The Bank of Canada (the “Bank”) is committed to respecting the personal privacy of individuals on whose behalf the Bank of Canada may hold unclaimed properties. All Personal Information held or collected by the Bank of Canada is managed in accordance with the requirements of the Privacy Act.

In this Privacy Notice, “Personal Information” has the same meaning as found in the Privacy Act and means “information about an identifiable individual that is recorded in any form”.

Personal Information is obtained by the Bank of Canada, which acts as custodian of unclaimed properties on behalf of the owners after the properties have been transferred from federally regulated financial institutions and trust companies when there has been no owner activity in relation to the account for a period of 10 years or more.

The Bank uses the information to respond to inquiries from individuals, companies, or their authorized legal representatives regarding an unclaimed property and to return the unclaimed property to the person entitled to receive payment of it.

To help individuals find properties that may be owed to them, certain details are maintained in a registry by the Bank which is searchable via our website. In this context, the disclosure of personal information is permitted under the Privacy Act, because doing so clearly benefits the individual to whom the information belongs, and public interest clearly outweighs any privacy concerns that could result from the disclosure. Once a property is claimed and paid, it is removed from the registry and is no longer searchable on the Bank’s website.

Other than as described in this section, your Personal Information is not shared with anyone except within the Bank, or service providers. Such sharing is done in order to communicate with you (e.g., provide you with information) and respond to your requests.

The Bank uses a third-party service provider who hosts the unclaimed properties registry. The service provider, pursuant to its service agreement with the Bank, is obligated to maintain appropriate security to protect your Personal Information and ensure its retention in Canada. (For further information, see “Security” below.)

The Bank reserves the right to use other service providers in connection with the operation of the program and related services and will do so in accordance with the requirements of applicable law and of the Privacy Act.

There may be circumstances where the use and/or disclosure of Personal Information by the Bank may be justified or permitted or where the Bank is obliged to disclose information without consent. In such circumstances, the Bank will not disclose more information than is required and only in accordance with the requirements of applicable law and of the Privacy Act.

The Bank does not otherwise share, disclose, sell, trade, barter or exchange any Personal Information it has obtained.

The Bank endeavours to ensure that any Personal Information in its possession is as accurate, current and complete as necessary for the purposes for which the Bank uses that data. Information contained in files that have been closed is not actively updated or maintained.

The Bank retains Personal Information as long as the Bank believes it is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected. The Bank has internal policies and procedures for the retention and subsequent disposition of Personal Information. Any disposition of information in records under the control of the Bank is subject to requirements imposed pursuant to the Library and Archives of Canada Act.

The Bank is committed to ensuring the security of the Personal Information entrusted to it in a manner consistent with the requirements of the Privacy Act and applicable Government of Canada security-related policies.

The third-party service providers are required to maintain adequate physical, procedural and technical security, in a manner consistent with the Bank’s own security requirements, so as to minimize to the extent possible any loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, or modification of your Personal Information.

Access to Personal Information by employees of the Bank or any service provider will occur only where the Bank determines there is a need for that employee or service provider to know that information in order to maintain the registry or to provide services to you.

Canadian citizens or permanent residents may request access to their personal records held by the Bank, provided such information is under the Bank’s control and can be provided. The Bank will provide advice on how to access your information and how to file complaints should you believe it necessary to approach the Privacy Commissioner. The Bank also prepares an annual report to Parliament, at the end of each fiscal year, outlining the volume of requests received and how the Bank has responded to those requests.

Pursuant to requirements under the Privacy Act, all information collected is described in Personal Information Banks. If you are interested in further information about these Personal Information Banks, please refer to the Bank of Canada’s chapter in InfoSource Publication.

Questions or comments regarding this Privacy Notice, or the administration of the Privacy Act may be directed to the Bank’s Access to Information and Privacy Office. If you are not satisfied with our response to your privacy concerns, you may contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

This Notice is in effect as of June 2022. You may wish to review this Notice periodically because the Bank will from time-to-time review and revise its privacy practices and this Notice. Any amendment of this Notice will be posted on this Site. Policy changes will apply to all information held by the Bank - whether collected prior to or after the date of posting of the revised Notice to this Site.

The Bank of Canada is committed to providing visitors with a website that respects their privacy. Important information about our data gathering and dissemination practices follows:

Web servers automatically collect information about visits to a website, including the visitor’s Internet Protocol (IP) address. IP addresses are unique numbers assigned to all devices used to access the Internet. The IP address, on its own, does not identify an individual. However, in certain circumstances, such as with the co-operation of an ISP for example, it could be used to identify an individual using the site. For this reason, the Bank considers the IP address to be personal information.

The Bank of Canada employs software programs that monitor network traffic and detect unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. These programs record the IP addresses of computers that visit this site. They also record the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, and the browsers and operating systems used by visitors. We do not attempt to link this information to the identities of individual users, unless an attempt to damage the site has been detected.

IP addresses of visitors may, on occasion, be anonymized and used by the Bank to produce statistical reports to allow us to evaluate the geographical origin of visitors to the Bank’s site.

As well, if a claim is submitted through the Claimant Online Services, the user’s IP address will thereafter be associated with that claim.

Visitor IP addresses are also recorded by the Google Analytics software installed on the Bank website.

The Bank of Canada website puts small files (known as ‘cookies’) onto your computer to collect information about how you browse the site.

Cookies are used to:

• measure how you use the website so it can be updated and improved based on your needs
• remember preferences you’ve chosen, such as language
• remember the notifications you’ve seen so that we don’t show them to you again

Bank of Canada cookies aren’t used to identify you personally, or to track your behavior on other sites.

We use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use the website. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements.

Google Analytics stores information about:

• the pages you visit on our website, and how long you spend on each page
• how you got to the site
• what you click on while you’re visiting the site
• how often you visit a given page or pages

Google Analytics doesn’t collect or store your personal information (e.g., your name or address.)

We don’t allow Google to use or share our analytics data.

Information collected by Google Analytics is stored on Google servers in the United States and may be subject to the governing legislation in that country (for example, the USA Patriot Act). Your IP address is anonymized prior to being stored on Googles' servers in order to help safeguard your privacy.

If you do not wish to have your information shared with the Analytics software, Google makes available a “plug-in” for users of the Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome browsers which prevents your browser from sharing any information with the Analytics software. You may download and install the “plug-in” here: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Occasionally the Bank of Canada conducts online surveys, some of which are managed on the Bank’s behalf by a third party. The third party uses cookies to identify unique visitors, to provide per-user customization, and to make the site easier to use. It does not share its cookies, or use them to track your behavior on other sites.

The Bank of Canada’s use of social media serves as an extension of its presence on the Web. Social media accounts are public and are not hosted on the Bank’s servers. Users who choose to interact with the Bank via social media should read the terms of service and privacy policies of these third-party service providers and those of any applications you use to access them. The Bank participates in three social media services:

• Twitter (privacy policy)
• YouTube (privacy policy)
• Flickr (privacy policy)

This site contains links to other sites. The Bank of Canada is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites.

Questions or comments regarding this statement, or the administration of the Privacy Act at the Bank of Canada, may be directed to Access to Information and Privacy Office:

Phone: 613 782-7669

Toll free: 1 866 478-3059

Email: ATIP-AIPRP@bankofcanada.ca