Indigo Privacy Policy

LAST UPDATE: July 25, 2024

Indigo Books & Music Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively, “Indigo”, “we” and “us”) respect an individual's privacy. This Privacy Policy applies to Indigo and our collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal information through our websites, mobile applications, retail stores (which includes stores operating under the banners Indigo, Chapters, Coles, and Indigospirit) (collectively, the “Services”). Indigo reserves the right to update this Privacy Policy at any time and such modifications shall be effective immediately.

Our Privacy officer and privacy compliance framework

Indigo has appointed a Privacy Officer who is responsible for overseeing our compliance with this Privacy Policy and our practices relating to privacy of personal information. See Contact Us for information on how to contact the Privacy Officer.

We maintain a framework for the protection of any personal information that we collect. The framework includes policies and procedures designed to help us comply with this Privacy Policy. This framework requires all employees to protect the confidentiality of any personal information that we handle through the lifecycle of that personal information. The privacy framework includes employee codes of conduct, breach reporting obligations, data retention and destruction policies, employee training, and procedures for addressing complaints and providing individuals with access to their personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

notice to quebec residents

If you are a resident of Quebec and we collect personal information about you in Quebec, that information will be communicated outside of Quebec to other locations in Canada, the United States and other places where we or our service providers process your information.

CONSENT

When you provide Indigo with your personal information, you understand and agree to Indigo’s collection, use, storage, disclosure and retention of your information in accordance with this Privacy Policy or as otherwise permitted by law. Except in limited circumstances, you may withdraw your consent to our use of your personal information at any time.

what INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We limit the collection of personal information to what is reasonably required to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected. The information we collect falls into three categories: (1) information we collect directly from you; (2) information we collect when you use our Services; and (3) information we collect from other sources.

WHAT INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM YOU, AND HOW.

We may collect personal information from you in our stores, by mail, by email, over the telephone, through our websites or mobile applications.

Examples of using our Services include visiting or making purchases at our stores or websites, registering for an Indigo account, or completing a customer profile, creating a gift registry, joining Indigo loyalty and rewards programs, responding to an event invite, signing up to receive emails, text messages or postal mailings, providing product reviews, responding to surveys, downloading an Indigo mobile application, contacting Indigo customer service, and participating in our contests and other promotions.

The information you give us may include:

Basic identifying information including your full name (first and last), alias, postal address, e-mail address, phone number, date of birth, account name, signature, username, social media handle, or other similar identifiers.

Device information and other unique identifiers including device identifier, internet protocol (IP) address, cookies, beacons, pixel tags, mobile ad identifier, or similar unique identifiers.

Internet or other network activity including browsing or search history and information regarding your interactions with our websites, mobile applications, emails, or advertisements.

Geolocation data including information that permits us to determine your location, such as if you manually provide location information or enable your mobile device to send us precise location information.

Payment information including credit or debit card numbers.

Commercial information including products or services you have purchased, returned, exchanged, or considered; preferences; and rewards activity related to plum rewards membership.

Lifestyle and personal interest information including information you choose to provide regarding personal preferences, profession, hobbies, personal interests, life events in connection with a service or event, in-store or digital experience, gift registry, or product recommendation.

Demographic data including age, gender, marital status, parental status, and household information.

User content including your communications with us and any other content you provide (such as social media profiles, photographs, images, videos, survey responses, comments, product reviews, testimonials, and other content).

Audio and visual information including photographs, images, videos, and recordings of your voice (such as when we record customer service calls for quality assurance).

Inferences inferences drawn from or created based on any of the information identified above.

Job Applicant Information To review the Applicant Privacy Policy, please request a copy by writing to privacy@indigo.ca

HOW WE COLLECT INFORMATION WHEN YOU USE OUR SERVICES

When you use our Services, we may collect information about the Services you use and how you use them. We do this to ensure that we are offering you the best products and services in a secure environment, and as part of our efforts to constantly improve your experience. In this process, we may collect and use your personal information relating to your purchasing trends at Indigo, point-of-sale and in-store camera information, technical details about your browser and mobile device use and location (e.g., whether you are using a tablet or smartphone to visit our websites), and your viewing and usage trends in order to analyze and offer you customized advertising, products and services.

Using Online Tracking Technologies and Other Automatic Data Collection Technologies

When you visit our websites, use our mobile applications, open or click on emails we send you, or interact with our advertisements, we or third parties we work with automatically collect certain information using online tracking technologies such as pixels, web beacons, analytics software, and third-party cookies. For more information, please see Cookies and Similar Online Tracking Technologies” section below.

