Privacy Policy
READ THESE TERMS OF USE CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS WEB SITE (THE “WEBSITE”). USING THIS WEBSITE INDICATES THAT YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS OF USE. IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT THESE TERMS OF USE, DO NOT USE THIS WEBSITE.
KASTLE REALTY TEAM provides a variety of products and services to the public, including but not limited to: real estate brokerage services, real estate agency services, advise with respect to real estate purchases and sales, and other real estate advisory services. In the course of providing these products and services, we may collect, with their consent, certain personal information about you. This privacy policy (this “Privacy Policy”) applies to your use of the www.kastlyrealty.ca website (the “Website”), which is owned and operated by KASTLE REALTY TEAM and your use of the products and services of KASTLE REALTY TEAM. Your privacy and security are important to us. We are committed to collecting, using and disclosing personal information responsibly and in accordance with applicable Canadian privacy laws, rules and regulations. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand how we will use and protect the personal information you provide us. We will not share your personal information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy. We do reserve the right to make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time, so please check back periodically.
1. What Information We Collect From You
1.1 Personal Information vs. Non Personal Information. Our primary goal in collecting information from you is to provide you with an efficient and helpful experience while using our products and services. In order to do so, we collect two types of information about you, Personal Information and Non Personal Information. “Personal Information” refers to information that lets us know the specifics as to who you are and which can be used to identify, contact or locate you. Examples of Personal Information include your first name together with your last name, your mailing address and/or email address, and your phone number. Personal Information may include such information that is required to effectively market and sell the property of sellers or lessors including photographic images and descriptions of the property; to locate, assess and qualify properties for buyers; and to otherwise provide professional and competent real estate services to you and to ensure that you are satisfied with the products and services we have provided. Personal information does not include business information (business address and phone number), which is not protected by privacy legislation. Generally, we collect Personal Information when you use the Website to fill out surveys, correspond with us, submit testimonials, stories, photos or the like to the Website, or otherwise volunteer information about yourself in order to obtain our products and services. “Non Personal Information” refers to information that does not by itself identify you or a specific individual. Examples of Non Personal Information we may collect include demographic information, which web pages of ours are most often visited and which of our products are either receiving the most purchases or website visits. We may collect Non Personal Information through any of the methods discussed above as well as automatically through use of industry standard technologies discussed further below.
1.2 Access and Change to Personal Information. Upon written request, we will use reasonable efforts to allow users to update or correct Personal Information previously submitted but only to the extent such activities will not compromise privacy or security interests. Also, upon your written request, we will functionally delete you and your Personal Information from the database where such information is stored; however, it may be impossible to delete your Personal Information without some residual information being retained because of the nature in which backups of data are maintained.
1.3 Information You Provide To Us. You will have the opportunity to provide us with Personal Information and Non Personal Information which we will collect directly from you. If you provide photographs, stories, testimonials or other feedback about our products or services or our Website, or provide us any other information via correspondence or otherwise (“Content”) directly via an email hyperlink on the Website, we collect your first and last name, email address and any content included in the email.
1.4 Information Collected Through Technology. We or our third party service providers may collect information from visitors to the Website regarding the referring URL, your IP address, which browser you used to come to the Website, information regarding your domain server, the country, state and telephone area code where your server is located, your type of computer, timestamp data and the pages of the Website that you viewed during your visit. Some of this information is gathered through the following technologies:
(a) Cookies. In order to improve your user experience we may use cookies. “Cookies” are small pieces of information that are stored by your browser on your computer’s hard drive. Generally, cookies work by assigning to your computer a unique number that has no meaning outside of the Website. Our cookies do not generally contain any personally identifying information. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually configure your browser to prevent this. Not accepting cookies may make certain features of the Website unavailable to you.
(b) IP Address. You can visit many areas of the Website anonymously without the need to become a registered user. Even in such cases, we may collect IP addresses automatically. An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you begin service with an Internet Service Provider. Each time you access the Website and each time you request one of our pages, our server logs your IP address. Standing alone, your IP address is not necessarily personally identifiable.
(c) Web Beacons. We may use a variety of other technical methods for tracking purposes, including web beacons. Web beacons are small pieces of data that are embedded in web pages and e-mails. We may use these technical methods in HTML e-mails that we send our users to determine whether they have opened those e-mails and/or clicked on links in those e-mails. The information from use of these technical methods may be collected in a form that is personally identifiable.
