Privacy Policy
Last Updated: Apr 5, 2024
Credit App Technologies Inc. (“Credit App” or “we”) maintains a website located at https://creditapp.ca/ (the “Website”) that processes applications submitted by: (a) our business partners (“Partners”) on behalf of their existing or prospective customers; and (b) individuals directly, for the purpose of securing a loan, lease, financing or credit (the “Services”). Applications are submitted to organizations seeking to fund or provide loans, leases, financing or credit (each a “Lender”).
Credit App takes privacy and data security seriously. We are committed to transparency in the collection and use of your personal information. The Privacy Policy below describes the manner in which we process personal information in the course of providing the Services to our Partners, directly to individual applicants, when you visit the website, or otherwise interact with us, and the circumstances under which we may share this information. This Privacy Policy applies to the privacy practices of Credit App on its Website, as well as offline.
Collection and Use of Personal Information
The kinds of personal information that we process, and how we process it, depends on whether we are acting on behalf of our Partners, or whether we are collecting, using, and disclosing personal information for our own purposes.
Information We Process on Behalf of Our Partners
In the course of acting as a service provider and providing the Services, we may collect and process personal information from and on behalf of our Partners as outlined below. We primarily process personal information about our Partners’ existing or prospective customers where our Partners submit a loan, lease, financing or credit application on behalf of such customers (each, a “Partner Credit Application”). We require our Partners to ensure that they have the authority to provide personal information to us in accordance with applicable privacy laws.
Partner Credit Applications:
Credit App assists its Partners in obtaining loans, leases, financing, or credit for their prospective clients (for example, an individual looking to purchase a car from one of our Partners, a dealership). To do so, our Partners complete and submit a Partner Credit Application on behalf of their prospective customers through our Website. Credit App uses that information on behalf of its Partners to find prospective lenders.
If you express interest obtaining a loan, lease, financing or credit to our Partners, our Partners may, with your consent, share your personal information with us, including, your full name, date of birth, phone number, e-mail address, social insurance number, marital status, current and previous home address, details about your desired purchase, loan, or contract, the name of your current employer, work position or title, and your work history (if applicable). We process this information on behalf of our Partners to verify your identity, to assess your eligibility to receive a loan, lease, financing or credit, to obtain commercial or consumer credit reports from credit reporting agencies about you, and to help match the Partner Credit Application submitted on your behalf with prospective lenders.
Information We Collect and Use on Our Own Behalf
In providing the Services, we may collect, use, and disclose personal information on our own behalf. If you visit our Website, we may collect, use and disclose your personal information to allow you to submit a loan, lease, financing or credit application on your own behalf, or to provide supplementary information for an existing Partner Credit Application (each, an “Individual Credit Application”). You may also provide us with personal information for other purposes such as in connection with visits to our Website, work opportunities, and surveys.
Account Registration:
To submit an Individual Credit Application, you must register for an account on our Website. If you receive a text message from us in relation to an existing Partner Credit Application, you may create an account by clicking the link. We use this information to administer your account, and to allow you to submit and monitor the status of an Individual Credit Application.
Individual Credit Applications:
If you register an account, you can choose to complete and submit an Individual Credit Application. To do so, we may collect personal information including your full name, date of birth, phone number, e-mail address, social insurance number, marital status, current and previous home address, details about your desired purchase, loan, or contract, the name of your current employer, work position or title, and your work history (if applicable). Some of this information may already be available to us from an existing Partner Credit Application, and so may be pre-populated into an Individual Credit Application.
While Individual Credit Applications can be submitted using the above information, we may be able to offer you additional lender options if you choose to provide us with additional personal information. This additional information could include, for example, information that verifies your income (including pay stubs, notices of assessment, or other records about your financial situation). You can also connect or “link” your bank account to your Credit App account. If you do so, we will receive personal information contained in your bank accounts, including account number, type of account, bank statements, individual transaction information, the account, the names of any joint-account holders, your relationship with any joint-account holders, and a complete record of all transactions in your bank accounts over the last 365 days. If one of your banks is not listed on our Website, we may collect the name of the institution that you bank with. We use this information to evaluate which banks to include in future updates to our services.
