Renter Checks

Privacy Policy

Global Privacy Policy
RenterChecks Information Services Ltd. Privacy Policy
Last updated: November, 2019

This Global Privacy Policy describes the types of Personal Information we collect, the purposes for which we collect that Personal Information, the other parties with whom we may share it and the measures we take to protect the security of the data. It also tells you about your rights and choices with respect to your PersonalInformation, and how you can contact us about our privacy practices. We strive to meet and exceed global standards like the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and theGeneral Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In this Privacy Policy we set out CheckEazey’s approach to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information in connection with our businesses globally, including but not limited to personal information collected, used and disclosed when you access or use our website, application and application programming interface (API).

1. Scope of this Privacy Policy

We are committed to protecting your privacy and support a general policy of openness about how we collect, use and disclose personal information in connection with our business in around the world. This Privacy Policy provides an overview of our business and explains how we collect, use and disclose personal information. By using our Website, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

2. Definitions

In this Privacy Policy, we will use the following terms:

  • “Cookies” are small text files offered to a user’s computer by web servers in order to keep track of the user’s browser as a website is navigated.
  • “Personal Information” means any information about an identifiable individual.
  • “Principals” means individuals that own and/or are involved in the management of a business.
  • “Us”, “we”, “our” and “CheckEazey” means CheckEazey, Inc.
  • “Website” means the website operated by CheckEazey and located at https://checkeazey.com.

3. About us

CheckEazey is an information and data analytics company with the goal of offering the highest quality alternative to the current tenant screeningproducts and services. Today, we serve the landlords and tenants by providing background checks, consumer risk reports, fraud and identity management information, as well as analytics tools to help our clients make informed decisions about consenting individuals (the “Applicants”) or to see what’s available about themselves.

4. An overview of our business

We facilitate thetenant screening processfor landlords by providing public record checks, credit reports and other risk relevant information aboutApplicants. By their nature, our services must include some personal information aboutApplicants. Accordingly, we regularly collect, use and disclose personal information of consenting Applicants when they apply for a vacant unit to rent.

After verifying the identity of an Applicantcredit bureausand others will provide information on an Applicant where applicable and where the Applicant has consented to the specific searches. You, as an Applicant consent to the background check when you ‘Check the Box’ consenting to the applicable searches and provide your personal information to perform a CheckEazey. Without consent an Applicant will be unable to continue and provide their personal information.

5. Our collection practices for potential or existing Applicants

We primarily collect Applicant Personal Information from the following sources:

  • Courts, police and providers of criminal record data;
  • Departments of motor vehicles and providers of motor vehicle records;
  • Credit reporting agencies, bureaus, grantors or other institutions
  • Collection agencies;
  • The internet, and public social media profiles that individual authors have made publicly available;
  • Directly from Applicants in response to any dealings we have with the Applicant including the CheckEazey questionnaire; and
  • Public records, federal, state and/or provincial government offices, public registries, and other sources permitted by law.

We limit our collection of Personal Information to include only what is necessary to supply our Clients with the accurate and up-to-date information they need to make meaningful decisions and in order to provide our Clients with the other services described in this Privacy Policy. We periodically review the data in our system to ensure that it only contains information relevant to the services we provide. Furthermore, we ensure that our retention policies comply with the requirements of privacy laws and the applicable federal, state and/or provincial consumer reporting legislation.

If you call us, we may record and retain the recording to ensure the accuracy of our discussions and for quality control and record keeping purposes.

If you are in the European Economic Area or Switzerland, we will only use your Personal Information with your consent; as necessary to provide you and our Clients with products and services; to comply with a legal obligation; or when there is a legitimate and overriding interest that necessitates the use.

