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Lancer Group International - Commitment to Privacy

Protecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal information has always been fundamental to the way we do business within Lancer Group International. We strive to provide you with the best customer service. To us, that includes treating you fairly and with respect. This Privacy Code informs you of our policy on privacy, and tells you about the ways we ensure that your privacy and the confidentiality of your info are protected.

Our Privacy Policy

Our privacy policy applies to personal customers, including individuals carrying on business alone or in partnership with other individuals. It consists of 10 key principles:

PRINCIPLE 1: ACCOUNTABILITY

We responsibly maintain and protect the information we have about you.

PRINCIPLE 2: IDENTIFYING PURPOSES

The purpose for which your information is being collected will be explained to you either before or when it is collected.

PRINCIPLE 3: CONSENT

We will obtain your consent to collect, hold, use and disclose your information.

PRINCIPLE 4: LIMITING COLLECTION

We will limit the information we collect to what is needed for those purposes The Discovery/Lancer Group has identified.

PRINCIPLE 5: LIMITING USE, DISCLOSURE AND RETENTION

We will use and disclose your information only for the purposes we have identified, or when it is required or permitted by law.

PRINCIPLE 6: ACCURACY

We strive to keep your information as accurate, complete and up to date as possible.

PRINCIPLE 7: SAFEGUARDS

We protect your information with appropriate safeguards and security measures. Our employees and service providers only have access to your information for the identified purposes and access is permitted only to the extent necessary for such purposes. In addition, we have taken several measures to protect your information, such as restricting physical access to our offices and using computer passwords and file encryption for on-line activities.

PRINCIPLE 8: OPENNESS

Upon your request, we will provide you with specific details about our information handling policies and procedures. Contact credit@lancergroup.com or view the policy on our website at www.lancergroup.com for more information.

PRINCIPLE 9: ACCESS

We will give you access to the information we have about you. You may check the accuracy of your information and amend it as appropriate. Accuracy is important to us. Please inform us of any errors in our information about you as soon as you are aware of them so that we may immediately correct our records. If the accuracy of information is in dispute, we will note it in our records.

PRINCIPLE 10: CHALLENGING OUR COMPLIANCE

We will investigate and respond to your concerns about any aspect of our handling of your information.

Why We Ask For Your Information

We ask you for information to establish and serve you as our customer.

We obtain most of our information about you directly from you. The information we ask for depends on which product or service you want. For every product or service, we need your name, business name, address and related information. Here is why we need some of the other information we ask you to provide.

FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Before using your Visa, Mastercard, or American Express card, we require your authorization to be faxed to us, with the billing address that your credit card statement is mailed to. This is to give us your permission to use your card for your purchases.

Other financial information is used to assess your eligibility for use of our credit product. For example, if you apply for credit terms with us (eg. Net 30), we will require all pertinent credit information regarding your business.

Why We Ask Others For Information About You

With your consent, we may obtain information about you from third parties, including through a credit check.

For credit granting, for example, we need to know your creditworthiness. For this reason, we may contact other lenders or credit bureaus to give us information on your credit history. We will not do this without your consent, but please remember that if you do not give your consent we will not be able to extend credit services to you.

We only collect the information we need and only use it for the purposes explained to you.

Serving You Better

We want to serve you better and meet your customer service expectations. This means that your information will be held in the strictest confidence and not shared outside of Lancer Group International. It also means that changes to your information, such as updated addresses or telephone numbers, can be made once and be effective for all your interaction with Lancer Group International.

When We Release Your Information

We are not in the business of selling customer lists or information to others.

WITH YOUR CONSENT

We will disclose your credit history with us to other lenders or credit bureaus in order to support the credit approval process. We release only the information required to identify you, as well as facts from our credit records about your repayment history.

WHEN REQUIRED OR PERMITTED BY LAW

We must give information in response to a valid demand, search warrant or other legally valid enquiry or order. We may disclose information to help us collect a debt owed to us by you. We may also disclose information to an investigative body in the case of a breach of agreement or contravention of law - this helps prevent fraud, money laundering or other criminal activity.

