Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 28, 2022

Your privacy and personal information are very important to us. The personal information Flahmingo Investments Inc. (“Flahmingo”, “Us”, “us”, “our”, “Our”, “We” and “we”) collect about you (“You”, “you”, “Your” or “your”) is managed in accordance with this Privacy Policy (“Policy” or “Privacy Policy”).  This Privacy Policy applies to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information, including personal information relating to your use of the www.flahmingo.com website, and any and all services offered by Flahmingo (the “Services”).  The Services may be provided by or through our Flahmingo mobile computer program(s) and software application (the “Application”), and/or through any and all other computer program(s), component(s) and module(s) offered by us and used by you and by or through the www.flahmingo.com website or affiliated sites providing Flahmingo services (the www.flahmingo.com website, together with all of the foregoing uses and services, to be hereinafter referred to as the “Site”).

BY USING THE SITE, THE APPLICATION, OR THE SERVICES (INCLUDING REGISTERING FOR A USER ACCOUNT OR A TRADING ACCOUNT, AS APPLICABLE), YOU AGREE AND CONSENT TO THE RELEVANT PRACTICES AND POLICIES DESCRIBED IN THIS POLICY.  IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS POLICY, DO NOT USE THE SITE, THE APPLICATION, OR THE SERVICES.

1. PRIVACY COMMITMENT 

Flahmingo is committed to protecting our clients’ privacy and the confidentiality of their personal information in our possession. We collect, use and disclose personal information to operate our business and as required by law. Flahmingo collects personal information from our clients and prospective clients to provide Services to you and to fulfill our legal obligations. Understanding a client’s financial position and personal circumstances enables us to ensure that investment recommendations are suitable and improve our Services.  

2. CHANGES TO PRIVACY POLICY

This Policy describes our current privacy practices. We update this Policy on an ongoing basis to ensure consumers, applicants, customers and service providers, are aware of updates to our privacy practices, to streamline those practices and to comply with applicable laws. Please visit this Policy posted to the Site or the Application regularly for updates. 

Flahmingo may, at any time and from time to time at its sole discretion, update, revise, supplement, replace, and/or otherwise modify this Policy and/or impose new or additional rules, policies, terms, or conditions on You.  Such updates, revisions, supplements, replacements, modifications, and additional rules, policies, terms, and conditions (collectively referred to as “Revised Terms”) will be effective immediately upon the Revised Terms being posted to the Site or the Application or by Flahmingo otherwise making them available to You (as the case may be).  

Any continued use of the Site, the Application, and/or Flahmingo’s consumer investment/financial services platform and software, following such posting of the Revised Terms to the Site or the Application or by Flahmingo otherwise making them available to You (as the case may be), will be deemed to constitute acceptance of the Revised Terms.

3. ACCOUNTABILITY

Flahmingo is responsible for ensuring that we comply with this Policy and applicable privacy laws.

We are responsible for personal information in our possession or custody, as well as personal information transferred to a third party for processing. More details on our third parties are provided below under “Limiting Use, Disclosure and Retention”.

4. PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT, AND LIMITING COLLECTION

Personal information is information about an identifiable individual, or any information that identifies you as an individual, as defined in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and in any applicable provincial legislation, including the Alberta Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).  It includes information that you provide to Flahmingo or that Flahmingo collects from any third party.

Flahmingo collects information about identifiable individuals but does not collect any more personal information than is necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Policy.  Except where information is required to fulfill an identified purpose, you get to decide what information you want to share with us.  Flahmingo only collects such Personal information as is reasonably necessary for Flahmingo to fulfill the purposes as set out in this Privacy Policy.  The personal information that we collect includes information that you provide when creating an account with us.  There are two kinds of accounts that may be registered with Flahmingo: a “User Account”, which allows you to use basic functionalities of the Site, the Application, and the Services including obtaining information on our Services and building your first test “pie”; and a “Trading Account”, which allows you to fund an account, purchase the securities for an active “pie” and execute trades through the Site, the Application, and the Services.

User Account Information. We collect information that you provide, such as your name, phone number, address, city, and email address, in connection with your creation of a User Account.  Such information is used only for the limited purpose of administering a User Account and the limited features and functionalities of the Site, the Application, and the Services available through a User Account.  We may also collect and use basic contact information from you if you interact with us through social media or online ads, or participate in surveys, and we may use that information as described in this Policy.  

