August 2011
GENERAL MOTORS FINANCIAL OF CANADA, LTD.
PRIVACY STATEMENT
INTRODUCTION
General Motors Financial of Canada, Ltd. and its subsidiary GM Financial Canada Leasing Ltd.
(collectively, "GM Financial", "we",
"us" and "our") take steps intended to protect
the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information. Personal information is information
about an identifiable individual as more particularly described by applicable privacy legislation
("Personal Information"). This Privacy Statement explains how we collect,
use, disclose and protect your Personal Information in Canada. This Privacy Statement does not apply to
information about our employees or to information that is not Personal Information.
PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT
GM Financial collects Personal Information as necessary to deliver financial products and
services to you. The Personal Information we may collect includes:
- Contact information such as full legal name, address, email address and telephone number;
- Information about your financial and credit history including employment information, debt and income levels (including income of spouse, if applicable), current and past creditors, tenancy arrangements (including whether you own a house or rent, monthly mortgage or rental payment amounts, total mortgage amount, mortgage holder, market value of home), and insurance, banking or credit institutions you use or have used;
- Other information you may provide on applications, conditional sales contracts, lease agreements, and other forms including length of time at current address, marital status, gender, drivers license information, social insurance number (if provided), date of birth and information about the vehicle(s) you are leasing, financing, or purchasing;
- Banking information including the name and contact information for your bank and your account number, in order to process pre-authorized payments;
- Information about transactions we conduct for or with you and services we provide or may provide to you;
- Information about or to assist with transactions you might conduct through us that involve a third party such as the purchase of credit insurance;
- Information about your transactions with third parties such as the dealer from which you seek to buy or lease a vehicle for which you need financing;
- Information about your current and ongoing credit history;
- Information that may assist in expanding our business relationship, such as information related to your preferences, service needs and decision-making or about customer service inquiries and feedback; and
- Other information with your consent or as permitted or required by law.
We generally obtain Personal Information directly from you. However, with your consent, we may also
obtain information about you from other sources such as the dealer from whom you seek to buy or lease a
vehicle for which you need financing, credit reporting agencies, collection agencies, financial institutions,
your past and present employers and creditors, your spouse, insurers, and other third parties with information
relevant to the purposes described below.
You are not required to provide us with your social insurance number. However, if provided, we will use
it to ensure that there is a match between your credit bureau information and to verify the accuracy and
completeness of the information we obtain.
HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
GM Financial uses your Personal Information to manage and administer our business including to
- Evaluate your eligibility for and provide financial products and services to you;
- Monitor and enforce our agreements with you and to provide ongoing service;
- Manage, administer, collect and enforce accounts, collect debts owed to us and process payments;
- Obtain credit reports from consumer credit reporting and collection agencies, financial institutions or finance companies;
- Meet our legal, regulatory insurance, security and processing requirements;
- Investigate and adjudicate any dispute or claim which relates to the products or services that we offer to you, including to defend and bring legal actions;
- Maintain records for reasonable periods;
- In connection with certain business transactions involving our assets or business as further described in the “Who We Share Personal Information With and For What Purposes” section below;
- Any other purpose to which you consent or which is permitted or required by law.
Unless you ask us not to, GM Financial may contact you from time to time to provide you with
information or to advise you of special offers or customer programs that we may offer and that you
may qualify for. In order to do so, GM Financial may use your Personal Information to determine if
you qualify for such offers or customer programs and to contact you using the contact details you
have provided.
WHO WE SHARE PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH AND FOR WHAT PURPOSES
We may disclose your Personal Information as necessary to provide financial products and services
to you, including to:
- Credit bureaus, credit reporting agencies and to your current or future creditors for the
purpose of maintaining your credit history and providing credit references;
- Financial institutions for payment processing purposes;
- Third parties as reasonably necessary:
- to enforce your agreements with us and otherwise for the collection or payment of a
debt owed to us or our affiliates;
- for the purposes of detecting and preventing fraud;
- in connection with audits; and
- for the purposes of meeting legal, regulatory, industry self-regulatory, risk
management and security requirements;
- The dealer from whom you sought to buy or lease a vehicle for which you needed financing
for the purpose of servicing your account and for our record keeping purposes;
- The Ministry of Transportation offices or other licensing services as required for
licensing and registration of the vehicle(s) that you have leased, financed, purchased,
or traded-in; or
- Other third parties for any other purpose to which you consent or that is permitted
or required by law.
Personal Information may also be disclosed to the automotive manufacturer of the vehicle forming
the subject matter of the financing or lease agreement ("Manufacturer") and
Manufacturer's authorized dealers, in order that they may meet safety, security, legal and regulatory
requirements, including with respect to potential recalls; maintain accurate records to respond to inquiries,
provide warranty or other customer service communications and otherwise better understand and manage
their relationship with you; and to satisfy other reasonable, legitimate business interests. Unless
you opt-out, Manufacturers and their authorized dealers may also use your Personal Information
(including financial information) to provide you with general marketing, product, service and
business partner information and offers, including end of lease offers and re-marketing of these
lease terms.
Personal Information may be disclosed to our affiliates (including outside of Canada) for internal
audit, management, billing or administrative purposes, including defending and bringing legal actions.
