ALPHERA Financial Services Canada.

Your privacy is of utmost importance to ALPHERA Financial Services Canada*. Any personal information that you provide to us through, or on, our websites will be governed by this privacy policy (the "Policy"). Therefore, it is important that you read and understand this Policy prior to providing any personal information about yourself.

ALPHERA Financial Services Canada has established policies and procedures to comply with this Policy in accordance with respective provincial and federal privacy legislation, and has designated one or more persons accountable for compliance to it.

The Privacy Officer designated by ALPHERA Financial Services Canada can be contacted by email at privacy@bmw.ca; by telephone at 1-800-985-3115** or by mail at 50 Ultimate Drive, Richmond Hill, ON L4S 0C8. All submissions should be directed to the attention of the Privacy Officer.

Personal Information Defined Personal information is information that distinctively refers to you, such as your name, address, birth date, gender, marital status, financial information etc. Keep in mind that if you identify yourself as an employee of an organization, your name, title, business address or business telephone number would not be considered personal information.

We collect, use and disclose personal information supplied by you for yourself and for our respective related companies and business partners (lists available on request) in order (a) to provide you with products (vehicles, parts, accessories, etc.), (b) to perform services (including Warranty, owner notifications, service reminders, etc.), (c) to improve our products and services, (d) to initiate, maintain and develop our relationship with you (including product and service information, offers, etc.), (e) to administer billing, accounting and security measures in relation to your business with us and (f) to comply with legal and regulatory requirements.

Customer Option to "Opt-Out" You may decide that you would prefer that we do not use or disclose your personal information for Alphera related marketing purposes or as otherwise noted in this Privacy Policy (excepting legal and/or contractual obligations), in particular, for some or all of the following:

Alphera Special Events and Promotions that may include electronic or paper format notification of comparison drive events, information for golf, tennis or ski events, new car launches, brochures, etc.
Alphera Retailer Promotions that may include retailer event information, service clinics, etc.
Satisfaction Surveys such as product and/or service surveys, J.D. Power, etc.
Marketing Surveys such as customer research surveys etc.

If you choose to "opt-out" as outlined above, you will no longer have access to product or service information that may be of value to you. However, if you wish to "opt-out", you may do so at any time by contacting us. Please see above for contact information. Be assured that your decision to "opt-out" will not affect your business relationship with us.

Collection of Personal Information Within our website, you may be asked to provide personal information about yourself. ALPHERA Financial Services Canada will collect personal information only when you voluntarily provide it. Be assured that the personal information you provide remains strictly confidential and will be used or disclosed only for the purposes for which it was collected and will not be used or disclosed for any other reason unless you have given us consent to do so.

We collect personal information for registration on our mailing list, for eligibility to participate in a contest, survey or promotion, or simply for informing you of upcoming events or special offers. In other areas of our website, personal information is requested in order to apply for credit in respect to an application for finance. The personal information you provide will only be collected and used for the purposes that have been identified. In certain parts of this website where we require that you provide us with personal information such as credit card information, we will protect the security of your personal information during transmission by using industry-standard encryption technology.

We do, however, discourage you from sending any personal information via regular email and limit such disclosure to the secure area within the website where it may be specifically requested.

ALPHERA Financial Services Canada will not knowingly encourage children under the age of 13 to register at its website.

Sharing of Information The information that you provide to us will only be used by ALPHERA Financial Services Canada and our respective related and/or affiliated companies and business partners (list available upon request). It will assist us in providing products and services to you that will benefit you as a valued customer. Exceptions may include disclosing information to third parties assisting us in servicing and processing your credit account, to verify creditworthiness or to assist you in answering an inquiry. We may also disclose information to third party companies that perform marketing services on our behalf. In any event, we are responsible for the protection of your personal information in our possession. Any information we may transfer to a third party as noted above remains our responsibility and, as such, we contractually require any third party organization to protect the personal information disclosed to them in a manner consistent with our own internal privacy practices, or as required by law. Under limited circumstances, we may also be required to disclose personal information to comply with the law.

