Who we are and what this policy covers
Beaton Rettich Waters (“BRW”, “we”, “us”) is an advisory firm with offices in Victoria and Kelowna, British Columbia, and Toronto and Ottawa, Ontario. This policy explains how we collect, use, share and protect personal information when you visit beatonrettich.com, contact us, or work with us.
Personal information that clients share with us during an engagement, such as employee or customer data, is also governed by our engagement agreement with that client. Where the agreement and this policy differ, the agreement applies.
We handle personal information in line with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), and other provincial privacy laws where they apply.
Information we collect
We collect only what we need to respond to you, deliver our services, and run our website.
Information you give us
• Contact form and emails: your name, email address, and anything you include in your message.
• Calls and meetings: your name, organization, role, contact details, and notes about what you need.
• Clients: business contact and billing details, and the information you share with us to complete an engagement. The terms of which are covered under a separate engagement letter.
Information collected automatically
• Website use: your IP address, browser and device type, pages viewed, the site that referred you, and approximate location (city or region).
• Spam and security checks: information about your browser and how you interact with our forms, used to tell people from bots and to protect the site from attacks.
Information from other sources
• Business contact details from referrals, and from public sources such as company websites and LinkedIn.
How we use information
We use personal information to:
- Respond to your enquiries and arrange meetings.
- Propose, deliver, and bill for our services.
- Run research and analysis that clients engage us to do.
- Send occasional updates you have agreed to receive. You can unsubscribe at any time.
- Understand how visitors use our website, and improve it.
- Measure and improve our online advertising.
- Keep our website and systems secure, and block spam.
- Meet our legal and professional obligations.
We do not use personal information for purposes unrelated to these without your consent, unless the law requires or permits it.
Cookies, analytics, advertising and spam protection
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies from the providers below. Some are needed for the site to work and stay secure; others help us understand visits and measure our advertising.
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Tool |
Provider |
What it does |
Learn more or opt out |
|---|---|---|---|
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Google Analytics |
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Measures visits, pages viewed, and where visitors come from |
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Google Ads |
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Measures which ads lead to enquiries, and may show our ads to past visitors on other sites |
|
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Google reCAPTCHA |
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Checks that contact form submissions come from people, not bots |
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Google Fonts |
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Loads the fonts our site displays |
|
|
Jetpack |
Automattic |
Counts visits and delivers images faster |
|
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Wordfence |
Defiant |
Blocks malicious traffic and logs the IP addresses of requests |
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|
Datawrapper |
Datawrapper GmbH |
Displays interactive charts in some articles |
Datawrapper’s privacy policy |
None of the tools above receive your name, email address, or the message you send through our contact form.
Your choices: you can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, use the opt-out links above, or turn off personalized ads in your Google account. The site will still work, although some features, such as the contact form’s spam check, need certain cookies to run.
How we share information
We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with other organizations for their own marketing.
We share personal information only with:
- Service providers that run our website, email, document storage, accounting, and the tools listed above. They may use it only to provide their services to us.
- Subcontractors and partner firms working with us on a client engagement, under confidentiality obligations covered under those agreements.
- Professional advisors such as our lawyers, accountants, and insurers, where needed.
- Authorities, when the law requires us to, or to protect our rights or someone’s safety.
- A buyer or successor, if BRW is involved in a merger, sale, or restructuring. They must protect the information as this policy describes.
Where information is stored
We store personal information in Canada and with service providers that may store or process it in other countries, mainly the United States. Google, Automattic, and Defiant, for example, are based in the United States.
When information is held outside Canada, it is subject to the laws of that country, and authorities there may be able to access it. We choose providers that protect information to a standard comparable to Canadian law.
How long we keep information, and how we protect it
We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes above, or as long as the law or our professional obligations require.
- Enquiries that don’t lead to work: up to 2 years.
- Client and billing records: at least 7 years after an engagement ends, to meet tax and professional requirements.
- Website analytics: up to 14 months.
We protect information with access controls, multi-factor authentication, encrypted connections (HTTPS), security monitoring on our website, and confidentiality obligations for our team and subcontractors. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach creates a real risk of significant harm, we will notify you and the Privacy Commissioner as the law requires.
Your choices and rights
You can ask us, at any time, to:
- Tell you what personal information we hold about you, and how we have used and shared it.
- Correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
- Stop using your information for a purpose you previously agreed to, such as updates or advertising. Some uses, like keeping billing records, are required by law or by contract.
- Delete information we no longer need.
Contact our Privacy Officer (below) to make a request. We may need to confirm your identity first, and we will respond within 30 days.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or, in British Columbia, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia.
Children, other websites, and changes
Children: our website and services are for businesses and organizations. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.
Other websites: our site links to other sites, such as LinkedIn. Their privacy practices are their own, so please read their policies.
Changes: we will update this policy when our practices change, and post the new date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use information we already hold, we will tell you before it takes effect.
Contact our Privacy Officer
For questions, requests, or concerns about your personal information, contact:
- Privacy Officer: Scott Beaton
- Email: contact@beatonrettich.com
- Mail: Beaton Rettich Waters, c/o Scott A. Beaton Professional Corporation
1665 Ellis St #301, Kelowna, BC V1Y 2B3