EFFECTIVE DATE
This Privacy Notice is effective as of January 3, 2020.
BY INTERACTING WITH THE WEBSITE AT HTTPS://WWW.YOCTOLAW.COM (THE “SITE”) EITHER AS A VISITOR OR AS A CLIENT, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS PRIVACY NOTICE AND BY THE TERMS OF USE.
This Privacy Notice applies to Personally Identifiable Information that Yocto Law®️ Professional Corporation (“Yocto”), located 439 University Avenue, Suite 500 Toronto, Ontario M5G 1Y8 Canada, collects through its Site and in providing its Services.
Below are highlights of Yocto’s Personally Identifiable Information handling practices.
PRIVACY NOTICE HIGHLIGHTS
The terms “Yocto“, or the “Firm” mean Yocto Law®️ Professional Corporation and the terms “you” and “your” mean visitors or Users of the Site.
Capitalized words in these Privacy Notice Highlights are defined in the Detailed Privacy Notice below or in Yocto’s Terms of Use.
Information We Collect
We collect your Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) from the following sources:
- information you provide to the Firm when you send a message through the Contact page on the Site or when you engage the Firm to provide Services; and
- information we collect automatically when you visit the Site such as information about your browser settings, operating system, and other information collected through cookies; and
How We Use and Disclose Your Information
- The Firm uses your PII that it collects from you to provide the Services and to manage its business operations, such as to prevent loss of data and fraud and to monitor and improve the performance of the Site;
- Yocto and its service providers may combine or aggregate non-personal information, to monitor trends and provide and improve our respective products and services;
- The Firm may share with or transfer your PII to its service providers who may be outside of Canada, so that information may be subject to privacy laws that are different from Canada’s privacy laws.
- Yocto may also disclose your PII if a court order requires us to do so.
- With your consent, Yocto may use your PII to contact you for marketing, promotional, or other purposes.
Your Choices and Consent
- You can change your communication preferences for marketing and advertising e-mails and to provide or withdraw consent for specific requests the Firm may make to collect and use your PII.
- You may withdraw your consent from our further use of your PII and if you are a client, you may terminate your engagement with the Firm. If you do so, we may still use your PII for the purposes to which you consented before you withdrew consent and we may keep information about you and your previous engagements with us for audit purposes and to fulfill legal requirements.
How to Contact Us
If you have a privacy question or concern, please contact us at: info@yoctolaw.com.
Please review the Detailed Privacy Notice below for more information about our data handling practices.
DETAILED PRIVACY NOTICE:
- Background
- Scope
- Accountability
- Limiting Collection: What Information Do We Collect?
- Limiting Use: How Do We Use Your Personal Information?
- Disclosure: When Do We Disclose Your PIIto Others?
- Safeguards: How Do We Protect Your Personal Information?
- Data Breach
- Data Retention: How Long Do We Keep your PII and PHI?
- Data Storage And Transfer
- Age and Consent
- Third-Party Services and Links
- Accuracy: How Do You Modify Your Information?
- Access: Right to your data
- Account Closure: Data Deletion
- Challenge Compliance
- Changes to This Privacy Notice
1. Background
The website https://www.yoctolaw.com/ (the “Site”) is owned and operated by Yocto Law®️ Professional Corporation (“Yocto”).
Yocto provides legal services in Ontario, Canada (the “Services”).
As used in this Policy Notice capitalized terms not otherwise defined here have the meaning assigned to them in the Terms of Use, otherwise the following terms have the following meaning:
“Personally-Identifiable Information” or “PII” means information that identifies you or could be combined by us or our service providers with other information to identify you. This information includes your date of birth, birth certificate information, social insurance number, the number of any government-issued identification, personal e-mail address, home mailing address, personal cell phone or home phone number, your internet provider (IP) address and other similar information when associated with you. PII may also include information about how you have used the Site, if we can associate that PII with you. If you interact with the Site or receive Services on behalf of or through an entity, PII does not include your title, your business e-mail and mailing address, or your business telephone number when the firm uses that information to contact you in your business capacity.
“Yocto” or the “Firm” means Yocto Law®️ Professional Corporation.
“you” or “your” means an individual Using the Site or the Content as a visitor or as a prospective or current Client.
2. Scope
This Privacy Notice helps visitors to the Site and our Clients to better understand how we collect, use, and store your PII.
3. Accountability
The Firm takes the privacy of your PII seriously and is committed to safeguarding it. Yocto developed and implements policies, practices, and procedures to protect PII and trains its staff in about PII handling practices.
Yocto does not rent or sell any of your PII its collects directly from you through the Site or as part of its Services. The Firm complies with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”).
The Firm has appointed a Chief Privacy Officer accountable for its PII handling practices. If you have a question or complaint about the Firm’s information handling practices, please contact us at info@yoctolaw.com.
4. Limiting Collection: What Information Does the Firm Collect?
The ways in which the Firm collects PII can be broadly categorized into:
Information you provide directly to the Firm: When you visit or use parts of the Site, we might ask you to provide PII to us. For example, we may ask for your name and email address on our Contact page so we can reply to a message you post there.
