Stewart Title Guaranty Company (“Stewart Title”, “we”, “us” or “our”) is a leading provider of title insurance to homeowners, commercial property owners and mortgage lenders. The purpose of this privacy policy (“Policy”) is to describe how we collect, use and disclose Personal Information (as defined below) when you visit our website available at www.stewart.ca (“Website”) or in the course of operating our business and in connection with services we may provide to you (“Services”), and to explain the rights that individuals have with respect to their Personal Information (as defined below) in our control.
We collect Personal Information directly from property owners, or from a property owner’s lawyer or notary or another third-party that the property owner has authorized to represent them and to whom it has provided its express consent to do so. In addition, when dealing with a claim, we may collect Personal Information obtained by third-parties who we retain to assist with resolving your claim, such as adjusters, appraisers, surveyors, contractors and investigators. More specifically Personal Information may be collected as per below.
| By email |
Personal Information is collected either in the body of an email or by an online form which is sent/received by email from the property owner or a lawyer or notary acting on the transaction to be insured. |
| By telephone |
Personal Information is collected verbally and may then be documented in the file to which the information relates.
|
Via online platforms (Assyst, NextSTEPS (ImmoPRO), Paramaitre, other conveyancing platforms, and from identity – verification programs such as Treefort Technologies)
| Personal Information is collected on an online form or by inputting data directly into an online website by property owner, lawyer or notary. |
We collect business contact information and payment information directly from lawyers, notaries and other representatives, or from members of their staff. We collect credit reports from credit reporting agencies.
We also collect Personal Information from internet searches revealing information about the transaction and property to be insured and to assist with verifying identity; municipal websites; and public land registries.
We collect, use, and/or disclose your Personal Information with your knowledge and consent except as otherwise permitted or required by law.
Consent may be express or implied, depending on the sensitivity of the information, means of collections and the reasonable expectations of the individual in the circumstances. Express consent may be written or electronic. Consent may be provided by you directly or through an authorized representative, such as your lawyer or notary in connection with the Services, a legal guardian, or a person holding power of attorney. If you are a property owner, we rely on your lawyer, notary or other representative to obtain your valid consent to allow us to collect, use and disclosure your Personal Information as described in this Policy, in order for us to be able to provide the Services.
You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. If you wish to withdraw your consent for us to retain, use or disclose your Personal Information you must contact our Privacy Officer as described in Section 10 of this Policy. We will inform you of any implications of withdrawing consent. Without your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products and Services. For example, we cannot issue a title insurance policy if you do not consent to provide your name and property address.
Personal Information may be collected, used, or disclosed without your knowledge or consent in certain circumstances, as permitted or required by law. These circumstances include where collection or use is clearly in the interests of the individual and consent cannot be obtained in a timely way, to investigate a breach of an agreement or a contravention of a law, to act in response to an emergency that threatens the life, health or security of an individual, for debt collection, or to comply with a subpoena, warrant or court order. For example, we do not ask a suspected fraudster for their consent before we share their name with the police.
If you are a property owner, we will provide Personal Information to your lawyer, notary or other representative as necessary for the purposes described in this Policy.
We may transfer your Personal Information to others, including to affiliated entities, third-parties or service providers, as required to us to provide you with the Services (“Service Providers”). Service Providers may need to have access to Personal Information collected as they carry out certain functions on our behalf such as: information storage, payment processing and the administration, investigation and processing of claims (such as adjusters or contactors). These third-parties may be located outside of your province of residence, or outside of Canada, including the USA. We require Service Providers not to use or disclose Personal Information for any purpose other than as directed by us. However, please be aware that Personal Information transferred outside of Canada may be accessible to regulatory authorities and enforcement agencies in accordance with the laws of the respective jurisdiction(s).
We may also sell, transfer and disclose your Personal Information as part of a business transaction, sale, merger, reorganization, or acquisition of all or a part of our business.
We disclose Personal Information to meet our legal and regulatory requirements. We and our Service Providers may also disclose your Personal Information in response to a search warrant or other legally valid inquiry or order (which may include lawful access by Canadian or foreign governmental authorities, courts or law enforcement agencies), to other organizations in the case 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 law.
We take the protection of Personal Information very seriously. We take steps to protect Personal Information against loss and theft and unauthorized access disclosure, copying or modification with safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information. We restrict access to Personal Information to our employees and Service Providers who require access for business purposes identified in this Policy.
We safeguard Personal Information by physical measures (for example, locked filing cabinets and restricted access to offices), organizational measures (for example, security clearances, continued employee training and limiting access on a “need-to-know” basis), and technological measures (for example, the use of passwords and encryption). Although we have enacted security measures, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of the Personal Information since no security measures are ever 100% secure or error-free.
If your Personal Information is transferred to our parent or affiliated companies or to Service Providers, we use contractual or other safeguards to ensure that your Personal Information has a comparable level of protection to what we provide at our facilities in Canada.
We may use “cookies” to improve our Services to you. Cookies may help us recall a previous visit. The cookies we use do not collect personally identifiable information, and we do not use them to determine your identity. If you are not comfortable with this use, you may configure your browser to be notified when cookies are to be received and to provide you with the option of refusing cookies. However, refusing cookies may limit your ability to use our Website in its entirety.
We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of any website which link from our Website.
We will use our best efforts to ensure that your Personal Information is as accurate, complete, and up-to-date as is necessary for the purposes for which it is to be used, including information that is transferred to third-party Service Providers for administrative and processing purposes, and information that is used to make a decision about an individual.
Depending on the applicable legislation, you have various rights such as the right to be forgotten, the right to access or rectify your Personal Information, the right to withdraw your consent (if any), the right to be de-indexed, or the right to data portability, i.e., the right to receive a copy of all Personal Information that we hold about you in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. You may challenge the accuracy and completeness of your Personal Information and have it amended. In addition, you may, if Personal Information concerning you is inaccurate, incomplete or equivocal, or if collecting, communicating or keeping it are not authorized by law, require that the information be rectified. If a challenge is not resolved to your satisfaction, we will document the substance of the unresolved challenge. The amended information or the existence of the unresolved challenge, may be transmitted to third-parties having access to the information in question.
Requests for access to the Personal Information we hold about an individual may be refused if permitted or required by law. In such case, the reasons for denying access will be provided to the individual upon request. Exceptions may include information that contains references to other individuals or contains confidential commercial information which cannot be severed from the record; information collected in the course of investigating a breach of an agreement or in the course of a formal dispute resolution process; and information that is subject to solicitor-client privilege.
In addition to the measures to protect Personal Information described in this Policy, we have implemented certain internal procedures and policies regarding our handling of Personal Information to facilitate our compliance with this Policy and applicable laws, including regarding the keeping and destruction of Personal Information, limiting access to Personal Information, and the management of privacy related requests, inquiries and complaints.
If you would like additional information about these procedures and policies, please contact our Privacy Officer using the information found in Section 10 of this Policy hereunder.
Attn: Privacy Officer
Stewart Title Guaranty Company
Royal Bank Plaza, North Tower
200 Bay Street, Suite 2600
Toronto, ON M5J 2J2
Facsimile: 888.292.1388
By Email: [email protected]
For Quebec Residents Only:
Attn: Privacy Officer
Stewart Title Guaranty Company
300-3080 Le Carrefour Boulevard
Laval, QC H7T 2R5 Canada
Phone: 450.973.4446
By Email: [email protected]
Updates to our Policy
Effective Date February 6, 2025