Johnson Schock Lowden Inc. values your business and we thank you for your confidence in choosing our firm as your employee benefit consultants. From time to time you trust us with personal employee information. We respect that trust and we want you to be aware of our commitment to protect the information you entrust to us. Our consultants and our employees and the insurers we deal with understand the need to keep this information protected and confidential. They know that they are to use the information only for the purposes intended. We have also established physical and systems safeguards, along with proper processes, to protect employee information from unauthorised access or use.

PIPEDA

The federal “Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act” (PIPEDA) will govern how you as an employer and we as your employee benefits consultants handle employee “Personal Information” beginning 01 January 2004, at least for your Ontario employees. The federal act applies unless a province enacts similar legislation. Those employers with employees in Quebec have been governed by that province’s privacy legislation for many years. The previous Ontario government had an act part way through the legislative process but that died when the legislature was dissolved. Other provinces are close to passing similar legislation.

Privacy

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has defined privacy as an individual’s right to maintain control over the uses and circulation of his or her Personal Information.

Personal Information under PIPEDA

Personal Information is broadly defined as information (data) – oral, written or electronic – about an identifiable individual. Personal Information includes but is not limited to the following:

• name, address and telephone number
• age, gender, family and marital status
• identification numbers (such as Social Insurance Number or driver’s license)
• financial and employment information
• credit rating, payment records
• previous insurance and claims experience
• medicaland health information

Name, title, business address or business telephone number of an employee (“business card information”) is NOT considered Personal Information.

The Rights of Employees

Employees have the following rights under the act:

• To know why an organization collects, uses or discloses his or her personal information,
• To expect an organization to handle personal information reasonably and not use it for any other purpose other than the one consented to by the individual,
• To know who in an organization is responsible for protecting personal information,
• To expect an organization to protect information from unauthorized disclosure,
• To inspect the information an organization holds about him or her and make sure it is accurate, complete and current,
• To expect an organization to destroy personal information or render it anonymous when requested or when it is no longer required for the intended original purpose, and
• To confidentially complain to an organization about how it handles that individual’s information and to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada if need be.

Our Privacy Officer is:
David R. Schock, CEBS, CGA, CFP
Johnson Schock Lowden Inc.
4550 Highway 7, Suite 225
Vaughan, Ontario
L4L 4Y7