1. Preamble

This Personal Information Protection Policy is established in accordance with Law 25 on the protection of personal information in Québec.

The personal information you entrust to us is valuable and we make it our duty to protect it, in order to safeguard our professional and business relationship with you.

The policy aims to inform our members and users about our organization’s practices regarding the collection, use, sharing, retention, and accessibility of your personal information. This policy applies as long as we hold your information, including after the end of our professional and business relationship.

2. Personal Information Protection Officer

To ensure our organization’s compliance with this personal information protection policy and the principles underlying it, the Groupex Horticultural Cooperative and its marketing banners Maître Paysagiste and Passion Jardins have designated a personal information protection officer.

If you have comments or questions about this policy or how the Cooperative and its banners manage your personal information, or if you wish to file a complaint in this regard, you can contact:

Head of Personal Information Protection

Groupex Horticultural Cooperative and its marketing banners Maître Paysagiste and Passion Jardins
Sébastien Cordeau
General Manager
25, avenue Bégin
Lévis (Québec)
G6V 4B8
sebastien.cordeau@groupex.coop
1 877 838-7270, poste 226

You can also file a complaint in writing with the Commission d’accès à l’information. Relevant information on this subject can be found on the Commission’s website.

3. Personal information that may be collected, by what means, and for what purposes

3.1 What information can we collect?

The Groupex Horticultural Cooperative and its banners Maître Paysagiste and Passion Jardins only collect personal information necessary for establishing communication with its members and users and for carrying out its activities.

Thus, the Cooperative and its banners may collect identification information, namely:

• Full name
• Postal addresses
• Personal phone numbers
• Personal emails
• Date of birth
• Employment

3.2 What means are used to collect?

We may collect identification personal information from you when you interact with an authorized employee of our organization to collect this information or through a form or when you send us an email.

3.3 Use of personal information

The Cooperative and its banners use personal information concerning its members and users for the purpose of:

• Identifying you and updating your personal information.
• Conducting data analysis to generate statistics and thus improve our services.
• Promoting services that may interest you.
• Informing you of any news or updates concerning our organization.

The Cooperative and its banners only use your personal information for the above-mentioned purposes. We will ask for your consent for any other use that has not been previously provided for, except in situations where the law allows it.

Within the Cooperative and its banners, only staff members who need it in the performance of their duties have access to your personal information. Moreover, we have established and deployed internal procedures such as restricted access to ensure that each employee only has access to the information necessary to carry out the tasks assigned to them.

3.4 Disclosure of your personal information to third parties

The Cooperative and its banners may transfer the personal information collected to service providers and other trusted partners carefully selected by our organization. These providers and partners are required to keep personal information confidential, use it only for the purposes for which the Cooperative and its banners disclose it, and treat this personal information in accordance with the principles established by this Policy.

Third-party providers and partners who have access to your personal information sign a confidentiality agreement with us and commit to using your information only for the purposes mentioned in the agreement and to providing the same level of protection that we offer. For example, we may disclose personal information to organizations such as HortiCompétences for study, research, or statistics production purposes, in accordance with the conditions provided for by Law 25.

4. When do we need to obtain your consent?

The Cooperative and its banners use your information only with your consent or if Law 25 allows it. We may obtain your consent when you fill out a personal information collection form, by email, or when communicating directly with our organization.

For example, we may obtain your consent when:

1. You request information about a service offered by Groupex or a service offered by a third party, whether a supplier or partner.
2. You register for an activity organized either by Groupex or one of its banners (Open Doors, Groupex Congress, the Great Coop Tour, etc.).
3. You communicate with a member of one of our departments whether it is marketing and events, sustainable development, finance including accounting and billing, as well as procurement.
4. You agree to receive communications from us to keep you informed of the latest news concerning our organization.

Moreover, it is important to note that we do not obtain your consent at every interaction with you. For example, if you have given your consent to subscribe to our newsletter, we may consider that you accept that we send you our newsletter every month, until you decide to unsubscribe.

5. Connection cookies

The Cooperative and its banners use cookies on their respective websites, namely www.groupex.coop; www.passionjardins.com; and www.maitrepaysagiste.com, to facilitate navigation, personalize site usage, for statistical purposes, to measure the audience and traffic on each of the websites and finally to understand the use you make of it as a member and user.

In short, cookie files help us collect information about your browsing. The information collected includes:

• The anonymized IP address of your computer
• Pages viewed (the date, time, duration, and frequency of your visits)

As a member and user, you are able to configure your browser to block cookies by setting your Internet browser. Moreover, you can at any time destroy cookies by deleting your browsing history.

By using the websites of the Cooperative and its banners, you accept the deposit of cookies on your computer, smartphone, or electronic tablet.

6. Retention of collected personal information

The Cooperative and its banners retain your personal information according to your membership. For example, an active file refers to an active member or user, an inactive file refers to a member or user no longer a member of the Cooperative or its banners.

The Cooperative and its banners do not keep any member files whether active or inactive on paper. All personal information is kept on a computer server. It is important to note that we retain all personal information in accordance with best practices for retention and archiving.

The Cooperative and its banners retain your personal information, in digital format, as long as necessary to achieve the purposes for which the information was collected or as long as required or permitted under Law 25. The purpose, nature, and sensitivity of the information have been taken into account in determining the retention periods.

Once you are no longer a member or user of the Cooperative and its banners, your personal information is electronically archived as former members for a period of six (6) years. When your information is no longer needed, we destroy it securely.

We are committed to making significant efforts to protect your personal information against loss, theft, and unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. We have also established security procedures to ensure this protection, including by limiting the people who have access to your personal information by setting up:

• Restricted access to email inboxes
• Restricted access to computer servers
• Firewalls

In this way, only employees who need to consult your information in the course of their duties have access to it.

7. What are your rights and how to exercise them

In accordance with Law 25, every user has the right to request access to their personal information held by the Cooperative and its banners. They also have the right to request the correction of any inaccurate or incomplete information. To exercise these rights, the user can contact us at the address indicated in section 2 of this Policy.

8. Update of the Personal Information Protection Policy

We reserve the right to modify this Personal Information Protection Policy at any time. Any modification will be published on our site with an update date. We encourage our users to regularly consult this policy to be informed of our practices regarding the protection of personal information.