6. Information we collect

What is included in our reports
CheckEazey’sreports may contain the following information:

  • Identifying information: Applicant name, previous name(s), date of birth, Social Insurance Number (including temporary and/or previous Social Insurance Numbers), current and previous addresses and telephone numbers, and current and previous employers;
  • Public records: Information that may affect creditworthiness, such as judgments, bankruptcies, consumer proposals and registered items, as well as, criminal court cases, fraud lists, sex offender registries, and terrorist watch lists;
  • Criminal record check: A list of identified criminal records on file with police services;
  • Address history: A list of past residential addresses;
  • Employment history: A list of previous employers as well as the dates of employment and any references associated with the employment;
  • Education history: A list of previously attended educational institutions, the dates attended, and any degrees/diplomas/certificates/other obtained;
  • Driving history: A list of driving infractions on file with a department of motor vehicles;
  • Credit history: Record of payment history on current and previous bills/debt obligations, including payments on loans, credit cards, lines of credit and mortgages owing to organizations such as retail stores, banks, finance companies and telecommunications companies;
  • Inquiries: A list of credit grantors and other parties authorized by the consumer and/or by law that have received all or part of anApplicant’s credit information. Also lists organizations that have received a service from CheckEazey where consumer credit information was used but not necessarily disclosed, such as authentication;
  • Collections: Information about collection matters. This segment may include information about outstanding collections on business accounts if you are personally liable for the debt. It may also include information about outstanding family maintenance support obligations, if permitted by law;
  • Banking: Information about bank accounts that were closed by an institution for reasons such as empty envelope deposit, NSF cheques or uncollected overdraft charges;
  • Remarks: All remarks that have been added to your file, such as a fraud alert or a consumer statement;
  • Social profiles: Results from a scan of the internet and public social media profiles for information containing content published by you, about you or on your behalf; and
  • References: Responses to questions presented to an Applicant’s provided references

What is NOT included in our reports
CheckEazey reports do not contain:

  • Private information without explicit consent;
  • Medical histories;
  • Information about purchases paid in full with cash or cheques;
  • Race, creed, colour, ancestry, religion, ethnicity, sexual preference, family status or political affiliations.

7. Accuracy of the Personal Information collected

The majority of personal information collected is provided directly from the applicant themselves. As a result, the applicant controls the accuracy for most of the information received. CheckEazey uses automated transcribing practices to the greatest extent possible to ensure the accuracy of information continues within our system. Any information that is found to be inaccurate, whether it be through our internal control processes or brought to our attention by the applicant for correction, is updated as soon as possible.


8. Correcting Personal Information

At any time, an applicant may request to have any identified inaccuracies associated with their personal information corrected. An applicant may also ask us not to collect their personal information and to delete any information that was previously provided to us provided it is permitted by law.

You are entitled to receive your Personal Information from CheckEazey at no charge upon written request. We also encourage all consumers to request and review their Equifax credit report on a regular basis. By doing this, you can ensure that your report contains information that accurately reflects your credit history. You have the right to dispute any discrepancies by immediately notifying us, or Equifax in writing and we will investigate to ensure the items reported are factual. Where a piece of information, outside of the Credit file (Equifax Report), cannot be verified by the reporting source, CheckEazey will remove it from your CheckEazey files.

9. Access to your Personal Information

You also have a right to access the other personal information belonging to you that is under our control subject to any legal restrictions or rights of refusal. Such a request for access must be made in writing stating the details of the personal information you are requesting to CheckEazey’s Chief Privacy Officer at Chief Privacy Officer, privacy@checkeazey.com. To ensure we disclosure information to you only, with your request please include photocopies (front and back) of two (2) pieces of government issued photo id so that we may verify your identity.

10. Decision making associated with Personal Information

CheckEazey does not take part in the decision-making process. Our reports do not make a recommendation to our clients whether positive or negative about the applicant. How the information contained in our report is weighted for decision making is entirely at the discretion of our client and their discussions with the applicant. Compensation received by CheckEazey from Clients is in no way impacted by the information provided on the CheckEazey report. No incentive exists for CheckEazey to provide an opinion or alter information contained on the report and CheckEazey has no vested interest in the outcome between Clients and their Applicants.

