Avison Young Privacy Notice

Last Updated: April 2023

Avison Young (Canada) Inc., together with its subsidiaries and affiliates (collectively “Avison Young,” "we," "us," or "our") is committed to respecting your privacy. This Privacy Notice ("Notice") describes why and how we collect, use, disclose and otherwise process Personal Information (defined below) through or in connection with our online properties, such as our websites, mobile applications, and emails ("Sites"), and provides information about individuals' rights. The purpose of the Sites is to provide with you information on Avison Young and to give you access to certain products and services, like our market intelligence. We may use Personal Information provided to us through the Sites for the purposes herein described in this Notice.

This Notice applies solely to Personal Information about website visitors that we collect through or in connection with the Sites for our general commercial purposes. It does not apply to information we collect in other contexts, such as information we collect through exclusively offline interactions, information that we process on behalf of our clients, or information we collect about employees or job applicants.

Please read this Notice carefully before using the Sites or submitting your information to us. You may need to provide Personal Information to use certain portions of the Sites. If you do not want to share your Personal Information with us, please do not submit it. This means, however, that we may not be able to provide you with the services you have requested.

We reserve the right to amend or change this Notice at any time at our sole discretion. We will notify you by posting an amended Notice, which will be effective when posted.

Personal Information Collected 

“Personal Information” is information that relates to an identifiable natural person.

We may collect the following types of Personal Information about you:

  • Contact information, such as your name, postal address, email address, telephone number, and any other personal or business contact information you voluntarily provide to Avison Young in connection with the Sites.
  • Demographic information, such as your age and gender.
  • Commercial information, such as information about products or services you receive from us, properties you lease, product or services you have viewed or requested information about, information related to your online account (including log-in information), and information about documents (including reports) you view on or download from the Sites or newsletters or other communications to which you subscribe.
  • Professional information, such as your employer, occupation, and job title.
  • Educational information, such as your academic background.
  • Device and technical information, such as Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamps, browsing history, search terms, online preferences, pages viewed, and clickstream data.
  • Photographs and other media, such as photographs you submit or upload.
  • Geolocation data, such as your location based on your IP address or, if you have enabled location services on your device, your precise geolocation.
  • Information about interests or preferences, such as products or services in which you may have an interest and your preferred methods of communications.
  • Other information you choose to provide when you upload details on your properties, submit comments or questions regarding our market intelligence and other products and services, request support, or otherwise communicate with us online or interact with the Sites.

Sources of Personal Information

We may collect your Personal Information from:

  • You, such as when you communicate with us online, register an account with the Sites, submit information through your online account, sign up to receive email, newsletter, or other communications from us, request information from us online, or otherwise provide information to us
  • Tracking technologies and other automated sources, such as cookies and other tracking technologies. For more information on our use of cookies and other tracking technologies, please review our Cookie Policy [link].
  • Third parties, such as your employer, your landlord or property manager, service providers, companies that provide or sell lists of potential clients, social media partners, and other business partners, where permitted by applicable laws.
  • Publicly available sources, such as public profiles and websites, where permitted by applicable laws.

Use of Personal Information

We may use Personal Information for the following purposes:

  • Provide you with products and services, including the Sites. We may use your Personal Information to provide you with real estate related services if you are a client, or become a client, of Avison Young; manage your online requests; create, administer, and maintain your online account; and provide customer support (including answering your questions submitted through the contact feature of the Sites).
  • Market and promote products and services. We may use your Personal Information to provide you documents (including reports) and newsletters and other communications you have subscribed to on the Sites; send you marketing communications related to products and services that might interest you; serve you with advertisements and promotional materials, including through emails and online advertisements; and conduct market research. We may also analyze and draw inferences from your Personal Information, such as information about your preferences, characteristics, and interest in our products and services, to personalize our promotional materials to you.
  • Improve the Sites and our product and service offerings. We may use your Personal Information to develop, support, provide, and maintain the Sites; analyze and evaluate the quality of the Sites, your user experience, and other products and services; enhance the operation of our Sites and other products and services; develop new products and services; and perform internal studies regarding our services.
  • Protect and defend rights, safety and property. We may use your Personal Information to investigate and respond to complaints or claims; establish, exercise, and defend legal rights; protect the rights, safety, and property of us, our clients, and others; maintain the security and integrity of the Sites and other products, services, and assets; detect security incidents; protect against fraudulent and illicit activity; and enforce our Terms of Use.
  • Comply with legal and regulatory obligations. We may use your Personal Information to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations (including maintaining records of our compliance) and process your requests to exercise your privacy rights.
  • In connection with a corporate transaction. We may use your Personal Information to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Avison Young’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in accordance with the requirements of applicable law..