We collect your PII when you complete the Firm’s engagement forms. For example, the Firm collects identification and contact information, such as your name, mailing address and date of birth (required by Corporations Canada) to be able to properly identify you and to contact you.
If you do not wish to provide us with all or some of the PII required on Yocto’s engagement forms to receive Services you do not have to, but it might mean you cannot receive our Services.
Information from other Sources: We may receive PII about you from other sources. For example, we will receive PII from Law Pay, the Firm’s credit card processor, regarding whether the credit card details you entered have been accepted or declined.
Information we collect automatically: Yocto may automatically collect some technical information when you visit the Site that platforms like Google Analytics may collect about your interaction with the Site. This includes the geographic location of your IP address, the IP address itself, device type, what pages you visited, what links you clicked on, your browser type and configuration, the date and time of use, language preferences, and cookie data. We use this information to detect problems, improve the navigation of the Site it is easier to use and to determine which aspects of our Services may interest you. If you consented to receive these types of communications from the Firm, we may track whether you opened certain types of promotional e-mails, whether you looked for information about a particular topic or service, read the Y Blog or our Newsletter, or to make inferences about other products and services in which you might be interested. For details about our cookie practices, please refer to our Cookie Policy.
5. Limiting Use: How Do We Use Your Personal Information?
Yocto collects and uses PII and non-personal information for the following purposes:
To communicate with you. This may include: (i) providing you with information you requested through the Contact page on the Site or your subscription to the Y Blog or Yocto’s Newsletter; (ii) changes to the Site, this Notice, the Terms of Use; (iii) to notify and alert you about data breaches, actual or potential fraud, identity theft and other fraud or security-related activities; and (vi) legal disclosures, communications about and related to any legal action, or otherwise required under the Firm’s legal obligations; and any other reason notifications and alerts may be required by law.
To provide Services. Yocto uses your PII to provide Services and to protect the security or integrity of the Site, the Content, the Services, and its business.
To improve the Site, and Services and develop new ones: We monitor how you use the Site, the WebApp and the Services so we can improve our offerings, user experience, and design new features.
To detect and prevent any fraudulent or malicious activity and to make sure that the Site, Content, and Services are used fairly and according to Yocto’s Terms of Use.
With your consent, to send you email communication such subscription to the Y Blog or the Newsletter, or other general or personalized notices;
To use non-Personal Information, which the Firm or its business partners may use to monitor trends, to improve respective products and services;
To comply with any laws and regulations.
6. Disclosure: When Do We Disclose Your PII to Others?
Yocto may share your PII with our service providers that help us with our business operations. If you consented to receive marketing and promotional emails from us, we may share select PII with service providers who help us with marketing and promotional services.
The Firm may share your PII without your explicit consent and without notice to you:
- To collect a debt from you or to prevent or investigate fraudulent or illegal activity.
- To comply with an order, subpoena, warrant or other legal requirement issued by a court, tribunal, regulator or government body with competent jurisdiction to compel disclosure of your PII, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements, to prevent, investigate, or take action against illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of the Terms of Use, this Privacy Notice, or as otherwise required by law.
- To establish or defend its legal rights. Where possible and appropriate, the Firm will notify you.
- To other companies on whom we rely to conduct our business with you.
- To protect the security of the Site and your PII.
7. Safeguards: How Do We Protect Your Personal Information?
Yocto takes administrative, technical and physical measures to safeguard your PII against unauthorized access, unauthorized disclosure, theft and misuse.
Although the Firm cannot guarantee that unauthorized access, hacking, data loss or breaches of its security systems will never occur, it tries to minimize these risks by (1) active monitoring: monitoring access to your PII through activity logs to ensure that no unauthorized access attempts have been made, (2) secure storage: the Firm stores your PII in data centers operated by its service providers that are ISO 27001 certified and adhere to global privacy and data protection best practices, (3) network security: the Firm implemented controls to protect against unauthorized access by limiting access to a single individual, (4) end-to-end encryption: we encrypt all data transmissions and communications on the Site, using industry-standard secure socket layer (“SSL”) encryption technology.
We do not store your credit card information. Payments are handled by Law Pay, a reputable direct payment gateway provider for law firms. The data it collects is encrypted according to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) and implement additional generally accepted industry standards.
The Firm engages reputable service providers who protect the PII that Yocto shares with them or that they collect from you directly.
8. Data Breach
The Firm takes precautions against breaches of its security systems, but you acknowledge and agree that no company can eliminate the risks of unauthorized access to your PII and no transmission over the internet is 100% secure. Therefore, you provide your PII to Yocto and to our service providers at your own risk.
Yocto has developed data breach procedures and if a breach of your PII in our custody or control occurs it will comply with the stringent breach notification requirements of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
IF A BREACH OF YOUR PII THAT IS IN THE CUSTODY OR CONTROL OF ONE OF OUR SERVICE PROVIDERS, THEN THAT SERVICE PROVIDER’S BREACH POLICIES APPLY.