11. Our use and disclosure of Personal Information

We limit our use of Personal Information to those purposes which have been disclosed to the Applicant by us or our Clients and for which appropriate consents have been obtained, or for purposes which are otherwise permitted by law. In connection with our services, we do not have direct relationships with the Applicants. Accordingly, Clients to inform their Applicants of the purposes for which they are providing Personal Information to CheckEazey, or accessing Personal Information from CheckEazey, and to obtain appropriate consent at the time the information is collected from the Applicant and/or prior to its use or disclosure by CheckEazey. We also require our Clients to limit the use of Personal Information obtained from CheckEazey to purposes that are permitted by law.

When CheckEazey provides services to a Client, the information is shared through our secure web portal with that Client.

CheckEazey uses and discloses Personal Information in the following circumstances:

  • To provide our consumer credit reporting services, business credit reporting services, and other related services to our Clients;
  • To provide authentication, ID verification and/or credit services to Clients purchasing your credit file;
  • To previous employers to verify employment;
  • To translation service providers to conduct translation services where information is returned to CheckEazey in a language other than English;
  • Other similar service providers in locations outside of where CheckEazey operates to return information from the geographical regions that is consistent with information contained in our reports locally;
  • To manage, administer, collect or otherwise enforce accounts;
  • If CheckEazey was ever sold, or if we merged with another company, or transferred part or all of our shares or assets, we may disclose and/or transfer Personal Information to our successor or assignee who may collect, use and disclose the Personal Information for substantially the same purposes as described in this Privacy Policy;
  • To assist in the investigation of a contravention of a law and/or fraudulent activities;

    • To fulfill our obligations under consumer reporting and privacy legislation (such as, a request to initiate an investigation); and

  • To act in respect of an emergency that threatens the life, health or security of an individual or for other purposes as permitted or required by law.

In addition, we may provide anonymous information (i.e., information that does not identify Applicants or, where applicable, its Principals) in the form of aggregate or demographic data to our Clients or service providers. We may also generate and use anonymous information to develop, enhance or validate our products, processes or services. Personal Information will necessarily be used to generate anonymous information and, when required, to research, validate and test the use of anonymous information in such processes, products, services and enhancements.

CheckEazey may share Personal Information with third parties engaged to assist us in providing services and information to our Clients and to individual consumers. In addition, we may engage third parties to assist us with infrastructure maintenance and support. These service providers are prohibited from using your Personal Information for any purpose other than to provide this assistance and are required to protect Personal Information disclosed by CheckEazey and to comply with the general privacy principles described in this Privacy Policy.

In exceptional circumstances CheckEazey may be forced to communicate personal information with law enforcement agencies, national security agencies, courts, or other similar institutions as required by law. If in receipt of a production order, subpoena, warrant or other enforceable demand, CheckEazey will comply by law as required. We will communicate the request of information with the applicant on a best efforts basis unless prohibited by law.

What we won’t do with the collected information

CheckEazey will not disclose or sell your personal information to advertising agencies, marketing services, or government agencies unless required to do so by law.

12. Obtaining consent

We collect, use and disclose personal information when the Applicant is aware of the purposes for which the information will be used or disclosed, and has given his or her consent to such use or disclosure, except where collection, use or disclosure of personal information without consent is permitted or required by law.

In some cases, Applicants will not provide such consent directly to CheckEazey, but to our Clients. We require our Clients to obtain consent prior to providing CheckEazey with personal information, and prior to accessing the personal information contained in our credit files.

CheckEazey and all of our clients must have Legal Basis for Processing Personal Information (Article 6 of the GDPR). At least one of these must apply whenever personal data is processed:
1. Consent: the individual has given clear consent for the processing of their personal data for a specific purpose.
2. Contract: the processing is necessary for compliance with a contract or rental application.
3. Legal obligation: the processing is necessary to comply with the law (not including contractual obligations).
4. Vital interests: the processing is necessary to protect someone’s life.
5. Public task: the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest, and the task or function has a clear basis in law.
6. Legitimate interests: the processing is necessary for the legitimate interests of the Data Controller unless there is a good reason to protect the individual’s personal data which overrides those legitimate interests.