2. Use And Disclosure Of Personal Information
2.1 Use of Personal Information and Non Personal Information. Our primary use of your Personal Information and Non Personal Information is to communicate with you in order to provide you with our products and services, to send you informational and promotional materials, including about upcoming promotions and events, and to make internal business decisions. In addition, we may use Personal Information and Non Personal Information to learn more about our community and/or customers so we can improve our services, promotions and events. Specific examples of other purposes for which we may use your Personal Information that we collect are as follows:
(a) System Administration. We use your IP Address and other information discussed above in Section 1.4 for the purposes of system administration, to assist in diagnosing problems with our server, to monitor our system performance and the level of activity on the Website in general and about specific portions of our Website and how the traffic on our Website is apportioned and from where it may come, and to gather broad demographic information about our Website visitors and customers, so we can make it easier and more convenient for you to navigate and use the Website, and make our Website more useful and better targeted for you and our community in general.
(b) Personalization. We use Cookies and IP Addresses to provide features such as personalization. We do not use 3rd party advertising.
c) Notices to Recipients Regarding Requests. If you have made a request for information via the Website, we may use your Personal Information to send one or more emails regarding your request. We may also telephone you regarding fulfillment of your request.
(d) Secondary Purposes. We collect, use, and disclose Personal information for such secondary purposes as:
– to assist external advisors with audits or other quality assurance reviews;
– to disclose certain Personal Information required by-law or in a good faith belief that it is necessary to comply with a law, regulation, court order, ongoing judicial proceeding, or other legal process served on us or in our own legal defense; and
– we may sell, transfer or otherwise share some or all of our assets, including your Personal Information, in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets or in the event of bankruptcy. In such a case, a “due diligence” review of our records may be required to ensure that our business is a viable business that has been honestly portrayed. This due diligence may include some review of our accounting and service files. The entity or purchaser conducting the due diligence would not be able to remove or record personal information. Before being provided access to the files, the entity or purchaser would be required to sign a confidentiality agreement. Only after having already agreed to acquire or merge with our will such individual or entity be provided access to Personal Information.
(e) Newsletters & Promotional Emails; Opt-Out Option: We may offer free electronic newsletters and promotional emails regarding upcoming products, promotions, events and/or services offered on the Website. We may use your Personal Information to send you newsletters and emails periodically listing current products, promotions, events and/or services, or other items available for purchase on our website or from our marketing partners or sponsors. However, you have the choice to opt-out of receiving such newsletters and promotional emails for products and/or services offered on the Website by sending an email to us at info@kastlerealty.ca and/or following the instructions in our promotional email. Once we have processed your opt-out request, we will not send you promotional emails with respect to products and/or services offered by us through the Website unless you opt back in to receiving such communications directly.
(f) Contact Information: If you contact us by telephone, email or letter, we may keep a record of your contact information, correspondence or comments. If you report a problem with the Website, we may collect this information in a file specific to you. In addition, if you provide us feedback through the Website, by email or by calling us, we may ask for your name and email address in order to send you a reply. You may contact us at info@kastlerealty.ca to request the removal of this information from our database, subject to section 1.2.
2.2 Disclosure of Personal Information.
(a) General Rule. Except as otherwise stated in this Privacy Policy, we do not sell, trade or rent your Personal Information collected on the Website to others. We may disclose your Personal Information to related parties. Such related parties may use your Personal Information only to the extent permitted to be used pursuant to this Privacy Policy.
(b) When Authorized by You. Many of the services offered by us require us to obtain Personal Information about you in order to perform the services you have engaged us to provide. We will always obtain consent from you first, and we will never use the information for purposes other than those we have told you about. You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to any legal implications (which we will inform you about). In some cases, if you do not consent to our use or disclosure of certain Personal Information, we may be unable to continue to provide all or part of the services you have requested.
