Privacy Policy

Our Commitment to Privacy

Optimum Talent and its affiliates (hereinafter referred to collectively as “OT” or “we”) respect the privacy and confidentiality of your Personal Information used in our business processes and adhere to the standards and expectations of the privacy legislation in Canada. OT has a privacy policy that explains how it collects, uses, discloses, and protects your Personal Information. The confidentiality of your Personal Information and the protection of your privacy is important to us.

What is Personal Information?

“Personal Information” is a broad term that includes any information about or that can be used to identify an individual.  The types of personal information we may collect about an individual will depend upon the nature of the services we are requested to provide or the purpose for collecting the information. Personal Information may not include certain business contact information, including your name, title or position, business or business email address, telephone, or facsimile number in your capacity as a colleague of an organization. Personal Information also excludes certain publicly available information, such as information listed in a public telephone directory.

Consent

If you choose to use our services and/or submit your Personal Information to OT, then you are providing your consent for OT to collect your Personal Information, and use it in the conduct of our business activities and mandates with you or our clients. For example, if you submit your resume through our website to apply for a search we are conducting for a client, you are providing your consent for us to use your Personal Information in the context of our search businesses. You may withdraw your consent to the use and disclosure of your Personal Information at any time unless it is necessary for us to use your Personal Information to fulfill our legal obligations. Please contact us if you would like to withdraw your consent (See “Your Rights” below).

Collection and Use of Your Personal Information

We collect, use, and disclose Personal Information only for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances, and we limit the amount and type of personal information we collect, use or disclose to that necessary for the purposes identified. Generally speaking, OT collects, uses and discloses Personal Information of clients and other individuals for the primary purpose of providing our services and advice on matters in which we have been retained.

We will also collect your Personal Information when you are applying for a search that we are conducting for a client. This information may be acquired from resumes, cover letters, telephone conversations, interviews, security or criminal checks, and/or academic verifications.

We may collect your Personal Information if you are applying for employment within our company. If hired, more Personal Information will be required for payroll, compensation and benefits, office security, and emergency services.

In all cases noted above, after collecting your Personal Information, it may be used by OT to communicate with you from time to time for reasons such as ensuring the information that we have about you is correct, to communicate with you about opportunities for employment, to provide you with information about OT and its services, and/or to communicate with you about other appropriate business matters.

Our Website

Visitors to our website are not required to provide any individually identifiable information, such as a name or address, nor do we collect such information passively by electronic means. We collect only general information about visitors, such as their IP  addresses and times of visit, and use this information to improve our website. However, if you decide to give us Personal Information, such as your email address or your resume, we will use it only for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. We do not provide information to third parties regarding individual visitors to our website. While reasonable precautions are taken to protect all information given to us, due to the nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that there will not be any unauthorized access to your information. From time to time, our website may contain links to other websites that may collect your Personal Information. We do not assume any responsibility for the privacy practices of the third parties operating such websites. You should read the privacy policies of these websites and in light of such policies, decide whether or not you want to provide your Personal Information to the operators of these third-party websites.

Cookies

By using a browser feature called a “cookie” and other methods, OT and our third-party service providers may gather non-personal information when you visit our websites such as data about the frequency of your visits to our websites, the duration of your visits, the number of pages you view and the type of Internet browser and operating system you use. A cookie is a small text file containing a unique identification number that identifies the visitor’s browser, but not necessarily the visitor, to our computers each time our websites are visited. Website visitor information is collected on an anonymous basis, which means that no Personal Information is associated with such data unless a visitor specifically provides us with such information.

Disclosing Your Personal Information

OT does not sell or distribute Personal Information in any circumstance. OT may disclose your Personal Information in the normal course of providing our business services in the following ways: If we disclose any Personal Information about you, it will only be used for project purposes, and with your prior consent. OT may disclose your resume or any Personal Information about you to our clients, for the purpose of providing you with a recruiting opportunity, only with your prior consent. This information will only be used to evaluate your suitability for the role, or potentially other opportunities as well.

When you accept employment with OT, your Personal Information will be disclosed to: third-party insurers, government authorities, our provider for colleague benefits, our payroll administrator, our banks, consultants who advise our company regarding colleague benefits and other compensation information or issues, staff responsible for hiring and/or performance management, and to legal counsel if ever required. Certain Personal Information will be provided to our office building managers for office security and parking security purposes. Personal Information may also be used for emergency contact information.

OT may be involved in the sale, merger, or restructuring of some or all of our business or assets. In the course of such a transaction, OT may disclose your Personal Information to the purchaser or new corporate entity. In such a case, we will require such third parties to agree to protect the privacy of your Personal Information in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Policy and in accordance with applicable privacy laws.

In addition, in certain circumstances, OT may disclose your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws, respond to inquiries or requests from government authorities, or if compelled by legal process.

Protecting Your Personal Information

We protect Personal Information in a manner appropriate to the sensitivity of the information. We make every reasonable effort to prevent any loss, misuse, disclosure, or modification of Personal Information, as well as any unauthorized access to Personal Information. We use a range of physical, electronic, and managerial measures to ensure that we keep your Personal Information secure, accurate, and up to date.

In the normal course of providing our services, we utilize both our own technology and third-party IT providers. Where we utilize our own technology, your Personal Information is stored in secure databases on locked servers. We use technological safeguards such as data encryption for the security of information, firewall protection and virus protection software, and strong password protection to ensure security, and prevent unauthorized computer access. Where OT utilizes third-party IT providers, your Personal Information may be transferred and/or stored on technology not owned by OT, and that may be located in Canada, the United States, or other countries. OT reviews all third-party IT providers for their security practices, privacy policies, and general business reputation. Contractual and other means are used to ensure that the level of protection provided is comparable to the high level of security that OT provides when we utilize our own technology.

All OT employees sign a confidentiality agreement and are educated with respect to handling your Personal Information in a confidential manner.

Retention of Personal Information

OT retains your Personal Information as described below:

Consulting: OT will retain your Personal Information for the longest of the following periods: (i) as long as is necessary for the relevant activity or services; and (ii) any retention period that is required by law or professional standards.

Search: We will retain your Personal Information in our confidential database in order to contact you again to discuss future opportunities unless you specifically request otherwise.  In general, in the context of a search, we will retain your Personal Information for a period of 5 years.

Employment with OT: We will retain your Personal Information throughout your employment and for at least seven years after your employment with OT ends, as required by Canada Revenue Agency.

Removal/Disposal of Personal Information

We use appropriate security measures, such as professional waste management for the destruction of any hard copy information, to dispose of any Personal Information. If the information is electronic, then the information is permanently deleted from our server.

Your rights

You have various rights in relation to your Personal Information. In particular, you have a right to:

• obtain confirmation that we are processing your Personal Information and request a copy of the Personal Information we hold about you. You may make a request to access your Personal Information by providing sufficient information in your request to allow us to identify the information you are seeking. We will respond to your request within 45 calendar days and a reasonable fee to provide information may If more time is required, we will provide an explanation and time-frame. If we refuse your request in whole or in part, we will provide you the reasons for the refusal. For example, we may not be able to provide information about you from our records if it contains references to other persons or cannot be disclosed for legal reasons.
• ask that we update the Personal Information we hold about you, or correct such Personal Information that you think is incorrect or incomplete.
• ask that we delete your Personal Information that we hold about you, or restrict the way in which we use such Personal Information.
• withdraw consent to our processing of your Personal Information (to the extent such processing is based on consent).

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy at any time by updating our Privacy Policy. To let you know when we make changes, we will amend the revision date at the top of this page. Please check back frequently for the most current version of our Privacy Policy.