Privacy Policy
Nobility
Canada Immigration Services and its
affiliates, (“NCIS” or “we”), are committed to maintaining the confidentiality,
accuracy, security and privacy of Personal Information in accordance with all
applicable legislation.
This
Privacy Policy is a statement of principles and guidelines concerning the
protection of Personal Information of our clients, service providers, and other
individuals (“you”).
Consent
BY
SUBMITTING PERSONAL INFORMATION TO NCIS OR ITS SERVICE PROVIDERS AND AGENTS,
YOU AGREE THAT WE MAY COLLECT, USE AND DISCLOSE SUCH PERSONAL INFORMATION IN
ACCORDANCE WITH THIS PRIVACY POLICY AND AS PERMITTED OR REQUIRED BY LAW.
Subject
to legal and contractual requirements, you may refuse or withdraw your consent
to certain of the identified purposes at any time by contacting NCIS. If you
refuse or withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide you or continue
to provide you with certain services or information which may be of value to
you. If you provide NCIS, our service providers, or agents with personal
information of another individual, you represent that you have the necessary
authority and/or have obtained all necessary consents from such person to
enable us to collect, use, and disclose such personal information for the
purposes set forth in this Privacy Policy.
What Personal Information do we Collect?
As
authorized representatives licensed by the College of Immigration Consultants
Canada, we are bound to keep information that you provide to us concerning your
legal affairs subject to the rules of client/council privilege.
In
addition, Canadian privacy legislation defines “Personal Information” broadly
as information about an identifiable individual or as information that allows
an individual to be identified.
For
the purposes of this policy, Personal Information means information about an
identifiable individual as defined from time to time in applicable privacy
legislation. Generally speaking Personal Information does not include what is
considered business contact information: your name, title or position, business
address, telephone number, facsimile number or e-mail address. The types of
Personal Information that NCIS may collect about you includes your name, home
address, telephone number, personal e-mail address, billing and account
information, information about a client’s legal issue and other information
incidental to providing legal advice and services (including Personal
Information about witnesses, family members, beneficiaries, directors,
officers, employees, adverse parties, parties-in-interest, investigators,
decision-makers, experts, other professional advisors and our clients’ business
partners, investors, shareholders, competitors and customers whom are
individuals).
Why do we collect Your Personal Information?
In
general, NCIS collects, uses, may need to disclose Personal Information about
our clients and service providers in order to provide our clients with
professional legal services. More specifically, we collect, use and disclose
your Personal Information for the following purposes:
- to
establish and manage client relationships, provide immigration law advice,
perform legal services, fulfill legal duties, and avoid conflicts of
interest. This may include the sharing of Personal Information by and
between NCIS personnel and affiliated companies and partnerships for such
purposes;
- to
share Personal Information to and from third parties for the purpose of
providing legal services. Such third parties may include government
agencies, opposing parties; parties in interest; opposing, foreign and
other counsel and advisors; witnesses; decision-makers; and experts;
- to
consider whether NCIS should establish a commercial relationship with
clients, suppliers and other third parties, including to evaluate credit
standing and to match credit bureau or credit reporting agency
information;
- to
establish and maintain commercial relationships with clients, suppliers
and other third parties, including to issue invoices, administer accounts,
collect and process payments, and to fulfill contractual obligations;
- to
understand and respond to client, supplier and other third party needs and
preferences, including to contact and communicate with such parties and to
conduct surveys, research and evaluations;
to develop, enhance, market, sell or otherwise provide NCIS’s services; - to
market, sell or otherwise provide services of third parties with whom NCIS
has a commercial relationship;
- to
distribute our newsletters, conference information and other material to
individuals on our mail and e-mail lists, including via third-party
mailing houses and e-mail service providers;
- to
develop and manage our precedent systems and databases;
- to
develop and manage NCIS’s business and operations;
- to
detect and protect NCIS and other third parties against error, negligence,
breach of contract, fraud, theft and other illegal activity, and to audit
compliance with NCIS policies and contractual obligations;
- to
engage in business transactions, including the purchase, sale, lease,
merger, amalgamation or any other type of acquisition, disposal,
securitization or financing involving NCIS;
- as
permitted by, and to comply with, any legal or regulatory requirements or
provisions; and
for any other purpose to which you consent.
