Introduction
Your privacy is important to us. Keeping personal information about our borrowers, their families, and their associates safe is something we strive for at Ninth Avenue Capital Ltd. (“NAC”). It is essential for the long-term success of our business and to protect our borrowers’ interests.
This policy is intended to provide you with information about how we collect, use, and disclose personal information in the course of our business, and through digital platforms we use to deliver services. We may update it from time to time to better reflect changes in our services, collection, use or disclosure of your personal information and to account for changes in privacy laws.
We last updated this policy on November 1, 2024.
You can find out more information about your rights by visiting these websites:
To better ensure that we live up to the goals and commitments expressed in this policy, we have appointed a Privacy Officer to oversee it. If you’d like to know more about this policy or have questions about how we manage your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer, Clinton Grayson, at privacy[at]ninthavenuecapital.ca or 1-833-527-4153.
You can also get in touch with our Privacy Officer at:
Ninth Avenue Capital Ltd.
5th Floor – 1508 West Broadway
Vancouver, BC V6J 1W8
Attn: Privacy Officer
Please reach out to us if you have any comments, questions or concerns about this policy or your personal information.
Collection and Use of Personal Information
What is “personal information”?
“Personal information” is any information related to an identifiable individual, such as yourself, your spouse, or your children, except for business contact information. An “identifiable individual” is someone who can be identified, either directly or indirectly, through information such as name, home address, personal telephone number, social insurance number, financial transactions, online behaviors, as well as factors specific to the individual such as gender or date of birth.
How do we collect personal information?
For us to deliver services to you, we need to collect personal information about you – it’s necessary because of the kinds of services that we offer.
Most of the time, we will collect personal information about you through our digital platforms. In some cases, and only with your express consent, we might also collect your personal information from third party sources, such as your accountant or your lawyer.
What personal information do we collect?
We ask you for information to:
- establish and maintain responsible commercial relations with you;
- to provide ongoing service; and
- meet our legal and regulatory requirements. As such, while the particular items of personal information we collect from you can be broad, you can expect that we will collect information establishing your identity such as your name, address, date of birth, phone number, income sources (employment or business ownership), email address, social insurance number (for tax purposes), account numbers, citizenship, country of residence, banking information, occupation, Politically Exposed Person (PEP) status, marital status, dependents, income and net worth.
For individuals we will also collect information about your employment, income sources and credit bureau reporting agencies.
For entity borrowers, we will collect information about your business, including address, phone number, email address, industry type, beneficial owners, authorized persons, and directors, settlors and trustees, as well as business credit bureau records and information from third-party background and identification verification providers as applicable.
If you use our digital platforms, we will also collect information about the system through which you’ve used them, such as your Internet protocol addresses, the contents of local cookies, your operating system, and other similar technical information. Additional information may also be collected to meet our legal and regulatory obligations.
How do we use your personal information?
We use your personal information for a variety of purposes. It is used to help us provide you with mortgage brokerage services and to satisfy information requests from regulators and other organizations or individuals who are legally entitled to make such requests. We use your information to:
- establish your mortgage;
- verify your identity;
- communicate with you;
- understand your financial situation;
- manage our risks and operations;
- meet our regulatory and legal requirements; and
- provide any other services required from us.
We also use it to determine whether you might benefit from, or be interested in discussing new services, products, and to evaluate and improve our digital platforms. Finally, we use your personal information to comply with legal obligations, including “know your borrower” requirements and taxation matters.
Disclosure of Personal Information
How do we disclose your personal information?
We do not disclose your personal information except in the situations described in this policy. We do not sell your personal information to third parties.
We are committed to keeping your personal information safe, secure and confidential. We may disclose your personal information:
- to our personnel, including our parent, subsidiary and affiliate personnel, in order for them to use it in the situations described under the heading “How Do We Use Your Personal Information?”;
- to a third party, if it is necessary in order to provide a service you have requested;
- as permitted or required by government authorities, applicable laws, regulatory requirements, or legal processes such as subpoenas, court orders or to help prevent crime, fraud, money laundering and terrorist financing;
- to respond to valid and authorized information requests;
- during emergency situations, or to protect our rights or property from harm;
- to protect the safety of employees, borrowers or other third parties; or
- if you otherwise consent to the disclosure.
Examples of third parties to which we disclose your personal information include: mortgage regulators; the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC); provincial insurance councils; taxing authorities; governmental bodies or courts that have jurisdiction over us; Nicola Wealth Management Ltd. and other third-party representatives or companies that support NAC with business services like accounting, record keeping, or borrower-related administrative services.
Some third parties who facilitate the provision of our services collect anonymized information while doing so. By receiving our services or using our digital platforms, those third parties may be able to ascertain your identity from otherwise-anonymized information they collect. For example, if you use our digital platforms, each third party involved in facilitating the provision or receipt of those platforms’ functionalities may be able to collect anonymous information about the way you have used them and use that information to determine your identity through pattern-matching.
A Note About Transmission and Storage of Personal Information.
Your personal information may be maintained or processed on systems located in jurisdictions outside of Canada such as the United States. Where applicable, this information could be bound by the laws of those jurisdictions and may be required to be disclosed in accordance with the laws of those jurisdictions.
Retention, Integrity and Security of Personal Information
How long will we keep your personal information?
We retain your information only for the time it is required and for the purpose of providing you with our mortgage brokerage services. This period of time extends beyond the end of our relationship but only for as long as is necessary for us to meet our legal and regulatory requirements, abide by our internal record keeping obligations and for as long as it is necessary for us to respond to any outstanding matters.
