BALANCED NUMBERS

Personal Information Protection Policy

Balanced Numbers is committed to safeguarding the personal information entrusted to us by our clients. We manage your personal information in accordance with Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act and other applicable laws. This policy outlines the principles and practices we follow in protecting your personal information. This policy applies to Balanced Numbers and to any person providing services on our behalf. A copy of this policy is provided to any client on request.

What is personal information?

Personal information means information about an identifiable individual. This includes an individual’s name, home address and phone number, age, sex, marital or family status, an identifying number, financial information, educational history, etc.

What personal information do we collect?

We collect only the personal information that we need for the purposes of providing services to our clients, including personal information needed to perform the bookkeeping duties or tax preparation and follow up for our clients.

We normally collect client personal information directly from our clients. We may collect your information from other persons with your consent or as authorized by law.

We inform our clients, before or at the time of collecting personal information, of the purposes for which we are collecting the information. The only time we don’t provide this notification is when a client volunteers information for an obvious purpose (for example, producing a credit card to pay a fee when the information will be used only to process the payment).

Consent

We ask for consent to collect, use or disclose client personal information, except in specific circumstances where collection, use or disclosure without consent is authorized or required by law. We may assume your consent in cases where you volunteer information for an obvious purpose. We assume your consent to continue to use and, where applicable, disclose personal information that we have already collected, for the purpose for which the information was collected.

We ask for your express consent for some purposes and may not be able to provide certain services if you are unwilling to provide consent to the collection, use or disclosure of certain personal information. Where express consent is needed, we will normally ask clients to provide their consent verbally over the phone or in person or by written consent by way of email, text message or consent form.

A client may withdraw consent to the use and disclosure of personal information at any time, unless the personal information is necessary for us to fulfill our legal obligations. We will respect your decision, but we may not be able to provide you with certain products and services if we do not have the necessary personal information.

We may collect, use or disclose client personal information without consent only as authorized by law. For example, we may not request consent when the collection, use or disclosure is to determine suitability for an honour or award, or in an emergency that threatens life, health or safety.

How do we use and disclose personal information?

We use and disclose client personal information only for the purpose, for which the information was collected, except as authorized by law. For example, we may use client contact information to provide our services.

How do we safeguard personal information?

We make every reasonable effort to ensure that personal information is accurate and complete. We rely on individuals to notify us if there is a change to their personal information that may affect their relationship with our organization. If you are aware of an error in our information about you, please let us know and we will correct it on request wherever possible. In some cases, we may ask for a written request for correction.

We protect personal information in a manner appropriate for the sensitivity of the information. We make every reasonable effort to prevent any loss, misuse, disclosure or modification of personal information, as well as any unauthorized access to personal information.

We use appropriate security measures when destroying personal information, including shredding paper records and permanently deleting digital records.