To whom do we disclose Your Personal
Information?
From
time to time, NCIS may disclose your Personal Information to:
- service
providers, including an organization or individual retained by NCIS to
perform functions on its behalf, such as marketing, data processing,
document management and office services;
- an
organization or individual retained by NCIS to evaluate your
creditworthiness or to collect debts outstanding on an account;
- a
financial institution, on a confidential basis and solely in connection
with the assignment of a right to receive payment, the provision of
security or other financing arrangements; or
- a
person who, in the reasonable judgment of NCIS, is providing or seeking
the information as your agent;
- to our
insurers and to regulatory agencies such as provincial law societies,
insurers or others in connection with regulatory or other activities
relating to the obligations of NCIS and its practice of the profession of
law; and
- any
third party or parties, where you consent to such disclosure or where
disclosure is required or permitted by law.
Where do we Store Your Personal Information?
Your
Personal Information is stored in secured locations and on servers controlled
by NCIS, located either at our offices or at the offices of our service
providers.
How May You Obtain Access to Your Personal
Information?
Upon
your written request, subject to certain exceptions, NCIS will inform you of
the existence, use and disclosure of your Personal Information and will give
you access to that information. Access requests should be sent to NCIS, using
the contact information below.
How do we protect Your Personal Information?
To
help protect the confidentiality of your Personal Information, NCIS employs
administrative and technological safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of
your Personal Information. Where Personal Information is sent to a third party
for processing we ensure, through our contacts with them, that all Personal
Information is kept secure. We operate secure data networks protected by
industry standard firewall and password protection systems.
Privacy and Our Website
Cookies
– When an individual visitor accesses the NCIS website, we may use a browser
feature called a ‘cookie’ to collect information such as the type of Internet
browser and operating system the visitor uses, the domain name of the website
from which the visitor came, date and duration of the visit, number of visits,
average time spent on our website, pages viewed and number of cookies
accumulated. A cookie is a small text file containing a unique identification
number that identifies the visitor’s browser, but not necessarily the visitor,
to our computers each time our website is visited. Unless a visitor
specifically informs us (e.g. by registering for an event or sending us
correspondence from the website), we will not know who the individual visitors
are. In addition to the identified purposes described in our Privacy Policy, we
may use this website information and share it with other organizations with
whom we have a commercial relationship to measure the use of our website, to
improve the functionality and content of the website and to facilitate usage by
a visitor. Visitors can reset their browsers either to notify them when they
have received a cookie or refuse to accept cookies. However, if a visitor
refuses to accept cookies, he or she may not be able to use some of the
features available on our website.
Online
Communications – In order to provide our website visitors with a service or
information, visitors may voluntarily submit Personal Information to us for
purposes such as asking a question, obtaining information, reviewing or
downloading a publication, participating in a seminar or other event, and
participating in contests and surveys. If you are known to NCIS as a registered
user of an online service, we may combine and store Personal Information about
your use of our website and the online information you have provided with
certain other online and offline information we may have collected.
E-mail
Communications – Occasionally, we may send marketing or promotional e-mail
communications to you with information that may be useful, including
information about the services of NCIS and other third parties with whom we
have a relationship. We will include instructions on how to unsubscribe and
inform us of preferences if you decide you do not want to receive any future
marketing or promotional e-mails from NCIS.
Links
– Our website may contain links to other websites which are provided as a
convenience only. Visitors are advised that other third party websites may have
different privacy policies and practices than NCIS, and NCIS has no
responsibility for such third party websites.
Changes to the Privacy Policy
NCIS
reserves the right to modify or supplement this Privacy Policy at any time. If
we make a change to this Privacy Policy, we will post such changes on our
website and make such revised policy and changes available upon request to the NCIS.
However, NCIS will obtain the necessary consents required under applicable
privacy laws if it seeks to collect, use or disclose your Personal Information
for purposes other than those to which consent has been obtained unless
otherwise required or permitted by law.
Further Information
NCIS
has appointed Shahrukh Naseer in our Vancouver office as Chief Privacy Officer
to oversee compliance with this Privacy Policy and applicable privacy laws. For
information on NCIS’s privacy practices, please contact the NCIS Chief Privacy
Officer at:
NCIS
Immigration
Chief Privacy Officer
E-mail: info@nciscanada.ca