In this policy, “personal information” generally means any information that can be used, either alone or in combination with other information, to identify an individual. This includes information such as your name and contact details. It may also include other types of more technical information (e.g., IP address browser settings and device ID), but only when this information can identify you as an individual. Information that is anonymized and cannot be associated with an identifiable individual is not considered to be personal information, if it is, at all times, reasonably foreseeable in the circumstances that this information irreversibly no longer allows the individual to be identified directly or indirectly.

Generally, “personal information” does not include information that is used for the purpose of communicating or facilitating communication with an individual in relation to their employment, business or profession such as the individual’s name, position name or title, work address, work telephone number, or work email address.

Directly from you
We collect personal information from you when you provide the information directly to us, such as when you contact us or when enter your personal information on our website to create an account, attend an event, purchase goods or use services from BMW, or submit an inquiry, or when you apply for credit. Examples of information we collect from you and use are:

·         Identifiers and contact information: such as your name, email address, password, vehicle identification number, and your personalized BMW identification number if you register for a My Account online.

·         Financial information:such as your banking details, credit card number(s), and financial statements so that we can administer the financial services that we provide you with (e.g., through My Account).

·         Credit history: such as details about your employment history, and information about your income, assets and liabilities, if you apply for credit. We use this information to assess your application for credit.

·         Transactional and purchase information: such as details about your delivery information and payment information if you make a purchase so that we can process your transaction and deliver the products or services to you.

·         Information you provide us when contacting us: such as your name and contact information if you participate in an online chat with one of our BMW representatives so that we can review our discussion with you and follow-up with you if necessary, or over the telephone with one of our BMW representatives.

·         Job-related information: such as information you submit to us when applying for a career opportunity at BMW Group Canada, which may include your education and employment history, your resume, letters of reference, references and any additional information provided by you in an application form on our website or correspondence.

Note: if you provide BMW Group Canada the personal information of another individual, then you must take all measures, including obtaining the individual’s consent, to ensure that you have the lawful right to collect and communicate the information to BMW Group Canada and for BMW Group Canada to collect, use, communicate and retain the personal information in accordance with this policy.

From third parties

We also collect your personal information from other sources, such as retailers, consumer reporting agencies, government agencies, and others. For example:

·         Purchase history and status: such as contact information and the type of vehicle that you have purchased from retailers to administer your purchase of a BMW product and to share repair or maintenance information about your vehicle when you seek service from other retailers.

·         Credit information: such as credit information from consumer reporting agencies if you seek to finance or lease a vehicle from us.

·         From independent or public sources: for example, we may collect information from government agencies and other third-party sources of information about registered owners of vehicles and the vehicle owners’ financing, organizations that perform background checks on job applicants, and publicly available information, such as social media.

·         Social media information: we may maintain pages on social media platforms, such as Meta and TikTok, and other third-party platforms. When you visit or interact with our pages on those platforms, the platform provider’s privacy policy will apply to your interactions and their collection, use and processing of your personal information. You or the platforms may provide us with information through the platform, and we will treat such information in accordance with this policy. See “Website Links to Third-Party Websites” below formore information.

Automatically

BMW Group Canada may collect certain types of information automatically through your contact with our website using technologies (either our own- or third-party technologies) such as cookies and web beacons. For example, we collect your Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser and device type and operating system, and cookie text file information. Please see “Cookies and Tracking Technologies” below and our BMW Website Cookie Policy for more information on how we process such information, and how you may opt-out of these practices.

BMW Group Canada may use the personal information we collect for one or more of the following purposes:

·         For delivery of products and services: for example, we use personal information when processing applications for credit in respect of a lease or financing agreement, registering you for and administering warranties, extended warranties and roadside assistance, notifying you of service reminders, recalls and enhancements, processing sales of accessories and merchandise, administering billing for leasing or financing of vehicles or other products and services, and providing you with customer support services.

·         For general business purposes relating to or arising from our relationship and dealings with you and to your use of our website: for example, we use information provided to carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collections and other documents and information regarding your use of our services and as otherwise required by contractual or legal obligations, to create and manage your online account with us and provide you with information and documents about your online account, to process and respond to your inquiries, requests and other communications (including to process your career application and take a decision on that request), and to notify you of changes to the website.

·         For marketing and customer relations purposes:
for example, we use personal information to promote our vehicles, products and services, including hashed versions of your email and name to deliver targeted ads on social media platforms to potential BMW customers identified as having a likeness to you, administer promotional contest, respond to requests for product and service information, provide you with newsletters and other promotional news about upcoming events or special offers, administer customer satisfaction surveys, analytics, assess the effectiveness of our marketing programs, improve our products and services; and develop a better understanding of your relationship with our retailers.

·         Managing our websites: we use information we collect from websites visitors to manage and improve our websites (see BMW Website Cookie Policy for more information).