In addition, we may use for any lawful purpose information that has been compiled on an aggregated basis. For example, we may conduct research on aggregated usage data to understand the demographics, interests, and behavior of users of our Sites. This data is stored separately from any Personal Information we have about you and will not be connected to you.

Disclosure of Personal Information

We disclose your Personal Information with third parties as described below:

  • Avison Young affiliates. We may disclose your Personal Information to our subsidiary, affiliate, and parent entities for the purposes described in this Notice.
  • Service providers. We may disclose your Personal Information to contracted service providers including as may be necessary for us to achieve the purposes described in this Notice, such as IT services providers and providers of business support services. We strive to place these service providers under a contractual obligation to use Personal Information only for the purposes for which they were hired and in accordance with applicable law.
  • Professional advisors. We may disclose your Personal Data to consultants, lawyers, auditors, and other professional advisors.
  • Business partners. We may disclose your Personal Information to third-party business partners consistent with the purposes described in this Notice, such as companies with whom we conduct joint marketing, advertising and marketing partners, providers of cookies and other tracking technologies, and social media companies.
  • Entities in connection with business transitions. We may disclose your Personal Information in the event we go through or consider a business transition, such as being acquired by another company, or selling all or part of our assets. However, such information will be subject to any pre-existing privacy notice of the acquiring entity unless the acquiring entity obtains your consent to additional uses or otherwise in accordance with the acquiring entity’s policies, and otherwise effected in accordance with applicable law..
  • Law enforcement, judicial and administrative agencies, and other entities for legal, security, or safety reasons. We will disclose Personal Information as necessary to comply with judicial orders, subpoenas, civil or criminal investigative demands, administrative and regulatory demands, and other legal obligations, if we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to comply with the law. We may also disclose Personal Information to exercise or defend our legal rights, enforce our Terms of Use and other policies and agreements, protect your safety or the safety of others, and to investigate potential violations of the law.

Communications

Reports & Newsletters. You may subscribe to reports, including research reports, or other newsletters that provide you with information about our services by providing us with a valid email address. You may stop receiving these kinds of emails by clicking “unsubscribe” or following the instructions in the footer of the email, or by submitting a written request to the Privacy Office at the contact information below.

Sales & Customer Service. We may communicate with clients and interested individuals via email, text message, regular mail, and telephone. You may ask to be removed from our email messages by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in the email, from our SMS text messages by responding to the text message as instructed in the message, and from our mailing or calling list at any time by submitting a written request to the Privacy Office at the contact information below. Please note that even if you opt out of receiving marketing communications from us, we may continue to send you non-promotional communications, such as information about your transactions with us and legal notices.

Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

We and third parties may use cookies and other tracking technologies to collect information about you, your device, and how you interact with the Sites. For more information on our use of cookies and other tracking technologies, please review our Cookie Policy [link].

Data Quality, Access & Rectification

We will make reasonable efforts to ensure your Personal Information is collected accurately and completely. If you would like to request access to your Personal Information, request to verify your Personal Information, identify any inaccuracy in your Personal Information, or change your Personal Information in any way, please contact our Privacy Office at the address below. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to accommodate all such requests. 

Individuals in certain jurisdictions may make other requests concerning their Personal Information. Please see the Geographic Location-Specific Provisions section for more information.