(c) Service Providers. We may disclose your Personal Information to our third-party service providers, including companies we retain to manage or host the Website, companies we retain to provide services to you on our behalf, and companies we retain as consultants to conduct research on our behalf. These third parties may not use your Personal Information other than to provide the services requested by us. With respect to Non-Personal Information, we also share website usage information we gather from visitors to the Website who have received a targeted promotional campaign with our third-party advertising service partners for the purpose of targeting future campaigns and upgrading visitor information used in reporting statistics. For this purpose, we and our third-party service partners may note some of the pages you visit on the Website through the use of web beacons. In addition, we may provide aggregated statistics about our customers, sales, traffic patterns, and related Website information to third parties. We reserve the right to use or disclose Non-Personal Information in any manner.
(d) Links to Other Websites. Our Website may contain links to third party web sites to which we have no affiliation. We do not share your Personal Information with those web sites and are not responsible for their privacy practices.
(e) KASTLE REALTY TEAM Employees. In the course of daily operations, access to sensitive Personal Information is limited to those employees with a legitimate reason for accessing it. As a condition of their employment, KASTLE REALTY TEAM employees are required to follow all applicable laws and regulations, including this Privacy Policy. Unauthorized use or disclosure of confidential client information by any employee is prohibited any may result in disciplinary measures.
3. Opting-Out
We may from time to time send you email or other communications regarding current promotions, specials and new additions to the Website. If you have supplied us with your telephone number(s) you may receive telephone calls from us with information or requests for information regarding an order you have placed. You may “opt out” or unsubscribe from our newsletters and non-transactional related emails and disclosures to third parties for promotional purposes by following the unsubscribe instructions in any email you receive from us or by sending an email to info@kastlerealty.ca. Being removed from our email list does not mean that you will automatically be removed from our regular mailing list. If you would like to be removed from our mailing list completely, you will need to contact our office.
4. Safeguarding Your Personal Information
4.1 Our Security Measures. All of the Personal Information we collect is protected against unauthorized access by physical security means. Appropriate controls (such as restricted access) are placed on our computer systems and data processing procedures. Although our technology uses reasonable efforts to safeguard the security of your Personal Information, transmissions made on or through the Internet are vulnerable to attack and cannot be guaranteed to be secure. In addition, submissions made via email are not protected by SSL technology and are vulnerable to interception during transmission. You hereby acknowledge that KASTLE REALTY TEAM is not responsible for any intercepted information sent via the internet, and you hereby release us from any and all claims arising out of or related to the use of intercepted information in any unauthorized manner.
4.2 Protecting Yourself. You are solely responsible for safeguarding and maintaining the secrecy of your User ID, passwords and/or any account information in your possession or control. Please be careful and responsible whenever you are online. The Website contains links to third parties who may collect information directly from you. Each of the websites linked from the Website have separate privacy policies and data collection practices, independent of KASTLE REALTY TEAM and KASTLE REALTY TEAM has no responsibility or liability for these independent policies or actions and is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites nor do we make any warranties or representations about the contents, products or services offered on such websites or the security of any information you provide to them. You can learn more about Internet privacy from government websites. In addition, it is important to keep us updated with your most current contact information. You have the right to access the Personal Information we keep in your file and you have the right to verify or amend the information if it is shown to be inaccurate. Please contact info@kastlerealty.ca to make a written request to view the Personal Information kept in your file.
5. General
5.1 Deleting Account. You can e-mail info@kastlerealty.ca to have the information on your account deleted, updated or corrected, subject to Section 1.2. Note that we may retain changed or deleted information for archival or other purposes.
5.2 Changes to Our Policy. This Privacy Policy is effective with respect to any Personal Information collected on or after the effective date set forth below. KASTLE REALTY TEAM reserves the right to modify or supplement this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make any changes, we will update the Website and Privacy Policy to include such change and notice thereof. Please review this Privacy Policy often to review any changes that may affect your use of the Website. Your continued use of the Website once the revised Privacy Policy has been posted on the Website affirms your agreement to such changes.
5.3 Contact Us. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of our Website, or your dealings with our Website, please contact us by sending an email to: info@kastlerealty.ca. If you wish to make a formal complaint about our privacy practices, you may make it in writing to our Information Officer. The Information Officer will acknowledge receipt of your complaint, ensure that it is investigated promptly and provide you with a formal decision and reasons in writing. This policy is made pursuant to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada). It is a complex Act and provides some additional exceptions to the privacy principles that are too detailed to set out here. There are some rare exceptions to the commitments set out above. For more general inquiries, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Canada oversees the administration of the Act in the private sector. The Commissioner also acts as an ombudsman for privacy disputes.