October 31, 2006
GPS Central Privacy Policy
General
GPS Central (“GPS Central”) has adopted the following policy (the “Privacy Policy”) that applies to the information about you that is collected, used and disclosed by GPS Central in the course of its business activities, including the information collected, used and disclosed on the www.gpscentral.ca web site (the “GPS Web Site”). Any acquisition of any product or service offered by GPS Central signifies your consent and agreement to the terms and conditions contained in this Privacy Policy, and to the collection, use and disclosure described herein of your personal information by GPS Central. If you do not agree with the Privacy Policy, do not acquire a product or service offered by GPS Central. If at any time you wish to withdraw your consent to the collection, use and disclosure described herein of your personal information by GPS Central, you may do so by contacting GPS Central and advising them of the same in accordance with the section entitled “Changing or Updating Your Information or Your Privacy Preferences” below.
GPS Central may contact you from time to time to notify you of any material changes, alterations, amendments or replacements to all or any part of the Privacy Policy provided that you have given GPS Central your e-mail address or other contact information and agreed that GPS Central may contact you using that e-mail address or other contact information.
Collection of Information
When you access and use the GPS Web Site, our web server automatically collects certain technical information (“Technical Information”) about your visit to the GPS Web Site, including your domain name, your Internet Protocol (IP) address, the internet browser and the operating system used by you and information on what web pages on the GPS Web Site are accessed or used by you.
If you wish to acquire products and services offered by GPS Central, including those offered on or through the GPS Web Site, GPS Central may require that you provide some or all of the following personal information (“Personal Information”): your full name, mailing address (including postal or ZIP code), e-mail address, telephone number, credit card information (including the credit card number, expiry date and billing address and phone number as held on file by your banking institution) and other personal information. GPS Central may also collect additional information about you in processing your credit application if you have applied for credit from GPS Central (collectively “Personal Information”).
The Technical Information and the Personal Information will be used by GPS Central for the purposes set out below in the “Use and Disclosure of Information” section.
Warning: Other Web Sites
Please note that other web sites may collect information about you when you visit such other sites. This Privacy Policy does not extend to information collected by such web sites, including those web sites that provide hypertext links to the GPS Web Site and those web sites not controlled by GPS Central that you may be directed to by hypertext links found on the GPS Web Site. Web sites not controlled by GPS Central are not covered by this Privacy Policy and GPS Central does not accept any responsibility or liability for the collection, use or disclosure of information about you by any other person. For information regarding the privacy policy on another web site, click on the privacy policy for that web site or contact the operator of such site.
Use and Disclosure of Information
The information that is collected, stored and processed in the course of its business operations is used for a number of purposes, including processing the transactions you engage in, with or through GPS Central, providing customer service to you, communicating with you, customizing and facilitating your use of the GPS Web Site. GPS Central will also use Technical and Personal Information about you and aggregate it with Technical and Personal Information about others, such that no person is individually identifiable. GPS Central will then use this aggregated information for web site analysis, product or service analysis, statistical analysis, or marketing and promotional purposes.
Information about you is important to our business and we are not in the business of selling your information to others. The information that is collected, stored and processed by GPS Central will only be disclosed to other parties in the circumstances outlined below.
• Third Party Providers of Products. Limited information will be disclosed to third party providers of products such as Garmin or Magellan. GPS Central has contracted with various third parties to offer their products both on or through the GPS Web Site and off the GPS Web Site. Therefore, when you acquire certain software from GPS Central, we may provide the serial number of the Product that you purchased from us to the third party in order to process the sale of the Product and we may confirm, if requested by the third party, your identity to the third party. Please note that GPS Central will only confirm your identity with the third party and will not be providing any other of your Personal Information to that third party. Therefore, if you have not previously provided personal information to the third party, the third party will not be able to confirm your identity with us as we only confirm information provided to us by that third party. Please note that GPS Central cannot be responsible for the use of such information by such third parties and GPS Central strongly recommends that you review the privacy policy of the third party prior to providing your personal information to such third party. You acknowledge and agree that your purchase of a product or service offered by GPS Central will constitute evidence of your acceptance and consent that GPS Central may disclose Personal Information about you to a third party as provided for above and herein.
• Banking Institutions. Information such as your name, address and credit card information will be disclosed to the appropriate banking institution in order to confirm and authenticate orders made by credit card. Where the name, address and credit card information provided to GPS Central does not match with the information stored with the banking institution, GPS Central will advise the person ordering the products or services by phone or e-mail that GPS Central was not able to obtain the authorization necessary to complete the transaction and thereafter the information provided may be shared with the fraud department of the banking institution. GPS Central confirms all credit card orders with appropriate banking institutions in order to minimize fraud, which protects both GPS Central and you.
• Agents. Information will be disclosed to a person (your agent) that GPS Central is satisfied has been authorized by you to receive information. Information will also be disclosed to agents of GPS Central such as a company hired to deliver packages on behalf of GPS Central. Agents of GPS Central will only be given access to information required by them in order to perform the services on behalf of GPS Central.
