Privacy policy

1. Who we are, and who is responsible

Yeg Pest Control Ltd. is the organisation responsible for the personal information described in this policy. In the language of Canadian privacy law we are the organisation having control of that information.

Questions, requests and complaints about privacy go to our privacy officer, who can be reached at info@yegpest.com or on 825-522-1997, or by post at Edmonton, Alberta. We will acknowledge a written privacy request within seven days and answer it within thirty days, or tell you why we need longer and how much longer we need.

2. The law this policy is written under

We are an Alberta organisation, so our handling of personal information is governed by the Personal Information Protection Act (Alberta). Where personal information is collected, used or disclosed in the course of commercial activity across provincial or national borders, the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act applies as well. Commercial electronic messages we send are governed by Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation.

Both statutes rest on the same idea: we may collect only what a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances, we must tell you why before or when we collect it, and we must not use it later for something unrelated without asking you again. That is the standard this policy is trying to meet.

3. What we collect

3.1 Information you give us

The enquiry, quote and booking forms on this website are the only parts of it that collect anything about you. Depending on which form you use, we receive:

• Your name. So we know who we are speaking to, and so the technician who attends is not arriving to ask a stranger who they are.
• Your phone number, and your email address if you give one. So we can reply, confirm a time, and tell you if something changes. On some forms the email address is optional and is marked as such.
• Whether the property is a home or a business, and what you are seeing. A description of the problem in your own words. What you tell us here determines what we quote and what the technician brings, so it is the part of the form that does the most work.
• When you would like us to come. A preference, not a commitment.
• The page you were on when you sent the form. So we can pick up where you left off rather than starting the conversation again.

Do not send us information we have not asked for. In particular, do not send health information, financial information, or details about other people in the message box. If you do, we will handle it under this policy, but we would rather you did not have to.

3.2 Information we collect automatically

Our website host records standard server logs, including the IP address a request came from, the time of the request and the page requested. We also use your IP address to limit how many times the enquiry form can be submitted from one place in a short period, which is what stops the form being used to send junk. This is a security measure and the addresses are not used to build a profile of you.

Beyond that, this site does not track you. There is no analytics package, no advertising pixel, no session recorder, no social media widget and no embedded third party content on any page. The typefaces are served from this website rather than fetched from a font provider, so loading a page here does not tell anybody else you were here.

3.3 Information we collect in the course of the work

If you become a customer, we keep a record of the work: the service address, what was found, what was treated, what was recommended, when we attended and when we are due back. Where an account is on a monitoring program, that record includes the bait station log described on our commercial page. We keep these records because they are how the work is done properly, because a customer is entitled to a copy, and because for a commercial account they are what an inspector or an auditor asks to see.

3.4 Payment information

We do not ask for payment details on this website and no page here takes a payment. Work is quoted after an inspection and paid for directly, and where a card is used the card details are handled by the payment provider and are not stored by us.

4. Why we use it, and on what basis

We use personal information only for these purposes:

• To reply to your enquiry and answer your questions.
• To quote, schedule, carry out and record the work you ask us to do.
• To contact you about work in progress or a scheduled visit, including reminders and changes.
• To keep the records the work requires, including treatment records and, on a monitoring program, the visit log.
• To keep this website secure and working, which is the limited purpose the server logs and the rate limit serve.
• Where we are required to by law, or to establish or defend a legal claim.

We rely on your consent, given when you submit a form or ask us to do work. For an existing customer we also rely on the reasonable expectation that we will use their details to carry out and follow up the work they asked for. You can withdraw consent at any time, subject to legal and contractual limits and to reasonable notice, by telling us; we will explain what withdrawing means for any work in progress before it takes effect.

We do not use your information for automated decision-making or profiling. A person reads your enquiry and a person decides what to quote.

5. Marketing and electronic messages

We do not sell, rent or trade your information, and we do not share it with anybody for their own marketing.

If we send you a commercial electronic message, we do so only where Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation permits it: because you have consented, or because you are an existing customer and the message relates to that relationship. Every such message identifies us, tells you how to reach us, and carries a working unsubscribe. An unsubscribe is actioned without delay and in any event within ten business days. Unsubscribing from marketing does not stop us contacting you about work you have booked, because those are not marketing messages.

6. Who else handles it

This website, and the enquiry inbox and customer records behind it, are operated for us by our marketing and software provider, myBloom. Enquiries submitted here are stored on their systems so that we can answer them, and their staff may access them where that is necessary to run or support the service. They act on our instructions and for no other purpose, and they are not permitted to use what you send us for anything of their own.

Behind that provider are the infrastructure suppliers any website needs: a hosting platform that serves these pages, a database that stores the enquiry, and the services that deliver our email and text notifications. They process the information on instruction in order to provide those services.

We may also disclose personal information where the law requires it, to a regulator or law enforcement acting under lawful authority, to our professional advisers where needed for advice, and to a purchaser or successor if this business is sold, in which case the information stays subject to a policy no less protective than this one.

Nobody else receives what you send us.

7. Where it is stored, and transfers outside Canada

Information collected through this website is stored on systems operated by our provider and their suppliers. Some of those suppliers operate infrastructure outside Canada, or are companies subject to the laws of another country, including the United States. That means information may be stored or processed outside Alberta and outside Canada.

Where that is the case, the information remains subject to this policy and to contractual protections, and we require comparable safeguards from anybody handling it. You should also know, because Alberta’s legislation asks that we tell you plainly, that information held in another country may be accessible to the courts and law enforcement of that country under its own laws.

If you would like more detail about where information is held, ask our privacy officer and we will tell you.

8. How long we keep it

• An enquiry that does not become a job. Kept for up to twenty-four months so that we can recognise you if you come back, then deleted.
• Customer and treatment records. Kept for seven years after the last service, which is the period our records may be needed for tax, insurance, licensing and any question about work that was carried out.
• Server logs and rate-limiting data. Kept for a short operational period, measured in days, and then discarded.
• Your cookie choice. Stored in your own browser, not on our systems, until you clear it or change it. See the cookie policy.

When a retention period ends, information is deleted or anonymised. Where a record must be kept longer because of a legal obligation or an ongoing claim, we keep only what that requires and for only as long as it requires.

9. How we protect it

We use safeguards appropriate to how sensitive the information is. This website is served only over an encrypted connection, and information submitted through it is encrypted in transit. Access to the enquiry inbox and customer records is limited to the people who need it to do their job, and is protected by individual accounts rather than a shared password. The enquiry form is rate limited and filtered so that it cannot be used to flood our inbox.

No system is perfectly secure and we will not tell you otherwise. If a breach occurs that creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and the appropriate Commissioner as the law requires, and we will tell you what happened, what it means for you and what we are doing about it.

10. Your rights

You may, at any time:

• Ask what we hold about you and ask for a copy of it, along with an account of how it has been used and who it has been disclosed to.
• Ask us to correct it if it is wrong or incomplete. If we disagree that a correction is needed, we will record that you asked.
• Ask us to delete it, and we will unless we are required to keep it. If we must keep something, we will tell you what and why.
• Withdraw your consent to our use of it, subject to legal and contractual limits and to reasonable notice.
• Complain if you think we have got this wrong.

Ask our privacy officer using the details in section 1. We do not charge for a request, and we may ask you to confirm who you are before we act on one, because handing your record to somebody else would be the very thing this policy exists to prevent. If we refuse a request we will tell you why in writing and tell you how to challenge it.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta, or to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. You do not have to come to us first, though we would rather you did, because most of these are misunderstandings we can fix in a phone call.

11. Children

This website is intended for adults arranging work on a property. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has sent us information through this site, tell us and we will delete it.

12. Cookies

This site uses only the storage that makes it work, and sets no analytics or advertising cookies. What is stored, why, and how to change your choice are set out in full in our cookie policy.

13. Other websites

Where we link to somebody else’s website, such as our Better Business Bureau profile or a review platform, that site has its own privacy policy and we are not responsible for it. This policy covers this website only.

14. Changes to this policy

We update this page when what we do changes, and the date at the top is the date of the current version. If a change materially affects how we handle information we already hold about you, we will take reasonable steps to tell you rather than relying on you noticing the date.

15. How to contact us

Privacy officer, Yeg Pest Control Ltd., Edmonton, Alberta. info@yegpest.com or 825-522-1997. Monday to Saturday, same-day where we can reach you.