How We Protect Your Information

We will protect your information with appropriate safeguards and security measures.

We have thorough security standards to protect our systems as well as your information against unauthorized access and use.

All our suppliers and agents, as part of their contracts with Lancer Group International, are bound to maintain your confidentiality and may not use the information for any unauthorized purpose.

When we provide information in response to a legal enquiry or order, we ensure that the order is valid and we disclose only the information that is legally required.

All employees of The Discovery / Lancer Group are familiar with the procedures that must be taken to safeguard customer information. And to us, protecting the confidentiality of your information is more than a procedure - it's part of our jobs. It is specified in our employment agreements and regularly confirmed in writing.

We audit our procedures and security measures regularly to ensure that they are being properly administered and that they remain effective and appropriate.

We retain your information only as long as it is required for the reasons it was collected.

The length of time we retain information varies depending on the product or service and the nature of the information. This period may extend beyond the end of your relationship with us but only for so long as it is legally necessary for us to have sufficient information to respond to any issue that may arise at a later date. When your information is no longer needed for the purposes explained to you, we have procedures to destroy, delete, erase or convert it to an anonymous form.

Your Right To Access Your Information

We will give you access to the information we have about you.

If you require information, simply contact or forward a written request to the Winnipeg MB office. We will ask you for specific details for security reasons. We will advise you in advance if a minimal charge will be required for conducting the search, and we will respond to your request within 30 days.

Please note that we may not be able to provide information about you from our records which contains references to other persons which is subject to legal privilege, contains confidential information proprietary to Lancer Group International, relates to an investigation of a breach of agreement or contravention of laws, or cannot be disclosed for other legal reasons. Also, we do not maintain disclosure records for regular or routine actions submitted to Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, or regular updating of credit information to credit bureaus.

If you have any questions regarding decisions made about you, we will tell you the reasons for those decisions. Where relevant, we will provide you with the name and address of the credit bureau from which a report was obtained.

Keeping Your Information Accurate

We will make every reasonable effort to keep your information accurate and up-to-date.

Having accurate information about you enables us to give you the best possible service. You can help by keeping us informed of any changes, such as if you move or change telephone numbers. If you find any errors in our information about you, let us know and we will make the corrections immediately, and make sure they are conveyed to anyone we may have misinformed.

Respecting Your Preference

We will explain your options of refusing or withdrawing consent to the collection, use or release of your information, and we will record and respect your choices.

In most cases you are free to refuse or withdraw your consent at any time. You may do so by contacting 1-204-889-7422. Our staff will be pleased to explain your options and any consequences of refusing or withdrawing your consent, and record your choices.

You can change your options at any time. You may refuse consent for us to do a credit check, but we may not be able to extend credit services to you. Once you have a credit product, you may not withdraw your consent to share your credit experience with other lenders and credit bureaus, as this is necessary to support the credit approval process.

Addressing Your Concerns

If you have any questions, concerns or problems about privacy, confidentiality or how a request for information was handled, you can take the following actions. If you choose to mail, fax or email us, please include your full name, address and telephone number.

STEP 1 - CONTACT US IN ONE OF THE FOLLOWING WAYS: Speak to a Lancer Group International Customer Service Representative.

Telephone: 1-204-889-7422
Fax: 1-204-897-3663
Email: credit@lancergroup.com
Mailing Address:
Customer Feedback
Lancer Group International
311 Saulteaux Crescent
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
R3J 3C7

We'll work hard to provide an acceptable solution but if you are not satisfied, the Manager will become involved in the resolution of your problem or concern.

STEP 2 - CONTACT THE MANITOBA OMBUDSMAN: If your problem or concern remains unresolved, you may contact the Manitoba Ombudsman. The Manitoba Ombudsman may direct your problem to the appropriate business area for investigation and response. Within five days of receiving your enquiry, the Manitoba Ombudsman will write or call to advise you of the actions being taken. You may contact the Manitoba Ombudsman by:

Manitoba Ombudsman
750 - 500 Portage Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba,Canada
R3C 3X1
Telephone: 1-204-982-9130
Toll Free Telephone: 1-800-665-0531
Fax: 1-204-942-7803

For more information on law governing the Privacy Act, please click here to visit The Manitoba Ombudsman, Access, and Privacy Division website.

