Client Consent to Maintain and Use Personal
Information
On January 1, 2004, the Government of
Canada will fully implement the Personal Information Protection
and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Accordingly, in order to
be in compliance with the Act, K. Walsh & Associates Travel Services
Inc. is required to obtain consent from its customers in order to
use personal information which we may already have on file or in our
data systems. The personal information which we maintain and use is
solely for the purposes of servicing the travel arrangements which
you request that we undertake.
This information is stored, secured,
disclosed, and handled in strict accordance with PIPEDA and K. Walsh
& Associates Travel Services Inc. compliant Privacy Policy. Our
complete policy is available on: our web site, posted in our
offices, and available anytime for your review and consideration. If
you wish a copy sent to you via e-mail, please let us know. We would
also be happy to forward our policy by postal mail as well.
Click here for the Client Consent Form
Privacy Policy
Privacy of personal information is an
important principle to K. Walsh & Associates Travel Services Inc. We
are committed to collecting, using and disclosing personal
information responsibly and only to the extent necessary for the
travel products and services we provide. We also try to be open and
transparent as to how we handle personal information. This document
describes our privacy policies.
What is personal
information?
Personal information is information
about an identifiable individual. Personal information includes
information that relates to their
personal characteristics (e.g., gender, age, income, home address or
phone number, ethnic background, family
status), their health (e.g., health history, health conditions,
health services received by them) their activities and views (e.g.,
religion, politics, opinions expressed by an individual, an opinion
or evaluation of an individual). Personal information is to be
contrasted with business information (e.g., an individual’s business
address and telephone number), which is not protected by privacy
legislation. In addition, due to the nature of the travel agency
business, we also include in our policies and staunchly protect
therein an individual’s financial information including checking
account information and credit card information.
Who we are?
Our travel agency, K. Walsh & Associates
Travel Services Inc, is a full service agency business, and
we arrange travel products and services for our clients with a wide
spectrum of industry suppliers. Accordingly, we deal
with a number of consultants and third parties that may, in the
course of their duties, have limited access to personal information
we hold. These include airlines, railroads, cruise lines, tour
operators, computer reservations system providers, and other
travel-related vendors. We restrict their access to any personal
information we hold as much as is reasonably possible. We also have
their assurance that they follow appropriate privacy principles in
accordance with their own policies under the Personal Information
Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
We collect
personal information for the following purposes:
Like all travel agencies, we collect, use and disclose
personal information in order to serve
our clients. For our clients, the
primary purposes for collecting personal information are as follows:
to make and secure reservations, to issue transportation documents
and vouchers, and to provide travel suppliers with information to
complete the necessary purchasing arrangements for a wide array of
travel and tourism products, and reporting procedures. We reserve
the right to marketing of this material in a variety of ways, for
the purpose of obtaining group and individual sales. We limit
access to personal information about you to employees who we believe
reasonably need to access this information to do their jobs.
Examples of the type of personal information we collect for those
purposes include the following: name, address, telephone, age,
credit card information, passport or visa information, Social
Insurance Number, web site cookies, and similar personal information
necessary to properly identify our clients and their entitlement to
the services we arrange. We also collect personal information from
our employees and contractors to assure our proper compliance with
employment laws, remuneration, tax payments, and other
employee/contractor functions.
Protecting
personal information:
We understand the importance of
protecting personal information. For that reason, we have taken the
following steps:
• Paper information is either under
supervision or secured in a locked or restricted area.
• Electronic hardware is either under
supervision or secured in a locked or restricted area at all times.
In addition, passwords are used on computers. All of our cell phones
are digital, which signals are more difficult to intercept.
• Paper information is transmitted
through sealed, addressed envelopes or boxes by reputable companies.
• Electronic information is transmitted
either through a direct line or is anonymized or encrypted.
• Staff are trained to collect, use and
disclose personal information only as necessary to fulfill their
duties and in accordance with our privacy policy.
• External consultants and agencies
with access to personal information must enter into Privacy
agreements with us or acknowledge that they abide by PIPEDA.
Retention and
destruction of personal information:
We need to retain personal information
for some time to ensure that we can answer any questions you might
have about the services provided and for our own accountability to
external regulatory bodies. However, we do not want to keep personal
information too long in order to protect your privacy. We keep our
client files for about seven years. Our client and contact
directories are much more difficult to systematically destroy, so we
remove such information when we can if it does not appear that we
will be contacting you again. However, if you ask, we will remove
such contact information right away. We keep any personal
information relating to our general correspondence with people who
are not our clients, newsletters, seminars and marketing activities
for about twelve months after the newsletter, seminar or marketing
activity is over. We destroy paper files containing personal
information by shredding. We destroy electronic information by
deleting it and, when the hardware is discarded, we ensure that the
hard drive is physically destroyed. Alternatively, we may send some
or the entire client file to our client. We do not rent, sell, or
share personal information about you with non-affiliations.
You can look
at your information:
With only a few exceptions, you have the
right to see what personal information we hold about you.
Often all you have to do is ask. We can
help you identify what records we might have about you.
We will also try to help you with any
information you do not understand (e.g., various industry forms,
technical language, etc.).
We will need to confirm your identity, if we do not know you, before
providing you with this access. We reserve the right to charge a
nominal fee for such requests. If there is a problem, we may ask you
to put your request in writing. If we cannot give you access, we
will tell you within 30 days if at all possible and tell you the
reason, as best we can, as to why we cannot give you access.
If you believe there is a mistake in the
information, you have the right to ask for it to be corrected. This
applies to factual information and not to any professional opinions
we may have formed. We may ask you to provide documentation that our
files are wrong. Where we agree that we made a mistake, we will make
the correction and notify anyone to whom we sent this information.
If we do not agree that we have made a mistake, we will still agree
to include in our file a brief statement from you on the point, and
we will forward that statement to anyone else who received the
earlier
information.
Do you have a
concern?
Our Privacy Policy Manager, Barbara
Smith, can be reached at K. Walsh & Associates Travel
Services Inc.,
bsmith@kwalshtravel.com, to address any questions or
concerns you might have. If you wish to make a formal complaint
about our privacy practices, you may make it in writing to our
Privacy Policy Manager. S/he will acknowledge receipt of your
complaint; ensure that it is investigated promptly and that you are
provided with a formal decision and reasons in writing.
For more general inquiries, the
Information and Privacy Commissioner of Canada oversees the
administration of the privacy legislation in the private sector. The
Commissioner also acts as a kind of ombudsman for privacy disputes.
The Information and Privacy Commissioner can be reached at:112 Kent
Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1H3 as well as by:
Phone: (613) 995-8210
Toll-free: 1-800-282-1376
Fax: (613) 947-6850
TTY: (613) 992-9190
E-mail:
info@privcom.gc.ca
We appreciate and value your patronage.
At K. Walsh and Associates Travel Services Inc., privacy is not a
privilege, it’s a right.
