Privacy Policies

Personal information is information about an identifiable individual, but does not include the name, title or business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization.  Our privacy policies and procedures only apply to personal information about identifiable individuals.  They do not apply to business information which does not fall within the definition of Personal Information within Canadian privacy legislation.

As of January 1, 2004, all Canadian organizations engaged in commercial activities must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act ("PIPEDA") and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information incorporated by reference into PIPEDA.  These obligations extend to professional engineers and planning consultants, including B A Consulting Group Limited.

B A Consulting Group Limited provides professional services to a wide range of clients.  In providing our professional services, we often collect and use personal information.  As well, we send to individuals information and marketing materials concerning developments in our area of expertise and our services.

We collect personal information fairly and in accordance with the law.  Generally, we collect your personal information directly from you.  Such collection may be done at the start of our relationship or during the course of our working for you.  Sometimes we may obtain information about you from other sources including, for example:

• from a government agency or registry;
• other professionals who serve you, such as your accountant; and
• other parties or participants in projects in which you are involved.

In most cases, if we collect, use, or disclose your personal information, we will obtain your consent.  Sometimes we will ask for your consent in writing, but in some cases, we may accept your oral consent.  Sometimes your consent may be implied through your conduct with us or the nature of our retainer.   By providing us with your personal information, you consent to the use and disclosure of that information related to providing our services, managing our relationship with you, administering our business and as required by law.  You may refuse to give personal information or may, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice, withdraw consent at any time to the continued use and disclosure of personal information previously collected.   Should you refuse or withdraw your consent, that may impact on our ability to serve you and to maintain our relationship.

We use your personal information to provide professional engineering and planning advice and services to you, to administer our client (time and billing) databases, to build and to maintain the firm’s expertise and knowledge, and to include you in our information distribution and marketing activities.  If you tell us that you no longer wish to receive information about development in our areas of expertise or our services, you can ask us not to send any further material.  We also use personal information to establish and maintain commercial relationships with clients, suppliers and other third parties and to establish, manage and terminate employment, contractual and partnership relationships.

B A Consulting Group Limited does not disclose your personal information to third parties to enable them to market their products or services.

Under certain circumstances, B A Consulting Group Limited may disclose your personal information.  Some examples are:

• when you have consented to the disclosure;
• when we are required or authorized by law to do so, including, for example, if a court issues a warrant or a subpoena or if there is a statutory obligation to disclose your personal information;
• in order to comply with the requirements of the regulatory bodies that governs engineers or other services provided by us;
• when the services we are providing to you require us to give your information to third parties your consent will be implied, unless you tell us otherwise;
• where it is necessary to collect fees or disbursements;
• if we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us (such as, for example, computer back-up services, archival file storage, or insurance) and the third party is bound by obligations regarding privacy which are consistent with this policy;
• if we retain another engineering or planning firm or other speciality consultant (such as, for example, specialty consultants or subcontractors in other jurisdictions) in respect of our engagement by you or otherwise on your behalf; or
• in the event of a merger involving or growth of B A Consulting Group Limited

Since we use your personal information to provide engineering and planning services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up to date.  If during the course of our retainer with you, any of your information changes, please inform us so that we can make any necessary changes.  We may also periodically inquire of you whether your personal information is accurate and up to date.

We take precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.  Among the steps taken to protect your personal information are:

• premises security;
• confidential policies as part of our professional and legal obligations;
• deploying technical safeguards like security software and firewalls to prevent unauthorized computer access or “hacking”; and
• internal password and security policies.

You should be aware that e-mail is not an entirely secure medium, and you should be aware of this when contacting us to send personal or confidential information.

You may ask for access to personal information we hold about you.  Detailed requests which require archive or other retrieval costs may be subject to our normal professional fees and disbursement charges.

Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute.  There are a number of situations where we may deny access.  If we deny your request for access to, or refuse a request to correct personal information, we will provide a reason or reasons for doing so.

To help us make credit decisions about clients, to try to prevent fraud, and to check the identity of new clients, on occasion we may request information about you from the files of consumer reporting services.

Our website contains links to other sites, which are not governed by this Policy.  On our website, like most other commercial websites, we may monitor traffic patterns, site usage and related site information in order to optimize our web service.  We may provide aggregated information to third parties, but these statistics do not include any identifiable personal information.

We do not use cookies nor do we use any electronic means to automatically collect personal information from you or your computer; however, web servers used by B A Consulting Group Limited will automatically collect IP addresses and we may view our web server IP log from time to time to prevent fraudulent acts and possible network attacks.

If you have any questions, or wish to access your personal information, please contact the person at B A Consulting Group Limited with whom you normally deal or write to our Privacy Contact at:     

Mark Jamieson
45 St. Clair Avenue West, Suite 300
Toronto, ON M4V 1K9

If you are not satisfied with our response, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada can be reached at:

112 Kent Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 1H3
1.800.282.1376

B A Consulting Group Limited reviews all of its policies and procedures and we may change this Privacy Policy from time to time.