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Privacy Policy
This privacy policy outlines the principles and practices we follow to protect all personal data that is collected from our clients, candidates and employees, or that is provided to us via the Equation Staffing Solutions (EQSS) website and/or other websites that EQSS utilizes.
Please ensure that you read the following information carefully so that you understand EQSS practices regarding the collection and use of your personal data.
EQSS has a Privacy Officer who is responsible for overall privacy governance. We manage your personal information in accordance with all applicable laws. All EQSS employees are trained and responsible to maintain your privacy in the context of providing services to you.
In order to keep up with changing legislation, this policy may be updated periodically without notice. Please note that this policy does not apply to the practices of companies which are not owned or controlled by EQSS.
YOUR PRIVACY IS IMPORTANT TO US
EQSS has devoted significant resources to create and implement our Privacy Management Program, we take your privacy seriously and commit to the stringent application of this program in our day to day business activities. Our Privacy Management Program strives to protect your personal information in accordance with jurisdictionally applicable acts, guidelines and regulations. We employ all commercially practicable physical and electronic means to secure that information and commit to diligently update those means when better technologies become available.
EQSS has appointed a Privacy Officer who is responsible for implementing and managing our Privacy Management Program with respect to overall privacy governance, privacy law compliance audits, security and developing and updating our data breach response plan. Our employees receive training, and reviews are undertaken regularly, to emphasize our commitment to the Privacy Management Program. All of us at EQSS are responsible for its application whenever we collect, use, maintain, disclose and dispose of your personal information.
When applicable privacy acts, guidelines and regulations are enacted or amended, our Privacy Management Program and this Privacy Policy will be updated to capture new legislation.
Please note that this policy does not apply to the practices of third-parties, while we will strive to ensure that third- parties, such as our clients, with whom we interact have implemented their own privacy management program, respect privacy rights and protect your personal information, we do not control their privacy policies and practices and we do not accept any responsibility or liability for the methods they employ to protect your personal information. Your personal information is only protected under the dictates of our Privacy Management Program and Privacy Policy when we are acting as the data controllers of that information.
This Privacy Policy summaries the principles and practices we follow to protect your personal information, please ensure that you read this policy carefully and understand our practices with respect to your personal information.
HOW AND WHEN DO WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?
EQSS collects, uses, updates and maintains the personal information that you disclose or other third parties disclose on your behalf (such as our clients and partners), when we provide any of our “services”, including but not limited to:
- Temporary / Contract Staffing
- Direct Hire Staffing
- Payroll Services
- Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)
- Administrative Service Organization (ASO)
- Software Testing and Training
- Contingent Workforce Management Services
- Pre/Post Employment Support Services
- Outsourced Human Resources
We collect, use, update and maintain any personal information you disclose when you interact with:
- Our employees
- Our clients to whom we provide “services”
- Our job boards
- Third-party job boards on which we post job opportunities
- Social media platforms
- Our website
- Third-party service providers engaged to perform “services” on behalf of our organization
- Third-party service providers engaged to perform investigations and examinations on our behalf such as our Background Check providers
We collect, use, update and maintain any personal information you disclose when you:
- Apply for direct employment opportunities available within our organization
- Are employed by our organization
- Are agents of our clients or prospective clients
- Inquire about our “services”
- Meet with us at job fairs and seminars
- Apply for employment opportunities available within a client’s organization for whom we are providing ”services”
- Are employed by a client’s organization to whom we are providing “services”
- Are agents of companies that provide third-party services to our organization
- Provide us with any new or updated information and or documentation
Please note we only accept personal information from residents of Canada, our websites and other social media platforms are only for the use of residents of Canada. Any information we receive from residents living outside of Canada will be deleted from our systems and any hard-copies will be shredded or otherwise safely discarded.
WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?
