Privacy Policy

David Simmonds CPA Professional Corporation collects personal information from different sources depending on the services that we are providing or whether we are collecting this personal information for our internal business operations. For example, we may collect personal information directly from you when you retain us or your employer when your employer retains us. We may also collect personal information from other member firms that we are assisting. We may also collect personal information through third parties who perform background checks and credit checks for us. In addition, we may collect personal information through third-party analytics and advertising firms who assist us in our marketing. These firms may provide us with data about your online activities on other sites where we show our advertising and marketing material.

We collect the following types of personal information:

• Contact information, such as your name, title, role, employer, telephone, email address, and mailing address.

• Visitor information when you attend at our offices or events, such as your name, company, and person you visited at our offices and events.

• Mandate information, such as information about the services you have requested or the matters that you are involved in.

• Services information, such as information that you provide or that we generate as part of our services. This information may include: financial, spousal and dependent, beneficiary, residency and other information relevant to providing tax, estate planning, and business planning; tax-related information when we are providing tax or financial advisory services; employee information, including salaries and benefits, when we are conducting restructuring services and management advisory services; customer and vendor information when we are conducting an audit or assisting with information technology implementation.

• Public profiles, such as information that you have made public such as on LinkedIn or your company's website.

• Communications, such as the content of your emails, voicemails, and other communications with us.

• Communication preferences and interests, such as when you subscribe to receive our newsletters, updates, or other materials.

• Feedback, such as when you fill out client surveys or feedback forms at our events.

• Recruitment information, such as CVs, references, and other information you may provide if you apply for employment or an internship, or that we collect as part of our recruitment activities.

• Background check information, such as credit checks, criminal records checks, economic and other sanctions checks, credential checks, and other background information.

• Portal registration information, such as email address, password, and activities using our client portal.

• Device and browser information when you use our website, a microsite (such as our client portal), or mobile apps, such as your IP address, browser type and version, time zone setting, operating system, device type, hardware model, MAC address, and network information.

• Browsing information when you use our website, microsites, or mobile apps, such as URL clickstream data about your visit to, through, and from our website, page response times, downloads, length of visits, and interaction information.

• Marketing interaction information, such as whether you opened one of our electronic newsletters or clicked on an advertisement or otherwise interacted with our marketing materials.

We use personal information to provide services to our clients, fulfill legal requirements, and operate, market, and improve our business. Examples of why we use personal information are:

• Client services, such as conducting audits, preparing tax returns, providing management consulting, and other advisory services to our clients.

• Vendor management, such as managing the services that third parties deliver to us or to clients on our behalf.

• Legal and regulatory compliance, such as conducting screening for conflicts, complying with anti-money laundering laws, conducting sanctions checks, and maintaining books and records that assist us in meeting legal and regulatory obligations.

• Relationship management, such as establishing, maintaining, and administering our relationship with you or your employer, including client account opening, accounting, invoicing, risk analysis, conflict checking, and customizing services.

• Business development, such as client pitches and offering you services that you may be interested in.

• Recruitment, such as processing your application for employment or an internship.

• Communications, such as responding to your inquiries, sending newsletters, updates, or other material, and managing preferences.

• Events management, such as reserving your place at events and other related purposes.

• Feedback, such as client surveys and addressing concerns you might have.

• Security, such as monitoring access to our premises and protecting our website from misuse.

• Website management, such as monitoring visitor engagement and identifying any issues with functionality.

• Improvement of business, such as understanding client interests and improving services.

We may share personal information to perform services for clients, fulfill legal requirements, or operate, market, and improve our business. Examples include:

• Service providers who assist in business services, marketing, advertising, or information technology.

• Screening service providers conducting credit checks, sanctions screening, and other background checks.

• Analytics providers and advertising networks to analyze website performance and assist in placing advertising.

• Law enforcement bodies and regulators when required by applicable laws.

