K9 Design Co. Privacy Statement

WE VALUE YOUR PRIVACY

Any personal information gathered by K9 Design Co. ("K9") will only be used by K9, its Affiliates, or any organization authorized by K9, in a manner consistent with K9's Privacy Policy and for the purposes of enhancing your K9 experience in providing you with K9 products, services and information, or for submitting an entry into a promotional contest conducted by K9.

1. Objective & Scope of Policy

K9 is committed to respecting your privacy and has prepared this Policy Statement to inform you of our policy and practices concerning the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information. This Policy Statement governs Personal Information collected from and about individuals who are or may become Customers and those other individuals or partners with whom we work. It does not govern Personal Information that K9 collects from and about our employees, the protection of which is governed by other K9 policies.

This Policy Statement also governs how K9 treats Personal Information in connection with your use of a K9 web site. Using contractual or other arrangements, K9 shall ensure that agents, contractors or third party service providers, who may receive Personal Information in the course of providing services to K9 as part of our delivery of products and services, protect that Personal Information in a manner consistent with the principles articulated in this Policy Statement.

In the event of questions about: (i) access to your Personal Information; (ii) K9's collection, use, management or disclosure of Personal Information; or (iii) this Policy Statement; please contact:

K9 Design Co.
78 Pinewood Avenue
Toronto, ON M6C 2V1
Att: Jennifer Neal, Managing Partner
Desk: 416.653.2221
E mail: jennifer@k9designco.com

2. The Collection, Use & Disclosure of Personal Information

For the purposes of this Policy:

"Customer" means an individual who may purchase or has purchased/leased products or services originally supplied by K9;
"Affiliate" means an individual, other than a Customer, who is not an employee of K9. An Affiliate may be an individual or an employee of an organization with which K9 has dealings in the normal course of business. Examples of Affiliates include independent contractors or service providers, legal counsel and consultants, and independent contest Judges.
"Promotional Partners" are third party companies who are participating in K9's promotional contests as prize providers.
"Contest Entrant" is an individual (i.e. A publisher or publisher's employee or representative) who has entered to win a K9 promotional contest.
"Personal Information" means any information, recorded in any form, about an identified individual, or an individual whose identity may be inferred or determined from such information.

Your provision of Personal Information to K9 means that you agree and consent that we may collect, use and disclose your Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these terms, you are requested not to provide any Personal Information to K9. Unfortunately, certain services can only be offered if you provide Personal Information to K9. Consequently, if you choose not to provide us with any required Personal Information, K9 may not be able to offer you those services. K9 uses the Personal Information provided verbally or in writing (including via electronic media such as e-mail or the World Wide Web) by Customers and Affiliates in order to:

Provide information about products and services to K9 Customers;
Manage our relationship with K9 Customers;
Manage K9's relationship with Affiliates;
Ensure the quality of K9's products and services;
Manage promotional contest entries, communications and prize issuance;
Meet any legal or regulatory requirement; and
Such other purposes consistent with the foregoing purposes.

K9's use of Personal Information is limited to these purposes. K9 does not sell, trade, barter or exchange for consideration any Personal Information it has obtained. Unless permitted by law, no personal information is collected about a Customer or Affiliate, without first obtaining the consent of the individual to the collection, use and dissemination of that information. Personal information will be collected, to the extent possible, directly from the individual concerned.

K9 does not knowingly collect Personal Information from anyone under the age of 18, and does not use such information if K9 discovers that it has been provided by a minor.

K9 may disclose Personal Information of Customers, Contest Entrants or Affiliates to trusted third party organizations that perform services on behalf of K9. Personal Information will only be provided to organizations providing services to K9 if they agree to use such information solely for the purposes of providing services to K9 and under the instruction of K9 and, with respect to that information, to act in a manner consistent with the relevant principles articulated in this Policy.

In some situations, K9 may also disclose Personal Information of Customers or Contest Entrants to trusted organizations that may be partners in promotional activities ("Promotional Partners"). In such instances, this will only be done if our Promotional Partners agree to use such information solely for the specific, proposed promotional activity and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Information provided by a Promotional Partner to K9 will be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy. However, K9 bears no responsibility for any other use of such Personal Information by that Promotional Partner.

Please note that there are circumstances where the use and/or disclosure of Personal Information may be justified or permitted or where K9 is obliged to disclose information without consent. Such circumstances may include:

Where required by law or by order or requirement of a court, administrative agency or other governmental tribunal;
Where K9 believes, upon reasonable grounds, that it is necessary to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of an identifiable person or group;
Where it is necessary to establish or collect monies owing to K9;
Where it is necessary to permit K9 to pursue available remedies or limit any damages that K9 may sustain; or
Where the information is public.
Where obliged or permitted to disclose information without consent, K9 will not disclose more information than is required.

3. Accuracy

K9 endeavours to ensure that any Personal Information provided by its Customers, Contest Entrants and Affiliates and in its possession is as accurate, current and complete as necessary for the purposes for which K9 uses that data. Information contained in files that have been closed is not actively updated or maintained.

4. Retention of Information

K9 retains Personal Information as long as K9 believes it is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected. Currently, the principle places in which K9 holds Personal Information is in the City of Toronto, Ontario, in a secure database that is password protected and only accessed by those authorized with special access rights to our systems, and who are required to keep the information confidential.