You may contact The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at 112 Kent Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1H3, or call toll-free at 1-800-282-1376.

Our Online Privacy Policy

Introduction

Protecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal information has always been fundamental to the way we do business with you within Lancer Group International, whether over the Internet, on the telephone or at our branches and offices.

We developed our Privacy Code brochure to inform you of our policy on privacy and tell you about the ways we ensure that your privacy and the confidentiality of your information are protected.

Many of you have questions about how we are handling the information we obtain from you when you visit our website. This online privacy policy will answer your questions about the information we collect when you visit a Lancer Group International website, and how we use it.

Visiting Our Information Websites

When you go directly to the information portion of our websites and move from page to page, read pages or download content onto your computer, we learn which pages are visited, what content is downloaded, and the address of websites that you visited immediately before coming to our websites. However, none of this is associated with you as an individual. It is measured only in aggregate.

We use this information to find out how many people visit our websites and which sections of the sites are visited most frequently. This helps us to know what type of information is most useful to you so that we can improve our websites and make it easier for you to access information. We record the statistical information on the numbers of visitors to our websites, but no information about you in particular will be kept or used.

Cookies

A cookie is a small file containing certain pieces of information that a website creates when you visit the site. It can track how and when you use a site, which site you visited immediately before, and it can store that information about you.

There are two common types of cookies, "session cookies" and "persistent cookies".

Session cookies store information only for the length of time that you are connected to a website - they are not written onto your hard drive. Once you leave the website, the originator of the cookie no longer has the information that was contained on it.

Lancer Group International uses session cookies as an additional security feature. Throughout your session, the cookie acts as a type of digital signature to identify your current session to the web server. We use session cookies to track your visits within our site. We use that information to determine the type of information that you are looking for in our site and to improve our site. We use information about the site you visited immediately prior to our site to assess the viability of links to our site that we have created on third party sites.

Currently, most browsers do not distinguish between session cookies and persistent cookies. For web services to operate, your browser must be set to accept cookies. If you are concerned about having your browser enabled to accept cookies while you are surfing other websites, we recommend that you enable your browser to notify you when it is receiving a cookie. This gives you the ability of accepting or rejecting any cookie presented by the web server you are visiting.

Email Comments, Questions or Responses

When you send us an email or when you ask us to respond to you by email, we learn your exact email address and any information you have included in the email.

We use your email address to acknowledge your comments and/or reply to your questions, and we will store your communication and our reply in case we correspond further. We will not sell your email address to anyone.

If you have asked us to put you on an email mailing list to provide you with certain information on a regular basis, or if we send you information about our offers on products and services by email, you may ask us to remove you from the list at any time.

Remember that email sent over the Internet is generally unencrypted. We recommend that you use caution when forwarding free-format email messages to us and that you do not include confidential information (such as bank account or credit card numbers) in those messages, as they are not encrypted. We recommend fax or mail transmission of sensitive information.

To review your options under Lancer Group International Privacy Code, simply visit our office, or call toll-free: 1-800-665-4875

Or you can visit our website at www.lancergroup.com.

Lancer Group International means Lancer Group International and its affiliates. Lancer Group International affiliates include: The Discovery / Lancer Group, Lancer Group International, Discovery Canada Merchandisers, and Lancer Graphic Systems.

Email disclaimer: For your protection, do not send confidential or personal information (e.g. Credit Card number, bank account numbers, etc.) via email, as it is NOT a secure method of communication. If your request is urgent or requires disclosure of confidential or personal information for resolution, please call us.

The Lancer Group International Privacy Code complies with the provisions of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. For more information, please address your concerns to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, 112 Kent Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 1H3.

Policy Section Revised on May 21, 2004.