3).
3. Personal information collected automatically or through cookies
In order to ensure the functionality of the Website and the purposes of the personal information below, the Agency must collect the following personal information from Customers visiting the Website:
- The domain name of their Internet service provider
- Their IP address
- Their browser (Explorer, Firefox, etc.) and their operating system (Windows, Mac OS, etc.)
- The date and time of their visit
- Their country of origin
- Their pages viewed and the time spent viewing them
- The address of the referring site
- Crash data
All of this information is automatically collected as soon as a Customer connects to the Website. Some of this personal information is collected through the placement of temporary cookies or “web beacons” (also sometimes called “invisible pixels”). These files or beacons also allow us to improve the performance of the Website and some of its features.
4. For what purposes does the Agency collect personal information?
The Agency collects your personal information for the following purposes:
- Provide support, information, advice and tools related to the real estate transactions you request us to complete (collectively, the “Services”)
- Complete real estate transactions and be compensated for our Services
- Comply with applicable laws and regulations
- In the course of using the Services, issue notifications and alerts in order to provide you with specific information. In doing so, the Agency uses a technology that allows for profiling, the functions of which must be activated by the Customer from the Website
- Assess your eligibility for programs such as Tranquilli-T: https://www.tranquilli-t.com Integri-T: https://www.garantie-integri-t.com Key Program: https://quebec.programmecleremax.com with the objective, among others, of helping you save money and protect yourself from latent defects when purchasing your property
- Generally communicate with you to provide various information related to the Services and offer products and/or services that may be of interest to you
- Conduct periodic follow-up with you to ensure that you are satisfied with the provision of the Services
- Develop, improve and promote the Services, including by generating and publishing depersonalized statistical data from the personal information of multiple Customers
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the Agency’s efforts to acquire visitors to the Website
- Evaluate which information provided by the Agency and which of its efforts are of interest to visitors to its Website
- Identify which efforts of our partner sites have made it possible to acquire visitors
- Improve the performance of the Website and its effectiveness in retaining visitors
- Identify the legislative regime to which visitors’ personal information is subject
- If applicable, review your application for employment or engagement with the Agency
Subject to exceptions provided in applicable legislation, the Agency will ensure that it obtains your consent before using any personal information about you for purposes other than those listed above.
5. To whom may the Agency disclose your personal information?
In general, the Agency uses the personal information of its Clients for internal purposes only. However, the Agency may disclose personal information about you to the following persons or entities :
- In general, the Agency uses Customers’ personal information for internal purposes only. However, the Agency may disclose personal information about you to the following individuals or entities:
- To its employees and representatives who need access to such personal information in pursuit of the purposes listed in Section 4 above
-
To external service providers with whom the Agency has entered into a contractual agreement under which the relevant external service provider is required to take appropriate measures to:
- Ensure the protection of the confidentiality of the personal information disclosed
- Ensure that the personal information disclosed is only used for the purpose of performing the services it is required to perform for the Agency
- Ensure that the personal information disclosed is not retained after the termination of the aforementioned contractual agreement
- Promptly notify the Agency of any breach or attempted breach by any person of any obligation relating to the confidentiality of the personal information disclosed
- Allow the Agency to conduct any audit relating to the confidentiality of the personal information disclosed. For example, the service provider that hosts the Website and maintains the Website may have access to personal information in the course of the specific performance of its services under a contractual agreement binding it to the Agency
- To entities that are part of the RE/MAX group with which the Agency is affiliated (RE/MAX Quebec Inc., RE/MAX Promotional Fund Inc., National Relocation Services (RELONAT) Inc. and RE/MAX, LLC (Denver, CO)), to the extent necessary to enable the Agency to honor its contractual and statutory obligations
- To any other person or entity, when prescribed or permitted by applicable legislation, or with the consent of the Customer concerned
6. How does the Agency protect the confidentiality of your personal information?
The Agency takes appropriate physical, technological and administrative safeguards to protect your personal information and reduce the risks of unauthorized and/or illegal access, use, disclosure and destruction.
Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the Agency:
- Verifies the identity and criminal background of all its employees and representatives
- Requires each of its employees and representatives who have access to personal information to sign a confidentiality undertaking
- Has access controls that limit access to personal information to authorized employees and representatives who require access to personal information
- Stores personal information on physical media in locked premises that are only accessible by authorized employees and representatives of the Agency
- Stores personal information on a secure technological medium, namely the information system provided by the Electronic Document Management Providers, on which an identification and authentication system is implemented to limit access to your personal information to authorized persons who need such access in pursuit of one or more of the purposes listed in Section 4 above
In addition, the Website is equipped with certain security mechanisms to protect your personal information, namely:
- All exchanges between RE/MAX servers and user devices are encrypted
- All user passwords are encrypted
- The Agency’s IT service provider is required to comply with various security obligations, which include periodic validation of security practices and processes and ongoing monitoring of Website software components and their updates
7. What measures are in place at the Agency regarding privacy incidents?
The Agency maintains a register of privacy incidents in accordance with applicable legislation. In the event of a privacy incident that presents a risk of serious harm to you, the Agency will take the necessary steps to notify you, in accordance with applicable legislation. The assessment of the risk of serious harm to you is made taking into account criteria such as the sensitivity of the personal information involved in the privacy incident, the anticipated consequences of its use and the likelihood that it will be used for harmful purposes.
8. How long is your personal information retained?
In accordance with our procedures for the secure retention and destruction of personal information, we only retain your personal information for as long as is necessary to fulfill the purposes listed in Section 4 of this Policy or for as long as is required to comply with our statutory obligations, whichever is later.
