Privacy Policy

Protecting your privacy and safeguarding your personal information is our highest priority. Directwest has created this privacy policy to set out how we collect, use, and safeguard any personal information of individuals using any platform owned by Directwest including www.directwest.com, www.mysask411.com and the Mysask411 app (collectively referred to as “Digital Platforms”).

Our commitment to your privacy

We place a high priority on the loyalty of our customers, and that loyalty is built on a foundation of good products, competitive prices, and above all, excellent customer service.

Respecting your right to privacy is an important part of our service excellence commitment. We promise to treat your personal information with the utmost respect. That includes keeping you up-to-date on your rights as our customer and providing you with information on how we use your personal information. Our Privacy Statement outlines our commitment to protect the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information.

We may update this statement from time to time as reflected in the date at the end of this page, so please review it periodically. You’re also encouraged to review the Terms and Conditions document provided on this website. It too is provided for your information and protection.

Why we collect personal information

Personal information is defined as information about an identifiable individual. Publicly available information—like a public telephone book listing of your name, address, and telephone number—is not considered personal information.

In order to provide you with products and services, we may need to collect information from you. We might collect information from you in person, over the phone, by mail, through the Internet, from our Digital Platforms, in writing or verbally. We understand that some of this information is confidential, which is why we only collect personal information for the following purposes:

  • To allow you to have a personalized experience on our Digital Platforms.
  • To establish and maintain a responsible commercial relationship with you and to provide you with ongoing service.
  • To understand your needs and develop and recommend suitable products and services. We maintain a record of products and services you receive from us, and we may ask you for additional information, so we can serve you better.
  • To develop, enhance, market or provide products and services to you.
  • To manage and develop our business and operations, including personnel and employment matters.
  • To meet legal and regulatory requirements. For example, we may collect information to respond to a court order.

Types of Personal Information Collected

The types of personal information we collect are:

  • Email address
  • Location
  • Favourite listings
  • Recent search history
  • Personal notes and collections
  • Written recommendations

Providing this personal information is optional.

You may delete your account and associated data by visiting the Mysask411 account edit section or by contacting us to request removal.

Effective July 5, 2017 – We will delete all account information and associated data after 2 years of user inactivity.

Sharing your personal information

Personal information is not sold or rented to any parties outside of Directwest without your consent.

We do share this information with the companies we select as our business partners, and who supply services to us. However, we require them, by contract, to honour our privacy principles in the handling of personal information they obtain from us.

The information provided to our business partners is used only for that purpose and any disclosure outside of Directwest is made on a confidential basis. Should we sell a part of our business or merge or amalgamate part or all of our business with another entity, we may need to disclose customer information as part of the transaction. This is a normal business practice in any such transaction. Any such disclosure would be subject to appropriate privacy and security safeguards. In certain circumstances in which it is necessary to do so, or where permitted by law, we may disclose your personal information without your consent to the following parties:

  • The customer or an agent acting on the customer’s behalf, such as Power of Attorney;
  • Companies we select as our business partners;
  • A company that publishes a directory or directory-related services;
  • A collection agency or party used to determine creditworthiness, or for collecting unpaid balances;
  • Courts, law enforcement agencies, or otherwise legally empowered entities;
  • We may disclose personal information to meet legal or regulatory requirements, such as under a court order or, to a government institution if required or authorized by law;
  • To public authorities or their agents in cases of emergency, e.g., a 911 call;
  • Ombudsman

How we safeguard your information

The information you provide to us on our Digital Platforms is securely maintained and kept confidential. Information is retained in secure facilities and protected from unauthorized access. We provide technical, administrative, and physical security measures to protect your information against loss, misuse, and unauthorized access or disclosure.

Personal information handling principles

We’ve always been, and will continue to be, committed to the privacy of your personal information. In addition to our existing procedures and our adherence to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP), which governs our approach to handling personal information, we’ve adopted the following privacy principles from the Canadian Standards Association’s Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information:

Principle 1 - Accountability
Directwest is responsible for the personal information under our control and we’ve designated a Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) to be accountable for our compliance with the privacy principles.

Principle 2 - Identifying purposes for the collection of personal information
Directwest will identify the purpose for collecting personal information at or before the time the information is collected.

Principle 3 - Obtaining consent for the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information
Directwest requires the knowledge and consent of the customer for the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information except where it is impractical or inappropriate to do so, such as in emergency situations.

Principle 4 - Limiting collection of personal information
Directwest will limit the collection of personal information to that which is necessary for the purposes identified by the company. We will collect personal information by fair and lawful means.  Data including personal information may be stored outside of Canada.

Principle 5 - Limiting use, disclosure, and retention of personal information
Directwest will not use or disclose personal information for purposes other than those for which it was collected, except with the consent of the individual or as required by law. We retain personal information only as long as necessary for the fulfillment of those purposes.

Principle 6 - Accuracy of personal information
Personal information will be as accurate, complete, and up-to-date as is necessary for the purposes for which it is to be used.

Principle 7 - Security safeguards
Directwest will protect personal information by security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information.

Principle 8 - Openness
Directwest will make readily available, to customers and employees, specific information about its policies and procedures relating to the management of personal information.

Principle 9 - Customer and employee access to personal information
Upon request, customers and employees shall be informed of the existence, use, and disclosure of his or her personal information and shall be given access to that information. An individual shall be able to challenge the accuracy and completeness of the information and have it amended as appropriate.

