Privacy Policy for Canadian Customers

Privacy Policy – Canada (Floor Coverings International)

Last Updated: November 26, 2024

This Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy” or “Policy”) explains how Floor Coverings International (“we,” or “us,” or “our”) collects your personal information based on your interactions with us online and offline, including on our websites, application forms, forums, blogs, and other online offerings (collectively the “Sites”), as well as when we provide services or offer products online or offline (collectively, the “Services”). This Policy applies to our collection, use, disclosure, retention, and other processing of personal information and describes rights you may have with respect to your personal information. By using our Sites and otherwise interacting with us, you agree to the terms of our Terms of Use, including this Policy.

This Policy does not cover the personal information we collect about employees or independent contractors.

Personal Information We Collect and How We Use It

We collect certain categories of personal information from you in the course of providing our Services, when you apply for a job with us, or during related business interactions. Depending on the circumstances (as further described below), those categories of personal information may include the following:

When you interact with our Sites, in accordance with our cookie consent management solution, we will collect basic browsing information (such as your device and browser type, your browsing and search history on our Sites, and information regarding your interaction with our Sites and our advertisements) to evaluate our full funnel digital marketing approach.

When you enter your information on our Sites or contact the local franchisee or call center, we routinely collect your first and last name, email address, address of the property for which our Services are requested or provided, your home and/or billing address, telephone numbers, and any other basic contact information we may need in order to provide our Services. In addition, both inbound and outbound calls may be recorded for quality and training purposes. The information you provide us with enables us to maintain communication with you periodically, furnish details about our business operations, offer customer support, deliver advertisements, marketing promotions, and offers about products or Services that may interest you, including those of our affiliates. Additionally, we utilize this information to assess the placement and effectiveness of our advertisements and other marketing endeavors.

During visits to your home, we may capture photos, videos and floorplan information from you in order to ensure the smooth delivery of our Services to you. If you choose to take advantage of one of our financing options, we will securely collect certain financial and other sensitive information from you as may required (e.g., Social Insurance Number, records of products or services ordered or considered, payment information, and bank account and income-related information).

If you express interest in becoming a franchisee, we will capture all required contact information (e.g., your first and last name, address, phone, email, resume, etc.) in order to proceed in doing business with you. If, after a basic discovery phase, both sides wish to continue on the path of possible franchise ownership, we will request that you submit a detailed application which will include certain financial information (e.g., information about your assets, income, property and business ownership interests, and other financial information you provide to us), employment, legal and educational history, and other employment-related information. We may use third-party service providers during this process to help us determine your eligibility for same.

If you apply for a job with Floor Coverings International or one of our locally-owned franchise locations, we will collect your first and last name, contact information (e.g., email and home address, telephone number), resume, and work and educational history. You will be asked to complete certain employment-related evaluations (e.g. Caliper test) designed to identify your potential fit with our organizational. To the extent you are hired as an employee with us following this process, additional personal information related to your employment relationship will subsequently collected and processed.

We also use your personal information to monitor and enhance our Sites; conduct internal business analysis, prevent fraud, activities that contravene our Terms of Service, or are unlawful, and safeguard our rights, as well as the rights and safety of our users or others. For those who interact with us in a commercial capacity, we use your personal information to engage in business transactions with the entity you represent and market to or engage in due diligence with the entities you represent.

Notice at Collection – Categories of Personal Information We Sell or Share and Related Information

When we engage in digital advertising, we may sell (according to the rather broad definition of the word “sell” under certain privacy laws) information relating to your electronic activity such as your IP address or we may share such information for the purposes of cross-context behavioral advertising.

These categories of personal information are sold to or shared for cross-context behavioral advertising to third parties such as advertising networks and other companies that facilitate digital advertising. We engage in such sharing to facilitate digital advertising that is able to reach people that are most likely to be interested in the Services we provide. We do so by allowing third parties to place cookies or other trackers on our Sites that may collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites or applications. These parties may then use the information they collect to provide you with personalized content and present you with third party products or services in which you may be interested. For more information about the use of cookies and trackers, see the section “Our Use of Cookies and Analytics” below.

We also sell the following categories of personal information to our affiliates, most of which are in the home improvement business, so they can offer products and services that may be of interest to you: name, email address, physical address, and commercial information such as purchasing history information.

We do not sell or share for cross-context behavioral advertising any of the other categories of personal information we collect.

