Privacy Statement
Capital One's Privacy Commitment to You
Capital One® is committed to keeping your personal information accurate, confidential and secure. We want to earn your trust by providing strict safeguards to protect your information.
What is Personal Information?
Personal information is any information that can identify you.
Your Privacy
We respect your privacy. Not only do we respect it, but we also protect it. The personal information you share with us, stays with us. We collect and provide your information as required for the standard operation of our business and as required by law. We may also release your information to companies that you have authorized us to release your information to, including service providers (such as the printers of our account statements), credit reporting agencies (like TransUnion and Equifax), our own affiliates and co-branding partners for co-branded rewards card. These companies must first meet our rigorous privacy standards before we partner with them to do business for you.
Your Privacy Choices and How to Contact Us
We will not add your name to third-party marketing campaigns for the first 30 days after the opening of your account to give you an opportunity to make your privacy choice known to us.
Mail: You can tell us your privacy preferences by mail at:
Attention: Privacy Officer
Capital One Canada
P.O. Box 508, Scarborough Stn D
Scarborough, ON M1R 5L6
Phone: You can tell us your privacy preferences by calling 1-888-817-3887. If you have a sensory disability such as a hearing impairment or blindness, you may call our toll-free number at 1-800-219-1009.
If you have general questions about Capital One or your account, please call one of our Customer Relations representatives at 1-800-481-3239.
Web: You can visit our “Contact Us” page on our Web site at www.capitalone.ca. If you are not a customer with us and would like to be removed from our marketing list, go to www.capitaloneprivacy.ca and fill in the form.
To contact our Privacy officer for any other reason, please write to:
Attention: Privacy Officer
Capital One Canada
P.O. Box 508, Scarborough Stn D
Scarborough, ON M1R 5L6
Information Quality
If you believe that the information we have about you is not as accurate or complete as it could be, please contact us using any of the methods noted in Your Privacy Choices and How to Contact Us so we can update your information.
Access to Personal Information about You
You may request access to the personal information we collect about you. We will answer your inquiry and/or provide you with access to this information, subject to certain considerations specified by law. To request access to your personal information in our possession, write to us at:
Attention: Privacy Officer
Capital One Canada
P.O. Box 508, Scarborough Stn D
Scarborough, ON M1R 5L6
Confidentiality and Security
We have physical security (access in buildings), electronic protection (encryption), and safe business practices (customer authentication when you call us) to prevent identity theft. We restrict access to your personal information to those who need to have it to provide products or services to you. We use other companies to provide services for us such as marketing, advertising and credit card embossing, but select these companies carefully and require them to keep the information we share with them safe and secure. We do not allow them to use or share information for any purpose other than the job they are hired to do.
Information We Collect
Consumers. We may collect information about consumers who are not our current customers, so we can develop our products and services. Sometimes this information comes from lists like the telephone book. When a consumer applies to be our customer, we collect the information given during the application process (such as the consumer’s name, address, telephone number and date of birth).
Customers. When you are a customer, we collect and store information to help us verify the effectiveness of our products and services, to monitor your usage and to better tailor our services to your needs and interests. We collect information about your transactions, including purchases, account balances, fees, payment history, parties to transactions and credit card usage. We may collect information from credit reporting agencies and other outside sources to verify financial information about you, such as your employment and credit history.
Web site visits. When you visit our Web site, we may collect information about your use of our products and services, which is captured in a common log file format, including your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address and operating system, the date and time of your visit and information about the pages you visit while on our Web site. To assist us in collecting information when you visit us online, we may use electronic technologies such as cookies (small computer files saved to your computer’s hard drive) which help us understand what parts of our products and services you find most useful. You can reject cookies, but sometimes this compromises the functionality of the product or service.
