Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Decision Arts + Sciences Ltd. (“DA+S” or “we”) collects, uses, and discloses information about you when you access or use our website, engage with us as a research study participant (“Study Participant”), or otherwise interact with us.

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the date at the top of the policy. We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy whenever you access our website or otherwise interact with us to stay informed about our information practices and the choices available to you.  

We may collect a variety of information from or about you in the course of your interactions with us (collectively, “Personal Information”).

We collect information that you provide to us, including information that you provide when you participate in any interactive features of the website (like signing up for our newsletter or sending a message through the website), apply for a job with us, sign up as a Study Participant by signing additional consent form(s) and providing us information as a Study Participant either directly or through a third party, communicate with us via third party social media sites, request customer support, or otherwise communicate with us.

When you participate in any interactive features of the website, we may collect your name, email address and any message you send us. If you apply for a job with us, we may also require you to submit additional personal information as well as a resume or curriculum vitae.

When we conduct qualitative research studies, we collect a variety of Personal Information from Study Participants pursuant to separate agreement(s) provided to and signed by each Study Participant prior to collection of their Personal Information or as disclosed to Study Participants by a third-party recruiting vendor. We ask Study Participants for certain Personal Information (like name, age, gender, etc.) in order to tabulate the study data that we collect. In these studies, we observe and interview Study Participants about their experiences. We record these interviews using, for example, cameras (for video and photographs), audiotapes, and screen captures.  These recordings may contain the likeness of a Study Participant.  

For studies in which we perform healthcare research, we may also ask Study Participants for certain protected health information (“PHI”). We do not otherwise actively solicit disclosures of a Study Participant’s medical history or PHI.

When you access or use our website, we receive certain usage data. This includes information about your interaction with the website, for example, when you view or search content.  We also collect data about the devices and computers you use to access the website, including IP addresses, location (country), device type, browser type, language, operating system, the referring web page, pages visited, and cookie information. Please see our Cookie Use Statement for more information.

We may also obtain information about you from other sources. For example, we may collect information about you from third parties, including but not limited to third party recruiters who, with your consent, provide us information about you in connection with a research study.

We use the information we collect to:

• Provide, maintain, and improve the website about products and services we may offer;
• Communicate with you about products, services, and events offered by DA+S, and provide news and information we think will be of interest to you (see Your Choices below for information about how to opt out of these communications at any time);
• Respond to your requests for information, comments, questions, and customer service requests and send you any administrative notices or updates;
• In the case of Study Participants, we use the study information that you provide to us to produce research findings and recommendations. For studies in which we perform healthcare research, any PHI related to a Study Participant that we solicit or that is incidentally disclosed to us is used solely for purposes of the research in those studies;
• Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and activities in connection with our website;
• Personalize your online experience and the advertisements you see when you use the website or third-party platforms based on your preferences, interests, and browsing and purchasing behavior, and audit your interactions with our online ads, including by counting ad impressions and verifying positioning and quality of ad impressions;
• Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and protect the rights and property of DA+S;
• Debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality;
• Comply with laws, regulations, and legal processes; and
• In connection with research and development activities.

We may share your Personal Information with the following categories of recipients as follows:

• With vendors, service providers, and consultants as needed to provide our services and operate our business, who process it for us, based on our instructions, and in compliance with this policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures;
• With public authorities to meet law enforcement requests and other parties in response to a lawful request in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law or legal process;
• With our partners for advertising, marketing, and analytics purposes with your consent (see our Cookies Use Statement for more information);
• If we believe your actions are inconsistent with our policies, if we believe you have violated the law, or to protect the rights, property, and safety of DA+S;
• With other parties in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company;
• Between and among DA+S and our current and future parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, and other companies under common control and ownership;
• In the case of Study Participants, with your consent, we will share your Personal Information with our client sponsoring the study. Neither we nor our client will publicly display or distribute study information including recordings or likenesses without a Study Participant’s written consent, except in limited circumstances as described above. Any PHI incidentally disclosed to us and unrelated to the subject of a study is not used or disclosed to anyone outside of DA+S or our client except in limited circumstances as described above; and
• With any other party with your consent and/or at your direction.

We may disclose aggregated and anonymized information, which is information that is incapable of identifying an individual is not considered Personal Information under this Privacy Policy, without restriction.