How will we keep your personal information accurate?
We make reasonable efforts to ensure the information we have about you is accurate, up-to-date and complete. Generally, this means we will reach out to you periodically and at least annually to verify that your personal information is current. Given that we make decisions based on the information we have, we encourage you to help us keep your information current. Having accurate information about you enables us to give you better service and minimizes the possibility that out-of-date information may be used to make decisions which impact you. We have procedures and practices in place to help us maintain the accuracy of your information, however we rely on you for such information and encourage you to please contact us if your personal information changes at any time.
How do we protect your personal information?
To keep your personal information safe, we use industry-standard, borrower-conscious controls, processes, software, systems, training programs and physical safeguards, which we select based on the sensitivity of the particular items of personal information each method secures. We also test our security plans regularly and use systems that automatically update and improve themselves as new threats arise.
All our employees are familiar with the procedures required to safeguard borrower information, and they are required to always maintain the confidentiality of such information, failing to do so may result in disciplinary measures. Protecting your information is an essential part of our job.
No organization, including NAC, can guarantee the ongoing security, integrity, or secrecy of your personal information. Even organizations that employ teams specialized in data and information security will from time to time suffer security incidents. Although every effort will be made to safeguard your personal information, NAC cannot promise that we will be able to prevent unauthorized disclosure, modification, or destruction of personal information you provide us.
What can you do to help protect your personal information?
The most important thing you can do to keep your personal information safe is to protect, and keep secret, your borrower portal usernames and passwords. The second most important thing you can do is to restrict communication of highly-sensitive personal information to in-person meetings, or through secure, encrypted communication services – not email.
What happens if we find out your personal information has been lost or stolen?
If we uncover a privacy incident, or reasonably suspect a privacy breach involving your personal information, we will investigate and evaluate its implications promptly. If a privacy incident creates a real risk of significant harm to you or any other individual, we will activate our privacy breach notification protocol – we have processes, procedures and service providers in place so that we can attempt to minimize the scope or magnitude of harm in a timely manner and comply with our notification obligations under the law.
How can you see what personal information we have about you?
In the normal course of business, you receive periodic access to your personal information in the form of transaction activity records, including account statements. This information is available to you through the mail and emails. If you would like to access your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer in writing. Upon such a request we will give you access to the information we retain about you. We generally require proof of identity before we release any personal information to you. We will then provide you with the personal information we have about you, unless we are required by law to refrain from doing so, or believe we have a right to refrain from doing so and choose to exercise such right. You may verify the accuracy and completeness of the personal information we have about you and may also ask us to amend it.
Cookies and Analytics
We use cookies, beacons, tags, and similar technologies, which may be provided by third parties, on our website to enable certain functionality (such as remember your language selection), for security and fraud detection and prevention, to analyze usage information about our site and to personalize content for you. While the data collected by cookies doesn’t directly identify you, we may use it with other information, including personal information, as needed to meet these objectives. You can opt out of the use of cookies and related tools by adjusting your device and browser settings, although some features of our website may not function properly when cookies are disabled.
We also use log file information for functionality, security, account management and usage analytics. Most browsers automatically collect information like your IP address, device type, screen resolution, operating system version, internet browser type and version, and time of visit or log-in and store it in log files.
A Note About “Cookies”
A “cookie” is a small data file stored on your system that allows it to be identified as you move from page to page on the Internet by associating it with an alphanumeric code. Our digital platforms use cookies as a consequence of certain features, and in order to analyze user behaviour and improve our offerings. Some cookies are necessary to enable you to move around our website and use its features. These cookies enhance the convenience and use of the website. If you disable required cookies, some features of the website will be affected or may not work at all. Other cookies are helpful to allow us to understand how people use our digital platforms.
Third Party Analytics Tools
Our site uses automated, third-party tools such as Google Analytics to collect and analyze information about use of the sites and engagement with our content and communications, and report on activities and trends. This service may also collect information regarding the use of other websites, apps, and online resources, such as links you followed to access our website.
You can learn about Google’s practices by going to www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.
NAC uses Google Analytics to better understand the nature of the traffic on our website, including how long your site visit was, the pages you visited, and whether you have visited our site previously. We use the information from Google Analytics for user experience improvements and for tailoring content to improve the overall utility of our website to its visitors.
To learn more about Google Analytics, or to opt out, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Addressing Your Concerns
You are always in control of your personal information. Providing us with your information is always your choice. By using our mortgage brokerage services with us, you have consented to the disclosure of your personal information to third parties in the circumstances or for the purposes described in this policy. Your decision to withhold information or withdraw consent with respect to our use of your personal information may prevent us from taking you on as a borrower providing you with the best possible service, or continuing to work with you as a borrower. You can withdraw your consent at any time, subject to the requirement of reasonable notice and any legal or contractual restrictions, by writing to us.
As set out in the introduction to this policy, if you’d like to know more about our policy, or have questions about how we manage your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer, Clinton Grayson, at privacy[at]ninthavenuecapital.ca or 1-833-527-4153. You can also get in touch with our Privacy Officer at:
Ninth Avenue Capital Ltd.
5th Floor – 1508 West Broadway
Vancouver, BC V6J 1W8
Attn: Privacy Officer
Please reach out to us if you have any comments, questions or concerns about this policy or your personal information. If you choose to mail, fax, or email us, please include your full name, address, and telephone number.