Unless you opt-out, Personal Information may also be disclosed to our affiliates so that they may
provide you with information and special offers that may be of interest to you.
Personal Information may be used by GM Financial and disclosed to parties connected with the
proposed or actual financing, securitization, insuring, sale, assignment or other disposal of all
or part of GM Financial or our business or assets (including your lease or agreement), for the purposes
of evaluating and/or performing the proposed transaction. Assignees or successors of GM Financial
or our business or assets may use and disclose your Personal Information for similar purposes as
those described in this Privacy Statement.
GM Financial may also disclose your Personal Information as necessary to meet legal, regulatory,
insurance, audit, and security requirements, and as otherwise with your consent or as permitted or
required by law.
SERVICE PROVIDERS
Personal Information may be transferred to or collected by outside agents or service providers
(including our affiliates acting in this capacity) that perform services on our behalf, including
telemarketing, direct sales, electronic and digital marketing, market research, data processing,
website administration, insurance tracking, debt collection, inspections, and similar services.
Some of these service providers may be located outside of Canada, including in the United States
and Mexico. As a result, your Personal Information may be collected, processed and stored in another
jurisdiction. Reasonable contractual or other measures we may take to protect your Personal Information
while processed or handled by these service providers are subject to legal requirements applicable to
our service providers, for example lawful requirements to disclose Personal Information to government
authorities in certain circumstances.
OUR WEBSITE
We may collect information automatically from visitors to our website, for example through the
use of "cookies", "web beacons" and other tracking technology. The information
that we may collect includes the date and time of your visit, your computer's IP address and the
pages of our website that you visited. If you do not want to receive cookies, you may set your browser
to reject them. However, if you turn cookies off, you may not have access to some of our website's
features. We also may use web beacons from third parties to help us compile aggregate statistics regarding
the operation of our website.
Our website may provide links to other websites which are not governed by our Privacy Statement.
We encourage you to read the privacy statement of every website you visit.
YOUR CONSENT
GM Financial generally collects, uses and discloses your Personal Information with your consent,
except as permitted or required by law. Depending on the sensitivity of the Personal Information,
your consent may be implied or express. Express consent can be given orally, electronically or in
writing. Implied consent is consent that can reasonably be inferred from your action or inaction.
You may provide your consent in some circumstances where notice has been provided to you about
our intentions with respect to your Personal Information and you have not withdrawn your consent
for an identified purpose, such as by using an opt-out mechanism provided, if any. Generally, by
providing us with Personal Information, we will assume that you consent to our collection, use and
disclosure of such information for the purposes described in this statement or otherwise at the time
of collection.
You can refuse to consent to our collection, use or disclosure of your Personal Information, however,
we may then not be able to provide you with the products or services you request. Subject to legal and
contractual restrictions, you may withdraw your consent to our further collection, use or disclosure of
information at any time by giving us reasonable notice. However, you may not be permitted to withdraw
your consent to certain necessary collections, uses and disclosures of your Personal Information
(for example but not limited to maintaining reasonable business and transaction records and the
ongoing disclosure of your Personal Information to consumer credit reporting agencies) and if you
withdraw your consent to certain collections, uses and disclosures of your Personal Information we
may not longer be able to provide you with financial products or services.
THE ACCURACY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
GM Financial strives to ensure that the information we hold about you is as accurate, complete
and up-to-date, as is necessary for the purposes for which it is to be used. To be able to do so,
GM Financial requires notification of any changes to your Personal Information such as your name,
address or other relevant information. GM Financial regularly updates your credit bureau to provide
accurate and up to date reporting relative to the financial services provided to you.
PROTECTING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
Protecting your Personal Information is important to us. Therefore, access to your information
is limited to our employees, mandataries, agents and service providers who need access in order to
perform their job or provide services to us. We take reasonable steps to protect your Personal
Information, using physical, procedural, and electronic security measures that are appropriate to
the sensitivity of the information, which may include safeguards to protect against loss or theft,
as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification.
ACCESS TO AND CORRECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
The GM Financial entity with whom you are dealing may establish and maintain a file of your P
ersonal Information for the purposes described in this Privacy Statement. The file will be stored at
the applicable GM Financial office as set out below. If you wish to request access to or correction
of your Personal Information in our custody or control, you may write to applicable GM Financial
office below, attention Chief Privacy Officer. Your right to access or correct your Personal
Information is subject to applicable legal restrictions. We may take reasonable steps to verify your
identity before granting access or making corrections.
CONTACT US
If you have any questions or concerns regarding our privacy practices, or would like to opt-out
of the use and disclosure of your Personal Information for marketing purposes (as described above),
you may contact the applicable GM Financial Office by the following means:
For General Motors Financial of Canada, Ltd.
For GM Financial Canada Leasing Ltd.
CHANGES TO THIS STATEMENT
This Privacy Statement may be revised from time to time. If we intend to use or disclose Personal
Information for purposes materially different than those described in this statement, we will make
reasonable efforts to notify affected individuals, if necessary, including by revising this Privacy
Statement. If you are concerned about how your Personal Information is used, you should contact us as
described above to obtain a current copy of this statement. Your continued provision of Personal
Information or use of our services following any changes to this Privacy Statement constitutes your
acceptance of any such changes. You may determine when this Privacy Statement was last updated by
referring to the date found on the first page.
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