Last modified: May 05th, 2023

French version here

Please read the terms of this policy carefully before using the site.

Introduction

Hippoc’s business activities do not require the collection, use or disclosure of much personal information, as it consists primarily of business contact information of employees of Hippoc and a few employees of Hippoc’s clients, contractors, service providers and agents.

Nevertheless, Hippoc respects privacy and is committed to protecting personal information. This personal information management policy (“privacy policy”) will inform you as to how we look after personal information of individuals when they visit our website (regardless of where they visit it from) or when our services are performed. It tells you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

This privacy policy is provided in a layered format so you can click through to the specific areas set out below.

  1. Important Information and Who We Are
  2. The Personal Information We Collect About You
  3. Collection: How Is Your Personal Information Collected
  4. Use: How We Use Your Personal Information
  5. Communication
  6. International Transfers
  7. Security
  8. Retention
  9. Your Rights
  1. Important Information and Who We Are

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how Hippoc collects and processes your personal information through your use of this site or the supply of services.

This site is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect personal information relating to children.

This privacy policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

Accountability

Hippoc Inc. (“Hippoc”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy) is accountable for personal information that is under its control.

We have appointed a person in charge of the protection of personal information (“Privacy Manager”) who is overseeing compliance, questions, requests and complaints in relation to this privacy policy as well as ensuring that the privacy laws applicable to Hippoc are implemented and complied with.

Privacy Manager

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our privacy practices, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact our Privacy Manager in one of the following ways:

Full name of legal entity: HIPPOC INC.

Title: Privacy Manager

Email address: contact@hippoc.ai

Postal address: 2485, chemin du Sault, Lévis (Québec) G6W 2J1, Canada

Examination of a Disagreement

You have the right to make an application at any time to the Commission d’accès à l’information (“CAI”), the regulator for personal information protection issues in the Canadian province of Québec, for the examination of a disagreement relating to the application of a legislative provision concerning access to or the rectification of personal information. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the CAI, so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was last updated on the date mentioned above in the introductory paragraph.

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This site may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our site, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

  1. The Personal Information We Collect About You

Personal information means any information which relates to a natural person and allows that person to be identified. It does not include anonymized data.

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal information about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Information, including first name, last name, username or similar identifier, title.
  • Contact Information, including billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
  • Financial Information, including bank account and payment card details.
  • Transaction Information, including details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
  • Technical Information, including internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this site.
  • Profile Information, including your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.  
  • Usage Information, including information about how you use our site, products and services.
  • Marketing and Communications Information, including your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data could be derived from your personal information but is not considered personal information in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Information to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific site feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal information so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal information which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Information about you (this includes details about your ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

If you fail to provide personal information

Where we need to collect personal information by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that personal information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

  1. Collection: How Is Your Personal Information Collected

We use different methods to collect personal information from and about you, including through:

  • Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Information by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal information you provide when you:
    • apply for our products or services;
    • create an account on our site;
    • subscribe to our service or publications;
    • request marketing to be sent to you; or
    • give us feedback or contact us.
  • Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our site, we will automatically collect Technical Information about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal information by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Information about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy [LINK] for further details.
  • Third parties or publicly available sources. We will receive personal information about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below :
    • Technical Information from the following parties:
  1. analytics providers based outside Québec: Google, Hotjar, Segment, Zoho
  2. advertising networks based inside or outside Québec: Meta, Linkedin, Twitter, Google Ads
  • Contact, Financial and Transaction Information from providers of technical, payment and delivery services based inside or outside Québec: Stripe
  • Identity and Contact Information from publicly available sources.
  1. Use: How We Use Your Personal Information

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

  • Where we need to perform a contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you or with one of our clients, contractors or service providers of whom you are an employee;
  • Where use of your personal information without your knowledge or consent is made in the circumstances described in the paragraph entitled “Exceptions to Requirement for Consent”; or
  • Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

Express or Implied Consent

Generally, we rely on express or implied consent as a legal basis for processing your personal information except where inappropriate, and we will have your express or implied consent (including as a result of an existing business relationship or an existing non-business relationship with you) before sending commercial electronic messages to you.

Consent Withdrawal

You have the right to withdraw consent to receive commercial electronic messages at any time by contacting us. You may also withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal information. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

Exceptions to Requirement for Consent

Hippoc may collect or use an individual’s personal information without their knowledge or consent if the collection or use is made for the purpose of a “Business activity” when we have a “Serious and legitimate reason” and the personal information is collected in the interest of the person concerned and cannot be collected from him in due time or collection from a third person is necessary to ensure the accuracy of the information and (a) a reasonable person would expect the collection or use for such an activity; and (b) the personal information is not collected or used for the purpose of influencing the individual’s behaviour or decisions.

