Privacy Policy

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it. This privacy policy explains our policies and practices regarding customer information, including why we collect customer information, how we use and safeguard it, and how you can contact us to access your customer information or if you have any questions or concerns about our privacy practices. Please take the time to read this privacy policy.

Table of Contents
              Information about Volvo Cars of Canada Corp.
              How to Contact Us and Concern Resolution
              Why We Collect and How We Use Customer Information
              Types of Customer Information We Collect and Use
              How We Collect Customer Information
              How We Collect Information on our Website
              How We Share Customer Information with Volvo Car Financial Services Canada, your Retailer and Our Agents
              How You Can Opt Out of Further Marketing Communications
              Security and Accuracy of Customer Information
              Access to and Rectification of Your Personal Information
              Effective Date and Revisions

Information about Volvo Cars of Canada Corp.
Volvo Cars of Canada Corp. (Volvo) is an importer and distributor of vehicles, automotive accessories and aftermarket automotive parts and service products. This privacy policy applies to our brand and it's associated products, On Call and Express Service. Our automotive products are distributed to you through our network of Volvo retailers, independently owned and operated businesses which may have their own privacy policies and procedures. Our affiliated company, Volvo Car Financial Services Canada (VCFSC), a division of Primus Automotive Financial Services Canada Company, provides vehicle financing and related financial products and services. Please contact VCFSC at its Customer Service Centre, 1-888-545-2520, or by e-mail at vfcinfo@volvofinancial.ca for more information about VCFSC and its privacy policy.

How to Contact Us and Concern Resolution:
If you have any questions, comments, concerns or complaints about privacy and the handling of your personal information, please contact us at our Customer Relations Department (CRD), 1-800-663-8255. We are committed to working with you to obtain a fair and rapid resolution of any complaints or disputes about privacy and the handling of your personal information and are happy to respond to your questions and comments. If after contacting our CRD you still have unresolved concerns with respect to our handling of your personal information, please write to our Privacy Officer:

  Volvo Cars of Canada Corp.
  175 Gordon Baker Road
   North York, Ontario, Canada
   M2H 2N7
   Attention: Privacy Officer

If you have completed the above process and we have been unable to resolve your concern, you may file a complaint with the federal Privacy Commissioner of Canada or the appropriate provincial privacy officer. For more information, please go to http://www.privcom.gc.ca.

Why We Collect and How We Use Customer Information:
Volvo collects, stores and uses information about you for the following reasons:

  • to establish, maintain and improve our customer relationship with you and provide you with offers, incentives, marketing programs or promotional material about us and our automotive products and services, such as coupons, brochures and newsletters
  • to more effectively market to you our vehicles, vehicle parts, accessories and services by better understanding your automotive product and service needs and preferences
  • to assist in administering your vehicle purchase, lease, warranty, any extended service plan, roadside assistance, or ongoing vehicle service, including advising you of any product recalls or customer notifications with respect to your vehicle, arranging for Volvo retailers to obtain required vehicles and parts on a timely basis to meet your needs, and through our CRD working to resolve your concerns
  • to improve the automotive products and services we offer through customer surveys conducted by us and participation in market research studies conducted by third parties
  • to provide you with services you request and respond to your comments, concerns or requests for information, through our website, www.volvocanada.com such as requests for product brochures, or through our CRD, including identifying you and establishing your ownership of the vehicle or contacting you if required
  • to assist our retailers to meet your automotive product and services needs such as providing you with offers, service reminders, marketing programs or promotional materials and assistance where you need to export or import your vehicle
  • to provide you with offers and information about related automotive products offered by others which we think may be of interest to you
  • to meet our legal obligations, assist in law enforcement purposes, and protect the business interests of Volvo and our customers.

Vehicle Data Recorders
Service data recorders in your vehicle are capable of collecting and storing diagnostic information about your vehicle. This potentially includes information about the performance or status of various systems and modules in the vehicle, such as engine, throttle, steering or brake systems. In order to properly diagnose and service your vehicle, both we and service and repair facilities may access vehicle diagnostic information through a direct connection to your vehicle when diagnosing or servicing your vehicle.
Other modules in your vehicle, event data recorders (EDR), are capable of collecting and storing data during a crash or near crash event. The recorded information may assist in the investigation of such an event. The modules may record information about both the vehicle and the occupants, potentially including information such as:

  • how various systems in your vehicle were operating;
  • whether or not the driver and passenger seatbelts were buckled;
  • how far (if at all) the driver was depressing the accelerator and/or the brake pedal;
  • how fast the vehicle was traveling; and
  • where the driver was positioning the steering wheel.

To access EDR information, special equipment must be directly connected to the recording modules. We do not access EDR information without obtaining consent, unless pursuant to court order or where required by law enforcement, other government authorities or other third parties acting with lawful authority. Other parties may seek to access the information independently of us.
Personal information is retained as long as required to fulfill these purposes. We have established retention policies and procedures to ensure that when the retention period expires, your personal information will be removed from our systems and destroyed in a secure manner.

