1. Who we are
This Privacy Policy describes how Fbs Holding Inc. collects, uses, stores, shares and protects personal information when you interact with our website, our grove office and the field study services we provide. The policy was prepared by the development team known as FHB Tech on behalf of Fbs Holding Inc., and it applies to every service we operate under the brand of the company.
Fbs Holding Inc. is a computer systems design and integrated systems practice working in the professional, scientific and technical services sector. We specialize in the recordkeeping layer of field research: survey note bays, sensor log runs, trail report desks, weather watch windows, species log reviews and field day sittings. Our office and test grove are located at the following address.
Fbs Holding Inc.32 Chemin Wallace, Chelsea - J9B 1M9, Canada (CA)
In this policy the terms we, us and our refer to Fbs Holding Inc. The terms you and your refer to any person who visits our website, contacts our office or takes part in a study that we support. Where the policy speaks of the Company it means Fbs Holding Inc. acting through its authorized staff and agents.
2. Scope of this policy
This policy covers personal information that we handle in three main settings. The first is our public website, including the pages for services, contact, these privacy terms and the terms of service. The second is direct communication with our grove office by email, telephone or written correspondence. The third is the delivery of field study support, where our systems hold survey notes, sensor logs and trail reports that may contain information about identifiable people, such as observers, landowners, volunteers and reviewers.
The policy does not cover information that is handled by a client organization under its own privacy program. When we act as a processor for a research team or agency, the client decides the purposes of processing and we follow its written instructions. In that situation the client privacy notice governs the underlying research data, and this policy describes only how we protect that data on the client behalf and how we treat our own business records.
The policy also does not apply to third party websites that you reach through a link on our pages. Those sites operate their own practices, and we encourage you to read their notices before sharing information with them.
3. Information we collect
We collect personal information in the smallest amount that is needed to answer a question, deliver a service or meet a legal duty. The categories below describe what we may hold, though not every category applies to every person.
- Identity details such as your name, the organization you represent and your role on a study.
- Contact details such as email address, telephone number and postal address.
- Correspondence content, including the subject and body of messages you send to the grove desk.
- Service records such as meeting notes, booking history and the tracks of work you have requested.
- Billing details such as purchase order numbers and the business address used for invoicing.
- Technical details such as browser type, device type and the pages you view on our site.
- Field records that identify an observer, a reviewer or a landowner in the course of a study.
We do not ask for sensitive information such as health records, financial account numbers or government identification unless a specific legal duty or a specific engagement requires it. When such information is needed, we ask for it in writing and explain the reason at the time of collection.
4. Field records and study data
A field study produces a dense trail of records. Survey notes name the observer who walked a transect. Sensor logs name the technician who installed a device. Trail reports name the editor who signed a weekly issue. Species log reviews name the reviewers who confirmed an identification. These names are part of the scientific record, because a reading without an author cannot be defended.
When we support a study, we may hold the names, signatures, initials and contact details of observers, land stewards and volunteers alongside the ecological data they produced. We treat this information as confidential research material. Access is limited to the staff and contractors who need it to run the service, and the client organization decides how long the material is kept in its own archive.
If you are an observer or a volunteer and you wish to know what the record says about you, you may contact our desk and we will help you route the request to the client that controls the study. Where the Company controls the study directly, we will answer the request under the rights described later in this policy.
5. Device and sensor data
Our sensor log runs connect each device to a record of its identity, calibration, battery history and daily health. Some devices also record environmental readings, time stamps and location coordinates. Location data is used to place a reading in the correct plot and is never used to track the movements of a person.
Where a camera trap or a connected logger can capture images or sounds of people, we apply site rules agreed with the client. Those rules may include aiming restrictions, short retention periods and prompt review of any incidental capture. We do not build profiles of passers-by from sensor material, and we do not sell device data to any third party.
6. How we use information
We use personal information for purposes that a reasonable person would expect from a field study office. The main purposes are set out below.
- To answer enquiries sent to the grove desk by email, telephone or our contact form.
- To prepare quotations, proposals and booking confirmations for field day sittings.
- To design, operate and review the survey note bays, sensor log runs and trail report desks we provide.
- To keep the audit trail that lets a study be reproduced by a later reader.
- To send service messages such as a changed appointment or an issued report.
- To improve the clarity and reliability of our systems over successive seasons.
- To meet accounting, tax and recordkeeping duties under applicable law.
- To protect the security of our office, our devices and our records.
We do not use personal information for unrelated purposes without telling you first, and we do not combine data from separate studies unless the clients involved have agreed in writing.
7. Legal bases for processing
Where Canadian privacy law applies, we process personal information on the basis of knowledge and consent, or in the limited situations where the law allows collection without consent, such as a clear legal requirement or an emergency that threatens life or safety. Consent may be express or implied by the circumstances, and it may be withdrawn at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice.
Where the law of another region applies to a particular client relationship, we also rely on the following bases where they are available: performance of a contract, compliance with a legal obligation, protection of vital interests, and our legitimate interest in operating a secure and well documented practice. When we rely on legitimate interest, we balance that interest against your rights and expectations before we begin processing.
10. Service providers and processors
We rely on a small number of service providers for hosting, email delivery, accounting and document storage. Each provider is bound by a written agreement that requires it to protect personal information, to use it only for the service we have asked for, and to return or destroy it when the engagement ends.
We review each provider before we engage it and at least once a year afterwards. The review covers the security controls it describes, the sub-processors it discloses and the way it handles a request from a person whose data it holds on our behalf. A provider that cannot meet the standard we set is replaced.