5. Security of Information

K9 endeavours to maintain adequate physical, procedural and technical security with respect to its offices and information storage facilities so as to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, or modification of Personal Information.

K9 further protects Personal Information by restricting access to it to those employees and Affiliates that the management of K9 has determined need to know that information in order that K9 may provide its products or services. K9 has a policy under which employee misuse of Personal Information is treated as a serious offence for which disciplinary action may be taken.

In terms of communicating Personal Information to K9, you may wish to note that there is no method of transmitting or storing data that is completely secure. While the physical characteristics of each are different, mail, telephone calls, faxes and transmissions over the Internet are all susceptible to possible loss, misrouting, interception and misuse of the information being communicated or transmitted. As do many organizations, K9 attempts to strike a reasonable balance between security and convenience. In communicating with Customers and Affiliates, K9 reserves the right to use a method of communication that is less secure than some of its less convenient alternatives. An example of this is e-mail. At this time, when we use e-mail, it is sent as unencrypted plain text. We do this because K9 believes that many of our Customers, and Affiliates cannot readily process encrypted e-mail. This is done for their convenience but has the security concern that, if misrouted or intercepted, it could be read more easily than encrypted e-mail.

6. Visiting K9 Web Sites & the Use of Cookies

With respect to its web sites, K9 collects information from site visitors through the use of cookies. "Cookies" are files or pieces of information that may be stored in your computer's hard drive when you visit any of our web sites. Cookies are also used to remember that you may have already provided Personal Information to us and as a result, they help speed up your future activities when accessing any of our web sites. The cookies are persistent cookies and reside on your Internet browser for six (6) months. K9 does not share Personal Information obtained through cookies with any third parties that do not agree to use such information solely for the purposes of providing services to K9 and under the instruction of K9 and, with respect to that information, to act in a manner consistent with the relevant principles articulated in this Policy.

Most Internet browsers are initially set to accept cookies. If you do not wish to accept cookies, you can set yours to refuse cookies or to alert you when cookies are being sent. Please refer to your software manual or Internet provider for instructions.

In addition to Personal Information you provide and cookies, K9 may collect other information about your visits to our web sites. For example, we may collect information about your computer, such as your IP address (a number assigned to your computer whenever you surf the World Wide Web); the type of Internet browser you are using; the type of computer operating system you are using; or the domain name of the web site from which you linked to our Websites. This information will not be linked to your Personal Information and will only be collected in the aggregate in connection with all the users of our Websites for planning, forecasting and/or evaluation purposes.

K9 has no control over the content of third party web sites that may be identified on the K9 web site or, if applicable, accessed through hyperlinks.

7. Access to Personal information

K9 permits access to and review of Personal Information held by K9 about an individual by the individual concerned.

If an individual believes any Personal Information concerning that individual is not correct, that person may request an update of that information by sending a request to the person indicated in Section 1 of this Policy. K9 reserves the right not to change any Personal Information but will append any alternative text the individual concerned believes appropriate. An individual may also request that K9 delete an individual's Personal Information from K9's system and records. However, due to technical constraints and the fact that K9 backs up its systems, Personal Information may continue to reside in K9's systems after deletion. Individuals, therefore, should not expect that their Personal Information would be completely removed from K9 systems in response to an accepted request for deletion.

K9 reserves the right to decline access to Personal Information where the information requested:

Would disclose the Personal Information of another individual or of a deceased individual;
Would disclose business confidential information that may harm K9 or the competitive position of a third party;
Is subject to solicitor-client or litigation privilege;
Could reasonably result in:
1. serious harm to the treatment or recovery of the individual concerned;
2. serious emotional harm to the individual or another individual; or
3. serious bodily harm to another individual;
May harm or interfere with law enforcement activities and other investigative or regulatory functions of a body authorized by statute to perform such functions;
Is not readily retrievable and the burden or cost of providing would be disproportionate to the nature or value of the information; or
Does not exist, is not held, or cannot be found by K9.

Where information will not or cannot be disclosed, the individual making the request will be provided with the reasons for non-disclosure.

Where information will be disclosed, K9 will endeavor to provide the information in question within a reasonable time and no later than 30 days following the request.

K9 will not respond to repetitious or vexatious requests for access. In determining whether a request is repetitious or vexatious, it will consider such factors as the frequency with which information is updated, the purpose for which the information is used, and the nature of the information. To guard against fraudulent requests for access, K9 will require sufficient information to allow it to confirm the identity of the person making the request before granting access or making corrections.

8. Amendment of K9 Practices and This Policy

This statement is in effect as of October 5, 2009. K9 will from time to time review and revise its privacy practices and this Policy Statement. In the event of any amendment, an appropriate notice will be posted on K9 web sites and communicated to our Affiliates, and provided to our Customers upon request. Policy changes will apply to the information collected from the date of posting of the revised Policy Statement to K9's web site as well as to existing information held by K9.

9. What You Consent and Agree To

In summary, when you provide K9 with Personal Information, you consent and agree to the following:

The collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information from or about you as described in Section 2, and to your right to access and correct data as described in Section 7.
Your acceptance of the risks concerning the transmission of information to K9 as described in Section 5.
The amendment of this Policy Statement as described in Section 8.

to request a copy of your Personal Information
to ask that we not contact you
to report any violations of the Privacy Policy
K9 is committed to protecting your privacy.

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