You can request access to much of your personal information by contacting us using one of the methods listed at the end of this section.

You may also change and delete your personal information by contacting us using one of the methods listed at the end of this section. Once we verify your request, we will delete your data within 30 days. We may preserve data for legal reasons or to prevent harm, including as described in the HOW WE HAVE USED INFORMATION IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS section. Note that if you are a Study Participant involved in a healthcare studies, our researchers and our client may still use or disclose health information they already have obtained about you as necessary to maintain the integrity or reliability of the study research, in accordance with applicable law.

You may opt out (unsubscribe) of receiving promotional emails from DA+S by following the instructions in those emails or by contacting us at Info@decision-arts.com. If you opt out, we may still send you non-promotional emails, such as those about our ongoing business relations.

If you wish to access, edit or delete your information, please contact us using one of the methods below:

• Call us at: (613)-903-9885
• Submit your request via the web form HERE
• Email us at Info@decision-arts.com

If you live in certain jurisdictions, you have a number of legal rights with respect to your information, which you may exercise, as outlined below. If you need further assistance regarding your rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer at Info@decision-arts.com, and we will consider your request in accordance with applicable laws.

We keep your personal information, like your name and email address, for as long as necessary for the purposes set out in this policy, or as needed to serve you. If you are a Research Study Participant, we will keep information you shared with us as long as necessary to complete and provide the study to our client and as may be further outlined in any agreement(s) you signed with us. If you decide to delete your data, we will retain and use your information to comply with our legal obligations (for example, to retain proof of consent or for other compliance purposes), resolve disputes, enforce our agreements or as otherwise described in this policy or any agreement you signed, if applicable.

We work with partners who provide us with analytics and advertising services. This includes helping us understand how users interact with the website, serving ads on our behalf across the internet, and measuring the performance of those ads. These companies may use cookies and similar technologies to collect information about your interactions with our website and other websites and applications. Any personal information so collected is used for these purposes and not for any other purpose, and such information is not sold to others. To learn more and about your privacy choices, please read our Cookie Use Statement.  

Your Personal Information may be transferred to third countries, including the United States, which may have different or less privacy protections than your own country. By sharing Personal Information with us, you consent to the transfer of your Personal Information to such third countries.

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act and the California Privacy Rights Act (together, the “CCPA/CPRA”), and their respective amendments and implementing regulations, California residents are afforded certain privacy rights. If you are a California resident, subject to certain limitations, you have the following rights concerning your Personal Information: 

• Right to Know. You have the right to access the specific pieces of Personal Information collected about you, the sources from which such information was obtained, the categories of information that have been sold or disclosed for a business purpose, and the commercial purpose for which the information was collected or sold. We describe our practices in the CATEGORIES OF INFORMATION WE COLLECT, USE, AND DISCLOSE FOR BUSINESS PURPOSES below.
• Right to Deletion. You have the right to request that we delete any of the Personal Information we have collected or maintain about you. We describe our practices in the YOUR RIGHTS TO CONTROL YOUR PERSONAL DATA section above.
• Right to Rectification and Correction. You have the right to rectify and correct inaccuracies in your Personal Information. We describe our practices in the YOUR RIGHTS TO CONTROL YOUR PERSONAL DATA section above.
• Right to Opt-out of Sales of Personal Information. You have a right to opt-out of the sale of your Personal Information, including cross-context behavioral advertising, and to opt-in again at your election. As described further below, we do not sell your Personal Information.
• Right to Limit Use and Disclosure of Sensitive Personal Information. You have a right to opt-out of secondary uses and disclosures of your Sensitive Personal Information. We describe our practices in the HOW WE HAVE USED INFORMATION IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS, and HOW INFORMATION HAS BEEN SHARED IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS sections above.
• Right to Opt-out of Automated Decision-making. You have the right to opt-out to certain types of automated decision-making, subject to certain exceptions. We do not employ automated decision-making.
• Right to Non-Discrimination. You have a right to not be discriminated against in the event you exercise your other rights listed above. If you exercise these rights, DA+S will not deny you goods or services, charge you a higher rate, or provide you with lower quality products. If you are a Study Participant, please note that if you ask to have your data deleted after you have completed your participation in a study, or opt out of sharing your data before it can be used by the client, you will be required to return any payment or incentive that you have received in exchange for participating in the study.  Such payment or incentive reflects the value of the study data we collect from you, including the marginal value of the study data itself to our business and the expenses related to the collection of the study data.  Upon receiving the returned payment or incentive from you, we will delete your data and, if we have already provided your information to our client, we will ask our client to delete all of your data.