Trading Account Information. We collect information that you provide, such as your name, phone number, address, city, email address, birth date, copies or photographs of your physical identification document(s) such as your driver’s license, passport, permanent residency card, or identity card, social insurance number (SIN), employment and compensation information, asset holdings and values, investment knowledge and objectives, and banking and credit information (including your chequing account information, transactional history, and account balances/limits), in connection with your creation of a Trading Account.  Such information that you provide when creating a Trading Account may be used to help us choose the portfolio that best fits you and your needs, open and service your Trading Account, send and receive bill payments through your chequing account, detect and prevent fraud and other unauthorized or illegal activities, meet legal and regulatory requirements, tailor your Site, Application, and Service experiences, including making recommendations for Flahmingo products or services, transfer your account(s) to or from another institution, and as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law. Such information is also used for verifying your identity, ensuring that we comply with anti-money laundering (AML) obligations, and for the purpose of administering a Trading Account and the features and functionalities of the Site, the Application, and the Services available through a Trading Account, and other purposes as described in this Policy.   

Digital and online information. We may collect information from your mobile and online activity; for example, information about your web browser, time zone, Internet Protocol (IP) address, mobile device ID, application and website use, and history. Cookies (small computer files that a website’s server places on your computer) collect information about your online behaviour. You can set your browser to reject cookies, but this may impair our ability to customize and test your experience, like remembering your preferred language or present location-specific information to you.  By using and browsing the Site, you consent to cookies being used in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you do not consent, you must disable cookies or refrain from using the Site.  Cookies do not typically contain personal information, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies. 

Usage information. If you sign up for one of our products or services, depending on the product or service, we may collect information regarding the use of our Site and Application, including screens visited and in-application behavior in order to monitor and improve the application.

Third party service providers. We may collect information about you from third parties. We may collect publicly available information about you from online sources, or from surveys that you participate in. You may also enter into various services, agreements and reward and loyalty programs operated by third parties. The privacy policies of such third parties will apply to such transactions with third parties, and not this Policy.

5. IDENTIFYING PURPOSES

We will clearly identify the purposes for which personal information is collected, used or disclosed prior to, or at the time of, collection, and as in our customer agreements and disclosures.

Contacting you. We may use your personal information to contact you. Your personal information allows us to contact you by various methods, including mail, email, SMS message, app push notification, and telephone at the contact points you’ve provided to us. We will contact you to respond to your questions, proactively provide you with information about your accounts with us, inform you about our products and services, and update you on changes to our Site, Application, and other digital services we provide. We may use your personal information to send you important updates about your User Account and/or Trading Account. When you communicate online or by email, you should be aware that sending information over the internet is inherently insecure, as it can be intercepted or manipulated and retransmitted.  

Authentication and compliance with money laundering rules.  We may use your personal information to authenticate you. We may also share application, transaction, authentication and “know your client” information with our partners, potential third-party providers, and other regulatory agencies as required by law.  With your personal information, we can confirm your identity by sharing your personal information with third party identity verification providers to authenticate you when you apply for a Trading Account or other product or Service, to verify that it is you we are speaking with when you contact us or our Customer Service representatives to discuss your account, or identify you when you visit us online or on our mobile Application.  

Providing services.  We may use your personal information to provide services to you. Your personal information may be used to maintain, service, process, analyze, audit and collect on your accounts. We may use your personal information to service your Trading Account, optimize our Site and Application, perform analytics, and provide you with a unique user experience. 

Referral program.  If you participate in our referral program or other “Invite a Friend” features that may be available on our Services (the “Referral Program”), we collect the email address of the individual(s) who you wish to refer to Flahmingo. We use this information to send the recipient email correspondence containing information about the Referral Program. We do not use the email addresses submitted in these circumstances for any other purpose without the consent of the email recipient to do so. Please ensure that you only submit email addresses of individuals with whom you have a personal or family relationship and who would want to receive the email from you.

Improve and customize our products and services. We may use your personal information to make improvements to our Site, our Application, and our Services. We may use your personal information to evaluate existing products and services, develop new products and services, drive strategy and improve the customer experience we offer. Information we collect is also valuable for our quality and servicing training programs.  We also customize our Site and Application based on personal information collected, and use that information to understand and deliver products and services that you, and others who are similar to you, may find useful.

Marketing.  We may use your personal information to provide you with offers, advertising and marketing. Elements of your personal information may be used to determine your suitability, or to directly communicate with you, for targeted advertising, marketing, promotions, rewards programs, research or contests. You may see advertisements for our products and services on our Site, Application, or on third-party websites, based on your online or mobile activity and information you’ve shared with third parties.  You can opt-out of receiving marketing and promotional email from us by following the unsubscribe instructions contained in each of our email communications or by following the instructions in section 6 (Consent) below. Please note that you will continue to receive email regarding your User Account and/or Trading Account and transactions with us.

Employment.  If you inquire about or apply for a job with Flahmingo, you may provide us with certain personal information about yourself (such as that contained in a resume, cover letter, or similar employment-related materials). We use this information for the purpose of processing and responding to your application for current and future career opportunities.