Right to Opt-Out of the Sale of your Personal Information: You can tell us not to “sell” your personal information or use your personal information for targeted advertising according to applicable law. To opt out of sales and sharing of personal information, click here: Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information/Targeted Advertising Opt Out. When you submit a request, we will usually ask you to provide certain information such as an email address to verify your identity and prevent fraud.

Notice at Collection – Retention Periods

We retain the categories of personal information we collect for the length of time necessary to provide our Services (including any warranty services) and to comply with legal obligations or to protect our legal rights. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of such data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of such data, the purposes for which we process it, and the applicable legal requirements.

Categories of Sources From Which We Collect Personal Information

We collect personal information directly from our customers, Site users, and representatives of entities with which we do business or may do business, data aggregators and data brokers.

We also collect personal information from franchisee applicants, franchises, and referrals provided about franchisee applicants.

Use or Disclosure of Sensitive Personal Information

We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information to create profiles about individuals or for any purposes other than providing our Services.

Disclosure for SMS Communications

Should you provide consent, we may use your mobile phone number to reach out to you via text messages regarding the Site. These communications encompass, but are not limited to, updates on orders you place, notifications about marketing promotions, communication concerning rewards or loyalty programs, and other related matters. By opting in to such communications, you may expect to receive between 1 and 10 text messages per week from us or our franchisees, with the volume contingent upon the frequency of your orders. Please note that standard text messaging and data rates may apply. If you have any inquiries or apprehensions regarding our SMS communications, you may email us at support@fciit.com.

Moreover, should you choose to opt out of receiving SMS communications, you may do so at any time by replying “STOP” to the text messages received from us and/or our third-party partners or click here https://preferences.floorcoveringsinternational.com/optout

Disclosure of Personal Information For Business Purposes in the Past 12 Months

The following describes the categories of personal information that we disclose to our service providers and other third parties in the course of providing our Services:

Business Purposes for Such Disclosures

We disclosed the aforementioned categories of personal information for the following purposes: to provide our Services; manage customer, supplier and vendor accounts and relationships; process payments; verify customers’ identities; fulfill orders and transactions; engage in advertising and marketing of our Services and those of our affiliates; operate our IT systems and secure our systems; prevent fraud and other illegal activities; obtain professional advice about legal and accounting matters; evaluate and manage franchise applicants and owners.

Additional Information About How We May Disclose Personal Information and Purposes for Disclosures

We may also disclose your personal information as required or permitted by applicable laws under certain circumstances:

• In order to comply with and/or enforce our legal rights and obligations: We and our Canadian service providers may provide your personal information in response to a search warrant or similar legally-valid inquiry, process or order, or to another organization for the purposes of investigating a breach of an agreement or contravention of law; detecting, suppressing or preventing fraud; or as otherwise may be required or permitted by applicable Canadian or other law or legal process, which may include lawful access by US or other foreign courts, law enforcement or other governmentor regulatory authorities. Your personal information may also be disclosed where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims and to investigate the actual or suspected loss or harm to persons or property.
• To detect fraud and respond to other emergencies: We may also disclose your personal information to third parties to help detect and protect against fraud, to respond to an emergency or to data security vulnerabilities, or to protect the rights, property, safety or security of our business, third-parties, or the public.
• In the context of an actual or potential sale, merger, reorganization, or bankruptcy: We may disclose and transfer your personal information to a subsequent owner, co-owner, or operator of Floor Coverings International, or in connection with a merger, consolidation, restructuring, the sale of all or substantially all of our interests and/or assets (i.e. a bankruptcy proceeding), or other corporate change. We will notify you with any choices you may have regarding your personal information when we are engaged in a merger, bankruptcy or corporate restructuring.

 

Our Use of Cookies and Analytics

We and our third-party service providers may use cookies, pixel tags, web beacons and other similar tracking technologies (“tracking technologies”) to automatically collect information through the Services. Tracking technologies are essentially small data files placed on your computer, tablet, mobile phone, or other devices that allow us to record certain pieces of information whenever you visit or interact with our Sites and Services. We may use these tracking technologies to help identify irregular behavior, prevent fraudulent activity and improve security and our Site, as well as making it possible for you to save your preferences and help us understand how you interact with our Site.

