If you book an appointment using our online booking system, we collect and store your name, phone number, and email address. If you also provide your address or make additional comments, we collect and store that information as well. We collect this information to complete the appointment booking process and to allow us to follow up with you about your appointment.

If you are invited to fill out an online questionnaire, we collect and store the answers you provide. We collect this information to better understand your needs and to provide comprehensive financial planning and wealth management services to you as our client.

A cookie is a small file sent from a web server to your computer whenever you visit a website. If you return to the website later, your browser sends the small file to the server to notify the website of any previous activity you engaged in on the site. Once you return to a website, the server can retrieve the cookie file from your local computer to assist in expediting certain functions such as logging in and retrieving account or user data.

Cookies can serve many useful purposes, such as remembering items you had in a shopping cart, logging visited pages on the site, and remembering login details so you don’t have to enter them every time you visit the website. The most common types of cookies are authentication cookies, which servers use to determine whether a user is logged into a site or not.

While using HLWM’s website, we use cookies to improve your user experience and to collect aggregated website usage statistics. For example, when you book an appointment through our website, a cookie will be used to remember your name, phone number, and email address for future bookings. We rely on third parties for some of our website features (e.g. client portal, live chat, etc.), and these third parties may also use cookies, subject to their own privacy policies, in their services.

Articles on this website may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, forms, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). The information about your use of our website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of our website, compiling reports on website activity for us, and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Further information about Google’s privacy policy is available at https://policies.google.com/privacy/. Please note that you may opt-out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add on (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout), or by configuring your browser settings to block the use of cookies.

We do not rent or sell client information to anyone. Nor do we share your information with organizations outside of our relationship with you that would use it to contact you about their own products or services except for as provided for in this policy.

With your consent, we may share your information with third parties that provide investment products and services. The third parties undertake to use a client’s personal information only for the purposes of carrying out the services they have been retained by us for and must agree in confidentiality agreements or undertakings to safeguard our clients’ personal information.

We may also be required to share client information with regulatory authorities having jurisdiction over our activities and operations (such as the Alberta Securities Commission or the CFA Institute). These regulatory bodies or organizations may require access to client personal information (both former and current clients) for regulatory purposes including matters related to financial compliance, investigations of potential regulatory and statutory violations, enforcement or disciplinary proceedings, and reporting to such regulatory bodies.

In certain instances, we may be compelled to disclose personal information in response to a legally valid demand, enquiry, proceeding, or order. In these cases, we will take steps to ensure the request is valid and will disclose the personal information necessary to satisfy the inquiry, order, or regulatory body. We may be ordered by a court or regulatory body having jurisdiction over our services to disclose personal information to a third party, or to the court, or to preserve personal information pending the outcome of a legal hearing or pursuant to a regulatory inquiry or hearing. We may also be legally required to disclose information in connection with the collection or repayment of a debt, to assist in the prevention of fraud or other criminal activity, when we obtain legal advice from legal counsel, or in an emergency that affects the health or safety of an individual.

We will only retain clients’ personal information in our records for as long as it is reasonably needed to fulfill the identified purposes, or as required or permitted by law. Personal information, accessible to clients through their Client Portal, that is meant to provide a historical record and analysis of trends over time (e.g. historical data about a client’s financial assets, net worth, budget, and spending) may be retained indefinitely or until destruction is requested by the client.

If there is a change in your personal information, or you become aware of an error in the personal information we have on file for you, please contact our Privacy Officer, Kent Akgungor, at 780-851-8088 or hello@highlevelwealth.ca. You must make a written request that provides us with enough detail to enable us, with reasonable effort, to identify you and the personal information and the correction being sought. We will correct inaccurate or incomplete information within a reasonable time and notify you when such changes are completed. There is no charge for correcting your personal information. We will also ensure that any third parties that have received your personal information from us are notified of such changes or corrections.

You may contact us to withdraw your consent at any time provided there are no contractual or other legal requirements limiting such withdrawal. We will explain your options and any consequences of withdrawing your consent, as we may not be able to any longer provide you with certain products or services.

You have the right to:

• know why an organization collects, uses or discloses your personal information.
• expect an organization to handle your information reasonably and to not use it for any purpose other than the one to which you consented.
• know who in an organization to contact with respect to the protection of your personal information.
• expect an organization to protect your information from unauthorized disclosure.
• access and update your personal information that an organization holds about you and make sure it is accurate, complete, current, and request correction of your personal information if there is an error or omission.
• expect an organization to only retain your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary and to destroy your personal information when requested or when no longer required for the intended purpose, or as permitted by law.
• confidentially complain to an organization about how it handles your information and to the Privacy Commissioner if need be.

Our website is hosted on the Google Cloud (Montreal region), but we also rely on various third parties to provide financial planning and wealth management services to our clients. In the course of doing business with HLWM, your personal information may also be stored with one or more of the following parties, subject to each of their privacy policies. These third parties may process and store your information outside of Canada. In such case, some personal information may be accessible to law enforcement, national security services, or regulatory authorities in accordance with the laws of those jurisdictions where those service providers are located.