6. CONSENT

If you apply for a product or service, communicate with us, or provide personal information to us in any way, you acknowledge your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of such personal information as you provide to us or that we otherwise collect as set out in this Policy and applicable laws. If we want to use your personal information for a purpose that was not disclosed at the time of initial consent, consent will be sought at the time of the new purpose.

Updating consent. Subject to legal and contractual restrictions, you can, with reasonable notice to us, withdraw your consent to the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information, other than the collection, use, and disclosure which is required for us to maintain your User Account or Trading Account and to provide Services that you sign up for and for which you were approved.

Opt out of mail, email and phone marketing. You can request that we not contact you for advertising, marketing, promotions, rewards programs, research or contests, by updating your privacy preferences associated with your User Account or Trading Account or by otherwise updating your privacy preferences as set out herein. You should know that withdrawing your consent in these instances may result in you missing out on offers specific to your User Account or Trading Account.  To opt out of our email marketing list after you have opted in, you may use the unsubscribe link provided in any email marketing material you receive.  To update your privacy preferences, you may do so by updating your privacy preferences associated with your User Account or Trading Account, or by emailing compliance@flahmingo.com and with subject line *Email-Opt Out. 

Cookies.  If you do not wish to receive cookies, or want to be notified of when they are placed, you may set your web browser to do so, if your browser so permits. If you wish to delete cookies, you may set your web browser to do so, if your browser so permits. You acknowledge and agree that if cookies are turned off or deleted, you may not be able to view or access certain parts of the Site or use certain of certain Services available through the Site or certain features or functionalities thereof.

7. LIMITING USE, DISCLOSURE AND RETENTION

We limit use, disclosure, and retention of personal information to the purposes we identify, and as required by applicable laws.

Third parties. We do not sell or rent customer lists or personal information to others. We may share your personal information with service providers who perform services for your Trading Account on our behalf. When you engage with other companies directly, or contact us through their platforms, their use of the personal information they collect from you is subject to the terms of their privacy policies. We may share your personal information with regulators, courts or other institutions as required by law.

In particular:

1. Third party verification providers – We may share your personal information with third party verification service providers, for the purposes of identity validation, risk assessment, anti-money laundering compliance, and maintaining accurate contact details for your Trading Account. Information shared for these purposes may include the following: name, address, phone number, birth date, copies or photographs of your physical identification document(s) such as your driver’s license, passport, permanent residency card, or identity card, social insurance number (SIN), and ‘selfie’ photos for identification validation purposes.
2. Brokerage services – We may use third party brokerage service providers to broker trades and complete transactions for us, on behalf of you and our other users and customers.  Such third party brokerage service providers are generally not provided with personal information, and information provided to brokerage service providers is generally de-identified and anonymized, and users and trades are identified by alphanumeric identifier.  However, we may be asked by our third party brokerage service providers to provide them with personal information, including information provided by you in association with your creation of a Trading Account, to comply with their internal and external auditing and reporting policies, for insurance service providers, and for their own anti-money laundering compliance. 
3. Fraud detection services – We may use third parties to monitor your transactions to identify fraudulent activity on your Trading Account.
4. Securities regulators – We may share your name, contact information and holdings with issuers of securities that you hold in your account and other persons/companies as required in accordance with securities law. Such issuers may require your personal information in order to deliver financial reports, tax documents and other relevant materials to you or to comply with applicable regulatory obligations. We may also disclose certain personal information, including the number of and purchase price of units purchased, to the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authority where required by law.
5. Call centres and quality assurance providers – We may share access to your account information maintained on our financial systems, with call centres to service your Trading Account and provide you with customer support. We may share your customer experience with a third party to evaluate how we are doing, and ensure we are complying with applicable laws and regulations.
6. Collections and law firms – We may share your information to help us collect a debt owed to us by you. Information shared may include the following: contact details, communication history, account details, and financial information.
7. Legal process – Flahmingo and its third party service providers may provide your personal information in response to a search warrant or other legally valid inquiry or order, or to another organization for the purposes of investigating a breach of an agreement or contravention of law or detecting, suppressing or preventing fraud, or as otherwise required or permitted by applicable Canadian, US or other law (which may include lawful access requests by Canadian, US or other foreign courts, law enforcement or governmental authorities). We may also disclose personal information where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims and to investigate or prevent actual or suspect loss or harm to persons or property.

Our service providers are given the information they need to perform their designated functions, and we do not authorize them to use or disclose personal information for their own marketing or other purposes.  We also ensure that our third party service providers are bound by reasonable confidentiality and privacy obligations with respect to the personal information that we provide to them.

