We may, from time to time, collect personal information about you, including transaction information obtained as a result of your relationship with us and others. We may collect, use and disclose your personal information for several purposes, including:
- To develop and maintain our relationship with you, including inviting you to comment on the products and services we provide to you;
- To process your application or quote for products or services, and share your information with the providers of those products and services;
- To provide and administer the products and services you have requested;
- To approve transactions;
- To verify your identity and to protect all parties from errors and fraud;
- To verify your eligibility for certain products and services;
- To assess and update your credit worthiness on an ongoing basis, including to adjust your credit limits, and, effective as of July 1, 2009, your interest rates or any other features of your accounts;
- For marketing analysis purposes and to track and analyze your purchases and other transactions (including the number and amount of transactions by type, product code information, brand, etc.), shopping patterns, account balances, account numbers, payment history, account activity, and the channels you use to apply for or to access or use the products or services to which this Privacy Policy applies;
- For research and statistical analysis purposes (we anonymize information used for such purposes to the extent possible);
- Effective as of July 1, 2009, for testing, such as when updating systems or adding new vendor relationships (we anonymize information used for such purposes to the extent possible);
- To better understand your needs including your financial needs;
- To provide you with information about other products and services offered by us, other members of the Loblaw group of companies, our co-venturers and select unaffiliated entities, which we believe may be of interest to you, and avoid sending you information which we believe will not interest you;
- For promotions, printing and contest administration;
- For data processing, website administration or information technology support;
- To respond to inquiries about your application, account, insurance policy or any other business that you have with us;
- Effective as of July 1, 2009, with respect to your President's Choice Financial MasterCard, to provide any changes to the number of your account or card(s), to the expiry date of your card(s) and to the status of your account to certain merchants with whom you have set up pre-authorized payments from your account, so that these merchants are able to provide continuous service to you when information about your account changes;
- To comply with legal and regulatory requirements; and
- For any other purposes set out in this Privacy Policy or in the Loblaw Privacy Code.
Unless you tell us otherwise, we may contact you by any means for which you have provided contact information. For example, if you provide us with your email address, we may contact you via email from time to time, for any purpose described in this Privacy Policy. The following sections outline certain situations in which your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of some personal information is either required or optional.
Credit accounts
In order to provide you with credit accounts, including credit products, you must consent to the provider of the credit collecting, using and in some cases disclosing and confirming the information you provided on your application, obtaining credit reports and/or other credit history information about you from time to time, and to using such information to assess and update your credit worthiness on an ongoing basis including to: (i) authorize or decline the opening of a credit account, (ii) assess and if applicable adjust your credit limit or (iii) add, remove or modify certain features of your credit account. The information you have provided on your application may be used and disclosed for any purpose described in this Privacy Policy, even if your request for a credit account is declined. In addition, in order to maintain the integrity of the credit reporting system, we must be able to update your credit information from time to time with the entities that support that system, such as credit reporting agencies. Your consent for these uses cannot be withdrawn during the time you have credit with us or during any required reporting period. When you open a credit account with us such as a President's Choice Financial MasterCard account, you may be asked to provide your Social Insurance Number in order to help verify the accuracy of your credit report and to report credit information to credit bureaus and credit reporting agencies. Your consent to this collection and use is optional. If you choose not to provide your Social Insurance Number, this in itself will not prevent you from obtaining credit from us.
Interest-earning accounts
When you open an interest-bearing or investment account, the Income Tax Act requires us or the co-venturer offering the product to obtain your Social Insurance Number. If you do not provide us or the co-venturer offering the account with your Social Insurance Number, we may not be able to open such an account for you.
Insurance
We collect and use personal information about you, as required to process your request for an insurance premium quote. We also collect, use and disclose to the insurer, the personal information required to complete any applications for insurance you make. Where permitted by law, we may use and/or disclose the information we have collected from yourrequest for a quote or on your application, for any purpose described in this Privacy Policy, even if you do not purchase the insurance or your application for insurance is declined. Your health information may be required to establish your eligibility or rate for certain insurance products or to process a claim. However, your health information is not used or disclosed for any other purpose.
Loyalty programs
The PC points loyalty program, which is operated by President's Choice Services Inc. or any of its affiliated entities, as identified from time to time, is included with many of our products and services. For loyalty programs, including the PC points loyalty program or any other program we may offer in the future, and any of these programs as they may be amended from time to time, you may choose not to receive secondary marketing offers based on information collected through your loyalty program account. However, if you withdraw your consent to the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information for the purposes of operating the loyalty program, including research and analysis, we may be unable to provide you with certain products and services. Information regarding your loyalty program account may be used by and disclosed by us, by our co-venturers and by third party service providers for the purpose of administering the loyalty program, including providing you with details concerning your PC points transactions on your account statements for any accounts that you hold with us or with one of our co-venturers. Information regarding your account may also be used and disclosed by us, by our co-venturers, by third party service providers and by select unaffiliated entities for the purpose of providing you with information from time to time about products and services which may be of interest to you. For more information, please see 'To whom we disclose your personal information' below.