Retention

We retain the Personal Information processed by us for as long as is considered necessary for the purpose(s) for which it was collected, to satisfy legal and regulatory requirements, or as required or permitted by applicable law or regulation. For example, we may retain Personal Information to provide you products and services, improve our operations, resolve disputes, and enforce agreements. To determine the length of time for which we will retain Personal Information, we will consider the volume and sensitivity of the Personal Information, the risk of harm to people like you, the purposes for which we collect and use the Personal Information, and applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

Security

We take reasonable administrative, technical, and physical steps to ensure that your Personal Information in our possession and control remains secure. No data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed as fully secure, though. We recommend that you take reasonable precautions to protect the information you send and receive from us.

International Transfers

The Sites are hosted in the United States. Personal Information we collect may be transferred to countries other than one in which you reside, including the United States, for purposes such as administration of the Sites and providing the services you requested. Please be aware that the data protection laws and regulations in those countries may offer less privacy protection than those in your country of residence, and that your information may be accessible to foreign law enforcement and other authorities. .

For additional information on our transfer of Personal Information subject to European privacy law, please review our Supplementary Privacy Statement for Residents of the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and United Kingdom.

Third Party Links

The Sites may contain links to or from other websites over which we have no control. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage users to be aware when they leave our Sites and to read the privacy notices of other websites they visit. This Notice applies solely to information collected by our Sites.

Questions and Complaints

We take your privacy concerns seriously. If you believe we have not complied with this Notice, or you have any other questions, you may write to our Privacy Office at One South Wacker, Suite 3000, Chicago, IL 60606, [email protected].

Children's Data

The Sites are general audience websites and not intended for minors. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from anyone under 14 years of age. If you believe we may have collected information from your or any other child on the Sites, please contact the Privacy Office and we will make reasonable efforts to delete the information from our records.

Geographic Location-Specific Provisions

CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

The Supplementary Privacy Statement for California Residents can be found here.

EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA, SWITZERLAND, AND UNITED KINGDOM RESIDENTS

The Supplementary Privacy Statement for Residents of the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and United Kingdom can be found here.

The German privacy policy can be found here.

MEXICO RESIDENTS

If you are a resident of Mexico, you may have the additional rights (i) to cancel your Personal Information when you deem it is not required for the purposes established in this Notice or that it is being used for unauthorized purposes, (ii) to oppose the processing of your Personal Information for certain specific purposes, and (iii) to file a complaint with the Federal Public Information Access Institute at http://www.ifai.org.mx/. You may exercise rights (i) and (ii) through a written petition to the Privacy Office at the address above, accompanied by your email address and telephone number, and if applicable, specific details of the reasons for which a rectification, opposition or revocation of consent is requested. We will respond to your petition within a reasonable amount of time and inform you of its outcome through the phone number and/or email address provided by you.

CANADA RESIDENTS

If you are a resident of Canada, we may have certain obligations and you may have certain rights with respect to your Personal Information.

International Transfer

The information that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside of the jurisdiction where you reside. While such information is outside of your jurisdiction of residence, it is subject to the laws of the jurisdiction in which it is held, and may be subject to disclosure to the governments, courts or law enforcement or regulatory agencies of such other jurisdiction, pursuant to its laws.

Your Rights & Complaints

Subject to applicable data protection laws, you may have certain rights related to your Personal Information. This includes the right to access and correct your Personal Information, the right to data portability, and the right to withdraw consent to the communication or use of your Personal Information.

Under certain circumstances and subject to applicable data protection laws, you may also be entitled to request additional information regarding Avison Young’s data governance practices, including details regarding what information is collected about you, the categories of persons who have access to your information, and how long your information will be retained for. You may also be entitled to request that Avison Young cease communicating your information, or de-index any hyperlink attached your name that provides access to your Personal Information by a technological means.

If you have a complaint about how your Personal Information is being maintained, or if you have questions regarding how to exercise your rights with Avison Young or if you wish to submit a request, please contact our Privacy Office using the contact information provided above.