As described in INFORMATION WE HAVE COLLECTED IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS, we collect the categories of personal information listed below. We receive this information from you, your use of our website, and as otherwise described in this policy. We use and disclose these categories of information for the business purposes described in the HOW WE HAVE USED INFORMATION IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS, and HOW INFORMATION HAS BEEN SHARED IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS sections above. The categories are:

• Identifiers, like your name email address, IP address, cookie ID, and other similar identifiers.
• Demographic information, such as your gender, age, health information, and physical characteristics or description, which may be protected by law.
• Commercial information, including your payment information and records of any products or services you purchased.
• Internet or other electronic network activity information, such as browsing history and interactions with our website.
• Other information that you provide, including video or audio recordings of you, health information and any other information you provide to us as a Study Participant.
• Inferences drawn from any of the above.

You, or an authorized agent, may exercise your rights by submitting a request to our Data Protection Officer at Info@decision-arts.com. The CCPA/CPRA allows for one disclosure request per 12-month period at no cost to you. For subsequent requests, we may charge a fee if we determine that the request is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded, but will not do so without providing you with a cost estimate before processing your request.

 We respond to and process requests promptly and within the timeframes required by the CCPA/CPRA. Please note that all requests are subject to proper prior verification before processing, as required by the CCPA/CPRA.

 If you are the authorized agent of an individual making a request, you may have to take additional steps to verify your identity and demonstrate that you can exercise the individual’s rights on their behalf.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share your personal information except in the limited circumstances described above. We do work with partners who provide us with advertising services as described in the ANALYTICS AND ADVERTISING SERVICES PROVIDED BY OTHERS section. To learn more about how these partners collect data and your options for controlling the use of your information for interest-based advertising, please read our Cookie Use Statement.

Because we do not sell your personal information, we state that we have no actual knowledge that we sell the personal information of minors under 16 years of age.

If you live in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom (UK), or Switzerland, please review these additional privacy disclosures under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

To the extent that information we collect is health data or another special category of personal data subject to the GDPR, we ask for your explicit consent to process the data. We obtain this consent separately when you take actions leading to our obtaining the data, for example, when you sign an additional consent form explaining the information collected and specifically allowing us to do so. You can withdraw your consent at any time by not participating in the survey and you may also request deletion of your data.

For personal data subject to the GDPR, we rely on several legal bases to process the data, including:

• When you have given your consent, which you may withdraw at any time by contacting us; 
• When the processing is necessary to perform a contract with you; and
• Our legitimate business interests, such as in improving, personalizing, and developing our website, marketing new features or products that may be of interest, and promoting safety and security as described in the HOW WE HAVE USED YOUR INFORMATION IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS section.

Please review the YOUR RIGHTS TO CONTROL YOUR PERSONAL DATA section for how to exercise your rights under the GDPR to access and control your personal data.

In certain circumstances, you can seek to restrict our processing of your data, or object to our processing of your data based on our legitimate interests, including as described in the HOW WE HAVE USED YOUR INFORMATION IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS section. Under the GDPR, you have a general right to object to the use of your information for direct marketing purposes. You may opt out of these communications as described above or you may email us at info@decision-arts.com to control our marketing communications to you about our services. Our Cookie Use Statement describes your options for controlling how we and our partners use cookies and similar technologies for advertising.

If you need further assistance regarding your rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer at info@decision-arts.com, and we will consider your request in accordance with applicable laws. You also have a right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. 

DA+S takes reasonable steps to your Personal Information. We use a combination of technical, administrative, and physical controls to maintain the security of your data.  No method of transmitting or storing data is completely secure, however. If you have a security-related concern, please contact our Data Protection Officer at Info@decision-arts.com.

If you have questions, suggestions, or concerns about this policy, or about our use of your information, please contact our Data Protection Officer at info@decision-arts.com. You may also contact us at:

Decision Arts + Sciences Ltd.
Attn: Legal Department (Privacy Policy)
6694 Suncrest Drive
Suite #100
Ottawa, ON K4P0B4