In order to provide you with Expertise Finder services, we collect certain specific information from you, and we also automatically collect information and data relating to the usage of our services by all our users, including you. Because we are committed to protecting your privacy rights and the information you provide to us, we have developed this privacy policy. It explains how we will protect your information and describes how we will use and share it.

This policy is concerned with the protection of your personal information only. Personal information includes any data that can be used to identify you as an individual, including your name, income, personal opinion, interests, home contact information, identification numbers, user IDs, passwords, ethnic origin, and age. Under Canadian law, in a business context, personal information does not include the name, job title, business address, or business telephone number of any employee in an organization.

This policy describes the following practices:

• Collecting information
• Use and sharing of your personal information
• Maintaining your personal information

This privacy policy may change from time to time to reflect Expertise Finder’s internal needs, customer feedback, or changes in applicable privacy legislation. Expertise Finder will post all such changes on our website, so please visit this page regularly.

NOTE: Expertise Finder services are not intended for children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect or maintain any personal information or non-personally-identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 nor is any part of our website, software or service directed to children under the age of 13. We will close any accounts used exclusively by such children and will remove and/or delete any personal information we believe was submitted by any child under the age of 13. If you become aware of any such information on Expertise Finder’s websites or services, please contact us with details so that we may investigate the issue.

Collecting information

In order to use the services provided by Expertise Finder, you will be required to provide specific information about yourself, such as your name and e-mail address. We will always inform you when we need information that personally identifies you, and we will keep this information in strict confidence. Additionally, you may, on occasion, voluntarily provide Expertise Finder with information that can be classified as personal information – all such personal information will be stored and maintained in accordance with this privacy policy.

We collect information about you in the following ways:

As part of your registration and choices in relation to Expertise Finder services Expertise Finder offers the ability for you to provide information about yourself and your field of expertise so that Expertise Finder can connect you with other users that are interested in you or your field of expertise. The amount and level of detail of the information you provide is completely up to you, so that you control the type of content that is sent to you by Expertise Finder. You have the ability to post information through Expertise Finder’s services, such as papers and articles, or other comments and opinions. Please be advised that any personal information that you voluntarily post to any public forum or to any area where third parties may legally access it, will NOT be considered confidential in any way, and Expertise Finder will not have any obligation to protect it in a secured system or obtain your consent to its disclosure, as you will have made the decision to publicly post it. However, at your request, Expertise Finder will be happy to change it, remove it, or restrict access to it (subject to technical feasibility) in order to protect the integrity of the personal information.

Additionally, we will require your name, address, telephone number and credit card information for billing purposes where you request services that are subject to fees, and you will also be provided with a user ID and a password, or the ability to create a user ID and/or password. This information is kept confidential and stored securely by Expertise Finder.

Automatically by Expertise Finder’s software and services
Use of Expertise Finder’s website and/or services may result in the collection of technical information such as your computer’s IP address, operating system, browser name/version, the referring web page, requested page, date/time, and sometimes a “cookie” (which can be disabled using your browser preferences); such information is used to help us understand the overall usage pattern of our website and services.

You contact Expertise Finder directly
Customers and business partners often contact us directly. When you contact any Expertise Finder employee by telephone, e-mail, in person, or through our website, you will be asked to provide consent to the collection of personal information if your personal information will help us deliver the information, products, or services you require.

You respond to communications from Expertise Finder
From time to time, Expertise Finder may invite you to provide us with information for specific purposes. We may ask for this information through feedback features on our website or services; we may send out e-mail inviting feedback or offering products and services; or we may ask you for information concerning support of our products or services. Your response to these communications may require you to submit personal information and opinions.

Your information is obtained through a third party
Occasionally, Expertise Finder will obtain information about you from third parties, such as mailing list providers, third party service providers, ISPs, or third party application or account providers. Third-party providers are responsible for obtaining consent for the release of personal information to us from those individuals identified on mailing lists, surveys, or through other collection methods. Expertise Finder may also obtain publically available information about you through Internet or other searches. You have the right to request that Expertise Finder remove such information from our websites and/or services, and Expertise Finder shall do so in a timely manner; however, Expertise Finder shall bear no other responsibility or liability respecting such information whatsoever.

Third party collection of your information
Due to the nature of the services provided by Expertise Finder, third parties may collect information from you through the use of software applications or websites that are accessed by you through the services. These applications may separately access, and allow a third party to view, your identifiable information, such as your name, your user ID, or other information, and any cookies that you may previously have installed or that were installed for you by a third party software application or website. Additionally, these applications may ask you to provide additional information directly to third parties. Third party products or services provided through these applications are not owned or controlled by Expertise Finder, and are governed by the third party’s terms and conditions and/or privacy policy. You are encouraged to read the terms and other policies published by such third parties on their websites or otherwise.

Use and sharing of your personal information

Subject to any exceptions stated above in the collection of information section, should Expertise Finder collect any of your personal information, we will follow these practices regarding the use and distribution of that information.

