Privacy Policy

Goodness Me! Natural Food Market Privacy Policy

last updated [April 04, 2024]

Privacy Statement

At Goodness Me! (the "Company", "us" or "we"), We are committed to safeguarding your personal information, it is our policy to respect your privacy and comply with any applicable law and regulation regarding any personal information we may collect about you. This Privacy Policy is designed to inform you about how we collect, use, disclose, and protect your personal information when you interact with us at our stores, digital channels, and through our ecommerce website. By using our websites, visiting our stores, registering with any of our programs, you consent to the practices described in this Privacy Policy, so please take a moment to familiarize yourself with its contents to better understand how your data is managed when you engage with us. If you are an employee, this policy does not apply to information collected about you in the course of your employment with us.

Our website may contain links to other websites that may be subject to less stringent privacy standards.  We cannot assume any responsibility for the privacy practices, policies, or actions of the third parties that operate these websites. This Privacy Policy does not apply to any of your activities after you leave our site. We are not responsible for how such third parties collect, use, or disclose your personal information.  You should review the privacy policies of these websites before providing them with personal information.  Our website is not intended for children who are under 14 years of age, we therefore do not collect or intend to collect personal information from children who are under 14 years of age.

Privacy Policy Effective In Canada

This Privacy Policy covers only those activities that are subject to the provisions of Canada's federal and provincial privacy laws, as applicable.  Consequently, the rights and obligations contained in this Privacy Policy may not be available to all individuals or in all jurisdictions.  If you are unsure if or how this Privacy Policy applies to you, please contact our Privacy Compliance Officer for more information. 

What is Personal Information?

In this Privacy Policy, personal information means information about an identifiable individual, or as otherwise defined under applicable privacy law, other than the person's business title or business contact information when used or disclosed for the purpose of business communications.

Categories of Personal Information we Collect and Source

We collect personal information that is necessary for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy, unless the law authorizes us to proceed otherwise.  We collect and use different categories of personal information, Information we collect falls into one of two categories: “voluntarily provided” information and “automatically collected” information. “Voluntarily provided” information refers to any information you knowingly and actively provide us when using or participating in any of our services and promotions. “Automatically collected” information refers to any information automatically sent by your devices or service providers while performing a transaction instore or online as well as through any of Goodness Me’s digital channels.

• Contact, identification and registration information, such as your name, date of birth, gender, email address, home address (shipping and billing), postal code, telephone number, dietary restrictions, shopping interests and other information provided when registering with our loyalty or discount programs.
• Information on your transaction, such as the information relating to your purchases, returns and purchase history both past and future (when a loyalty card is used) within a transaction both online and instore.
• Payment information, such as credit card or debit card number when making a purchase instore or online.
• Information about your communications with us, such as written communications by email or telephone, content submitted through our website, and log history of communications with us.
• Information about how you use our websites and services, such as information collected through cookies, browsing preferences, clickstream data and browser history, IP address, User-Agent HTTP header (which normally contains browser, browser version, operating system and device type), URL landing page, URL of the website that referred you to our website, Google Client ID (if any), information about your device, operating systems or browser
• Information regarding employment and other information you submit when applying for a job.

We collect personal information directly from you when interactions with us, including when:

• Creating an account on our website.
• Completing online or in-store transactions.
• Signing up to receive emails, promotions, alerts, announcements or newsletters, including when providing information for marketing initiatives or contests.
• Registering with our loyalty programs.
• Communicating with us via our website, email, fax or in writing, including when submitting product suggestions.
• Applying for employment via our website or email.
• Advertising engagement via website, social or email marketing

Use of Cookies

We use "cookies" to collect information about you and your activity across our site. A cookie is a small piece of data that our Shopify website stores on your computer, and accesses each time you visit, so we can understand how you use our site. This helps us serve you content based on preferences you have specified.

You can choose to opt-out of non-essential cookies by managing your preferences via the Cookie Consent Banner which appears on your first visit to the site or after cookies have been cleared through your browsers settings. 

We use the necessary cookies on our website as provided by Shopify. A few of the cookies we use are:

• Session_id, unique token, sessional, Allows Shopify to store information about your session (referrer, landing page, etc).
• shopify_visit, no data held, Persistent for 30 minutes from the last visit, Used by our website provider's internal stats tracker to record the number of visits
• shopify_uniq, no data held, expires midnight (relative to the visitor) of the next day, Counts the number of visits to a store by a single customer.
• cart, unique token, persistent for 2 weeks, Stores information about the contents of your cart.
• secure_session_id, unique token, sessional
• storefront_digest, unique token, indefinite If the shop has a password, this is used to determine if the current visitor has access.

Use of Pixels

Pixels are used for marketing purposes, Pixels are small pieces of code embedded in our websites and emails, allowing Goodness Me! to assess user interactions on our digital channels. These pixels enable the collection of information such as:

• User behavior, user demographics, preferences, and actions taken on a website or within an email,
• Aiding in the delivery of targeted advertisements and personalized content.
• Analyze customer engagement, optimize advertising campaigns, and enhance user experience.