9. Data Retention: How Long Do We Keep your PII?
The Firm keeps your PII that is in its custody and control only if it has a legal or legitimate business need to keep it, for example, to provide you with the Services or to comply with information retention guidelines by the Law Society of Ontario or other Ontario or Canadian laws.
Once your relationship with the Firm ends, Yocto will continue to store archived copies of your PII in its custody and control for legitimate business purposes, such as to defend a negligence or contractual claim, for audit purposes, and to comply with the law. The Firm maintains a records retention and destruction policy to destroy the information when it no longer has a business need for it and is not required by law to keep it.
We and our service providers may continue to store and use aggregated de-identified PII to improve our respective products and services.
10. Data Storage And Transfer
The PII Yocto collects from you will be stored in Canada, however, some of your PII may be used or stored by our service providers in the United States.
If your PII is used or stored outside Canada, these data will be subject to the laws of the country in which they are used or stored, which may differ from and be less protective of PII than the privacy laws of Canada.
11. Age and Consent
Only individuals 18 years of age or older may receive Services. You will be asked to provide explicit consent for the Firm to use your PII for specific purposes.
YOU CAN WITHDRAW CONSENT FOR OUR USE OF YOUR PII IN FUTURE USES WITHIN THE SCOPE OF YOUR CONSENT BUT YOU CANNOT WITHDRAW YOUR CONSENT FOR OUR USE OF YOUR PII FOR USES THAT BEGAN BEFORE THE DATE ON WHICH YOU WITHDREW YOUR CONSENT. YOU WILL ALSO NOT BE ABLE TO WITHDRAW YOUR CONSENT WHERE OUR USE OR DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PII IS AUTHORIZED OR REQUIRED BY LAW.
Please refer to the footer of email communications from the Firm or send an email to info@yoctolaw.com to unsubscribe from the activities for which you authorized the Firm to use your PII.
12. Third-Party Services and Links
You may access third-party websites through links available on the Site. These links are provided for convenience only. Once you leave the Site and you are redirected to a third-party website or application, you are no longer governed by this Privacy Notice or the Terms of Use.
Yocto does not have control over those third-party websites, and you access them at your own risk.
You acknowledge that these links may lead you to third-parties that may operate outside of Canada. If you provide your PII to these entities, then your information may become subject to the laws of the jurisdiction(s) in which that site operates or where its facilities are located.
13. Accuracy: How Do You Modify Your Information?
Yocto wants to ensure that the PII it collects from you and that is in its custody and control is accurate, complete, and up-to-date for the purpose for which it was collected. The Firm will destroy any information that is out-of-date or that is no longer required for the purpose for which it was collected unless it must keep it to comply with Ontario or Canadian law.
We use reasonable means to ensure that the information in your Account record is accurate and may confirm the accuracy of that information with you periodically.
If you have questions or become of any errors in the PII the firm collected from you, please contact us at info@yoctolaw.com. Yocto will address any correction requests promptly.
14. Access: Right to your data
You may request access to your file record at Yocto and port that information to another entity. If you request a copy of your file record, Yocto will provide it to you at no charge. You can request access to your file record by contacting info@yoctolaw.com.
Before the Firm grants you access to your file record, it will first authenticate you to confirm your identity. Yocto will handle all access requests promptly, subject to applicable privacy laws and will provide you with the legends for any special codes, acronyms or other similar information in the disclosed material, so your right of access is meaningful.
15. Account Closure: Data Deletion
To terminate your engagement with the Firm or to request that the PII Yocto has about you be deleted, please email us at info@yoctolaw.com. The Firm will keep some PII as described in Section 9.
16. Challenge Compliance
If you believe that Yocto has not adhered to this Privacy Notice you may challenge the Firm’s compliance with this Privacy Notice and its compliance with privacy laws applicable to it.
The Firm is not responsible for the PII handling practices of third-party service providers to whom you provided consent to access your PII, whether on the Firm’s behalf or otherwise. If your complaint has to do with the privacy practice of those providers, Yocto will direct you to them.
Please notify our Chief Privacy Officer of your complaint by emailing at info@yoctolaw.com.
You can also reach us at:
Yocto Law Professional Corporation
439 University Avenue, Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1Y8, Canada
The Firm will address your complaint promptly. If you are unhappy with the response you receive from us, we hope you would contact us to resolve the issue. If Yocto cannot resolve your complaint to your satisfaction you can file a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.
17. Changes to This Privacy Notice
We may change or update this Privacy Notice from time to time. All changes and updates are logged in the CHANGE LOG section below.
When our Privacy Notice changes, the Site the changes will be posted in the Change Log below.
If we make substantive changes to this Privacy Notice, then in addition to updating the Change Log, Yocto may also notify you by email at the email address associated with your Account.
The changes to the Privacy Notice will take effect on the date on which they were made or on the date provided in the notice.
YOU ARE BOUND BY THE PRIVACY NOTICE IN EFFECT ON THAT DATE ON WHICH YOU VISIT THE SITE.
LAST UPDATED on January 3, 2020.
CHANGE LOG: