PRIVACY POLICY

Effective Date: May 31, 2022

WHAT THIS PRIVACY POLICY COVERS:

Your privacy is important to Clutch and so is being clear about how and why we collect, use and disclose information about you. This policy is intended to help you understand:

  • what personal information Clutch collects about you and why
  • what we do with that information
  • how we share it, and
  • how we handle the content you place in our products and services.


For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” means any information related to an identifiable individual or that may be used to identify an individual. Please read the following carefully to understand our practices regarding Personal Information, including Personal Information of visitors to our Website and you, our customers (“Customers”), where such information is collected through the provision of the Services.

“Clutch”, “we”, “us’” and “our” collectively means collectively Clutch Technologies Inc. and its affiliates that offer online services for buying and financing used cars (our “Services”). We also operate the website https://www.clutch.ca  (the “Website”) and a mobile application (“App”). We are committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of personal information that is in our possession.


WE WILL NOTIFY YOU OF CHANGES

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy each time you use our Website or our Services to see if the policy has been changed, as indicated by the “Effective Date” set out above. We may at our discretion choose to highlight the fact that we made material changes by posting a notice on our Website and/or by sending you a notice (if we have your contact details), as appropriate.


WHAT WE ASK FROM OUR CUSTOMERS AND VISITORS TO OUR WEBSITE:

We collect personal information from you when you visit our Website and use our Services, but never more information than is necessary. We collect information from you in only the following circumstances:

  • As a visitor to our Website or use our App: When you visit visit our Website or use our App we collect basic information from you, including, usage Information, your Internet Service Provider, IP address/Internet address from which you accessed our Website or App and/or other unique identifiers related to you or your device, your device location, device characteristics and operating system/settings, the date and time you access our Website or App and/or take certain actions on our Website or App, recordings of your interactions with our Website or App and other digital properties, the pages you accessed while visiting our Website or App and related click behavior (such as products or offerings viewed and/or purchased), previously visited websites, and preferences. We may also track and analyze non-identifying and aggregate usage and volume statistical information from you and provide such information to third parties.

  • When You use our Services: Where you are our Customer Customer you you may provide us with Personal Information. The type of information collected includes your name; address; email address; phone number; username; password; basic site information listed above, credit report, interest rate from f pre-qualification, financing request, and information about trade-in vehicles including but not limited to VIN, mileage and license plate numbers. Clutch may also collect certain information from Customers and visitors of the Website. This information is logged to help us diagnose technical problems, to administer our Website and in order to constantly improve the quality of the Services that we provide to you.

  • When You engage with us on Social Media: Clutch may may offer you the opportunity to engage with our content on or through third-party social networking websites, plug-ins and applications. When you engage with our content on or through third-party social networking websites, plug-ins and applications, you may allow us to have access to certain information associated with your social media account (e.g., name, username, email address, profile picture, gender) to deliver the content or as part of the operation of the Website or App you provide information from your social media account, we may use this information to personalize your experience on the Websites or on our App and on the third-party social networking websites, plug-ins and applications, and to provide you with other products or services you may request.


OTHER WAYS WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION:

  • Corresponding with us by phone, e-mail, chat or otherwise. . We We ask you to disclose only as much information as is necessary to provide you with our products or services or to submit a question/suggestion/comment in relation to our Website, App or our services or products;

  • Applying to work with us. The type of information you may may provide in your CV, a cover letter, your name, address, e-mail address and phone number. CVs should include information relevant to your employment history and education (degrees obtained, places worked, positions held, relevant awards, and so forth). We ask that you do not disclose sensitive personal information (e.g. gender, height, weight, medical information, religion, philosophical or political beliefs, financial data) in your application; and

  • Supplying us with goods or services. Suppliers may provide provide us us with information that may include your contact name; email address; business address; and telephone number.


INFORMATION WE COLLECT WHEN WE PROVIDE YOU WITH OUR SERVICES:

Technologies such as cookies, beacons, scripts and tags are used by us and our third-party partners. These technologies are used in analyzing trends, administering the Website and App, tracking Your movements around the Website, and gathering demographic information about our Customer base as a whole. We may receive reports based on the use of these technologies by these companies on an individual and aggregated basis. Various browsers may offer their own management tools for removing these types of tracking technologies.


WE USE COOKIES WHEN YOU VISIT OUR WEBSITE:

When you interact with the Website we strive to make that experience easy and meaningful. When you come to our Website, our web server, along with other third parties we may engage with to provide you the Services, may send a cookie to your computer. Cookies are files that web browsers store on your computer and are used to tell us whether customers and visitors have visited the Website previously. If you click on a link to a third-party Website, such third party may also transmit cookies to you.

Standing alone, cookies do not identify you personally. They merely recognize your browser. Unless you choose to identify yourself to Clutch, either by responding to a promotional offer, opening an account, or registering for a free trial, you remain anonymous to Clutch. Cookies come in two flavors: session and persistent-based. Session cookies exist only during an online session. They disappear from your computer when you close your browser software or turn off your computer. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we also use a type of storage called session storage that disappears whenever you close your browsing window or navigate away from our Website. Persistent cookies remain on your computer after you've closed your browser or turned off your computer. They include such information as a unique identifier for your browser.

Clutch uses session cookies containing information to allow the system to uniquely identify you while you are logged in. This information allows Clutch to process your online transactions and requests. Session cookies help us make sure you are who you say you are after you've logged in and are required in order to use the Clutch application. Clutch uses persistent cookies that are used to identify the fact that you are a Clutch customer or prior Clutch Website visitor (whatever the case may be), this may include Personal Information, defined below, including your first and last name. We are especially careful about the security and confidentiality of the information stored in persistent cookies. To view the persistent cookies you may be required to successfully authenticate your identity by entering in your Clutch login credentials or via a third party site, like Facebook or Google. Users who disable their web browsers ability to accept cookies will be able to browse our Website but will not be able to successfully use our Services.


WE USE ONLINE ADVERTISING:

We may use third parties such as ad exchanges and data companies to serve our advertisements in the App, on our Websites or other websites. These companies may use cookies, tracer tags or web beacons to report certain information about your visits to our App, the Website and other websites (such as web pages you visit and your response to ads) in order to measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns and to deliver ads that are more relevant and tailored to you, both on and off our Websites. To learn more about this behavioural advertising practice or to opt-out of this type of advertising, you can visit the Digital Advertising Alliance website at www.aboutads.info/choices/ or the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada website at www.youradchoices.ca/choices.


WE MAY PROVIDE YOU WITH LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES:

Our Website and App may contain links to other websites that we do not own or operate. Also, links to our App or Websites may be featured on third party websites on which we advertise. Except as provided herein, we will not provide any of your personal information to these third parties without your consent. We provide links to third party websites as a convenience to the user. These links are not intended as an endorsement of or referral to the linked websites. The linked websites have separate and independent privacy policies, notices and terms of use, which we recommend you read carefully. We do not have any control over such websites, and therefore we have no responsibility, accountability or liability for the manner in which the organizations that operate such linked websites may collect, use or disclose, secure and otherwise treat your personal information.


THE SECURITY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION IS IMPORTANT TO US:

Clutch uses commercially reasonable efforts to store and maintain your Personal Information in a secure environment. Clutch takes technical, contractual, administrative, and physical security steps designed to protect Personal Information that you provide to us. Clutch has implemented procedures designed to limit the dissemination of your Personal Information to only such designated staff or other permitted persons or companies as are reasonably necessary to carry out the stated purposes Clutch has communicated to you.

Our servers are located in Canada and the United States and accordingly your Personal Information may be available to government agencies and/or law enforcement in those countries under a lawful order, irrespective of the safeguards Clutch has put in place for the protection of your Personal Information. By using our Website, App and Services, you consent to the hosting of your Personal Information in Canada and the U.S.


HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION:

We collect the Personal Information described above in order to provide our Services to you, to market our Services, to improve our Website and App, and to recruit staff. Typically, we will use the information we collect in the following ways:

Information we collect from our Customers
  • To fulfill our obligations arising from our contract with you i.e. to provide you with our Services;
  • To deliver information about our Services to you, only where you have subscribed to receive information about our Services.
  • To ensure payment.
  • To improve the quality of our Services. Specifically, your information is used to determine the effectiveness of our Services, providing results data and benchmarking data, and to improve the quality of our Services.

Information we collect from visitors to our Website and App
  • To administer and improve our Website and App and for our internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes.
  • As part of our efforts to keep our Website and App safe and secure
  • To measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you.
  • To make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our Website about services that may interest you or them.


WHO WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION WITH:

As at the date of this Privacy Policy, we share Personal Information about you in respect of the Website, and the Services, and the conduct of other types of contractual relationships, with third-party services providers as sub-processors. For example, we may share your Personal Information with our selected business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them or you. The business partners we share your Personal Information with may include our web hosting provider, IT service providers and other third parties who may provide us with financing and warranty services.

In addition, we may disclose your Personal Information to third parties:

  • In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your Personal Information to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
  • If we or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, in which case information held by us about our Customers and their End Users will be one of the transferred assets.
  • If we are under a duty to disclose or share your information in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect our rights, property, or safety, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.


Data Retention

The time periods for which we retain your information depends on the type of information and the purposes for which we use it. We will keep your information for as long as it remains necessary for the identified purpose or as required by law, which may extend beyond the termination of our relationship with you. We may retain certain data as necessary to prevent fraud or future abuse, or for legitimate business purposes such as analysis of aggregated information, account recovery or if required by law.


Your data rights

You have the following rights in respect of your Personal Information:

  • The right to access the Persona Information we hold about you.
  • The right to require us to rectify or update any inaccurate Personal Information about you without undue delay.


As a Customer of Clutch, visitor to the Website or user of our App, you have the following rights:

  • The right to have us erase any Personal Information we hold about you in circumstances such as where it is no longer necessary for us to hold the Personal Information or, in some circumstances, if you have withdrawn your consent to the processing.
  • The right to object to us processing Personal Information about you such as processing for profiling or direct marketing.
  • The right to ask us to provide your Personal Information to you in a portable format or, where technically feasible, for us to port that Personal Information to another provider provided it does not result in a disclosure of Personal Information relating to other people.
  • The right to request a restriction of the processing of your Personal Information.
  • The right to address a challenge concerning the personal information handling policies and practices at Clutch.

Where our processing of your Personal Information is based on your consent to that processing, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time but any processing that we have carried out before you withdrew your consent remains lawful. You may exercise any of the above rights by contacting our Privacy Officer, contact details listed below.

We will make every reasonable effort to keep your Personal Information accurate and up-to-date, and we will provide you with mechanisms to update, correct, delete or add to your Personal Information as appropriate. As appropriate, this amended Personal Information will be transmitted to those persons and entities to which we are permitted to disclose your Personal Information. Having accurate Personal Information about you enables us to give you the best possible Service.


Contact Us

You can help by keeping us informed of any changes such as a change of address or telephone number. If you would like to access your information, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions or if you find any errors in our information about you, please contact our Privacy Officer at: privacy@clutch.ca