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Privacy Policy

A man nailing the wooden frame of a home.

Your privacy matters

Your privacy is important to the Professional Home Builders Institute of Alberta (“PHBI”) and its corporate partners. PHBI is committed to safeguarding the personal information entrusted to us by our registrants. We manage your personal information in accordance with Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act (“PIPA”) and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”). This Policy explains how PHBI collects, uses, discloses, and retains your information.

Definitions

(a) we, us, our means PHBI, BC Builder Training and Training Ontario, registered trade names of PHBI;

(b) registrants, you, and your means any individual whose personal information we collect, use, and disclose as described in this Privacy Policy; and,

(c) personal information means any information that on its own or when put together with other information can identify a person but does not include business contact information or anonymous or de-identified data that is not associated with a particular individual. Examples of personal information include your name, mailing address, telephone number, email address, education, income, financial information, and employment history.

Scope and application

This Privacy Policy relates to the personal information collected by us, including via the PHBI website, BC Builder Training and the Training Ontario website.

Your consent

When you provide us with your personal information, you consent to our collection, use, disclosure, and retention of your information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and as otherwise permitted by law.

How PHBI collects your personal information

You may be asked to voluntarily provide your personal information to us anytime you are in contact with us, including when you purchase PHBI products or services, register and enroll in PHBI, BC Builder Training and/or Training Ontario courses through our learner management system, myPHBI. In those circumstances, you can choose not to provide certain requested personal information, but then you may not be able to enroll in certain courses and programs or access or use certain features of the above noted websites. For example, when you register and enrol in courses offered on the PHBI, BC Builder Training and/or Training Ontario websites, when you create or manage an account with PHBI, BC Builder Training and/or Training Ontario websites, when you send us an e-mail, when you register or subscribe for PHBI, BC Builder Training and/or Training Ontario newsletters or promotions, or participate in PHBI, BC Builder Training and/or Training Ontario promotions, sweepstakes, contests, or surveys, and when you contract PHBI, BC Builder Training and/or Training Ontario Customer Support, PHBI (or its service provider) may collect a variety of personal information.

For example, we may collect personal information needed to:

(a) Enrol a participant in a course;

(b) Assess accreditation and completion of courses;

(c) Correspond with you;

(d) Understand your needs and preferences;

(e) Determine whether PHBI and/or BC Builder Training and/or Training Ontario products and services meet your needs;

(f) Develop and improve PHBI and/or BC Builder Training and/or Training Ontario products and services;

(g) Facilitate new home warranty and customer service satisfaction survey programs (which includes engagement of third-party service providers).

We normally collect personal information directly from you. We may collect your information from other persons with your consent or as authorized by law.

How PHBI uses your personal information

We use your personal information for various purposes in connection with our relationship to you for the provision of our products and services, including:

(a) to contact and correspond with you regarding your registration and enrollment in PHBI and/or BC Builder Training and/or Training Ontario courses;

(b) to provide you with information regarding PHBI’s announcements, promotions, upcoming events, and new products and services;

(c) to facilitate transactions and process orders and payments for products and services purchased by you (including to contact you about billing and payment discrepancies);

(d) to process and respond to your specific suggestions, comments, inquiries and requests, and to otherwise administer PHBI’s and its partners such as Blue House Energy Retrofit and Training Inc. (“Blue House Energy”)’s relationship with you;

(e) to personalize and improve your experience with us;

(f) to administer and to facilitate your participation in sweepstakes, contests, and promotions,

(g) to create and manage your account; and

(h) to develop, deliver, and improve PHBI and/or BC Builder Training and/or Training Ontario’s products, services and advertising.

We may use your personal information to create non-personal information, as defined in the next section, and we may then use, disclose, transfer and retain the non-personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Non-personal information

We also create and collect “non-personal information” which is defined as information that is not associated with or linked to your personal information, including personal information that has been aggregated or otherwise anonymized so that it no longer relates to an identifiable individual. We may use, disclose, transfer and retain non-personal information for any purpose and in any manner whatsoever.

If non-personal information is combined with personal information, then the non-personal information will be treated as personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.

Disclosure of personal information

Corporate Partners and Third Parties

We may disclose your personal information to service providers and third parties for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy and in accordance with applicable law. For example, we have partnered with Blue House Energy to create course content for courses offered on the Training Ontario website. We may disclose your personal information, including, but not limited to, your name and e-mail address, to Blue House Energy for the purposes of monitoring enrollment in courses, accessing accreditation and completion of courses, corresponding with you, understanding your needs and preferences, determining whether PHBI and Blue House Energy products and services meet your needs, developing and improving PHBI and Blue House Energy products and services, and facilitating new home warranty and customer survey satisfaction survey programs.

