Privacy Policy
OFFICE POLICIES REGARDING PRIVACY CODE
A. The policy statement for Royal LePage Foothills Real Estate Services, (known as Foothills).
Royal LePage Foothills Real Estate services only collects personal information necessary to market and sell the property of sellers, to locate, assess and qualify properties for buyers and to otherwise provide professional and competent real estate services to clients and customers.
B. The Person in Charge.
Ted Zaharko, Broker/Owner of Foothills is the person/position responsible for privacy compliance in this office. His name shall be made available to consumers. The responsibilities of the privacy compliance officer shall be:
- establish and update information protection policies;
- ensure policies are implemented by other organizations to which data-processing functions are out-sourced;
- establish criteria for classification of information;
- evaluate the accessibility of sensitive information and take corrective action where necessary;
- provide education to employees on the importance of information protection;
- attempt to resolve consumer privacy complaints to the satisfaction of the consumer
C. The Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information Foothills Shall:
- Identify to consumers the uses you intend to make of their personal information (Principle 2);
- Collect only that information necessary for the uses identified (Principle 4);
- Disclose information only for the reason it was collected (Principle 5);
- Obtain the consent of the consumer for the collection and disclosure of information (Principle 3).
Agents and other representatives of this office will collect only the information necessary to facilitate the real estate transaction or otherwise provide professional and competent service to clients and customers.
Royal LePage Foothills Real Estate Services agrees with the clauses incorporated into the representative agreement, and all of our agents must use such agreements.
D. Use of the Information Only as Disclosed
Once the client has been told what will be done with the information, agents must be diligent to use the information only for those disclosed purposes.
Royal LePage Foothills Brokers, agents and affiliate Brokers will only use the client’s names and contact information after obtaining consent from the client.
E. Disclosure for New Purpose
“The approved form of representation agreements must always be used by agents”.
Express Consent
Anyone using personal information for some new purpose that extends beyond the consent already provided, must obtain the express consent of the person for that use.
Requests for information by law enforcement officials, private investigators or other agents or subpoenas for documents issued by the court must be referred to the office manager.
F. Protecting Information
Information must be protected in a manner commensurate with its sensitivity, value and criticality. This policy applies regardless of the media on which the information is stored, the locations where the information is stored, the systems used to process the information, or the process by which information is handled.
Collection
- If the information is likely to be regarded as sensitive (e.g. information concerning employment, finances health issues, etc…) will take place in an environment that offers privacy and confidentiality;
- Information that comes in through the mail or by fax will be routed to the intended recipient directly;
- We will not be indiscriminate about who has access to personal information. Information will be available on a “need-to-know” basis.
Storage
The policies involving the storage of personal information are set out in section 7.3 of the Privacy Code.
Record Retention
All offices will have in place record retention and destruction policies consistent with the laws of this jurisdiction.
G. Accuracy of and Access to Personal Information
To ensure the quality of the information collected:
- insofar as possible, personal information should be collected directly from the consumer;
- public property information (taxes, assessment data etc.) will be verified with the public source;
- disclaimers of accuracy will always be attached to any disclosure of information.
There will be exceptions to the requirement to personal information to individuals and may include:
- Personal information that contains references to other individuals;
- Information that cannot be disclosed for security reasons;
- Information that is subject to solicitor-client privilege.
H. Openness
Royal LePage Foothills will post on their web-site the privacy policy and have brochures available to the public.
I. Challenging Compliance
The Foothills complaint process will be as follows:
- The complaint should first be made to the Royal LePage Foothills office itself, allowing an attempt to resolve the matter internally to the satisfaction of the individual;
- If the initial process fails the complaint will be referred to the complaints process of the franchisor, or to the appropriate data protection enforcement authorities.
