Privacy Policy

Areti’s privacy code is based on the provincial (B.C.) Personal Information Protections Act. This legislature applies as Areti collects, uses and discloses personal information in the possession of, or under the control of its clients to the extent required to fulfill its professional responsibilities and operate its business. The firm is committed to maintaining the privacy of personal information provided by its clients and protecting all personal information in its possession or control. This Privacy Policy sets out the 11 principles and procedures that the firm follows in meeting its privacy commitments to its clients and complying with the requirements of provincial privacy legislation.

Principle #1 – ACCOUNTABILITY

The partners of Areti are ultimately accountable for the protection of personal information and responsible for ensuring compliance with the Privacy Code. The day-to-day monitoring for compliance may be delegated to other staff.

Titles of the persons designated to oversee compliance with Areti’s privacy code will be made available upon request.

Areti is responsible for personal information in its possession or control. Areti will use the appropriate means to provide a comparable level of protection of personal information when information is being transferred or processed by a third party.

Areti has developed policies and procedures to: protect personal information; receive and respond to complaints and inquiries; train staff regarding the policies and procedures; communicate the policies and procedures to our clients.

If you have any questions about the firm’s privacy policies and practices, the firm’s email is info@areti.com, by phone at 604-639-9004 or by letter addressed to Areti 506-1168 Hamilton Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 2S2 Attention: Partners – RE: Privacy

Principle #2 – IDENTIFYING PURPOSES

The firm identifies the purposes for which it collects personal information from clients before it is collected.

Areti collects personal information for the following purposes only: a) to provide professional services b) to establish and maintain relations with clients to provide ongoing services c) to understand the needs and preferences of our clients d) to ensure high standards of service to our clients e) to meet legal and regulatory requirements.

We collect Your IP address for the purposes of system administration, including diagnosis of problems with the firm’s server and administration of the firm’s website. All information collected will be done in a fair and lawful manner.

Our website does use cookies. A “cookie” is information that our website places on your hard disk so that it can remember information about you the next time you visit our website (so that we can provide you with personalized services), measure traffic patterns (so that we can learn which browsers are commonly used), and estimate audience size (so that we can know which visitors have seen particular parts of the website). You can still navigate through our website without the use of cookies, but your access and the functionality of the website may be limited.

Principle #3 – ANTI-SPAM POLICY

• Our Anti-Spam Policy permits us to send you email and other electronic messages only if we have your Express or Implied consent.
• You may withdraw your consent to receive any emails and other electronic messages from us at any time.
• If you provided your express consent to us to receive our emails and other electronic messages, you agreed that we may send an email and other electronic messages to you for any of the reasons listed below under “How We Use Your Information”.
• All emails and electronic messages sent to you will be compliant with Canada’s Anti-spam legislation and will include: our name, mailing address, telephone number, our website address, a link where you can unsubscribe from our messages, the email address of a person you can contact about our messages, and, as applicable, the name or business name of the person sending the messages on our behalf and a statement indicating who the sender is and on whose behalf the message is sent.

How we use your information

If we have your consent to contact you with electronic messages, we may send you electronic messages in order to:

• Provide you with information you have requested from us
• To share industry news and information with you
• Offer you services
• To solicit you to purchase services, including through Controlled Electronic Messages
• To gather information from you to improve our services
• To communicate with you in general

Principle #4 – CONSENT

Areti will obtain consent to collect, use or disclose any personal information, except where detailed in this code.

Areti will make reasonable efforts to ensure that clients understand how their personal information will be used and disclosed.

A client’s consent can be expressed, implied or given through an authorized representative such as a lawyer. A client can withdraw consent at anytime, with certain exceptions detailed in

3.5. Areti may collect, use or disclose personal information without the client’s knowledge or consent in exceptional circumstances, which may include the following circumstances: a) when such collection, use or disclosure is permitted or required by law b) when the use of information is for acting in an emergency that threatens an individual’s life or health c) when certain information is publicly available d) when we require legal advice from a lawyer.

Consent may be implied or given orally, in writing, or electronically. In determining the appropriate form of consent, Areti will consider the sensitivity of the personal information. For example, depending on the sensitivity of the information, consent can be expressed over the telephone when information is being collected; electronically when submitting an agreement or other information.

In general, the use of services by a client constitutes implied consent for Areti to collect, use and disclose personal information.

A client may withdraw consent at any time subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. However, refusal or withdrawal of consent may prevent Areti from providing a service to the client.

Principle #5 – LIMITING COLLECTION

The firm collects only that personal information required to perform its professional services and to operate its business, and such information is collected by fair and lawful means.

The partners and staff involved in an engagement need access to some or all of the types of personal information, noted under principle 3 above, to obtain evidence to support the firm’s opinion on the company’s financial statements or to facilitate the completion of special projects as engaged by the client. Such personal information will be a significant component of various transactions and events affecting the financial statements that will be subjected to confirmation, testing, analyses and such other procedures as the firm considers necessary to perform an audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards or a special project.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year. If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser. When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed. If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

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.

Principle #6 – LIMITING USE, DISCLOSURE & RETENTION

Areti will only use or disclose client information for the purpose it was collected. Areti will not use personal information for any additional purpose unless Areti has obtained consent.

Areti will not sell clients’ personal information to third parties.

Areti will retain personal information only as long as necessary (for example, as required by CA Institute by-laws) or expected to be necessary for the identified purposes, or as required by other legislation.

When personal information is no longer required, this information will be destroyed with appropriate security measures.

Principle #7 – ACCURACY

The firm endeavours to keep accurate, complete, and up-to-date, personal information in its possession or control, to the extent required to meet the purposes for which it was collected. Individual clients are encouraged to contact the firm’s engagement partner in charge of providing service to them to update their personal information.

Principle #8 – SAFEGUARDS

Areti will protect personal information and is committed to the safekeeping of personal information in order to prevent its loss, theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification.

Areti will protect personal information disclosed to third parties by contractual agreements stipulating the confidentiality of the information and the purposes for which it is to be used.

Principle #9 – OPENNESS

The firm is open about the procedures it uses to manage personal information.

Up-to-date information on the firm’s privacy policy can be obtained from the firm’s Privacy Officer (see contact information under principal 1).

Principle #10 – INDIVIDUAL ACCESS

Clients may request to access their personal information held by Areti. Upon request, Areti will inform the client what personal information it has, what it is being used for and to whom it has been disclosed if applicable. This information will be in an understandable form and given to the client at a minimal or no cost to the individual depending on the type and amount of information requested.

Areti will make the information available within 30 days of the request, or provide written notice of an extension where additional time is required to fulfill the request.

If the information presented is inaccurate or incomplete, Areti will amend the information as required.

Principle #11 – CHALLENGING COMPLIANCE

Clients may challenge the firm’s compliance with its Privacy Policy.

The firm has policies and procedures to receive, investigate, and respond to clients’ complaints and questions relating to privacy.

To challenge the firm’s compliance with its Privacy Policy, clients are asked to provide an email message or letter to the firm’s Privacy Officer (see contact information under principal 1 above). The firm’s Privacy Officer will ensure that a complete investigation of a client complaint is undertaken and will report the results of this investigation to the client, in most cases, within 30 days