Collection of Non-Identifiable Information In order to allow you easy and convenient access to our websites, certain non-identifiable information is collected, as described below. We may share this information with our website providers to allow us to continually improve our websites.

Site Traffic Monitoring During each and every visit to one of our websites, we will collect non-identifiable information by tracking Internet Protocol (IP) addresses on an aggregate basis. IP addresses do not track personal information about you. They simply allow us to monitor how our sites are being used and what information is being accessed. ALPHERA Financial Services Canada will use this information to ensure its websites remain useful and convenient, in order to meet and satisfy your needs.

"Cookies" When a user interacts with our website, "session cookies" are used to collect information anonymously and to track user patterns. They do not permanently record data and are only available during an active session, therefore, once a session is terminated; the session cookie disappears. A session cookie is a small text file which contains a unique identification number that identifies your browser, not you personally, to our computer each time you visit our website. A session cookie can tell us which pages were visited and how often. We use this anonymous information in an effort to improve our website's usefulness to you – primarily for technical reasons, such as providing seamless navigation. If you do not want your browser to accept cookies, you can reset your browser either to notify you when you have received a cookie, or to refuse to accept them altogether. However, if you refuse to accept cookies, you may not be able to use some of the features available on our websites such as personalization features.

Access to your Personal Information At your request, we will let you know what personal information we have in our possession about you, what it is being used for, and to whom it has been disclosed. We will also provide you with access to your personal information that is in our possession. We will respond to your inquiry within thirty (30) days. There may be reasonable costs associated with your request, for example, should you wish us to photocopy anything. Please direct your request to the Privacy Officer as noted above.

Correcting or Updating Personal Information ALPHERA Financial Services Canada will keep the personal information in its possession accurate, complete, current and relevant, based on the most recent information available to us. If you have provided information about yourself, in order to receive emails or product mailings, and would like to modify your information, please contact one of our Customer Service Representatives by calling 1-800-985-3115** or by mail to Customer Service, ALPHERA Financial Services Canada, 50 Ultimate Drive, Richmond Hill, ON L4S 0C8.

Retention of Personal Information ALPHERA Financial Services Canada will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected and to comply with applicable laws.

Security At ALPHERA Financial Services Canada we are committed to protecting the personal information in our possession. A number of security measures are used by ALPHERA Financial Services Canada to maintain the safety of your personal information. We have implemented security measures which include the use of: physical secure data centres and premises; internal security policies and procedures; defined internal segregation of duties; and electronic access controls such as passwords and encryption technology.

In addition, we encourage you to observe safe computing practices. It is your responsibility to keep confidential the user-ID and password that you use to register with us and not share them with anyone. If you believe that your user-ID and password have been compromised, you can change them by editing your profile at our website www.alphera.ca or by contacting ALPHERA Financial Services Canada as noted above in "Correcting or Updating Personal Information".

Third Party Links Even though our websites may include links to other websites, outside of ALPHERA Financial Services Canada, we are not responsible for the content, links or privacy practices of those sites. We provide access to these linked sites for your convenience only and you access them at your own risk. However, we will welcome any comments you may have regarding these linked websites.

Google Analytics This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

Getting Answers to Your Concerns ALPHERA Financial Services Canada has developed policies and procedures to respond to individual complaints and questions relating to privacy. We will investigate and attempt to resolve all complaints. We will respond to your inquiry within 30 days. Please be advised that there may be a reasonable cost associated with your request. Should you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy please contact our Privacy Officer as noted above.

We welcome your comments and emails but please note that any information, including but not limited to suggestions, ideas or submissions you make through and onto any Alphera website will become the exclusive property of ALPHERA Financial Services Canada.

By visiting our websites you are agreeing to our Policy as outlined above. ALPHERA Financial Services Canada reserves the right to change this Policy from time to time and will provide notice of any significant changes on this website.

* ALPHERA Financial Services Canada, a division of BMW Canada Inc. and its respective related companies, including BMW Financial Services Canada (list available upon request).
** All calls are recorded for quality assurance purposes and in accordance with this Policy.