We use this information to review your Individual Credit Application, to assist you in obtaining a loan, lease, financing or credit, to try and match your Individual Credit Application with prospective lenders, and to improve the accuracy and performance of our loan application evaluation software.
Credit Checks:
If you are assessed as being provisionally eligible to receive a loan, lease, financing or credit, Credit App may, with your consent, use your personal information, including the information you have provided as part of an Individual Loan Application, to obtain commercial or consumer credit reports from credit reporting to confirm your eligibility for the loan, lease, financing or credit.
Credit Approval:
If you are approved for a loan by a lender, Credit App may collect further information from you to process the approval of the loan, lease, financing or credit, and to allow a lender to arrange for payment or repayment, including government issued identification, references, payment information, vehicle registration and insurance, and additional information about the product or service for which you require a loan, lease, financing, or credit (for example, the make and model of vehicle which you are interested in purchasing or leasing).
Marketing Communications:
You may select if you wish to receive email marketing communications with updates and other information regarding Credit App by providing us with your email. You can opt out of receiving marketing emails from us using the opt-out or “unsubscribe” instructions provided in the communication. Alternatively, you may contact our Privacy Officer at privacy@creditapp.ca. You can also unsubscribe from our text-message communications by following the instructions in those communications, or by contacting our Privacy Officer at privacy@creditapp.ca.
Surveys and Customer Research:
From time to time, we may offer you the opportunity to participate in one of our surveys or other customer research. The information obtained through our surveys and customer research is used in an aggregated, non-personally identifiable form. We use this information to help us understand our Customers, to enhance our product and service offerings, and promotions and events.
Contact Us:
When you contact us with a comment, question, complaint or regarding the status of your loan application or loan, we may collect the information you provide, along with additional information that we may need to help us promptly respond to your inquiry. We may retain this information to assist you in the future and to improve our customer service and service offerings. We also use personal information to establish and manage our relationship with you and provide quality service.
Call Recording:
We may monitor and record our telephone conversations with you for training and quality assurance purposes. You will be provided with a notice at the beginning of any call that is being recorded. If you do not wish to have your call recorded, please let us know.
Information We Collect Automatically
We and our third-party service providers, including Google Analytics, collect, process, store and analyze information obtained from your browser when you visit our Website, including IP address, device identifiers, browser characteristics, operating system details, language preferences, referring URLs, length of visits, and pages viewed. We also use “cookies” or other tools that track, measure and analyze the behaviors and usage patterns of visitors to the Website. We use this information to help us understand how visitors engage with the Website and to improve our visitors' experience.
A cookie is a tiny element of data that the Website can send to your browser, which may then be stored on your computer or mobile device so we can recognize you when you return. We use cookies for analytics purposes as well as for certain features of the Website. You may set your web browser to notify you when you receive a cookie or to not accept certain cookies. However, if you decide not to accept cookies from the Website, you may not be able to take advantage of all of the features of our Website.
You can obtain additional information on Google Analytics' collection and processing of data and data privacy and security, including how to learn more about opting out of Google Analytics' data collection.
Sharing of Personal Information
Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy and as required or permitted by law, we do not sell, rent or share your personal information with third parties without your consent.
Partners
We do not share the personal information that you provide to us with our Partners without your consent. If a Partner has submitted a Partner Credit Application on your behalf, we may disclose to that Partner the status of that application, or any subsequent Individual Credit Application, including whether such applications are approved, pending or have not been accepted by any lender. We share this information with our Partners to deliver the Services, and to inform them whether their customer’s loan, lease, financing or credit application has been approved.
Lenders
We do not share the personal information that you provide to us with lenders without your consent. If a Partner has submitted a Partner Credit Application on your behalf, or if you have submitted an Individual Credit Application, we may share your personal information, including, without limitation, your name, current and previous home addresses, employer, work position or title, work history, date of birth, phone number, email address, social insurance number, bank statements, bank account and individual transaction information, other records to verify your income, government identification, vehicle registration, and information found on a commercial or consumer credit report, to prospective lenders. We share this information with lenders to allow them to evaluate and assess the credit application that you, or one of our Partners, has submitted through the Website.