·         Business intelligence and analytics: we use information we collect from our customers and website visitors to identify products that may be of interest for you, develop our relationship with you, and analyze and improve our communications, as well as our services and offerings.

·         Processing job applications: if you apply for a position at BMW Group Canada, we may use your personal information as necessary to process and evaluate your application.

·         Protecting our business and fulfilling our legal obligations: for example, we may use personal information to  collect overdue payments from you and other debt collection matters, repossess our vehicles if you are in default, secure our business and websites, investigate and protect against fraud, grey-marketing or other illegal activities, and to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, such as reporting obligations to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, complying with court orders, and responding to lawful police requests.

·         To improve our business, our services and our website: we may use your information to perform analysis that enable us to improve our services, products, and our website, and for testing, research, analysis and product development, to understand and analyze your use of our services and develop new ones.

We may collect certain types of information electronically through your interaction with our website using technologies (either our own or third-party technologies) such as cookies. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer when you visit a website so that information can be saved between visits, such as your login credentials or language preferences. Thus, cookies allow you to log in quickly when you visit our website.

We use the information collected to adapt our website to the preferences of the user, to compile statistics about the consultation and use of our website and our electronic communications in order to improve them. For example, we may use your approximate location (based on information such as IP address) to determine in which language to display our website.

For more information on our automatic collection of information on our website, including how the information is used for advertising, or to disable cookies and/or opt-out of interest-based advertising, please see our BMW Website Cookie Policy.

You may decide at any time that you would prefer not to receive BMW Group Canada marketing-related electronic communications (for example, our newsletter).

If you wish to “unsubscribe” from our marketing electronic communications, you may do so at any time online by accessing our Unsubscribe form, through the Unsubscribe links in an email sent to you, or by contacting us at the contact information in Contact Us below. Please allow up to 10 business days to process your request.

If you would like to be removed from emails or mailings from an authorized BMW Retailer, you must contact them directly.  BMW Group Canada is not responsible for and cannot remove your information from a BMW Retailer’s communication list.

Please note that even if you opt out of receiving promotional emails from BMW Group Canada, we may continue to send you transactional emails, such as recall or safety concerns, information about your account with us, or legal obligations.

Unsubscribe form

BMW Group Canada shares information with our affiliated companies, third-party service providers, BMW retailer networks, and certain business partners in order to conduct our business activities and to protect our rights. For example, we share information with these other entities for the purposes of:

·         With our affiliated companies or BMW retailer networks: we may share personal information with our affiliated companies or BMW retailer networks to deliver products and services to you on our behalf, including warranty services and roadside assist services, arrange for a purchase or lease quote or a test-drive, assist us with servicing and processing your credit account and verifying credit worthiness.

·         With our service providers: We may share personal information with our service providers to facilitate the delivery of our services (including vehicle purchase and financial services), administer our marketing promotions (including contests, manage our interest-based advertising and website personalization programs), and evaluate the effectiveness of our products and services. Such service providers include firms dealing with credit analysis, dealer systems, record management, vehicle inspection, vehicle insurance tracking, marketing promotions, including advertisement vendors such as certain social media platforms, ID verification, protection products administration, and lien registration.

·         In the context of the sale or transfer of our business or other transaction: we may decide to sell or transfer all or part of our business to a third-party, merge with another entity, secure our assets or proceed with any other financing or other strategic capital transactions (including insolvency or bankruptcy proceedings), restructuring, share sale or other change in corporate control. We may share your personal information when required for the purposes of such a transaction.

·         Other permitted reasons: we may share your personal information when permitted or required by applicable law. This may be the case, for instance, if BMW Group Canada is under a duty to disclose or share your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply BMW Group Canada’s terms of use and other agreements, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of BMW Group Canada, BMW Group Canada’s customers, or others, including to detect or prevent fraud, locate and repossess a leased or financed vehicle exported from Canada in violation of agreements, to respond to court orders, warrants and subpoenas or lawful requests for information by government institutions, including the police, and to obtain legal advice for BMW Group Canada, its affiliated companies or BMW retailer networks.

BMW Group Canada will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide our services to you, to manage our business operations, and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. Once no longer required, your personal information will be securely destroyed or anonymized (so that it is, at all times, reasonably foreseeable in the circumstances that the information irreversibly no longer identifies you directly or indirectly).

At BMW Group Canada we are committed to protecting the personal information in our possession. We use administrative, physical, and technical safeguarding measures to maintain the security of your personal information, appropriate to the sensitivity and amount of personal information under BMW Group Canada’s control, to the purposes for which it is used and the format in which it is stored. The safeguarding measures we have put in place include:

·         A privacy governance program comprised of policies and procedures regarding the protection of personal information through its lifecycle and which defines the roles and responsibilities of BMW Group Canada’s personnel regarding the handling of personal information.