Principle 10 - Challenging compliance
A customer may address a challenge concerning compliance with the above principles to the Chief Privacy Officer.

Our personnel are required to complete mandatory privacy training courses, and general staff education and training, to enhance awareness of responsibilities and commitments towards the proper handling of customer’s personal information in accordance with our policies and procedures.

What are your choices?

We’d like to have your consent to continue to collect, use and disclose your personal information for the purposes that we have outlined. However, you do have choices.

  • You can have your name removed from our telephone, mail or email marketing lists. By doing so, you may not be made aware of certain products, services and promotions we offer. However, you’ll continue to be contacted as necessary to service your account and you’ll receive marketing information included with your regular account mailings. Please allow us 30 days to complete your request. Some of our promotions may already be in progress when you submit your request, therefore you may be contacted during this time. If at any time you wish to reverse your decision, you may contact us at 1-800-667-8201.
  • You may refuse to provide personal information to us. You may also withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal, contractual, or practical restrictions and reasonable notice. However, in either case, this may limit our ability to serve you.

When you contact us, we will confirm that you are the registered customer. Please know that withdrawing your consent may prevent us from providing you with service and products in certain circumstances.

Your online privacy on our digital platforms

We collect some information about the ways you use our Digital Platforms in order to make them more interesting and useful to you. You’re welcome to browse our Digital Platforms anonymously at any time, without revealing any personal information.

There are a few activities where the collection of personally identifiable information may be necessary. When personally identifiable information is collected, you’ll know because you’ll have chosen to provide your information.

IP address

When you visit our sites, we collect your IP address so we’ll know where to send the information you are requesting. This IP address does not personally identify you.

Anonymous information

This is information that cannot be associated with a specific individual. Our web servers collect some anonymous information automatically when you visit one of our Digital Platforms. This information may include the pages you visited, what content you downloaded, the type of web browser you were using and the level of encryption your browser supports.

This information is collected on an aggregated basis. No personal information is associated with these statistics. We use this information to determine what type of information is most useful to you so that we can improve our platforms to make it easier for you to access information.

Cookies

Our sites collect aggregated site-visitation statistics using cookies, small text files containing a unique identification number that identifies your browser to our computers. This small file of information allows our sites to remember important information that will make your use of our sites more enjoyable.

Cookies tell us which pages are visited, by how many people, the average time spent, and other useful statistics relating to the use of our sites. All gathered information is captured on an anonymous basis. This information helps us to enhance the online experience of visitors to our sites. We use the statistics to understand how customers use our sites, to make it easier for you and other visitors to use, to monitor our sites’ performance, and to improve our Digital Platforms. We’ll also use information collected by cookies to target the delivery of information about our products and services that may be of interest to you.

To assist you, cookies help us remember who you are through your browser settings, while saving your passwords and preferences so you don’t have to enter them each time. In short: cookies save you time. We never combine information gathered by a cookie with personally identifiable information.

The use of cookies is an industry standard, and you’ll find that most major websites use cookies and most major browsers are set up to accept them. If you wish, you can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is sent.

You don’t need to accept cookies to visit our sites. However, should you choose not to accept these cookies, your experience on our sites (and other websites) may be diminished and some features may not work properly.

We may use third party service vendors, such as Google Adwords, to provide Directwest or Mysask411 advertisements to you on other websites based off past pages you have visited on our sites. In serving advertisements, these third party vendors use cookies to collect certain anonymous information about your visits to other websites or on Directwest websites. This information may include browser type, IP address, domain name and the name of the web page from which you entered such websites, web activity and time of day. This information is used to better understand and optimize the online advertising campaigns. You can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using Google's Ad Settings, or you can opt out of a third party vendor's use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative Opt-Out Page.

Children

The privacy of children is important to us. We encourage parents to review our Privacy Statement, Legal Notices and User Agreement documents. We ask that children do not submit any personal information to us. Our services are intended for individuals who can form legally binding contracts. We do not use our Digital Platforms to intentionally collect or use a child’s personal data.

As an added protection for children, on any of our Digital Platforms or online services directed to children under 13 years of age, we’ll obtain the permission of a parent or legal guardian before collecting, using, or disclosing any personally identifiable information about a child, e.g., for participation in contests or promotions.

Links to other websites

Our platforms may contain links to other sites that are not governed by this Privacy Statement. Please be aware that Directwest is not responsible for the privacy practices of other such sites. This policy applies solely to information collected by our Digital Platforms.

Please note that when you click on one of these links, you’re moving to another website. It’s important for you to read the privacy statement and terms of use for each site you visit to ensure you’re comfortable with how they might use your personal information. We give you links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement, investigation, verification or approval of such websites, products, services or publications by Directwest.

Questions or concerns

We welcome your comments about this Privacy Statement. Please contact us at 1-800-667-8201 if you have questions about privacy and usage that weren't answered here. Or you may address these concerns, in writing, to:

Chief Privacy Officer
Directwest
355 Longman Crescent
Regina, SK S4N 6G3
email: dw@directwest.com

If this doesn't resolve your concern to your satisfaction, you may contact the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner by writing to:

Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner
#503 - 1801 Hamilton St.
Regina, SK  S4P 4B4

Last Modified: June 4, 2019