Depending on the nature of the “services” we are providing to you or our clients we limit our collection and use of your personal information to those details we require to provide a particular service to you or our clients. Conditional upon the sensitivity of that information we will either imply your consent or obtain your explicit consent prior to collecting, using, updating, maintaining and disclosing your personal information. Please refer to the sections below for more detailed information:
Job Applicants
The documentation you provide to us, or we collect in communication with you at this juncture should be limited to:
- Resume(s) (and any updates thereof)
- Cover letter(s)
- Reference contact details: name, job title, professional designation, business name, business address, phone number(s), e-mail address, social media account details and other similar contact details
- Responses to any of our automated online questionnaires, that provide us with a better understanding of positions that would be of interest to you
- Your name and contact Information: mailing address(es), e-mail address(es), phone number(s), social media account details and any other similar contact details
- Education history, employment history, qualifications, work experience, competencies and skills, professional credentials or licenses, membership in professional organizations, career preferences, employment preferences, anecdotal information and any information you wish to disclose in your cover letter
- Demographic data and your citizenship and work authorization status
- Criminal background checks
- Medical examinations
- Financial background checks
- Employment history verification
- Education and professional qualification verification
- Health and safety checks
- Investigations of information published by you on social media platforms
- Drug and alcohol screening
- Criminal background checks
- Medical examinations
- Financial background checks
- Employment history verification
- Education and professional qualification verification
- Health and safety checks
- Investigations of information published by you on social media platforms
- Your employment contract
- Biometric use contract
- Banking and benefits information: your social insurance number, financial / banking Information, tax deduction information, emergency contact information and benefits information
- Information relating to your leaves of absence
- Information related to your job performance
- Your use of corporate business systems
- Additional demographic information
- Biometric data used for security access
- Any other information that might be required for valid reasons (i.e. driver’s license, driver’s abstract, work authorization)
- Your name and contact Information: address(es), e-mail address(es), phone number(s), social media account details and any other similar contact details
- Particulars of any communication you might have with us
- Information about you, disclosed incidentally in the process of communicating with you via social media platforms
- Information you provide when you signup to use our online services such as: your user name, e-mail address, password /or PIN
- Location data
- Cookies and similar: we use cookies, web beacons and other similar technologies to recognize and personalize your online experience with us, this information is typically stored on your device.
- Open and/or maintain a dedicated “Candidate File” to collate information about you in one place, and to allow for the convenient inclusion of any new information and updates of existing information
- Manage and administer any recruitment services that we provide to you
- Evaluate information about you to analyze your suitability to fill potential positions and placements
- Unearth potential employment opportunities on your behalf that match your stated preferences, qualifications and/or profile
- Fulfill our clients’ requests for information about candidates
- Perform and manage our responsibilities, with respect to you or our clients when providing any of our “services”
- Provide human resources management services to you
- Permit our employees, clients and third-party agents (we engage to perform work on our behalf) to communicate with you. You may instruct us to cease all forms communication with you at any time, for details see the “Your Rights” section below
- Monitor all forms of communications with you for quality and training purposes
- Develop new services based on the information and feedback you provide
- Improve our services based upon the information and feedback that you provide, and the information and feedback that others provided about you
- Personalize the services we provide you based upon the information and feedback that you provide us
- Allow you to access our live social media feeds. If you choose to participate, your public username will be displayed on the sites alongside your posts, including, but not limited to, comments, images and video. We may also permit you to access third-party platforms that allow you to post content from your social media account(s). Any information that you provide through use of this functionality is governed by that third party’s privacy policy, and not by this Privacy Policy.
- Comply with industry standards
- Ensure your health and safety in the workplace
- Assess your suitability for a particular position
- Assess your fitness for employment, subject to appropriate jurisdictional confidentiality safeguards
- Provide appropriate workplace accommodations that may necessary to accommodate any disabilities
- Assess and validate the accuracy of the information you have provided
- Identify and prevent worker safety risks
- Perform our due diligence to mitigate our or our client’s organizational risks and liabilities
- Continually update your “Employee File” or “Contingent Worker File” whichever is appropriate
- Meet our obligations as defined in your employment contract and any other applicable responsibilities that apply under pertinent jurisdictional employment law
- Conduct employee performance reviews
- Identify incompetency issues, performance issues and misconduct issues
- Conduct disciplinary and grievance investigations
- Provide guidance and training
- Issue verbal and written warnings
- Initiate the termination process
- Ensure that our business systems resources are used primarily for their intended purposes, and are protected against cybersecurity threats such as malware
- Comply with relevant jurisdictional employment equity legislation and ensure equal employment opportunities are afforded to all genders, Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities
- Ensure organizational data security
- Ensure your personal information is secure and accessible only to those with a need to know
- For the purposes of any potential and/ or actual litigation or investigations concerning us or our officers
- Make necessary disclosures in response to requests which we are legally required to comply with, to law enforcement or regulatory authority, body or agency, or in the defense of legal claims
- Communicate with third party services providers and individuals who provide services, to understand the nature of those services and/or potential synergies
- Answer any issues or concerns
- Monitor communications for quality and training purposes
- Develop new services which are based on the information you provide
- Personalize our service to you to take account of the information and feedback you have provided
- Allow you to access our live social media feeds. If you choose to participate, your public username will be displayed on the sites alongside your posts, including, but not limited to, comments, images and video. We may also permit you to access third-party platforms that allow you to post content from your social media account(s). Any information that you provide through use of this functionality is governed by that third party’s privacy policy, and not by this Privacy Policy.
