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Association of Saskatchewan
REALTORS®
Policy on the Collection, Use and Disclosure
of Personal Information
"Privacy Policy"
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Objective & Scope of Policy
The Association of Saskatchewan REALTORS® (“ASR”
or “Association”) is committed to advancing
the interests of Saskatchewan’s real estate
boards (“Boards”, or a “Board”) and the real
estate brokers and salespersons who comprise
the ASR’s membership. The ASR is also committed to
the licensing education of persons wishing
to become licensed real estate salespersons
and brokers and the continuing education of
its Members and others.
Members of the ASR are also members of the
Canadian Real Estate Association (“CREA”).
CREA approved a Privacy Code as a national
standard at its annual meeting held in
Montreal in October of 2001. Consistent with
the adoption of the CREA Privacy Code and
with applicable law, the ASR is dedicated to
maintaining high standards of
confidentiality with respect to information
provided to it. This Policy Statement has
been prepared to inform you of our policy
and practices concerning the collection, use
and disclosure of Personal Information
provided to the Association.
This Policy Statement governs Personal
Information collected from and about
individuals who are Members; from and about
individuals who are Students; and
information regarding nonmembers that is
provided to the ASR for the purposes described
below. It does not govern Personal
Information the Association collects from
and about its employees, the protection of
which is governed by other applicable laws
and internal ASR policies. The ASR retains the
right to use aggregated data – data from
which the identity of an individual cannot
be determined – in any way that it
determines appropriate.
This Policy Statement also governs how the
ASR
treats Personal Information in connection
with your use of the ASR’s web sites.
Using contractual or other arrangements, the
Association shall ensure that agents,
contractors or third party service
providers, who may receive Personal
Information in the course of providing
services to the ASR as part of our delivery of
services, protect that Personal Information
in a manner consistent with this Policy
Statement.
For the purposes of this Policy,
"Personal Information" means any
information, recorded in any form, about an
identified individual, or an individual
whose identity may be inferred or determined
from the information.
“External Associate” means an individual who
is neither a Member nor a Student. An
External Associate may be an individual or
an employee of an organization with which
the ASR has dealings in the normal course of
fulfilling its mandate. Examples of external
associates include independent contractors
or service providers; employees of CREA,
Boards or the Saskatchewan Real Estate
Commission (SREC); legal counsel and
consultants;
“Members” means real estate brokers and
salespersons who are members of the
Association.
“Students” means persons who are enrolled in
the licensing education courses or the
continuing education courses offered by the
Association.
The Collection, Use & Disclosure of Personal
Information
The ASR uses the personal information provided
verbally or in writing by Members upon
application for membership (and which may be
provided during the course of membership);
by Students upon application for enrolment
into education courses (and which may be
provided during the period of enrolment);
and others, for different purposes to
fulfill its mandate. These purposes include:
• Acting as a professional association in
support of Members as REALTORS® in
Saskatchewan, in support of Saskatchewan’s
real estate boards and in support of the
real estate industry in Saskatchewan,
including the administration of its by-laws
and policies and ensuring compliance with
same;
• Providing products and services to
Members;
• Providing continuing education to Members
and others;
• Providing licensing education to persons
who are enrolled in the licensing education
courses;
• Administering and operating the MLS®
system, including ensuring compliance with
the rules and regulations governing the MLS®
system;
• Administering and facilitating membership
in CREA and a Board, including ensuring
compliance with the by-laws, rules and
regulations of those organizations;
• Meeting any legal or regulatory
requirement; and
• Such other purposes consistent with the
foregoing purposes.
Personal information about Members and
Students will be collected, to the extent
possible, directly from the individual
concerned. The ASR may obtain Personal
Information about Members from CREA or from
a Board for membership or education
purposes.
The ASR does not knowingly collect Personal
Information from or about anyone under the
age of 18, especially children under 13, and
destroys such information if it discovers
that it is has been provided by a minor.
The ASR’s use of Personal Information is
limited to the purpose of fulfilling the
mandate of the ASR or a purpose consistent with
that purpose and the Association does not
sell, trade, barter or exchange for
consideration any Personal Information it
has obtained. Unless permitted by law or
within the terms of this Privacy Policy, no
Personal Information is collected about a
Member or a Student without first obtaining
the consent of the individual to the
collection, use and dissemination of that
information.
The ASR may disclose Personal Information of
Members to CREA and to a Board for
membership purposes, may disclose Personal
Information of Students to SREC for
educational purposes and may disclose
Personal Information of Members and Students
to organizations that assist the Association
in the course of fulfilling its mandate,
including organizations that perform
services on its behalf.
Personal Information will only be provided
to organizations providing services to the
ASR
if they agree to use such information solely
for the purposes of providing services to
the ASR and under the instruction of the ASR and,
with respect to that information, to act in
a manner consistent with this Policy
Statement.
Your Consent
Your provision of Personal Information to
the ASR 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, you are
requested not to provide any Personal
Information to the ASR.
In most cases, you are free to refuse or
withdraw your consent at any time. You may
wish to note that, in most instances,
information or services can only be offered
if you provide Personal Information to the
ASR.
If you choose not to provide us with any
required Personal Information, the ASR may not
be able to offer you those products,
services or information. However, the
withdrawal of consent to the ASR’s use of
Personal Information for the purpose of
providing you with information about one or
more of its services will not affect the
ability of the ASR to provide other services to
you.
In addition to your consent when submitting
information, the ASR may also, from time to
time, collect more specific, written
consents or authorizations.
There are circumstances where the use and/or
disclosure of Personal Information may be
justified or permitted or where the ASR is
obliged to disclose information without
consent. Such circumstances may include:
• Where required by law or by order of a
tribunal;
• Where the ASR 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 fees;
• Where it is necessary to permit the ASR to
pursue available remedies or limit any
damages that the Association may sustain; or
• Where the information is public. Where
obliged or permitted to disclose information
without consent, the ASR will not disclose more
information than is required.