There may be several reasons why we might collect, use, share or otherwise handle your personal information. These include:

• With your explicit or implicit consent, such as when you provide the personal information as part of a request for services or a product, when you provide the personal information for a specific purpose or we ask you to consent to our use of your personal information for a purpose or for the purposes set out in this Privacy Statement

• With the consent of someone with authority to provide the information to us, such as your employer or a third party who you provided the information and who has the legal right to share it with us

• Where is necessary to fulfill our legal obligations, such as where we need to conduct client screening, anti-money laundering checks, or for other legal and compliance purposes where the law permits us to handle personal information with your consent

• For the purposes of responding to legal claims against us

• To conduct investigations where the law permits us to handle personal information without your consent

We may use your business contact information to contact you in your business, role, function, or occupation without your consent. If we send you commercial electronic messages, we will comply with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation, subject to any exceptions permitting us to send unsolicited commercial electronic messages. You may unsubscribe from our communications at any time.

We use physical, technical, and organizational security measures that are consistent with standards in the accountancy and professional services industry. These security measures are designed to protect the confidentiality and integrity of personal information in our custody. We use contractual or other means to require our service providers to protect the confidentiality and integrity of personal information we entrust to them. Unfortunately, no system of security measures can guarantee the security and privacy of personal information. If you are sharing highly sensitive information electronically with David Simmonds CPA Professional Corporation, please speak with us about methods of secure file transfers.

Personal information is stored primarily in Canada. However, we may also use service providers or the assistance of David Simmonds CPA Professional Corp. member firms in the United States and around the world, except where we are restricted by legal or contractual requirements. The laws of other jurisdictions may not be as protective as those in Canada and personal information held outside of Canada may be subject to disclosure to the governments, courts or law enforcement or regulatory agencies of these other countries in accordance with their laws.

We retain information for the purposes for as long as it is necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we collected it. We also retain personal information to meet obligations under applicable laws and regulatory requirements and to maintain records for possible litigation or investigations. Our retention period will vary depending on the nature of the information that is held. For example, we may retain information about you for as long as you are a client. We may retain matter specific information for as long as the applicable limitation period for claims, which may be 15 years or in some jurisdictions longer. In addition, copies of personal data stored in our electronic backups may be retained until they are destroyed in accordance with the ordinary lifecycle of our backups.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children or other persons who are under 14 years of age except as part of a client engagement (e.g. the preparation of tax returns, estate planning, and other legitimate reasons). Our website and marketing materials are only for use by individuals who have reached the age of majority in their province or country of residence.

Canadian privacy laws provide you with certain rights. Please see “How to contact us” for the contact information of our Privacy Office in order to exercise these rights.

• Access rights – you have the right to ask us if we have collected information about you and to obtain access to that information. If you wish to exercise this right, please send a written request to our Privacy Officer. We will ask you for information to confirm your identity and may ask you to assist us in describing your relationship with us so that we can locate the relevant personal information. Please note that we may withhold disclosure of personal information in certain cases under applicable laws.

• Correction – you have the right to ask us to correct any incomplete or inaccurate personal information we hold about you. If we disagree with your correction request, we will insert a note in our files explaining the basis of our refusal to correct the information. We recommend that you raise any issue with incorrect, incomplete, or inaccurate personal information with the David Simmonds CPA Professional Corporation personnel who are assisting you. However, you may also make a request to the Privacy Officer.

• Withdraw of consent – you have the right to ask us to cease collecting, using, or sharing our personal information in some cases. We will do so if we have no further purpose for handling your personal information. You can unsubscribe from any of our electronic marketing communications using the unsubscribe links provided. You may communicate other requests to withdraw David Simmonds CPA Professional Corporation personnel who are assisting you or you may make a request to the Privacy Officer.

• Complaints – you have the right to make a complaint to our Privacy Officer about our compliance with this Privacy Statement or applicable privacy laws. We encourage you to raise your concern with the David Simmonds CPA Professional Corporation personnel who are assisting you. However, if you make your complaint to the Privacy Office, we will investigate the matter and report to you about the investigation findings.

We may change this Privacy Statement from time to time. Please refer to the date at the top of this Privacy Statement for the last date. If there is an important change to our privacy practices, we will highlight the changes in this section.