11. International transfers
Our office is in Canada, and most of our records stay in Canada. Some service providers store backup copies in another country. When personal information is transferred across a border, we use contractual safeguards and a documented assessment of the destination to make sure the information receives a comparable level of protection.
A client or an individual may ask us for a summary of the countries in which its information is stored. We answer such a request in writing and describe the safeguards that apply to each location.
12. Retention of records
We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose that justified its collection, or as long as the law requires. Enquiries that do not lead to an engagement are held for a short period and then removed. Contract records are kept for the period required by tax and corporate law. Field study material is kept for the period agreed with the client, which is often long, because a later reader may need to reproduce a season that ended years earlier.
When a retention period ends, we delete or anonymize the information in a way that prevents reconstruction. Deletion is documented, and the record of the deletion is retained so that we can show a client or a regulator that the obligation was met.
13. Security of the record
We protect personal information with administrative, technical and physical safeguards that fit the sensitivity of the material. Access to field study systems is limited to named staff, and every access is logged. Devices that leave the office are encrypted, and the tests we run in our own grove follow the same rules as the tests we run for a client.
Our internal rule is simple. A record should be readable by the people who need it and by no one else, and every change to it should be attributable to a person and a time. We test that rule by attempting to reconstruct a sample of records each quarter and noting any place where the trail breaks.
14. Your privacy rights
Subject to the law that applies to you, you may ask for access to the personal information we hold about you, ask for a correction where it is inaccurate, ask for a copy in a portable form, withdraw consent to a use that relies on consent, and ask us to delete information that we no longer have a lawful reason to keep.
You may also object to a use that we base on legitimate interest, and you may ask us to restrict a use while a concern is being examined. We will explain any limit we apply to a request, along with the reason for it. Making a request is free, and we never treat a request as a reason to withdraw a service.
If you believe that we have handled your information improperly, you may raise the matter with us first and, if you remain unsatisfied, with the privacy authority that has jurisdiction over the Company in Canada.
15. Making an access request
Send a written request to the grove desk by email at reply@fhbtech.lol or by post to the Chelsea address shown at the top of this policy. Please describe the information you seek and the period it covers, and tell us how you would like to receive the answer.
We may ask for enough detail to confirm your identity before we release a record. We answer most requests within thirty days, and if a request is complex we will tell you within that period when a further extension is needed and why. If we cannot provide the information, we will say so in writing and point you to the person or organization that can.
16. Privacy for children
Our services are designed for research teams, agencies and professional land stewards. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under the age of sixteen through this website. If a study supported by the Company involves young participants through a school or a community program, the client organization obtains consent from a parent or guardian and we follow its instructions for handling the material.
If you believe that a child has sent personal information to our office without appropriate consent, please tell us at once and we will remove it unless a legal duty requires us to keep it.
17. Marketing and communications
We send service messages to clients as part of an engagement, and those messages are not marketing. We send occasional notes about new service tracks only to people who have asked to receive them or who have an existing business relationship with the Company and have not opted out. Every marketing message includes a simple way to stop further messages.
We do not buy contact lists, and we do not share your email address with a partner for its own marketing. If you stop marketing messages, we may still contact you about a live engagement, an outstanding invoice or a legal matter.
18. Third party sites and links
Our pages may link to a client website, a standards body or a public data source. These links are offered for convenience and do not amount to an endorsement of the privacy practices of the destination. When you leave our site, the notice of the other operator applies.
We are not responsible for information that you choose to share with a third party after following a link from our pages. We encourage you to read the privacy notice of any site before you submit personal information to it.
19. Automated decisions and profiling
Our review systems raise flags, but they do not make decisions about people on their own. When a survey note fails a validation rule or a sensor log shows an anomaly, a member of staff reads the record and decides what happens next. We keep that human step because a field record often needs context that a rule cannot see.
We do not use personal information to build a behavioural profile for advertising, and we do not score individuals for credit, employment or insurance. If an analysis produces a pattern that may affect a person, we explain the pattern and the reasoning to the client before it is acted upon.
20. Notice of a privacy incident
If a privacy incident creates a real risk of significant harm, we notify the affected people and the appropriate authority as soon as we reasonably can. The notice describes what happened, what information was involved, what we have done to contain the incident and what steps a person can take to reduce the risk.
We keep a record of every incident, including the incidents that fall below the notification threshold, and we review that record each quarter to find the weaknesses that allowed the incident to happen. Findings are turned into changes in access rules, device handling or staff training, and the changes are tracked to completion.
21. Changes to this policy
We review this policy at least once a year and whenever a material change in our services or our service providers makes an update necessary. The effective date at the top of the page shows the version that is currently in force.
If a change affects how we use information that we already hold, we will tell affected clients and individuals before the change takes effect, and where the law requires it we will ask for fresh consent. Earlier versions are retained so that a person can see what the policy said at the time a record was collected.
22. How to reach us
Questions about this policy, requests about personal information and complaints about our handling of a record may be sent to the privacy contact at the grove desk. We read every message ourselves and answer in plain language.
Fbs Holding Inc.32 Chemin Wallace, Chelsea - J9B 1M9, Canada (CA)
Email: reply@fhbtech.lol
Telephone: +14846993417
This policy was prepared by FHB Tech for Fbs Holding Inc. and is published for the visitors, clients and study participants of the Chelsea grove office. The company name, address, email address and telephone number shown above are the official contact details of the Company.