Privacy Statement

The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants 

The purpose of this Privacy Statement is to inform you about the types of Personal Information The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (as follows, "CICA", "we", "us" or "the Institute") collects about you in the process of conducting the principal activities of the Institute and to providing you with general membership benefits as well as to providing you with specific products and services you have contracted from us. It explains how we use and disclose that information, the choices you have regarding such use and disclosure, and how you may correct that information. This Privacy Statement sets out a summary of the principles and procedures that the Institute follows in meeting its privacy commitments and complying with the requirements of the laws and regulations under applicable privacy laws in Canada, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

From time to time, we may make changes to this Privacy Statement. The Privacy Statement is current as of the "last revised" date which appears at the top of this page. We will treat Personal Information in a manner consistent with the Privacy Statement under which it was collected and our Privacy Policy, unless we have your consent to treat it differently. This Privacy Statement applies to any information we collect or receive about you, from any source.

Principle #1: The Institute is accountable for your personal information in its possession or control.

The Institute is accountable for all personal information in its possession or control. This includes any personal information that the Institute has received directly from members, students, associate students, customers, Provincial Institutes/Ordre of Chartered Accountants, or organizations (e.g., corporations, government entities, not-for-profit organizations).

Some of the primary purposes for which we collect and use your Personal Information include (i) to provide services to you in your capacity as a member of our organization, (ii) to complete a transaction with you when you purchase a product or service from us, (iii) to advise you of CICA products or services that may be of interest to you and (iv) to respond to inquiries you submit. We may also use your Personal Information as otherwise permitted or required by law.

The Institute has:

  • established and put into effect policies and procedures aimed at properly protecting personal information;
  • educated its staff and volunteers regarding its privacy policy and their role and responsibilities in keeping personal information private; and
  • Appointed a Chief Privacy Officer to oversee privacy issues at the Institute

All comments, questions, concerns or complaints regarding your Personal Information or our Privacy Statement and Practices, should be forwarded to our Privacy Officer as follows.

In writing:

Attn: Privacy Officer
The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants
277 Wellington Street West
Toronto, Ontario
M5V 3H2

e-mail: cicaprivacy.officer@cica.ca

We will inform you of the relevant procedures when you make an inquiry or lodge a challenge or complaint.

Principle #2 The Institute identifies the purposes for which it collects personal information from you before it is collected.

We identify the purposes for which we use your Personal Information at the time we collect such information from you and obtain your consent, in any case, prior to such use.

Principle #3 -The Institute obtains your consent before collecting personal information from you.

We explain your options and obtain your consent at or prior to collecting, and in any case, at or prior to using or disclosing your Personal Information for any purpose. We will always collect your Personal Information by fair and lawful means (for example, when you complete an application form or purchase a product or service from us). We may collect Personal Information about you from third parties, such as the Provincial Institutes/Ordre and other institutions and organizations. We also collect your Personal Information where we have obtained your consent to do so or as otherwise permitted or required by law.

Personal Information is any information that is identifiable with you. This information may include, but is not limited to, your name, mailing address, phone numbers, email address, identification numbers, credit card numbers, banking information, and creditor information. Personal Information, however, generally does not include your name, business title, business address, business telephone number or e-mail address in your capacity as an employee of an organization

Principle #4 - The Institute discloses your personal information only for purposes for which it has consent, or as permitted or required by law. The Institute retains personal information only as long as necessary to fulfill those purposes.

We identify to whom, and for what purposes, we disclose your Personal Information, at or prior to the time we collect such information from you and obtain your consent to such disclosure. For example, we may disclose your Personal Information:

  1. in the case of members, students and associate students, to the Provincial Institutes/Ordre of Chartered Accountants for the purposes of providing services to members, students and associate students;
  2. to our volunteers, for the purposes of the volunteers performing volunteer functions
  3. to third party service providers, for the purpose of providing member benefits or facilitating commercial transactions with us;
  4. to such persons and for such purposes for which you provide your consent; and
  5. as otherwise permitted or required by law.

We may keep a record of your Personal Information, correspondence or comments in a file specific to you. We will utilize, disclose or retain your Personal Information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected and as permitted or required by law.

Principle #5 - The Institute endeavors 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.

We will ensure that your Personal Information is kept as accurate, complete and up-to-date as possible based on information provided to us by you or any Provincial Institute/Ordre of Chartered Accountants to which you may belong. We expect you, from time to time, to supply us with written updates to your Personal Information, if applicable. In the case of members and students, Personal Information may be updated by accessing the online change form at https://secure.cica.ca/.

Principle #6 - The Institute protects the privacy of personal information in its possession or control by using security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information.

We have implemented physical, organizational, contractual and technological security measures to protect your Personal Information from loss or theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification. The only employees who are granted access to your Personal Information are those with a business 'need-to-know' or whose duties reasonably require such information.

You can visit our Web Site without telling us who you are or revealing any information about yourself, including your email address. However, our web server may collect the IP address and domain you used to access our Web Site, the type and version of web browser and operating system you are using, the number, duration and frequency of visits to our Web Site and the web site you came from and visited next. This anonymous information cannot be traced to a specific individual User, it is used by us simply to measure the number of visits, average time spent, page views, most popular preferences and other statistics about visitors to the Web Site and to determine the characteristics in which users use our Web Site and services. We may use this data to monitor Web Site performance for systems administration purposes, to make our Web Site easier and more convenient to use, to improve our services and to track information in aggregate form (e.g. how many visitors use the Web Site).

We use cookies, that is, small files that your Web browser places on your computer's hard drive, to remember a User's code, password and preferences while the User is using our web site and to facilitate navigating different pages on the Web Site.

Our web site contains security mechanisms that protect against the loss, the misuse and the modification of information under our control.

Our web site provides links to third party web sites. Our Privacy Statement does not extend to these third party web sites and it is recommended that Users read the privacy policies of these web sites. We are not responsible for the content of, or the privacy practices employed by, third party web sites.

We ensure that the Provincial Institutes/Ordre of Chartered Accountants and third parties who are engaged to perform services on our behalf and are provided with Personal Information are required by contract to observe the intent of this Privacy Statement and our Privacy Policies and Practices except in the case of those Provincial Institutes/Ordre of Chartered Accountants which have informed us that in their view, the Federal or Provincial privacy legislation is not applicable to them.

Principle #7 -The Institute is open about the procedures it uses to manage personal information.

Up-to-date information on the Institute's privacy policies can be obtained from the Institute's Privacy Officer (see contact information under Principle 1).

Principle #8 - The Institute responds on a timely basis to requests from members or customers about their personal information which the Institute possesses or controls.

We will generally make available to you any Personal Information that we have collected about you, utilized or disclosed, upon your written request, to the extent permitted or required by law. We will make such information available to you in a form that is generally understandable, including explaining any abbreviations or codes. In the case of members and students, Personal Information may be reviewed and updated by accessing the online change form at https://secure.cica.ca/.

You can at any time, challenge the accuracy or completeness of the Personal Information we have which is related to you. Once we have validated your identity, we will amend the Personal Information as required. Where appropriate, we will transmit the amended information to third parties having access to your Personal Information.

We will attempt to respond to each of your written requests not later than thirty (30) days after receipt of such requests. We will advise you in writing if we cannot meet your requests within this time limit. You have the right to make a complaint to the federal Privacy Commissioner in respect of this time limit.

We will not assess any costs to you for access to your Personal Information or to our Privacy Policies or Practices without first providing you with an estimate of the approximate costs, if any. We may request that you provide sufficient identification to permit access to the existence, use or disclosure of your Personal Information. Any such information shall be used only for this purpose.

Last revised: August 27, 2004