Assignees. We may, at any time, sell, transfer or assign any or all of our rights to our Canadian business, including our interests, rights or obligations regarding your User Account or Trading Account with us. If we do so, we may share your personal information with prospective purchasers, transferees or assignees.  In such transactions, customer information shall be treated as a transferred business asset. In the event that Flahmingo (or all, or substantially all, of its assets) were to be acquired by a third party, Flahmingo’s customer information will be considered a transferred business asset.

Business Transactions.  We may transfer any information we have about you as an asset in connection with a prospective or completed merger or sale (including transfers made as part of insolvency or bankruptcy proceedings) involving all or part of Flahmingo or as part of a corporate reorganization or stock sale or other change in corporate control, including for the purpose of determining whether to proceed or continue with such transaction or business relationship.

Information processed outside Canada. Your personal information may be stored and processed with approved third parties outside Canada, including the United States. If a third party processes or stores information outside Canada, foreign governments, courts or regulatory agencies may therefore be able to obtain such personal information through the laws of the foreign jurisdiction.  In the event personal information is transferred to the US or other foreign jurisdiction, it will be subject to the laws of that jurisdiction and may be disclosed to or accessed by the courts, law enforcement and governmental authorities in accordance with the laws of those jurisdictions.

8. ACCURACY

We take steps to ensure that your personal information is as accurate, complete and up to date as is necessary for the purposes for which it is to be used.  If you move, change your phone number, or change your email address, or your personal information is otherwise out of date, you are required to update your information with us.

If you believe that the personal information we have about you is not accurate or is incomplete, please contact us by updating your information through our web or mobile apps, or by notifying us by email at compliance@flahmingo.com. 

Depending on your location and subject to applicable law, you may have additional rights with respect to your personally identifiable information, including: 

1. “Right to be forgotten” - the right to request that we erase your personally identifiable information in certain circumstances provided by applicable law; 
2. “Data portability” - the right to request that we send to another company, where technically feasible, your personally identifiable information; and
3. the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personally identifiable information in certain circumstances; for example, if you contest the accuracy of the personally identifiable information while we are verifying the accuracy thereof.

If you wish to exercise any of those rights, please contact us by email at compliance@flahmingo.com. 

9. SAFEGUARDS

We use a variety of procedures and practices appropriate to the sensitivity of personal information to protect against loss, theft and unauthorized access. Access to your information is restricted to those individuals and parties who require access for the purposes set out in this Policy.  

You acknowledge and agree that we may, at our sole discretion, use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personally identifiable information from unauthorized access, use, and disclosure.  Flahmingo secures the Personal Information you provide on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected from unauthorized access, use or disclosure.  Additionally, we have electronic protection (such as passwords and encryption) and safe business practices. We also train our staff on how to safeguard personal information.

While we take all reasonable measures to protect data, there is always inherent risk when providing personal information.  There are always risks associated with providing personal information and sensitive data, whether in person, by phone, mobile, or tablet device, via the Internet or via other technologies. The transmission of information and data over the Internet is inherently insecure, and there are no security systems that are completely safe or fool-proof against hacking or tampering. Flahmingo endeavours to take commercially reasonable precautions to prevent and minimize such risks in connection with your use of the Site, the Application, and our Services, but Flahmingo offers no (and hereby expressly disclaims any) guarantee, representation, warranty, or covenant of any kind with respect to the same.

You can help us safeguard your personal information. If you contact us through email or social media, you should avoid sending highly sensitive information, such as your banking information or any specific account information. If someone purporting to represent us contacts you and requests your personal or financial information, and you are suspicious, you can always contact us to confirm that the request was legitimate. We also recommend that you use unique and strong passwords for your online accounts and that you not share your passwords with anyone.

10. THIRD PARTY WEBSITES AND SERVICES

Except as provided herein, we will not provide any of your personal information to these third parties without your consent.  Our Services, Site, and Application may contain links to other websites that we do not own or operate. These links are not intended as an endorsement of or referral to the linked websites. The linked websites have separate and independent privacy policies, notices and terms of use, which we recommend you read carefully. We do not have any control over such websites, and therefore we have no responsibility or liability for the manner in which the organizations that operate such linked websites may collect, use or disclose, secure and otherwise treat your personal information.

11. OPENNESS, INDIVIDUAL ACCESS AND CHALLENGING COMPLIANCE

You can contact Flahmingo to request access to the personal information we have on file for you. We will provide you with the personal information we have, subject to certain considerations specified by law. 

Flahmingo welcomes your comments regarding this Privacy Policy. If you would like more information on this Privacy Policy or Flahmingo’s organizational privacy policies, or if believe that Flahmingo has not adhered to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please contact Flahmingo’s designated Privacy Officer at compliance@flahmingo.com. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly identify and remedy any failure by Flahmingo to adhere to the terms of this Privacy Policy.