The Agency reserves the right to close a Customer’s file when the entire real estate transaction process is complete or, in the case of the Agency’s employees, for a consecutive period of at least seven (7) years from the date of termination of employment, subject to a statutory obligation providing for a different minimum retention period. The closing of a file involves the complete and final destruction of the personal information it contains, or the anonymization of such information for serious and legitimate purposes. In the case of the closing of a file concerning a Customer who is not an employee or representative of the Agency, the personal information it contains will be destroyed or anonymized usually after the expiration of a period of six (6) years following the date of closing of the file due to the retention periods imposed by law.
In this Policy, “anonymization” means the process by which personal information no longer directly or indirectly identifies the Customer to whom it relates.
9. How can you access, correct, update and/or obtain a copy of your personal information?
The Agency recognizes the right of its Customers to access, correct, update and obtain a copy of their personal information by submitting a written request to the Agency at the contact information set out in Section 13 below. In the event that such a written request is sent to the Agency, the Agency must, under the Act, verify your identity and will ensure that it responds in writing no later than thirty (30) days after receipt of the request. Any request that is not processed within this period is deemed to have been denied.
A request to correct personal information will be granted under certain circumstances, including:
- The personal information is inaccurate
- The personal information is outdated
- The personal information is ambiguous
- The personal information is incomplete
- The personal information was collected without justification
In the event that the Agency agrees to any request by a Customer to obtain a copy of computerized personal information, the Agency will ensure that it provides (or any person or body authorized by law to collect such personal information, at the Customer’s request) this copy in a structured and commonly used technological format. This paragraph does not apply (i) if providing this copy in such technological format gives rise to serious practical difficulties and/or (ii) with respect to any computerized personal information that was created or inferred from other personal information.
In the event that the Agency refuses to comply with any request for access, correction or update made by a Customer, the Agency will ensure that it communicates to the Customer the reasons for such refusal and the remedies available to the Customer in the circumstances and the time within which such remedies may be exercised. To the extent that the Customer so requests, the Agency will also assist the Customer in understanding the reasons for the refusal.
In the event that a written request is sent to it by a Customer, the Agency may also cease the dissemination of personal information about the Customer and/or de-index or re-index, as the case may be, any hyperlink attached to the Customer’s name, subject to the criteria established by the applicable legislation then in force.
In principle, the exercise by a Customer of a right provided for in this section is free of charge. However, reasonable fees may be charged to the Customer concerned to offset the costs of transcription, reproduction or transmission of his or her personal information. In such case, the Customer will be advised of the amount of the fees in question before processing the request.
10. How to withdraw your consent to the use or disclosure of your personal information?
Subject to your contractual commitments with the Agency and applicable legislation, you may withdraw or modify your consent to the use or disclosure of your personal information. To do so, you must send a written request to that effect to the Agency, at the contact information set out in Section 13 below.
Please note that withdrawing or modifying your consent may affect the Agency’s ability to adequately pursue the purposes for which it collects your personal information as described in Section 4 of this Policy and may therefore have an impact on our services to you.
11. How to make a complaint?
You may make a complaint about our methods, practices and policies for protecting personal information by writing to our Personal Information Protection Officer, whose contact information is set out in Section 14 of this Policy.
Any complaint will be handled directly by our Personal Information Protection Officer. A response will be provided to you within 30 days of the complaint. If the complaint is accepted, a brief summary of the changes made to the subject matter of the complaint will be provided to you.
If you are not satisfied with the handling of your complaint, you may also contact the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec. A written complaint may be filed with the Commission by consulting the following page: https://www.cai.gouv.qc.ca/diffusion-de-linformation/services-et-formulaires/.
12. The protection of your personal information is a priority for all entities that are part of the RE/MAX Quebec Inc. Group.
For more information regarding the processing of your personal information by the other entities that are part of the RE/MAX Quebec Inc. Group, we invite you to consult the privacy policy of each of these entities:
- RE/MAX Quebec inc. at https://www.remax-quebec.com/en/privacy-policy
- RE/MAX Promotional Fund inc. A copy of the privacy policy of this entity will be provided to you upon request
- National Relocation Services (RELONAT) inc. at https://www.relonat.com/confidentialite
13. The Agency has no responsibility or obligation with respect to Third Party Products
The Website may contain links to other third-party websites or products and services (collectively, “Third Party Products”). Third Party Products may be subject to terms of use and privacy policies that differ from those of the Agency. The Agency cannot under any circumstances be held responsible for or be subject to any obligation in connection with the content of the terms of use and/or the privacy policy of such Third Party Products. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the Agency has no responsibility or obligation with respect to your personal information that may be collected, used, disclosed and retained by any person or entity in connection with your access to or use of the Third Party Products.
Any link available on the Website directing to a Third Party Product does not imply or mean in any way that the Agency assumes or accepts responsibility for the content or use of such Third Party Product. The Agency makes no representations regarding the quality, safety, suitability or reliability of Third Party Products, or the content or materials they contain. When you access or use Third Party Products, you should review the applicable terms of use and privacy policy.
14. How can you contact the Agency’s personal information protection officer?
We are responsible for your personal information. Accordingly, we have designated a person who serves as the personal information protection officer within the Agency. To exercise any of your rights, ask questions, make comments or file a complaint regarding this Policy or our treatment of your personal information, please contact this person at the following contact information.
Please note that the Agency is required to verify your identity before responding to any request, question, comment or complaint addressed to its personal information protection officer:
Personal Information Protection Officer
Contact : Marianne Boissel
Phone : 418-683-9300
Email : renseignements.personnels@remax1erchoix.com
Phone : 418-683-9300
Email : renseignements.personnels@remax1erchoix.com