 We are committed to safeguarding your privacy and ensuring the secure handling of your personal information. Therefore, we adhere to strict privacy policies and regulations regarding pixel use, including providing transparency about data collection practices. Your trust and privacy are paramount to us, and we are dedicated to maintaining the highest standards of data protection in all our marketing endeavors.

Device Data

When you visit our website or interact with our services, we may automatically collect data about your device, such as:

•  Device type
•  Operating system
•  Device settings
•  Geo-location data

Data we collect can depend on the individual settings of your device and software. We recommend checking the policies of your device manufacturer or software provider to learn what information they make available to us.

Legitimate Reasons for Processing Your Personal Information

We only collect and use your personal information when we have a legitimate reason for doing so. In which instance, we only collect personal information that is reasonably necessary to provide our services to you.

How We Use Personal Information

We use your personal information in order to process your requests, to provide you our products and services, and to understand your needs so that we can serve you better, including to:

• Identify you as a user of our website and as a client of our stores, if applicable.
• Establish, maintain and manage our relationship with you so that we can provide the products and services you requested, which includes obtaining and processing payment, provide order status, managing product exchanges or returns.
• Manage and improve our loyalty programs.
• Develop or enhance our products and services to customers.
• Understand your needs and preferences and customize the content we provide to your preferences.
• Manage and develop our business and operations, including the diagnosis of technical problems or for improved functionality, and to maintain and enhance safety and security for our customers and our assets.
• Investigate and resolve incidents, and complaints or disputes.
• Send you promotional and marketing materials that we think might be of interest to you, which may include targeted advertising.
• Provided it is de-identified, conduct internal research, analysis (production of statistics) and development purposes. Personal Information is de-identified when it no longer allows you to be directly identified. We will maintain and use this data only in a de-identified form and will not attempt to re-identify such data, except as permitted by applicable law or with your consent.
• Track your purchase history when you create an account or register with our loyalty programs, including by combining your personal information with non-identifiable data made available to us by our payment processor and online store provider.
• Generate customer unique identifiers to keep track of and manage your transactions and interactions with us and collect commercial information, such as purchase history, purchase habits, preferences and interests. We may also draw inferences about you from the other types of information we collect reflecting your interests, preferences, online behaviors, and characteristics.
• Meet contractual, legal, and regulatory requirements.

How We Share Your Personal Information

We may share your personal information with:

• Our service providers who require such information to assist us in fulfilling the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. We retain the following categories for third party providers:
  • Debit and credit card processing.
  • Point-of-Sale platform.
  • Marketing automation platform.
• Other third-party providers in connection with a business transaction (which includes the sale, disposition or other transfer of our business, the merger of our business) in which case we will require such third parties to adhere to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Your personal information may be transferred to, or processed in, countries or provinces other than the country or province you are resident of.  These countries or provinces may have privacy laws that are different to the data protection laws applicable in your country or province.

How Long We Keep Your Personal Information

We keep your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected, or as required or permitted by applicable law. This time period may depend on what we are using your information for, in accordance with this privacy policy. For example, if you have provided us with personal information as part of creating an account with us, we may retain this information for the duration your account exists on our system. If your personal information is no longer required for this purpose, we will destroy, erase, or anonymize personal information However, if necessary, we may retain your personal information for our compliance with a legal, accounting, or reporting obligation.

Security

When we collect and process personal information, and while we retain this information, we will protect it within commercially acceptable means to prevent loss and theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification. We endeavor to maintain physical, technical, and procedural safeguards that are appropriate to the sensitivity of the personal information in question. Although we will do our best to protect the personal information you provide to us, we advise that no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure and no one can guarantee absolute data security. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.  Once this website receives your transmission, we make commercially reasonable efforts to ensure its security on our systems.

You are responsible for selecting any password and its overall security strength, ensuring the security of your own information within the bounds of our services. For example, ensuring any passwords associated with accessing your personal information and accounts are secure and confidential.

Profiling and Automated Decision

Provided you enable the profiling features through the cookies preference settings or other technology we use, we may use your personal information in order to better understand your interests, preferences or behavior.

We do not use: (i) your personal information to render a decision solely based on automated processing; and/or, (ii) automated decision systems to make a prediction, recommendation, or decision about you that could have a significant impact on you.

Your Privacy Rights

Your choice: By providing personal information to us, you understand we will collect, hold, use, and disclose your personal information in accordance with this privacy policy. You do not have to provide personal information to us, however, if you do not, it may affect your use of our website or the products and/or services offered on or through it.

Information from third parties: If we receive personal information about you from a third party, we will protect it as set out in this privacy policy. If you are a third party providing personal information about somebody else, you represent and warrant that you have such person’s consent to provide the personal information to us.

Marketing permission: If you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes, you may change your mind at any time by contacting us using the details provided within this policy.

Access: You may request details of the personal information that we hold about you.

Correction: If you believe that any information we hold about you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading, please contact us using the details provided in this privacy policy. We will take reasonable steps to correct any information found to be inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, or out of date.

Non-discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your rights over your personal information. Unless your personal information is required to provide you with a particular service or offer (for example providing user support), we will not deny you goods or services and/or charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties, or provide you with a different level or quality of goods or services.