We may combine this information with other information collected in-store or online such as your online and in-store transaction history, and aggregate demographic information, such as the predominant age groups and the average size of households in your area, which can help us gain insights about your interests and preferences. We do this to support our research using website and mobile analytics and to provide you with more tailored advertising and marketing communications. This includes serving interest-based advertising to you, subject to your right to withdraw consent. For example:

  • We use your online and/or in-store purchase history to provide you with interest-based advertisements on products and services that you have viewed, purchased or similar to those you have purchased previously.
  • We collect, combine and categorize your personal information on an aggregated basis to identify online and offline purchasing patterns to help us analyze our business to better serve customers.
  • We collect information relating to your interests, preferences, and sentiments through your interactions with our websites, mobile applications and social media accounts as well as through aggregate demographic information about households in your area, as determined by your postal code, to gain insights and provide you with more personalized advertising and marketing.

Cookies and Similar Online Tracking Technologies

The technologies we use include:

  • Cookies, which are small text files that are saved on your computer when you visit a website so that information can be saved between visits, such as your login credentials or language preferences. For example, cookies allow you to log in quickly when you visit our sites.
  • Web beacons, and pixels, which are small image files that have information about you, such as your IP address, that can be downloaded when you visit a website or open an email. This allows us to understand your online behaviour, monitor our email delivery, and provide you with interest-based advertising. These tools also allow our third-party tracking tools to gather information, such as your IP address. Aggregated information refers to personal information compiled and expressed in a summary form where no personal identifiers are included.

We use Google Analytics, a web analysis service of Google Inc. ("Google"). Google Analytics uses cookies to analyze your use of our websites, to create reports about visitor activities for us and to provide further services associated with the use of the websites and the Internet. Although this information is collected through your Google ad settings, it is visible to us in a personally-identifiable format.

We also use Adobe Analytics, a web analysis service of Adobe Inc. ("Adobe"). Adobe Analytics uses cookies to analyze your use of our websites, to create reports about visitor activities for us and to provide further services associated with the use of the websites and the Internet. Although this information is collected through your browser’s ad settings it is visible to us in a personally-identifiable format.

You may delete or disable certain of these technologies at any time via your browser. However, if you do so, you may not be able to use some of the features on our websites or mobile applications. To learn more about the choices available to you, please visit the section MANAGING YOUR PREFERENCES below.

We use Microsoft Clarity to capture how you use and interact with our website through behavioral metrics, heatmaps, and session replay to improve and market our products/services. Website usage data is captured using first and third-party cookies and other tracking technologies to determine the popularity of products/services and online activity. Additionally, we use this information for site optimization, fraud/security purposes, and advertising. For more information about how Microsoft collects and uses your data, visit the https://privacy.microsoft.com/privacystatement. Microsoft utilizes the system built by the Digital Advertising Alliance to enable you to opt-out of Clarity. You can opt out of Clarity by selecting Microsoft here: https://optout.aboutads.info/. If you install the Protect My Choices app for your browser, you can ensure your opt-out preference is saved: https://youradchoices.com/pmc. Please note that you must opt-out on each browser you use to access our site.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM OTHER SOURCES.

We also collect information that is publicly available, to the extent permitted by applicable law. For example, we may collect information you submit to a blog, a chat room, or a social network like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and X (formerly known as Twitter).

HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We may use the information we collect about you in a variety of ways, including:

  • to process your purchases of products and services;
  • to communicate with you about orders, purchases, services, accounts, programs, contests, and sweepstakes;
  • to respond to your customer service inquiries and requests for information;
  • to post your comments or statements on our websites and social media platforms;
  • to send you customized promotions and special offers, including through email and social media platforms;
  • to inform you about our brands, products, events, or other promotional purposes;
  • to maintain and improve our sites and the products and services we offer by using tracking technologies such as cookies;
  • to detect, prevent, or investigate security breaches or fraud; and
  • to maintain appropriate records for internal administrative purposes.

HOW WE SHARE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We may share your information in the following circumstances:

  • When We Work Together – We may share the collected information between Indigo subsidiaries and affiliated companies for proper management, analysis and decision making, including decisions regarding the expansion and promotion of our product and service offering, order or customer request fulfillment, and for use by those companies for the other purposes described in this Privacy Policy.
  • When We Work with Service Providers – We may share your information with service providers that provide us with support services, such as credit card processing, fraud prevention, customer service and call centre services, website hosting, email delivery, location mapping, postal mail processing and delivery, and performance and analytics services. In some cases, these service providers may use or combine the information we provide with other information in order to monitor, secure or improve their services. For information on how our online fraud prevention service provider uses personal information, please see: https://www.forter.com/services-privacy-policy/.
  • When Sharing Helps Us Protect Lawful Interests – We may disclose your information if the disclosure is required by law, the disclosure is necessary to enforce our agreements or policies, or the disclosure will help us protect the rights, property, or safety of Indigo, our customers or our partners.
  • When We Share with Other Companies for Marketing Purposes – We may share your information with service providers to provide you with customized promotions and special offers. This can include sharing your information with social media platforms in order to develop customized advertising that offers you unique products and services. We also may share anonymous, aggregated statistics about your use of our websites and services with other companies.
  • When You Give Consent – We may share information about you with other companies if you give us permission or direct us to share the information.
  • When the Information Does Not Identify You – We may share your information in a way that does not directly identify you. For example, we may combine information about you with information about other people and share the combined information in a way that does not link your information to you.
  • When You Post on Our Websites and Social Media Platforms – If you post information on one of our social media platforms or websites, the information that you post may be seen by other visitors, including your post information and your user name.
  • When We Work on Business Transactions – If we become involved with a transaction involving the transfer of some or all of our business assets, we may share your information with business entities or people involved in the negotiation or transfer.