·         Technical safeguards, such as encryption, firewalls, passwords and antivirus software, to protect personal information collected, used or stored in electronic format.

·         A designated Data Protection Privacy Officer accountable for BMW Group Canada’s compliance with applicable privacy laws.

·         Employee privacy and data security training.

·         Procedures for receiving, investigating and responding to complaints or inquiries regarding BMW Group Canada’s information handling practices.

·         Contractual provisions and other measures to require our service providers with whom we share personal information to maintain adequate privacy protections and standards.

In addition, we encourage you to observe safe computing practices. It is your responsibility to keep confidential the user-ID and password that you use to register with us and not share them with anyone. If you believe that your user-ID and password have been compromised, you can change them by editing your profile at our website www.bmw.ca or by contacting BMW Group Canada at the contact information Contact Us below.

Moreover, please only submit sensitive information (e.g., credit card number) within the secure area of the website where it may be specifically requested. Please do not send sensitive personal information via non-secure areas, including by email.

We may use service providers who process or store information outside of Canada, including in the United States or other jurisdictions where we may have operations. As such, personal information may be subject to foreign laws and may be accessible by foreign governments, courts, law enforcement and regulatory agencies. This means that we may be compelled to disclose this information to governmental agencies or security forces in the United States of America if required to do so by U.S. law.

BMW retailers operate as separate and distinct legal entities from BMW Group Canada. Each retailer has its own privacy practices and policies, and we are not responsible for their privacy practices or compliance with applicable privacy law. When communicating with a BMW retailer, we encourage you to review their privacy policy and practices to understand how they collect, use and disclose your personal information.

The website may use third-party social network plugins (“plug-ins”) from certain social networks (e.g., Instagram and Facebook) not controlled by BMW Group Canada or covered by BMW Group Canada’s privacy policy.

When you visit a webpage that contains a plug-in, your browser establishes a direct connection with the servers of that third-party social network. The content of the plug-in comes directly from the third-party social network to your browser, which then integrates into our website. The plug-in provides the third-party social network with the information that you have accessed the corresponding webpage of our website along with certain information, such as the date and time of access, and other browser-related information. If you are logged into the social network, the social network may also receive your user ID information and associate your activity with your account. If you interact with the plug-in, the corresponding information about your interaction or activity is transmitted from your browser directly to the third-party social network and stored by it.

BMW Group Canada is not responsible or liable for, and does not have control over, these third-party websites or their privacy policies and practices. Moreover, the practices of these third parties are not covered by BMW Group Canada’s policy. You should review the applicable terms of use and privacy policy for any such third-party website.

BMW Group Canada respects your right to access your personal information and to request its rectification if it is inaccurate, incomplete or equivocal, subject to any applicable legal restrictions.

Depending on the jurisdiction in which you reside, you may also have the right to obtain more information about BMW Group Canada’s processing of your personal information, including the categories of individuals who have access to your personal information within our organization and the applicable retention period for your information.

If you require access to your personal information, please first check any account profiles that you have with us. If you are unable to locate the personal information you require access to, or you would like to access or correct your personal information, or if you have any questions about the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information that are not answered by this policy, please contact us using the information in Contact Us.  

You may be requested to provide satisfactory identification and proof of entitlement to access your personal information. We will provide you with access to your personal information that is in our possession, subject to certain exceptions. For example, we may not provide you with your personal information where the information is subject to solicitor-client privilege or consists of references to other persons or proprietary information that cannot be severed from the record. There may be reasonable costs associated with your request.

If you have provided information about yourself in order to receive emails or product mailings and would like to modify your information, please contact one of our Customer Service Representatives by calling 1-800-567-2691 or by mail to Customer Service, BMW Group Canada, 50 Ultimate Drive, Richmond Hill, ON L4S 0C8.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 14 years of age. If we become aware that we have unknowingly collected personal information from a child under the age of 14, we will delete this information from our records or, if that is not reasonable, we will take reasonable available steps to de-identify the information.

BMW Group Canada reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes we make will be effective when we post the revised policy on our websites. If we make any significant changes to the policy, we will post a notice on our websites or contact you to inform you when required by law. By continuing to interact with us after the modified version of the policy has been posted, you are accepting the changes to the policy, subject to any additional requirements that may apply. The “Effective Date” at the top of this policy indicates when it was last updated.

BMW Group Canada has developed policies and procedures to respond to individual complaints and questions relating to privacy. We will investigate and attempt to resolve all complaints. We will respond to your inquiry within the time period prescribed by law. Please be advised that there may be a reasonable cost associated with your request.

If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy practices, please contact our Data Protection Privacy Officer by email at privacy@bmw.ca or by mail at 50 Ultimate Drive, Richmond Hill, ON L4S 0C8.

We welcome your comments and emails but please note that any information, including but not limited to suggestions, ideas or submissions you make through and onto any BMW Group website will become the exclusive property of BMW Group Canada.