Use of Information
We want you to understand why we collect and use information about you and how this can benefit you. By knowing more about our customers, we and our business partners can provide specialized products that may be of interest to you and your family. We collect and use information about consumers and customers so we or our service vendors (whether engaged by or on behalf of us or any of our assignees) can use it in the following ways:
(i) to open, maintain, service, process, analyze, survey, audit and collect on your account;
(ii) to verify your identity and credit worthiness;
(iii) to protect you from identity theft, fraud and unauthorized access to your account;
(iv) to share application and transaction information with consumer reporting agencies and other parties who have financial, employment or business dealings with you;
(v) to determine your eligibility, administer and contact you for the purposes of marketing, promotions, rewards programs, research or contests; and
(vi) to use for any purpose required by law.
This information may also be shared with any person or entity to which we have assigned or transferred an interest in your account, any debt or interest due or any of our rights or obligations under any agreement with you (including any subsequent assignee). We may also use your information to respond to your questions or to contact you in order to notify you of functional changes to our Web site or to our products and services. If you choose to contact us, we may retain your e-mail address, the content of your communication and our response.
We may contact you by e-mail using the e-mail address you provided for special offers or standard service messages. To ensure your security, we will not include sensitive information in an e-mail such as your full 16-digit account number, date of birth, Social Insurance Number (if provided) or account balance.
In the event that a service vendor is located outside of Canada, the information on file for you or an authorized user (as set out below) may be processed and stored outside Canada and foreign governments, courts of law enforcement or regulatory agencies may be able to obtain disclosure of this information. We may, at any time, sell, transfer or assign any or all of our rights to our Canadian business including your account and if we do so, we may share information concerning you and any authorized user with prospective purchasers, transferees or assignees.
In the event that a service vendor is located in the United States, the information on file for you or an authorized user (as set out below) may be processed and stored in the United States and the United States governments, courts of law enforcement or regulatory agencies may be able to obtain disclosure of this information through the laws of the United States.
We may, at any time, sell, transfer or assign any or all of our rights under this Agreement and if we do so, we may share information concerning you and any authorized user with prospective purchasers, transferees or assignees.
Contacting You
Capital One and any assignees may use any method to contact you (including mail, phone, e-mail) using your contact information unless you have opted out of a particular channel. Even when you have opted out, we may still be required to contact you when legal reasons (for example, we may use mail to send you disclosures) or business needs (for example, to alert you if there has been fraud on your account) override the conditions of the opt-out.
Sharing of Information
Service vendors and credit reporting agencies. We may share information with our service vendors (statement printing), service providers (MasterCard® International) and credit reporting agencies (TransUnion and Equifax) for the purposes described above in Use of Information.
Assignees. We may, at any time, sell, transfer or assign any or all of our interests, rights or obligations with respect to your account with us. If we do so, we can share your personal information with prospective purchasers, transferees or assignees.
Other third parties. We may share with carefully selected business partners information we collect about our customers, former customers, and withdrawn or declined applicants, such as name, street address, e-mail address and telephone number, for the purpose of determining the eligibility of customers and consumers for valuable products and services (such as credit balance insurance and credit report monitoring) offered by us or our business partners. We may share customer information with other parties who have financial, employment or business dealings with you. If you give us your Social Insurance Number, we may use it to identify you with credit reporting agencies and other parties, and we may keep it along with other information about you in our records, even after your account is closed to use for the purposes stated above. We ensure that any third party is bound to respect your privacy rights in the same way that we are.
Authorized Users
Authorized user means an individual who according to our records was identified as such as part of the application or an individual who was subsequently added as an authorized user on the account. We or our service vendors (whether engaged by or on behalf of us or any of our assignees) may collect use and disclose personal information of authorized users such as name and details of their transactions to: open, maintain, service, process, analyze, audit and collect on the account (notwithstanding that authorized users will not be held liable for the account); protect the account from identity theft, fraud and unauthorized access; and for any purpose required by law. All information on file for authorized users may be disclosed to you.
Your Consent
If you apply for credit, or by communicating or providing information to us in any other way, you acknowledge your consent for personal information collection, protection, use, disclosure and retention as set out herein. Subject to legal and contractual restrictions, you may withdraw your consent at any time after your account has been opened with reasonable notice.
If at some point we want to use your personal information for any purpose other than the ones specified, we will inform you before using the information for this new purpose. We may inform you by posting a notice to our Web site or by communicating with you directly.