We also allow third parties, such as Google and Meta, to use tracking technologies on our Sites for analytics and advertising purposes. They assist in helping display advertisements, tailor advertisements to your interests and to assist in determining if you require assistance or are having problems navigating on our Sites. Some of these third parties use the tracking technologies to collect information about how you interact with other websites and advertisements across the Internet in order to provide advertising that is tailored to your interests and which may appear on our Sites or on other websites or platforms.

You may set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie. Many web browsers also allow you to block cookies. You can disable cookies from your computer system by following the instructions on your browser or at www.youradchoices.ca/choices/ . However, please note that if you do so, you may not be able to use some of the features of our Site.

We use Google Analytics to evaluate the use of our Sites. Google Analytics uses cookies and other identifiers to collect information, such as how often users visit a Site, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other websites they visited prior to visiting our Site. For information about Google’s privacy practices, please refer to the Google Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US#infocollect.

You can also manage your privacy preferences with respect to Google by using the unsubscribe functionality within its platform. If you would like to opt-out of Google’s ad settings, please go to https://www.google.com/settings/ads or use the Google opt out browser add-on located at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Personal Information of Minors

Our products and Services are not directed to minors under the age of 18 and we do not knowingly sell or share for purposes of behavioral advertising the personal information of minors, including minors under 16 years of age.

Do Not Track Signals

Do Not Track (“DNT”) is a privacy preference that users can set in certain web browsers. Please note that we do not respond to or honor DNT signals. We observe the Global Privacy Control signal.

Third Party Websites and Social Media Buttons

Our Sites may contain links to third party websites, including social media buttons that link to social media platforms. This Policy does not govern how those third parties or social media platforms collect or use personal information and we do not endorse or have control over their practices. The privacy policies and terms of use for those third parties’ websites/apps or social media platforms govern those companies’ privacy practices, which we encourage you to carefully review. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of any third-party websites or platforms.

How We Keep Your Personal Information Secure

We implement and maintain reasonable security safeguards appropriate to the nature and sensitivity of the personal information that we collect, use, retain, transfer or otherwise process. However, there is no perfect security, and reasonable security is a process that involves risk management rather than risk elimination. While we are committed to maintaining a reasonable information security program, no such program can be perfect; in other words, all risk cannot reasonably be eliminated. Data security incidents and breaches can occur due to factors that cannot reasonably be prevented. Accordingly, it cannot be assumed that the occurrence of any given incident or breach results from our failure to implement and maintain reasonable security.

Accessing Your Personal Information

Under Canadian privacy law, you have the right to request access to any personal information Floor Coverings International has in its custody or control, and to request updating and/or correction to same.

Subject to certain exceptions and restrictions prescribed by law, you will be given reasonable access to your personal information and will be entitled to challenge the accuracy and completeness of that information and, to the extent that you have proven such inaccuracy or incompleteness, have it amended as appropriate. Examples of such exceptions include, but are not limited to: information that is prohibitively costly to provide, information that contains the personal information of other individuals, information that cannot be disclosed for legal, security or commercial proprietary reasons, and information that is subject to solicitor-client or litigation privilege.

To request access your personal information, please contact us at the contact information noted below, or use the link here.

Updating the Accuracy of Your Personal Information

You can help us maintain the accuracy of your personal information by notifying us of any changes to your personal information at the contact information set out below. If we hold information about you and you advise us that it is not accurate, complete and up-to-date, we will take reasonable steps to correct it.

Being Denied Access to Your Personal Information

Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute. We may deny access in a number of circumstances in accordance with applicable law, which include but are not limited to:

• denial of access is required or authorized by law;
• granting you access would have an unreasonable impact on another individual’s privacy;
• for the purposes of protecting our rights and property; and
• in the context of frivolous or vexatious requests.

 

If we deny your request for access to your personal information, or refuse a request to correct information, we will explain why.

Changes to This Policy

We will review and update this Policy from time to time. If changes are made, we will update the Privacy Policy and reflect the date of such modification in the date above. If the changes are material, you will be notified via email or a notice on our Site.

Accessibility

We are committed to ensuring that our communications are accessible to people with disabilities. To make accessibility-related requests or report barriers, please contact us at privacyrequest@floorcoveringsinternational.com

Contact Us

If there are any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, to request a copy of this Privacy Policy in another format, or the manner in which we or our third-party service providers process your personal information, you may contact us at privacyrequest@floorcoveringsinternational.com or 833-403-6024.