Types of Customer Information We Collect and Use:
We collect the following types of customer information about you or relating to your automotive sales or service experience for the purposes set out above:

  • information which enables us to identify and communicate with you including name, address, phone number, e-mail address, language preference, and title
  • information which enables us to offer you products which better meet your needs including demographic such as birth date, education level, occupation, marital and family status, purchase preferences and interests
  • information about your vehicle ownership including VIN, license plate number, applicable vehicle incentives, new or used, lease or purchase, any trade-in, odometer reading, make, model, model year and vehicle details, recalls, and customer notification programs, your selected retailer, and whether you have disposed of a Volvo
  • information about your vehicle service, including warranty and paid repair data, your selected retailer and extended service plan or roadside assistance for your vehicle
  • information you provide us about you and your purchase, lease or service experience and competitive vehicle ownership or purchase intentions through our Customer Satisfaction survey, our website, www.volvocanada.com contests, test drives or other promotions or incentives, or through our CRD
  • financial and credit information about you shared with us by VCFSC when you have provided your consent


How We Collect Customer Information:
Directly From You
We obtain information directly from you such as when you complete our surveys, participate in a contest, test drive, focus group or other promotion, campaign or event, purchase roadside assistance or extended service plan or contact our CRD. We may also obtain information directly from you through our website.

From Our Retailers
When you acquire a new or Certified Pre-Owned vehicle from our retailers, the retailer provides us with the following information about you and your vehicle to enable us to administer your purchase:

  • your name, address, telephone number, email address and language preference
  • VIN and vehicle details, odometer reading, sale date, warranty start date
  • Lease or purchase and applicable incentive information
  • Any trade in VIN and odometer reading
  • Extended service plan coverage

When you service your vehicle at our retailers, your retailer may also provide us with information regarding your service experience including your name, contact information, VIN, service date, and transactional information such as repair type, completion date, and odometer reading.
If you do not want us to use this information to contact you for sales or marketing purposes or to request you complete a survey with respect to your experience and would like to limit our use of this information solely to administration of your vehicle purchase or service, warranty, extended service plan, roadside assistance and resolving your concerns, please contact our CRD at 1-800-663-8255.

From Volvo Car Financial Services Canada
When you buy or lease a vehicle from VCFSC, where you have provided your consent, VCFSC provides us with your contact information and information about your finance or lease contract so that we may offer you automotive or financial services products that may be of interest to you. Please contact VCFSC at its Customer Service Centre, 1-888-545-2520, if you no longer wish us to receive any personal information from VCFSC about you.

From Other Parties
We may purchase or acquire a list of names and addresses, which may include your name and address where you have given your consent, from list vendors to send promotions or product information to the names on the list. We also have relationships with third parties with whom we conduct joint marketing activities such as contests through which we may obtain your name and address and other information about you with your consent. These activities clearly identify the other parties involved and provide information about their privacy practices. Any such other parties are bound by their privacy policy, not ours.
To ensure our database addresses remain accurate, we also obtain address information from third party licensed data providers for National Change of Address and other authorized parties.

How We Collect Information on Our Website:
When you visit our website, we do not collect any personally identifiable information about you unless you provide it to us. All the information on our site is available for you to review without providing us with any personal information. If you do not agree with our privacy policy, please do not provide us with any personal information through our website.

Nonpersonally Identifiable Information:
Through our website, we collect nonpersonally identifiable information. This means that we do not track this information on an individual basis that identifies you but rather collect this information on an aggregate basis that includes all site visitors. Your visit automatically generates session log data consisting of the Internet Protocol (IP) address from which you came (which contains no personal information), the website that referred you, the pages you visited, the date and time of those visits, the amount of time spent on our site, and the vehicles you configure and store. We use this information to perform analytics on users' experience while using the site and to improve the functionality of our website to better meet user wants and needs, identify popular features, and measure site activity including peak site usage times, page visits and click throughs. We may share these site metrics which are not personal information with our affiliated companies, service providers and others.

Cookies, Web Beacons and Advertisements
Our website uses "cookies", web beacons/GIF/pixel tags, third-party advertising networks that serve ads and other tracking technologies to collect aggregate or other nonpersonally identifiable information to develop website metrics and improve your online experience.
Our website may use session and/or persistent cookies to track user movement or other events across the website and the website of related companies and business partners. A "cookie" is a small text file that helps us in many ways to make your visit to our website more enjoyable. There are a couple of different types of cookies. A session cookie is stored only on your computer's working memory (RAM) and only lasts for your browsing session. When you close all your browser's windows or shut down your computer, the session cookie disappears forever. A persistent cookie is stored on your computer's hard drive until a specified date which could be tomorrow, next week, or ten years from now. Persistent cookies stay on your computer until either they expire, they are overwritten by new cookies, or you manually remove them. Most browsers can be configured not to accept cookies, however, this may prevent you from having access to some site functions or features.
This site may use web beacons/GIF/pixel tags to help us determine site metrics such as if a page has been viewed and how many times. In general, any electronic image viewed as part of a web page, including an ad banner, can act as a web beacon. When you ask us to send you information on a product or a newsletter, we may also use web beacons to establish how many of the emails are actually opened.
You may also be directed to our site through banner ads or site links. Banner ads or site links that are placed by us use cookies or web beacons to deliver metrics on the effectiveness of the ads or links but do not collect any personally identifiable information.