Your personal information is always used reasonably
Expertise Finder uses reasonable precautions to protect your personal information and store it securely. Access to your personal information is restricted to those personnel who need it, and Expertise Finder takes reasonable steps to prevent the unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal information. However, since the internet is not a 100% secure environment, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to Expertise Finder. There is no guarantee that information may not be accessed, copied, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. Additionally, you are responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your unique password and account information, and for controlling access to your email communications at all times.

Expertise Finder only uses and discloses your personal information if it helps us facilitate your needs, improve our products and services, meet legal and regulatory requirements, or – to the limited extent possible – manage our internal business operations. For example:

• we will use your information to provide you with the services, including to enable you to share your information and communicate with other User, to
administer your account with us, to customize the service we provide to you and other users, and to connect you to interview opportunities by enabling journalists to find you on Expertise Finder
• your credit card information will only be used to bill you for the services that your have authorized or used
• we may send you service or promotional communications through email and notices on the Expertise Finder website – you can control your messaging
preferences to determine what you’d like to receive
• if you have requested paid services, in order to fulfill your requests, we will share your payment information with our payment processor

Additionally, if there are any disclosure or use restrictions in your consent to the collection of your personal information, Expertise Finder will abide by those restrictions (subject to the consent exceptions listed below).

Expertise Finder may combine your information with other information into an aggregate form, so your information no longer personally identifies you. We may then disclose the aggregate information to third parties, so they can obtain an overall picture of Expertise Finder’s products, services, customer sectors and/or usage patterns.

We only share your information with your consent
Expertise Finder provides your information to third parties only for purposes to which you have consented, and we require such third parties to keep your information confidential. We do not sell, rent, or otherwise provide personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent except where it is necessary to carry out your instructions.

In a few situations, Expertise Finder may be required to disclose your information without your prior consent. For example, Expertise Finder may disclose your information if we are required to do so by law, or if we believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary to:

• comply with law or legal process
• protect and defend our rights and property, or the rights and property of a third party
• protect against misuse or unauthorized use of any of Expertise Finder’s products, software, services, or other proprietary materials
• protect the personal safety of any person
• allow for a change of ownership of Expertise Finder and associated transfer of all personal information to the new owner of Expertise Finder – this does not affect the protection of your information under this Privacy Policy

Expertise Finder will always try to provide you with prior notice of such disclosure; however, such notice may not always be possible or reasonable given the circumstances.

Additionally, the nature of the services provided requires the routine use of your information in the provision of the services. Your personal information will only be used to the limited extent necessary to provide the services that you have requested, and may include the following uses:

• to allow third party suppliers, vendors, contractors and other parties to provide products and services to us or to you, or to otherwise act on our behalf (this may include, without limitation, our authorization of such third parties to email our users regarding updates, surveys and other inquiries regarding their experience with our software and service); and
• to allow for advertising and other audits, and surveys to, among other things, validate the size and composition of the users of Expertise Finder’s services, and understand their experience with Expertise Finder’s software and service. This may require, among other things, disclosing your viewing history and/or disclosing records showing which advertisements were viewed by which users.

Maintaining your personal information

Expertise Finder has established the following practices regarding the maintenance of your personal information.

You can request access to your personal information at any time
If, for any reason, you wish to review your personal information that Expertise Finder has in its possession, you can contact our Privacy Officer, who will be pleased to provide you with all your personal information that Expertise Finder has on file.

You can request changes to your personal information at any time
Sometimes, it will be necessary for you to update your personal information Expertise Finder has on file. For example, if you move or change credit cards, you must update your information in order to keep receiving the services provided by Expertise Finder.

If you wish to make any changes or corrections to your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer who will implement the changes. This will help us ensure our records are always up-to-date.

You can opt out of communications at any time
Additionally, you always have the choice of whether you wish to receive information – such as e-mail updates – from Expertise Finder. In some cases, you may do so simply by changing the preferences in the software application through which Expertise Finder provides the services.

If you do choose to opt out of communications respecting products and services provided by Expertise Finder, you may not obtain all the benefits we could otherwise provide, such as updates or warnings. Expertise Finder will not have any liability to you for your loss of those benefits or any negative effects respecting your use of Expertise Finder’s products or services.

You can request that your personal information be destroyed at any time
A situation may arise where you desire to have all of your personal information that is contained in Expertise Finder’s records deleted or destroyed. If this is what you wish, please contact our Privacy Officer, who will take care of removing your personal information from all of Expertise Finder’s records. However, there may be situations where we are obligated to retain one archival copy of your information to allow us to comply with laws or respond to legal processes. We will inform you of all such situations, and will only use your retained personal information to the limited extent necessary to comply with such laws or respond to legal processes.

Contacting our Privacy Officer

Expertise Finder welcomes your comments about this privacy policy, and we would be happy to provide any additional information you require. Please contact our Privacy Officer at:

info@expertisefinder.com
1-888-978-5418

Expertise Finder Corporation
6-98 Redpath Ave.
Toronto, Ontario, M4S 2J7
Canada

This privacy policy supplements any agreements you already have with Expertise Finder, such as your User Agreement. Our privacy policy does not replace the terms of those agreements. By agreeing to those terms and using Expertise Finder’s website, products, software and services, you are consenting to the collection and use of your personal information by Expertise Finder in accordance with this privacy policy. This policy was written in accordance with the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).