13. Our accountability

We have appointed a Privacy Officer to oversee our compliance with the privacy principles established by the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and with provincial privacy and credit reporting legislation. However, protecting Personal Information does not begin and end there: we are committed to fostering a sense of responsibility amongst our employees for protecting the privacy and accuracy of Personal Information while it is in our care.

Likewise, our Clients have obligations to Applicants when accessing Personal Information from us or providing Personal Information to us. We have processes in place to encourage our Clients to comply with applicable law and obtain the necessary consents. Such processes include entering into binding agreements with our Clients and conducting random audits of our Clients’ internal procedures; however, the responsibility for the Clients’ compliance ultimately rests with them.

14. Data Transfers

CheckEazey is a global business. We may transfer Personal Information to the Canada, United States and other countries which may not have the same data protection laws as the country in which an individual initially provided the information, but we will protect the Personal Information in accordance with this Global Privacy Notice, or as otherwise disclosed.

If a Client is located in Canada. All of their data and their Applicants will be stored in Canada.

If you are located in the EEA, we will process your Personal Information in accordance with industry best practices and other data transfer mechanisms.
CheckEazey’s privacy practices, described in this Global Privacy Notice, comply with the APEC Cross Border Privacy Rules System. The APEC CBPR system provides a framework for organizations to ensure protection of personal information transferred among participating APEC economies. More information about the APEC framework can be found
at: http://www.apec.org/Groups/Committee-on-Trade-and-Investment/~/media/Files/Groups/ECSG/CBPR/CBPR-PoliciesRulesGuidelines.ashx

CheckEazey is a global business. We may transfer the Personal Information we collect about individuals to recipients in countries other than the country of origin, including Canada, where we are headquartered. These countries may not have the same data protection laws as the country in which the Applicant initially provided the information. When we transfer your Personal Information to other countries, we will protect that information as described in this Global Privacy Notice, as disclosed to Applicants at the time of data collection.

We comply with applicable legal requirements providing adequate safeguards for the transfer of Personal Information to countries other than the country where you are located. In particular, we have established and implemented a set of best practices that have been recognized by EEA data protection authorities as providing an adequate level of protection to the Personal Information we process globally. We may also transfer Personal Information to countries for which adequacy decisions have been issued, use contractual protections for the transfer of Personal Information to third parties, such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses or their equivalent under applicable law, or rely on third parties’ certification to the EU-U.S. or Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks where applicable.

You may contact us to obtain a copy of the safeguards we use to transfer Personal Information outside of the EEA.

15. Retention of your Personal Information

CheckEazey retains your Personal Information in our information database for as long as necessary to fulfill the purpose(s) for which it was collected and to comply with applicable laws.

16. How We Protect Your Personal Information

We maintain appropriate security safeguards to protect your Personal Information and only retain it for a limited period of time.

The security of our Applicants and Clients Personal Information is important to CheckEazey. We are committed to protecting the information we collect. We maintain administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect the Personal Information provided or we collect against accidental, unlawful or unauthorized destruction, loss, alteration, access, disclosure or use. We use SSL encryption on all of our websites from which we transfer certain Personal Information.

We also take measures to delete Personal Information or keep it in a form that does not permit identifying individuals when this information is no longer necessary for the purposes for which we process it, unless we are required by law to keep this information for a longer period. When determining the retention period, we take into account various criteria, such as the type of products and services requested by or provided to our Clients, the nature and length of our relationship with the Applicant, possible re-enrolment with our products or services, the impact on the services we provide if we delete some information from or about an individual, mandatory retention periods provided by law and the statute of limitations.

