In operating our credit programs, GE Money in Canada (“GE Money”, “we” or “us”) rely heavily on personal information about you and your account to ensure that you, as an accountholder, are provided with the best products and services possible. We want you to understand what personal information we collect and how we use and share it, and what steps we take to protect the security of personal information about you. Protecting your privacy is important to us, and we are committed to doing so.

The following privacy policy is part of this commitment. This policy describes

I. Information We Collect: We collect personal information

from you such as:
Identifying Information:
Including Name and Address;
Credit Qualifications:
Including Income and Employment particulars;
Transactional History:Including Items Purchased, Payments, Payment Method and Customer Service or Collections Calls;
Credit Bureau History:
Including credit record and payment history with other lenders; and
Online:
Including a “cookie” (small pieces of data stored by your Internet browser or your computer) or other technology that may be used to remember passwords for you, to help us track your web site usage and to provide you with customized content, among other things, from many sources including our account applications, credit bureau reports and your account profile. Personal information about you is only collected with your consent. For example, we obtain your consent to the collection of personal information about you when you apply for credit. In addition, we obtain your consent whenever we may need to collect personal information about you for purposes other than the ones described in this Privacy Policy or in your credit agreement. We do not obtain your consent when we collect “publicly available information” about you such as a public directory listing of your name, address or telephone number. “Publicly available information” is not considered to be personal information about you at law and your consent is not required.

II. Uses of the Information

We collect personal information about you: (i) to obtain and exchange credit information, from time to time, from and with credit reporting agencies, credit references and other sources with whom you have or may expect to have financial dealings; (ii) to enter into, maintain and carry out the credit agreement related to the account; (iii) which may be disclosed to a third party as part of a transfer of all or part of the credit business; and (iv) may be disclosed to third parties whose services or products may be of interest to you; and (v) to approve you for, and notify you of, other financial products or services offered by GE Money that may be of interest to you. Personal information about you will not be used for any other purpose without your consent.

III. Information We Share with Others

Unless you tell us you do not want us to, we may, as described above, provide contact information about you to third parties whose services or products may be of interest to you. Other than such third parties, we do not provide or sell personal information about you to any outside company without your explicit permission. However, we may share personal information on a confidential basis with external service providers who process your personal information only to assist us with the purposes that you have consented to or in accordance with applicable law. We also provide personal information where required by law or in an emergency situation. Please note that personal information does not include information that does not identify an individual, such as aggregate information or “blind” data without personal identifiers, and we may share such non-personal information with third parties.

IV. Our Security Procedures

The security of personal information about you is very important to us, and we take steps to safeguard it. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards in compliance with applicable law and industry standards to guard non-public personal information about you. We limit access to personal information about you to those employees and agents who assist us in providing products and services to you. Employees who fail to follow our established standards are subject to disciplinary action. We also require our external service providers to whom we disclose personal information about you to adhere to this Privacy Policy and to establish information security procedures.

V. Retention of Information

We keep personal information about you only as long as we need it: (i) for the products and services you’re using; (ii) to offer you product and services associated with your account while you are an accountholder and for a reasonable time thereafter; or (iii) to meet any legal requirements. We have retention guidelines which meet these requirements.

VI. Your Access to Information

Personal information provided by you in your application for credit, or obtained subsequently with your consent, is maintained in a separate customer file. We manage this customer file from our offices located in Edmonton, Alberta. You have the right to request access to the personal information in your file or request a correction to it. You may tell us you do not want us to provide contact information about you to third parties whose services or products may be of interest to you. You may also request that we discontinue maintenance and use of your personal information for the purposes of providing you with credit, but such a request, where permissible under your credit agreement with us, will result in the termination of your credit agreement with us. You may access personal information about you in several ways. For example, where you have a credit card agreement with us, we send you monthly billing statements outlining your transactions, finance charges and other account information. You may also call the toll free customer service telephone number listed below if you have any additional questions or write to us at Customer Service, GE Money Canada, Box 2780, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 4N4. There’s no charge for verifying or correcting information about you. Depending on the circumstances, there may be a charge if you want a copy of records, which we have already given you – for example, a billing statement. We will inform you beforehand of any applicable charges.