MANAGING YOUR PREFERENCES

By using the Services or submitting information to us in connection with using the Services, you are providing your consent to the collection, use, storage, disclosure and retention of personal information as set out in this Privacy Policy. Consent may be withdrawn at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice; however, without such consent, Indigo may limit the Services it is able to provide you.

You can opt out of receiving promotional emails, text messages, telephone calls, and mailings by informing us of your preference at the time you sign up for an Indigo account, when contacting our customer service team by phone, requesting a change when you visit one of our stores, modifying your promotional preferences online in your account’s profile management section, adjusting your text and notification preferences in your mobile device's settings or by following the opt-out instructions in the promotional emails we send you.

Alternatively, you may let us know that you do not wish to receive some or all of these promotional communications by emailing or writing to us at the addresses provided in the "Contact Us" section below.

Please note that if you opt out of receiving promotional messages from us, we may still send you non-promotional communications, including emails about your accounts or purchases.

ACCESSING OR CORRECTING YOUR INFORMATION

You have the right, under certain circumstances, to access and correct information we hold about you. Any such access request must be in writing and provided to us at the email or postal address provided in the "Contact Us" section below. Any such access request may be subject to a small statutory fee to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you, where permitted by applicable law.

DELETING YOUR ACCOUNT

If you want to cancel or delete your account, you may do so in writing at the email or postal address provided in the "Contact Us" section below. We will make every effort to promptly respond to your request. We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you Services, such as product returns or warranties. If you ask us to delete your account, we generally retain and use your account information only as long as necessary to fulfil a business or law enforcement need.

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION

Indigo makes reasonable efforts to ensure that any personal information you provide is maintained in a secure environment. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. While we strive to protect your personal information, Indigo cannot warrant the security of any personal information you transmit to us or from our on-line services, and you do so at your own risk.

Indigo has implemented and maintains reasonable and appropriate security measures, procedures and practices to protect against the loss and unauthorized access, use, modification, destruction or disclosure of your personal information while it is in our custody or under our control. For example, we use SSL encryption, firewalls, anti-virus and system security monitoring.

We also limit access to your personal information to those employees, contractors and agents who have a business need to know.

STORING PROCESSING and transmission of YOUR INFORMATION

Your personal information is stored and processed on servers owned by Indigo and other companies in Canada and the United States, and may in some cases be transferred to other countries. Where your information is transferred outside of Canada, it may be available to government authorities under lawful orders and laws applicable in those countries. Regardless of where your information is processed and regardless of the company or person who processes your information on our behalf, we will take steps to protect your information in accordance with applicable data protection laws and this Privacy Policy.

retaining your information

We keep your personal information for as long as we need it for the purposes for which it was collected or as long as the law requires. To decide how long, we consider the sensitivity of the data, whether we can achieve our business purposes without it, whether we need the information to protect our business or enforce our rights, whether we have a legal obligation to retain it, and the technological means we have available to delete it.

USE BY MINORS

We do not intend for our websites or online services to be used by anyone under the age of fourteen (14). If you are under the age of fourteen (14), please do not use our Services, and if you are over the age of fourteen (14) but under the age of majority in the province in which you reside, you may only use our Services with the involvement and permission of a parent or legal guardian. If you are a parent or guardian and believe we may have collected information about a child, please contact us as described in the "Contact Us" section below.

LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

Websites that are owned by Indigo may contain links to other third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. Indigo neither owns nor controls these third-party websites and assumes no responsibility for the information practices of those websites. You should inform yourself with the privacy policies (if any) of those third-party websites.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy was last updated on the date noted at the top of this webpage and may be updated from time to time in the future. If we make material changes, we will post the updated Privacy Policy on this page and change the date at the top of this webpage. We will notify you of any modifications to this Privacy Policy that might materially affect the way we use or disclose your personal information prior to the change becoming effective by means of a message on this website or by email.

CONTACT US – Indigo Corporate office - privacy

We welcome your questions, comments and concerns about privacy and how we handle your personal information. You may use this form to ask Indigo a privacy question or to access, correct personal information found in your Indigo profile, mobile application, or another Indigo-owned digital property.

You can contact our Privacy Officer in writing at Indigo Books & Music Inc., 620 King Street West, Suite 400, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 1M6 or by email at privacy@indigo.ca.