17. Contacting us

Please contact our Consumer Relations Centre using the contact information below. Our Consumer Relations Centre is staffed by trained personnel who can assist with your inquiries. You may also direct your inquiry or request directly to our Privacy Officer. We may require that you put any request for access or correction in writing.
Consumers can also contact us through our:

  • Website: https://checkeazey.com
  • Email: support@checkeazey.com

18. Adverse action

When a Client bases its decision to deny a benefit or to increase a charge to the Applicant, in part on information received from CheckEazey, the Client has an obligation to inform the Applicant Customer that it obtained information from us and our Partners at Equifax. In this situation, Clients must provide individuals who are declined with CheckEazey’s and Equifax’s contact information so that the individual can verify the content of their CheckEazey Report and Credit File and, if necessary, request from CheckEazey, the credit bureau or one of our Certified Data Providers that information be amended or deleted. CheckEazey does not play a role in the decision to deny or advance an Application, the Applicant should deal directly with the Client for more information on the denial of their Application.

If CheckEazey is satisfied on reasonable grounds that a request made should be implemented, CheckEazey will (a)correct the personal information as soon as reasonably possible, and (b)send the corrected personal information to each organization to which the personal information was disclosed by CheckEazey during the year before the date the correction was made.

If no correction is made, CheckEazey will create a note in our database with the correction that was requested but not made.

CheckEazey requires, that when a Client is notified of a correction of personal information, the Client must correct the personal information under its control.

19. Cookies

CheckEazey’s Website makes use of “per-session” Cookies. Unlike “persistent” Cookies, which are stored on a user’s hard drive and can last indefinitely, per-session Cookies are stored only in a browser’s temporary memory and are deleted when the browser is shut down.
When users visit our Website, our web server offers the user’s browser a per-session Cookie. As the Website is navigated, this Cookie is read back to our web server, allowing us to generate an anonymous “click trail” profile of the visit. From the aggregated information about visits, CheckEazey learns how visitors interact with its Website, how the Website design and content can be improved, and how visitors’ experiences can be improved.

CheckEazey does not link, share or associate the contents of the per-session Cookie with any other information in a way that would enable the identification of visitors to our Website. Nor do we track or link together multiple visits by any single user over time. Our per-session Cookies cannot be “read” by any other web servers, so users cannot be tracked or profiled using CheckEazey’s Cookies if they visit multiple sites on the Internet. Some browsers can be set to reject all Cookies. If a user chooses to modify a browser in this manner, some pages of our Website may not function properly.

20. IP addresses and server logs

Unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are assigned to all internet users by their Internet Service Providers (ISPs). IP addresses do not directly identify internet users; however, through an ISP, an IP address may be linked to a particular user.
During a visit to a website, certain information about a user’s traffic patterns, linked with the user’s IP address, is passively and automatically collected in the normal course of establishing and maintaining a website connection. This information is logged by the web server of the website that is visited.
The following information is logged by CheckEazey’s web servers during visits to our Website: IP addresses, type of operating system, time and duration of visit, web pages visited and browser type. We do not link server log information to any other information in a way that would enable the identification of visitors to our Website. Server log information is analyzed by us in order to improve our Website and to customize the Website for users. In addition, from time to time, server logs may be reviewed for security purposes; for example, to detect unauthorized activity on our Website. In such cases, server log data, containing IP addresses, would be shared with law enforcement bodies in order that they may identify users in connection with their investigation of the unauthorized activities.

21. Links to third party sites

Our Website may offer links to other third-party websites. You should be aware that operators of linked websites may also collect your Personal Information and information generated through the use of Cookies or other tracking technologies when you visit their websites. CheckEazey is not responsible for how such third parties collect, use or disclose your Personal Information, so it is important to familiarize yourself with their privacy policies before visiting their websites or providing them with your Personal Information.

22. Changes to this Privacy Policy

CheckEazey reserves the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time without notice. The Privacy Policy posted at any time or from time to time via this Website shall be deemed to be the Privacy Policy then in effect.