• Collection Agencies. Information about you will be disclosed to a collection agency if amounts owing by you to GPS Central are not paid within the agreed upon time or such other time as GPS Central decides is appropriate, acting reasonably.
• Disclosure for Legal Purposes. GPS Central will disclose information about you if required to do so by law, court order or as requested by any other government or law enforcement authority. GPS Central will also disclose information about you where GPS Central, acting reasonably, believes that such disclosure is necessary or advisable, including when GPS Central has reason to believe that the safety of GPS Central employees, customers or others is at risk, or if disclosure of such information is necessary or advisable to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing interference with GPS Central’s rights or properties, whether intentionally or otherwise, or when anyone else could be harmed in such activities.
• Sale of the Business. GPS Central will disclose information about you to a purchaser in the event that GPS Central sells all or a part of its business or if GPS Central is acquired by, or merged with, another entity.
• With Your Consent. With your prior consent, GPS Central may disclose information about you in situations other than as provided above.
Use of Cookies
When you visit the GPS Web Site, we place a “cookie” on the hard drive of your computer to track your visit to the GPS Web Site. A cookie is a small data file that is transferred to your hard drive through your web browser that can only be read by the web site that placed the cookie on your hard drive. The cookie allows GPS Central to track your visit to the GPS Web Site and the items that you place in your shopping cart. For a detailed description of what a “cookie” is, please enter the search term “cookie” on the search program provided on the https://whatis.techtarget.com/ web site.
Most web browsers are set to accept cookies. However, on most web browsers you may change this setting to have your web browser either: (1) notify you prior to a web site placing a cookie on your hard drive so that you can decide whether or not to accept the cookie; or (2) automatically prevent the placing of a cookie on your hard drive. It should be noted that if cookies are not accepted, you will not be able to access a number of web pages and if you choose not to accept the cookies placed on your hard drive by GPS Central, you will not be able to access a number of web pages found on the GPS Web Site.
Security
GPS Central endeavors to provide a secure environment in which you can provide and obtain access to information about you. GPS Central has security measures in place to prevent the modification, misuse, loss or misappropriation of information about you, including the provision of a secure environment in which the information is stored.
Another security measure used by GPS Central is that we do not permanently store your credit card information on our computer system. In fact, GPS Central only temporarily stores your credit card information on a secure server and thereafter GPS Central only keeps paper records of your credit card information so that such information is not stored online. You can entirely avoid providing your credit card information online by phoning GPS Central and providing your credit card information to an individual who will enter it into our paper records. In addition, we offer you the option to pay for products using a money order or bank draft so that your credit card information is never provided to us.
Changing or Updating Your Information or Your Privacy Preferences
You may, at any time, view or update all of your information stored by GPS Central, including your privacy preferences, by contacting GPS Central directly as set out in the “Contact Us” section below.
In some cases, GPS Central may not be able to provide you with all the information that it has collected about you. This would occur if provision of the information could lead to disclosure of another individual’s personal information, where laws or regulations prevent disclosure, or where it would simply be too costly to provide the information such as a request to provide you with a detailed history of every web page on the GPS Web Site visited by you. If GPS Central decides not to disclose some or all of the information collected about you, GPS Central will advise you of the reason.
Please note that even if you delete or change your information stored by us, information about you will continue to be stored by us indefinitely and may be used and disclosed by us for the purposes set out under the headings under the “Use and Disclosure of Information” section above. Also, you should note that information may still be stored in places outside of our control such as in our agents’, contractors’, or third party suppliers’ databases (including those being used for archival purposes). In the event that you are having difficulties in reviewing or amending your information, please contact us directly as set out in the “Contact Us” section below.
You may also withdraw your consent to the terms and conditions contained in this privacy policy by providing notice in writing to that effect delivered to the address as specified in the “Contact Us” section below. You further acknowledge and agree that you will not, after withdrawing your consent to the provisions of this Privacy Policy, acquire a product or service offered by GPS Central. You may however continue to use products acquired prior to the cancellation. If you acquire any product or service offered by GPS Central or use the GPS Web Site after withdrawing your consent, such action signifies your consent and agreement to the terms and conditions contained in this Privacy Policy, and to the collection, use and disclosure described herein of your Personal Information by GPS Central.
Accountability and Complaints
GPS Central has designated George Valentine as the person for you to contact to raise issues or concerns with respect to the collection, use and disclosure of your information about you. Please contact George Valentine directly at with your questions or concerns at 1-800-585-9331 (toll free in Canada and in the United States) or at 1-403-239-1400.
In the event that you have a complaint with respect to our collection, use or disclosure of information about you, please forward a written statement of your complaint to sales@gpscentral.ca or fax it to 1-403-239-1408 where we will within thirty (30) days review your complaint and advise you, as to the response to your request, or in the event that we need to extend the time that it will take us to respond to your request, or have to refuse your request, we will tell you why (subject to any legal restrictions) we are unable to respond to your request within the time period.
Contact Us
You may contact GPS Central at 1-800-585-9331 (toll free in Canada and in the United States) or by e-mail.