VII. Privacy and our Websites

GE Money sometimes collects personal information through its various websites. In this section, we provide you with additional information regarding such collection.

Anonymous Browsing – - You can visit GE Money websites without telling us who you are or revealing any information about yourself. In this case, our Web servers may collect the name of the IP address you used to access the Internet and the website you came from and visit next. This information is used by us and our business partners to measure the number of visits, average time spent, page views, and other statistics about visitors to the GE Money websites in general. We may also use this data to monitor site performance, for systems administration purposes, to make the GE Money websites easier and more convenient to use and to report information in aggregate form to our advisers (e.g. how many visitors log in to the GE Money websites).
Cookies – When an individual visitor accesses the GE Money websites, we may use a browser feature called a 'cookie' to collect information such as the type of Internet browser and operating system the visitor uses, the domain name of the websites from which the visitor came, date and duration of the visit, number of visits, average time spent on our websites, pages viewed and number of cookies accumulated. 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. Unless a visitor specifically informs us (e.g. by enrolling for our services or sending us correspondence from the websites), we will not know who the individual visitors are. In addition to the identified purposes described in our Privacy Policy, we may use this website information and share it with other organizations with whom we have a commercial relationship to measure the use of our websites and to improve the functionality and content of the websites. Visitors can reset their browsers either to notify them when they have received a cookie or refuse to accept cookies. However, if a visitor refuses to accept cookies, he or she may not be able to use some of the features available on our websites.
Tracking preferences – At the GE Money websites, we may use your personal information to track your preferences. Tracking user preferences also helps us serve you targeted advertising. Targeted advertisements are probably more interesting for you and are more productive for our advertisers. Please note that we do not share your personal information with advertisers.
Online Communications – In order to provide our website visitors with a product, service or information, visitors may voluntarily submit personal information to us for purposes such as asking a question, obtaining information, reviewing or downloading a publication, participating in contests and surveys. If you are known to GE Money as a registered user of an online service, we may combine and store personal information about your use of our websites and the online information you have provided with certain other online and offline information we may have collected.
Email Communications – If you send us an email message, we may retain that message and your email address, as well as any response we send you. In addition, occasionally, we may send marketing or promotional email communications to you with information that may be useful, including information about the services of GE Money and other third parties with whom we have a relationship. We will include instructions on how to unsubscribe and inform us of preferences if recipients decide they do not want to receive any future marketing or promotional emails from GE Money.
Advertisers – If you submit your name through a form on any GE Money site to request information from an advertiser or other third party, we are not responsible for any marketing or other use of your name by the third party. To learn more about any other company or organization's privacy policies, we suggest visiting its website or contacting it by postal mail or telephone.
Searches – Keyword search functions are provided on our websites as a convenience to our users. We do not collect your name or email address as a result of using a search feature. We may keep logs of all words searched to help us learn what kinds of information our visitors are seeking, and to improve our service to visitors.
Links – Our websites may contain links to other websites that are provided as a convenience only. Visitors are advised that other third party websites may have different privacy policies and practices than GE Money, and GE Money has no responsibility for such third party websites.

VIII. How This Policy Applies to You

If you decide to close your account or become an inactive accountholder, or if we close or suspend your account, we will continue to adhere to this Privacy Policy. We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time, and we will inform you of changes as required by law.

IX. Resources & How to Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns about the privacy of personal information about you, please call us at 1-800-268-7417. Our customer service representatives will be pleased to help you. In most cases, a concern is resolved simply by telling us about it and discussing it with us. You should be able to get swift results by talking to our customer service representatives. But if you still have unresolved concerns, you may contact our Privacy Officer as follows:
GE Money Canada
13140 St Albert Trail.
Edmonton, Alberta T5L 4P6
Attention: Privacy Officer
Phone: 1-800-272-7268
Fax: 1-866-832-5565
e-mail: Can.Privoff@gecapital.com
If the issue is still not resolved to your satisfaction, you may file a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at info@privcom.gc.ca or by calling 1-800-282-1376.