Collection and Use of Personally Identifiable Information on our Website
There are instances where Ford requests personally identifiable information to allow access to certain restricted areas of the media site or to provide you with a service. This information, such as name, mailing address, email address and possibly additional information, is collected and stored in a manner appropriate to the nature of the data by Ford and is used to fulfill your request.
The information you provide is used by Ford to improve the services we provide you. Only your name and company affiliation will be used when we generate usage reports. It is never provided to any other company for that company's independent use.
If you tell us that the information should not be used as a basis for further contact, we will respect your request. Simply send an email to chadheard@rogers.com or call 416.540.4229 to request de-activation of your account.
Please remember that if you disclose personally identifiable information through a chat room or message board or other public online forum, this information may be collected and used by others.

Links to other Websites
Our website may contain links to other websites. We encourage you to review the privacy statements of all sites which you visit, including those whose links are provided, so that you can understand how those sites collect, use and share your information. We are not responsible for the privacy statements, content or data handling practices on other websites.

Electronic Mail Sent to Us that Contains Personal Information
You may decide to send to us personally identifying information in an email, for example in a message about your Volvo product or service. We will only use this personal information to identify you as a customer and to determine how to respond to your email and try to resolve the matter identified in the email.

How We Share Customer Information with Volvo Financial Services Canada, your Retailer and our Agents:
We do not share, sell or rent your personal information to third parties for their own use without your consent. We require our vendors, contractors and agents who have access to your personal information in connection with its processing or use for us to keep the information confidential and they are not permitted to use your personal information for any other purpose than to carry out the services they are performing for us. To improve our products and services, we share your name, contact information and vehicle details with third parties who contact you to conduct market research studies on our behalf and are contractually bound to only use your personal information for that purpose.
We share with your Volvo retailer personal information that you have previously provided to your retailer, updated for accuracy, if we have more accurate information from you or a third party licensed data provider for National Change of Address, and with your consent, information that you provide to our CRD in order to assist you to resolve any issues or concerns you may have. The retailer is not restricted by us in the further use of your personal information.
We may also disclose your personal information where we are required or permitted by law to do so. In such a case, we will release personal information only to the extent required.

How You Can Opt Out of Further Marketing Communications:
Where we have an existing business relationship with you or where you have provided your information to us, unless you advise us otherwise, your information may be used for marketing and promotional purposes by us. You may decide that you do not want us to send you any further marketing or promotional communications or share your personal information with VCFSC or your retailer. If this is the case, please contact our CRD at 1-800-663-8255. You may notify us at any time and your direction will be effective within 30 days. You may, however, no longer receive some offers or information of value to you. It is important for you to know that even if you choose to withdraw your consent, we will continue to use and disclose your personal information to meet legal and contractual obligations such as honour your warranty and send you recall notifications.

Security and Accuracy of Customer Information:
Safeguarding your personal information is important to us. We use systems, policies and procedures to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, theft or alteration. Customer information is only accessible by appropriate personnel who have a business need for this information. We provide training to educate our personnel about the meaning and requirements of this privacy policy. When you send personal information to our website, we use "Secure Socket Layers" (SSL) to protect your data. SSL is encryption technology that helps safeguard your personal information against misuse by unauthorized individuals.
We make reasonable efforts to keep your information up to date and accurate such as by using third party licensed data providers for National Change of Address and by updating our records with more current and accurate records from your retailer or VCFSC. We encourage you, however, to contact our CRD at 1-800-663-8255 as often as necessary to keep your name, address and vehicle ownership information up to date.

Access to and Rectification of Your Personal Information
You may contact our CRD at 1-800-663-8255 to review, correct or update certain of your personal information which is easily accessible to our customer consultants at the CRD. The information which may be accessible to our customer consultants includes your name, address, current or past Volvo vehicle ownership, vehicle information such as recalls, and previous contacts to the CRD.
If you wish us to undertake a more comprehensive search of our files, you may notify us in writing at:

   Volvo Cars of Canada Corp.
   175 Gordon Baker Road
    North York, Ontario, Canada
    M2H 2N7
    Attention: Privacy Officer

You will be asked for sufficient personal information for us to verify your identity and the details about the personal information you are interested in prior to us processing your request. There may be a charge for providing this information in which case you will be notified in advance and may withdraw your request or challenge the reasonableness of the charge. We will also be unable to provide you with information which is exempt from disclosure such as personal information about another person, privileged information or confidential commercial information.

Effective Data and Revisions
This Privacy Policy is effective January 1, 2004. Occasionally we may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our privacy practices. If we update this statement, the new statement will be posted to the website ten days prior to the changes taking effect. You may determine when this policy was last updated by referring to the modification date at the bottom of the policy.