- Manage and maintain your account
- Create a profile of your posts and other interactions on our media platforms
- Recognize you when you return to our media platforms
- Track media platform traffic on an aggregate basis
- Track marketing campaigns
- Keep session information such as your last search
- Identify issues with our media platforms and improve the user’s experience
- Manage and administer our media platforms
- Monitor media platforms usage
- Maintain market awareness
- Build and maintain social media presence and branding
- Ensure organizational security
- Our client if you are employed within their organization
- With third-party agents (we engage to perform work on our behalf)
- With third parties, that we engage directly or through intermediaries, to perform investigations and examinations. We will always seek your express consent prior to disclosing this information and initiating any investigation or examination of you
- With our legal representatives in situations concerning potential and/ or actual litigation or investigation regarding our organization or our officers
- With officers of the court, or police officers, or regulatory authorities, bodies and agencies, in response to requests with which we are legally required to comply, or in the defense of legal claims
- You have the right to access this information
- You have the right to expect our organization to maintain this information in its most accurate, complete and up-to-date form necessary for the objectives to which we will use it. You should inform our employees in writing when you make any changes to this information and provide us with updated documentation and the specifics of any changes
- You have the right when you can successfully demonstrate the inaccuracy or incompleteness of this information, to have this information amended with respect to correction, deletion, or addition of this information
- You have the right to withdraw your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of this information at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions, if you wish to withdraw your implied or explicit consent please advise our Privacy Officer in writing
- The right to erasure, also known as the right to be forgotten
- The right to additional information such as:
- the recipients to whom this data has been disclosed,
- the third-party sources who disclosed this information
- The right to data portability, namely the ability to receive this personal information in a structured commonly used and machine-readable format, and to also have such data transmitted to another controller
- The right to restriction of processing, if the accuracy of the personal data is contested by you
- The right to not to be subjected to automated decision-making
- Inform you if our organization maintains any personal information concerning you and if we do, explain how it is or has been used, and provide a list of any organizations to which, it has been disclosed
- Give you access to all your personal information that our organization maintains
- Correct or amend any personal information if you challenge its accuracy and completeness, and it is found to be deficient
- Provide a copy of the personal information you request or the reason(s) for not providing you access
- If in doing so it would reveal personal information about another individual unless that individual provides explicit consent, or it is a life-threatening situation
- If you request to be informed of personal information disclosed to a government institution and that institution objects to our organization complying with your access, because of legal or security reasons
- If it is protected by solicitor-client privilege
- If in doing so it would reveal confidential commercial information
- If in doing so it is reasonable to expect it to harm an individual’s life or security. If this information can be severed, the organization must release the remainder of your personal information
- If your personal information was collected without your knowledge or consent and the collection was required to investigate a breach of an agreement or contravention of federal, state, or provincial law
- If your personal information was collected in the course of a formal dispute resolution process; or was created for the purpose of making a disclosure under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act or a related investigation
- If you request information provided by any of your references. Express consent from the reference will be needed in order to disclose any information they provided
- Policies and operating procedures are in place to ensure our employees receive regular training and reviews are undertaken to emphasize our commitment to our Privacy Management Program and reinforce that they are responsible for its application whenever they collect, use, maintain, disclose and dispose of your personal information
- Utilization of Industry-standard encryption technologies when receiving and transferring electronic information
- Physical controls such as locked filing cabinets and restricted access to offices
- Need to know policies
- Technological controls such as passwords, encryption and firewalls
- Organizational controls such as security clearances
- Maintaining a back-up of your personal information at a secure offsite storage facility