Accuracy & Retention
SREA endeavours to ensure that any Personal
Information provided by its Members and in
its possession is as accurate, current and
complete as necessary for the purposes for
which SREA uses that data. Information
contained in files that have been closed is
not actively updated or maintained.
SREA retains Personal Information as long as
SREA believes it is necessary to fulfill the
purpose for which it was collected.
Currently, the principal place in which SREA
holds Personal Information is in the City of
Toronto. SREA will have in place a Document
Retention and Destruction Policy, which
outlines the procedures for the retention
and subsequent disposition of SREA records
including those records that contain
Personal Information.
Security
The ASR 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.
The ASR further protects Personal Information
by restricting access to Personal
Information to those employees and External
Associates that the management of the ASR has
determined need to know that information in
order that the ASR may provide its services.
The ASR 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, 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, the ASR attempts to
strike a reasonable balance between security
and convenience. In communicating with
Members, Students and others, the ASR 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 the Association believes that
many of our Members, Students and External
Associates 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.
Please note that for security purposes and
to ensure that our website and networks
remain available for use, the ASR’s service
providers employs software programs to
monitor network traffic, to identify
unauthorized attempts to upload or change
information, and to prevent denial of
service or other attacks intended to cause
damage. Evidence of such acts may also be
disclosed to law enforcement authorities and
result in criminal prosecution under the
laws of Canada or such other jurisdictions
as may apply.
The ASR audits its procedures and security
measures from time to time to ensure that
they remain effective and appropriate.
Visiting the ASR Web Sites
Our web servers track general information
about visitors such as their IP address,
domain name and time of visit. The ASR’s web
servers also collect and aggregate
information regarding which pages are being
accessed. This information is used
internally, to better serve visitors; to
help us to manage our sites; to diagnose any
technical problems; and improve the content
of our web site.
The ASR has no control over the use of Personal
Information on third party websites that
individuals may access through hyperlinks at
our web site.
Access to Personal information
The ASR permits access to and review of
Personal Information held by the ASR 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 the
section ”Resolving Your Concerns”.
The ASR reserves the right not to change any
Personal Information it believes is accurate
but will append any alternative text the
individual concerned believes appropriate.
An individual may also request that the ASR
delete an individual’s Personal Information
from the Association’s system and records,
except if such Personal Information is
required to fulfil the Association’s mandate
or to meet legislative requirements.
However, due to technical constraints and
the fact that the ASR backs up its systems,
Personal Information may continue to reside
in the Association’s systems after deletion.
Individuals, therefore, should not expect
that their Personal Information would be
completely removed from the ASR system in
response to a request for deletion.
To guard against fraudulent requests for
access, the ASR will require sufficient
information to allow it to confirm the
identity of the person making the request
before granting access or making
corrections.
The ASR reserves the right to decline to
provide access to Personal Information where
the information requested:
• Would disclose the Personal Information of
another individual or of a deceased
individual; or business confidential
information that may harm the ASR or the
competitive position of a third party;
• Is subject to solicitor-client or
litigation privilege;
• Could reasonably result in serious harm to
the treatment or recovery of the individual
concerned, serious emotional harm to the
individual or another individual, or serious
bodily harm to another individual; or
• 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;
• Does not exist, is not held, or cannot be
found by the ASR; or
• Any other grounds under applicable
legislation.
Since confidentiality is integral in a
number of the ASR’s procedures, including such
procedures as the appeals or arbitration of
commission disputes and the appeals of
discipline decisions or the determination of
complaints made against Members, access to
personal information may also be declined
where the person requesting same has
consented, by virtue of Membership in the
ASR
and by being subject to the ASR’s and the
Board’s by-laws and rules, to the ASR’s
jurisdiction over such procedures as
provided for in the by-laws and rules of the
ASR and the Board.
Since confidentiality is integral in a
number of the ASR’s educational procedures,
including such procedures as administering
of licensing education examinations, access
to personal information may also be declined
where the person requesting same has
consented, by virtue of enrolling as a
Student of the ASR and by being subject to
the ASR’s educational rules, policies and
standards to the ASR’s jurisdiction over such
procedures as provided for in its
educational rules, standards and policies.
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, the ASR
will endeavor to provide the information in
question within a reasonable time and no
later than 30 days following the request.
The ASR 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.
Amendment of the ASR Practice and This Policy
This statement is in effect as of January 1,
2004.
The ASR 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
www.saskatchewanrealestate.com and
communicated to Members, Students and others
in an appropriate manner.
Policy changes will apply to the information
collected from the date of posting of the
revised Policy Statement to the ASR’s web sites
as well as to existing information held by
the ASR.
Information Regarding Former Members and
Former Students
The ASR will only disclose Personal Information
about former Members or former Students in
accordance with this Policy Statement.
What You Consent and Agree To
When you provide the ASR with Personal
Information, you consent and agree to the
following, as described in this Policy:
• The collection, use and disclosure of
Personal Information from or about you
• Your right to access and correct data
• Your acceptance of the risks concerning
the transmission of information to the ASR
• The amendment of this Policy Statement.
Resolving Your Concerns
In the event you have questions about (a)
access to Personal Information; (b) the
collection, use, management or disclosure of
Personal Information by the ASR; or (c) this
Privacy Policy, you may contact our Chief
Privacy Officer:
Bill Madder
Executive Vice President
Association of Saskatchewan REALTORS®
2811 Estey Dr.
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
S7J 2V8
Ph: 306-373-3350
Fax: 306-373-5377
e-mail: bmadder@saskatchewanrealestate.com
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