Vehicle Sales Authority of BC

Protecting Privacy

 

The VSA is committed to protecting your privacy and personal information. We do this through responsible privacy management. We collect, use, disclose and dispose of personal information in accordance with our privacy management policies and the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the Motor Dealer Act, provisions of the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act and other legislation.

What is personal information?

Personal information is recorded information about an identifiable individual. Personal information can include an individual’s name, address, birthdate, email and phone numbers. When we collect personal information, we are to advise you:

• why it is being collected
• our authority to collect it, and
• the contact information of a person in the Authority who can answer questions about our collection of the information.

What is not personal information?

Contact information is not protected under the legislation from collection, use, or disclosure. Contact information is information that allows someone to be identified at their place of work including their name, title, work address, work email and work phone numbers.

Using Personal Information

We use personal information as part of our administration and enforcement of the Motor Dealer Act and certain provisions of the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act and their regulations. We use personal information we collect for the purposes identified to you or a consistent purpose as allowed by the legislation. We directly collect information by various methods including online and paper forms, emails and surveys. We use this information to:

• assess applicants for suitability to be licensed or registered,
• review licensee or registrant conduct,
• investigate complaints and unlicensed activity,
• process and investigate applications to the Motor Dealer Customer Compensation Fund,
• take appropriate administrative action including hearings before the Registrar, and
• undertake studies and surveys.

Retaining Personal Information

The length of time we retain personal information depends on its nature and use. Factors that determine the length of time information is kept include (a) continuing relationships, (b) necessary for future legal proceedings, (c) statistical purposes, (d) archival purposes, and (e) any legislated retention requirements.

Disclosing Information

We do not sell personal information that we collect. We may need to disclose personal information:

• to a licensee or registrant to investigate a complaint against the licensee or registrant, to ensure fairness in the process,
• to other law enforcement agencies or organizations to complete an investigation or review an application to the Motor Dealer Customer Compensation Fund,
• at hearings before the Registrar of Motor Dealers which by law are open to the public,
• within decisions of the Registrar of Motor Dealers published on the VSA’s website, and
• where compelled by law to disclose the information.

Access to Personal Information

You may request access to your personal information under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Please make a request by completing this form and send it by email, fax or by regular mail. Contact information is noted below.

Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)

The VSA does not send out electronic commercial messages or marketing materials to solicit business. The VSA is a not-for-profit Society administering legislation on behalf of the B.C. Government. Our external communications are for industry regulation and consumer awareness initiatives and do not constitute electronic commercial messaging.

Visiting the VSA website – Cookies

A cookie is a small file containing certain pieces of information that a website creates when you visit the site. It can track how and when you use a site, which site you visited immediately before, and it can store that information about you. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. There are two types of cookies, session cookies and persistent cookies. Our website may use session cookies which are stored in temporary memory and are not retained after you sign out or close the browser session.

For example, we use cookies to support our visitors by helping their browser to remember form selections during a browsing session. Likewise, through the third-party tool and plugin Google Analytics, we can reference anonymous, non-persistent data to understand broad traffic patterns about our visitors allowing us to better refine our site to our client’s needs.

Additionally, to protect our visitors, our security platform and web hosting company may alert us to unusual, abusive or actively malicious behavior tied to a specific IP address or region. To safe guard all visitors, traffic deemed malicious may then be permanently or temporarily blocked from visiting the site.

Other website links

There are links to other websites on the VSA website. The VSA’s privacy statement applies only to the VSA website and no other websites.

Who to contact

Privacy Officer
Vehicle Sales Authority of British Columbia
280 – 8029 199^th Street, Langley, B.C. V2Y 0E2

privacy@mvsabc.com

 

If you have further questions about B.C. privacy legislation or concerns about the VSA’s privacy management, you can contact the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia.

Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner for BC
P.O. Box 9038, Stn. Prov. Govt.
Victoria, BC V8W 9A4

Toll Free: 1-800-663-7867

Deputy Commissioner: 250-387-5629

info@oipc.bc.ca

*page last updated March 26, 2018