Notification of data breaches: We will comply with laws applicable to us in respect of any data breach.

Complaints: If you believe that we have breached a relevant data protection law and wish to make a complaint, please contact us using the details outlined in this policy and provide us with full details of the alleged breach. We will promptly investigate your complaint and respond to you, in writing, setting out the outcome of our investigation and the steps we will take to deal with your complaint. You also have the right to contact a regulatory body or data protection authority in relation to your complaint.

Unsubscribe: To unsubscribe from our email database or opt-out of communications (including marketing communications), please contact us using the details provided in this privacy policy, or opt-out using the opt-out facilities provided in the communication. We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity.

Marketing messages: You can at any time unsubscribe to the marketing messages we send by electronic means (text or email) by using the links provided in those communications or by emailing "unsubscribe" to Privacy@goodnessme.ca

Managing your preferences: You can choose to manage your preferences via the Cookie Consent Banner which appears on your first visit to the site or after cookies have been cleared through your browsers settings. 

Privacy Compliance Officer - Contact.  If you would like to make an access, correction, disposal or withdrawal request, register a complaint and/or simply want more information on our privacy program, please contact our

Privacy Compliance Officer via Privacy@goodnessme.ca or by mail at:

Goodness Me! Natural Food Market
Re: Privacy Compliance Officer
1000 Upper Gage Hamilton Ontario CA L8V 4R5

Business Transfers

If we or our assets are acquired, or in the unlikely event that we go out of business or enter bankruptcy, we would include data, including your personal information, among the assets transferred to any parties who acquire us. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur, and that any parties who acquire us may, to the extent permitted by applicable law, continue to use your personal information according to this policy, which they will be required to assume as it is the basis for any ownership or use rights we have over such information.

Limits of Our Policy

Our website may link to external sites that are not operated by us. Please be aware that we have no control over the content and policies of those sites, and cannot accept responsibility or liability for their respective privacy practices.

Changes to This Policy

At our discretion, we may change our privacy policy to reflect updates to our business processes, current acceptable practices, or legislative or regulatory changes. If we decide to change this privacy policy, we will post the changes here at the same link by which you are accessing this privacy policy.

If the changes are significant, or if required by applicable law, we will contact you (based on your selected preferences for communications from us) and all our registered users with the new details and links to the updated or changed policy.

Contact Us

For any questions or concerns regarding your privacy, you may contact us using the following details:

Email: Privacy@goodnessme.ca

Mail: Goodness Me! Natural Food Market
Re: Privacy Compliance Officer
1000 Upper Gage Hamilton Ontario CA L8V 4R5

 

Additional Disclosures for Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) Compliance (Canada)

Additional scope of personal information

In accordance with PIPEDA, we broaden our definition of personal information to include any information about an individual, such as financial information, information about your appearance, your views and opinion (such as those expressed online or through a survey), opinions held about you by others, and any personal correspondences you may have with us. While this information may not directly identify you, be aware that it may be combined with other information to do so.

As PIPEDA refers to personal information using the term Personally Identifying Information (PII), any references to personal information and PII in this privacy policy, and in official communications from Goodness Me Natural Food Market, are intended as equivalent to one another in every way, shape and form.

Valid Consent

Where you give us consent to collect and use your personal information for a specific purpose. You may withdraw your consent at any time using the facilities we provide; however this will not affect any use of your information that has already taken place. When you contact us, we assume your consent based on your positive action of contact, therefore you consent to your name and email address being used so we can respond to your enquiry. Under PIPEDA, consent is only valid if it is reasonable to expect that an individual to whom the organization's activities are directed would understand the nature, purpose, and consequences of the collection, use, or disclosure of the personal information to which they are consenting. Where you agree to receive marketing communications from us, we will do so based solely on your indication of consent or until you instruct us not to, which you can do at any time.

International Transfers of Information 

While Goodness Me Natural Food Market endeavors to keep, store and handle customer data within locations in Canada, it may use agents or service providers located in the United States (U.S.), European Economic Area (EEA) or United Kingdom (UK) to collect, use, retain and process personal information as part of providing services to you. While we use all reasonable efforts to ensure that personal information receives the same level of security in any other jurisdiction as it would in Canada, please be aware that privacy protections under U.S. laws may not be the same adequacy.

Right to Withdraw Consent

Where you give us consent to collect and use your personal information for a specific purpose. Subject to some restrictions, you can, at any time, refuse to consent, or continue to consent to the collection, use or disclosure of their personal information by notifying us using the email address below in the ‘Contact Us’ section. Withdrawal of consent may impact our ability to provide or continue to provide services.

Customers cannot refuse collection, use and disclosure of their personal information if such information is required to:

•  be collected, used or disclosed as required by any law;  fulfill the terms of any contractual agreement; and
•  be collected, used or disclosed as required by any regulators including self regulatory organizations

While you may request that we delete your contact details at any time, we cannot recall any email we have already sent. If you have any further enquiries about how to withdraw your consent, please feel free to enquire using the details provided in the Contact Us section of this privacy policy.