Others

We may disclose your personal information as required by legal disclosure obligations under applicable law, including to comply with a subpoena, warrant or court or arbitral order, or litigation disclosure obligations. We may also disclose your personal information if we reasonably believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate in connection with national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public importance. We may also disclose your personal information as otherwise required by law, or authorized by law in connection with a legal investigation, or if we reasonably believe the disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect and enforce our legal rights, interest and remedies or protect the business, operations or registrants of PHBI or other persons (including detecting and preventing fraud and preventing violation of the terms of use that govern the PHBI and Training Ontario websites). We have no control over, responsibility or liability for, the further use, disclosure, and retention of your personal information disclosed in those circumstances, and the further use, disclosure, and retention of the disclosed information is not subject to this Privacy Policy.

We may disclose your personal information in connection with a proposed or actual business transaction, such as corporate reorganization, merger or acquisition, or the sale of some or all of PHBI’s business or assets (including in connection with a bankruptcy proceeding), but we will require that the information recipient agree to protect the privacy of your personal information in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Policy.

Information regarding website practices and cookies

Cookies

We operate the PHBI website, BC Builder Training and the Training Ontario website. We reserve the right to store information on a visitor’s computer in the form of a “cookie” or similar file for purposes of recording the individuals who visit these sites and log the following information for statistical purposes: internet address, domain name, date and time of visit to website, pages and documents downloaded, previous website visited and type of browser used. If you visit the PHBI, BC Builder Training and/or the Training Ontario websites, you do so voluntarily and are deemed to consent to our collection of your personal information as specified in this paragraph. 

Visitor information, via the use of cookies, is collected on an aggregate basis and is not personally identifiable to your individual use or our site. This information is gathered through the use of cookies for statistical and remarketing purposes, to advertise our products and services to audiences who have visited our website through the use of online advertisements.

Links to External Sites

Links to external websites are provided for you as a convenience and we assume no responsibility or liability for such linked sites. These other sites may send their own cookies to users, collect data or solicit personal information. You should check the privacy policy of any website you visit.

Opting out

All visitors, through their browser, have the ability to manage their cookies. PHBI strongly believes in empowering visitors of our site. If you would like to manage or disable the use of cookies, please determine the browser(s) you are using for managing and disabling your cookies.

  • Google Chrome
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Internet Explorer

Alternatively, you may opt-out of Google’s use of cookies or device identifiers by visiting Google’s Ad Settings, or other third-party vendor’s use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page, or control the use of device identifiers by using your device’s settings.

Withdrawing consent

Where you have provided your consent to the collection, use, disclosure and retention of personal information, you may choose to withdraw your consent at any time under certain circumstances. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide you with the product or service requested. We will explain the impact of withdrawing your consent to help you with your decision.

Retention, location and protection of personal information

We retain your personal information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy or such longer retention period as may be required by applicable law.

We use a variety of administrative, physical, and electronic safeguards designed to provide reasonable protection of your personal information from accidental loss including unauthorized access, disclosure, copying use, and modification.

Access to information and corrections

Individuals have a right of access to records containing personal information about them, subject to certain legal restrictions. You may make a request for access to your personal information by writing to the PHBI Privacy Officer at [email protected]. You must provide sufficient information in your request to allow us to identify the information you are seeking. The Privacy and Data Protection Officer will assist the individual with the access request and respond within 45 calendar days, unless an extension is granted, advising whether access to the requested records will be granted, and if so, how access will be given. If any part of an access request is refused, reasons for the refusal will be provided. The Privacy and Data Protection Officer will also inform the applicant that he or she may seek a review of the decision from the appropriate supervisory authority.

If there is an error or omission in personal information in our custody or control, for which a request for correction has been received, we will, subject to legal limitations, correct the information as soon as reasonably possible or annotate it with the correction that was requested but not made.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy at any time to reflect changes to our business practices or applicable laws. We include an “effective date” on the revised Privacy Policy which indicates when the changes become effective.

If the revised Privacy Policy makes material changes to how we treat your personal information, we will provide you advance notice of the changes by posting a notification on the revised Privacy Policy on both the PHBI and Training Ontario websites. We may also notify you of the changes by using email or other means.

By continuing to participate in our programs and/or use our services or purchase our products after the effective date of the revised Privacy Policy, you are accepting changes to this Privacy Policy.

Contacting our Privacy Officer

If you have a question or concern about any collection, use or disclosure of personal information by PHBI, or about a request for access to your own personal information, please contact the PHBI Privacy Officer via mail, facsimile, or e-mail at: the Professional Home Builders Institute (PHBI) – Chief Privacy Officer, Suite 301, 30 Springborough Blvd SW, Calgary, Alberta T3H 0N9, facsimile no.: 403-253-7130, e-mail: [email protected]

Note: Email is not a 100% secure medium. Please consider the type of personal information you are sending to us when contacting us via email.

Notice to you

You consent to us sending you emails (to the email addresses you provide to PHBI) regarding this Policy and related matters.