Service Providers
Your personal information may be transferred (or otherwise made available) to our affiliates and other third parties who provide services on our behalf. We use third parties to host and manage our Website, to send and manage our text message communications, to store and/or backup information on secure cloud databases, to obtain credit checks (credit bureaus), to process payments, to enable our access to your bank account transaction history, and other services as required.
When we communicate with you by short code text message, you have the option to cancel or receive help regarding such text messages by replying with HELP or STOP (or AIDE or ARRET) respectively.
We also communicate with our dealership business Partners regarding the status of your loan application with Credit App. Our service providers are only provided with the information they need to perform their designated functions, and are not authorized to use or disclose personal information for their own marketing or other purposes.
Your personal information may be maintained and processed by us, our affiliates, potential employers, and other third party service providers in the US or other jurisdictions. Where we are transferring your Personal Information outside your jurisdiction, or when we entrust a third party located outside your jurisdiction with the collection, use, disclosure, or retention of your Personal Information on our behalf, we will take into account the following: (1) the sensitivity of the information, (2) the purposes for which it will be used, (3) the safeguards, including contractual safeguards that will be applied, and (4) the legal regime applicable in the receiving jurisdiction, including the privacy principals applicable there. In the event that personal information is transferred outside of Canada to the US or other foreign jurisdiction, it will be subject to the laws of that jurisdiction and may be disclosed to or accessed by the courts, law enforcement and governmental authorities in accordance with those laws. For more information about the policies and procedures that we have regarding foreign service providers, please contact our Privacy Officer at privacy@creditapp.ca.
Legal and Compliance
We and our Canadian, U.S., and other service providers may disclose your personal information in response to a search warrant or other legally valid inquiry or order, or to another organization for the purposes of investigating a breach of an agreement or contravention of law or detecting, suppressing or preventing fraud, or as otherwise required or permitted by applicable Canadian, US or other law or legal process, which may include lawful access by U.S. or foreign courts, law enforcement or other government authorities. Your personal information may also be disclosed where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims and to investigate or prevent actual or suspect loss or harm to persons or property.
Sale of Business
Personal information may be transferred to third parties in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale (including transfers made as part of insolvency or bankruptcy proceedings) involving all or part of Credit App or as part of a corporate reorganization or stock sale or other change in corporate control, including for the purpose of determining whether to proceed or continue with such transaction or business relationship.
Additional Information
Safeguarding and Retention of Personal Information
We have implemented reasonable administrative, technical and physical measures in an effort to safeguard the personal information in our custody and control against theft, loss and unauthorized access, use, modification and disclosure. We restrict access to your personal information on a need-to-know basis to employees and authorized service providers who require access to fulfill their job requirements.
We have personal information retention processes designed to retain personal information for no longer than necessary for the purposes stated above or to otherwise meet legal requirements.
Access to Personal Information
You have the right to access, update and correct inaccuracies in your personal information in our custody and control, subject to certain exceptions prescribed by law. After successful registration with the Website you may access, review, and change your personal information through the “My Profile” feature of the website. Alternatively, you may request access, updating and corrections of inaccuracies in other personal information we have in our custody or control by emailing or writing to us at the contact information set out below. We may request certain personal information for the purposes of verifying the identity of the individual seeking access to their personal information records.
Access and correction of your personal information (that may be obsolete, incorrect or incomplete) provided to a lender can be obtained by the contact information provided at http://creditapp.ca/lender-privacy
Third Party Websites
The Website may contain links to other websites that are not owned or controlled by us. We have no control over, do not review and are not responsible for the privacy policies of or content displayed on such other websites. When you click on such a link, you will leave our service and go to another website. During this process, another entity may collect personal information from you.
Updates to the Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our privacy practices. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices. We will indicate at the top of this Privacy Policy when it was most recently updated.
Contact Us
Credit App welcomes your comments and questions regarding this Privacy Policy and the use of your personal information. If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, or the manner in which we treat your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer at privacy@creditapp.ca.
Contact information for lenders that may be accessed via Credit App can be found at https://info.creditapp.ca/lenders