Business activity” includes (a) an activity that is necessary to provide a product or service that the individual has requested from the organization; (b) an activity that is necessary for the organization’s information, system or network security (c) an activity that is necessary for the safety of a product or service that the organization provides; and (d) any other activity prescribed under applicable laws.

Serious and legitimate reason” means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service and the best and most secure experience. Before we process your personal information for a serious and legitimate reason, we (a) identify any potential adverse effect on the individual that is likely to result from the collection or use (b) identify and take reasonable measures to reduce the likelihood that the effects will occur or to mitigate or eliminate them and (c) comply with any prescribed requirements. We do not use your personal information for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).

Purposes for which we will use your personal information

We have set out below a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal information, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal information for more than one ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your personal information. Please contact us if you need details about the specific ground we are relying on to process your personal information where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Purpose / ActivityType of informationGround for processingTo register you as a new client(a) Identity (b) ContactPerformance of a contract with youTo process and deliver your order including:(a) Manage payments, fees and charges(b) Collect and recover money owed to us(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Financial (d) Transaction (e) Marketing and Communications(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary according to a serious and legitimate reason (to recover debts due to us)To manage our relationship with you which will include:(a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy(b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Marketing and Communications(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation(c) Necessary according to a serious and legitimate reason (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services)To enable you to complete a survey(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Usage (e) Marketing and Communications(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary according to a serious and legitimate reason (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them and grow our business)To administer and protect our business and this site (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)  (a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Technical(a) Necessary according to a serious and legitimate reason (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganization or group restructuring exercise)(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligationTo deliver relevant site content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Usage (e) Marketing and Communications (f) Technical Necessary according to a serious and legitimate reason (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)To use data analytics to improve our site, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences(a) Technical (b) Usage Necessary according to a serious and legitimate reason (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our site updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)To make suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical (d) Usage (e) Profile (f) Marketing and CommunicationsNecessary according to a serious and legitimate reason (to develop our products/services and grow our business)

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal information uses, particularly around marketing and advertising.

Commercial electronic messages

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Information to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you.

You will receive commercial electronic messages from us if you have requested information from us or ordered services from us and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Third-party marketing

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal information with any third party for marketing purposes.

Opting out

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you commercial electronic messages at any time by logging into the site and checking or unchecking relevant boxes to adjust your marketing preferences or by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal information provided to us as a result of service order, warranty registration, service experience or other transactions.

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when sites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our cookies policy (to come)

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

  1. Communication of Your Personal Information

We may communicate your personal information to the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the section “Purposes for which we will use your personal information” above.

  • Internal third parties
  • External third parties
  • Specific third parties listed in the table “Purposes for which we will use your personal information” above as the case may be.
  • Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal information in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal information and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

  1. Cross-Border Transfers

Many of our service providers are based outside Québec so their processing of your personal information will involve a communication or transfer of personal information outside Québec.

Whenever we transfer your personal information outside Québec, we first take all reasonable steps so that the information will not be used for purposes not relevant nor communicated to third persons without the consent of the persons concerned, (except in cases similar to those allowed by applicable laws) and the degree of protection afforded to it is equivalent to that which we are required to provide, by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

  • We will communicate or transfer your personal information only to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal information; or
  • We may entrust in writing and use specific mandates or contracts of enterprise or for services pursuant to which the third parties provide a level of protection of the personal information equivalent to that which the organization is required to provide in Québec, and specifying the measures third party must take to protect the confidentiality of the personal information communicated or transferred, to ensure that the personal information is used only for carrying out the mandate or performing the contract and to ensure that the third party does not keep the personal information after the expiry of the mandate or contract.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal information outside Québec.

  1. Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorized way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, mandataries, contractors, service providers and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected breach of security safeguards or confidentiality incident and will notify you and any applicable regulator of such a breach or incident where we are legally required to do so.

  1. Retention

How long will you use my personal information for?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal information for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your personal information.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal information (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

  1. Your Rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under personal information protection laws in relation to your personal information. Depending on the applicable jurisdiction, such rights may include some or all of the following:

  • Information
  • Access
  • Correction
  • Erasure
  • Object to processing
  • Restriction of processing
  • Explanation of a prediction, recommendation or decision based on an automated decision system
  • Transfer
  • Consent withdrawal
  • Complaint
  • Examination of a disagreement

Procedures to Receive and Respond to Requests and Complaints

We have procedures in place to receive and respond to requests or to complaints about our handling of personal information, our compliance with this privacy policy and with applicable privacy laws. If you wish to make a complaint to Hippoc with respect to its compliance or exercise any of the other rights set out above, please contact our Privacy Manager.

Hippoc will respond to any request or complaint that it receives, and make any necessary changes to its policies, practices and procedures as a result of its investigation.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests not later than 30 days after the day on which the request was received. Occasionally, it could take us longer than that if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.