Our Privacy Commitment

At Best Buy Canada we know how important it is to protect your personal information. Whether you're shopping with us online or in person we want to make every customer experience safe and secure. 

In keeping with that goal, we have developed this Privacy Policy to explain our practices for the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information.

This Policy applies to our Canadian retail stores, our Web Sites, mobile apps, call centres, and all other channels in which Best Buy Canada collects and uses your personal information. All references to "Web Sites" in this Privacy Policy mean www.bestbuy.ca, www.geeksquad.ca, or other Best Buy provided Web sites or mobile apps where this Privacy Policy is posted. Best Buy, bestbuy.ca, Geek Squad, and geeksquad.ca are divisions of Burnaby-based Best Buy Canada Ltd., a subsidiary of Best Buy Co., Inc.

The types of information we collect depend on the nature of your interaction with us.

Personal Information 

Personal information is information that can identify an individual or information about an identifiable individual. We may collect personal information such as:

• your contact information - e.g., name, postal address, telephone number, and email address;
• your personal preferences - e.g., product wish lists, language preferences, and marketing consent
• your transaction information - e.g., products purchased, method of payment, amount paid, signature, and credit or debit card number.

In addition, we may collect the following types of information:

• we may ask you for your postal code, for example, to assist us with market research, planning our flyer distribution, and other marketing communications;
• we may collect certain data when you visit our Web Sites, such as your IP address, the type of browser you are using or the referring URL; or
• we may collect and summarize customer information in an aggregate format for internal statistical and research purposes. We may, for example, summarize our data to determine that a certain percentage of contest entrants are male, aged 18 to 25.

You may choose not to provide us with your personal information. However, if you make this choice we may not be able to provide you with the product, service, or information that you requested. For example, we can only offer you Best Buy financing if you have provided us with certain financial information.

Supplementing Information

From time to time we may supplement the information you give us with information from other sources, such as information validating your address or other available information you have provided us. This is to help us maintain the accuracy of the information we collect and to help us provide better service.

Listed here are some further examples of the ways that we collect personal information directly from you and how we use it.

In-Store and Online Purchases

When you purchase a product or service from Best Buy or a Web Site, you may need to provide us with contact and payment information (such as credit card information) so that we can process your request or complete your transaction and communicate with you regarding your purchase. 

We may also need to collect contact information to provide certain services, including delivery services, reserve and pick-up, product servicing, in-home consultations or installations, and extended warranty coverage. 

If you provide us with your email address, we will also collect your email address for the purpose of sending you an e-receipt. We also may use your contact information to send you promotional information.

Best Buy also uses the services of third-party providers, such as Google, to generate statistical data about the effectiveness of our digital marketing campaigns. We do this by sharing a hashed version of your email address and limited information about your online and in-store purchases (date, time, postal code, and transaction amount) with the provider. This helps us understand the impact of our online ads and make improvements to our campaigns.

We also use your email address, and your online and in-store purchases and interactions with us to personalize our communications to you based on your interests, and to show you relevant Best Buy and third-party ads on our websites, apps or other digital properties, and on third-party platforms such as Facebook and Google.

You can opt-out of receiving promotional emails or opt-out of personalized advertising through our Preference Centre. Please see the “How to manage your preferences” section below for more details.

Returns and Exchanges

Our goal is to ensure that you are completely satisfied with your purchase and to this end, Best Buy offers a Return Policy. For Best Buy to continue to offer our Return Policy, we ask for personal information such as your name, address, and telephone number for the purposes of detecting and preventing fraud. You may also be asked to produce a photo ID for verification purposes only. 

Applying for Financing

When you apply for financing with Fairstone Financial Inc. (“Fairstone”), certain contact and financial information is collected and reviewed by our financial services provider, Fairstone to approve, establish and maintain your financial accounts. Fairstone has its own privacy policy, available at https://www.fairstone.ca/en/privacy, which governs its relationship with you. We encourage you to read the Fairstone Privacy of Personal Information Statement with your financing application. 

Insurance Replacement

When working to replace goods that are covered under your insurance policy, we will need some basic information, such as your contact information, insurance claim number, and the name of your claim adjuster, so we can process your quote in a timely manner and bill your insurance company directly for you.

Purchase Follow-Up, Surveys, and Customer Research

Following a purchase, we may send you a follow-up letter to thank you for your business, or we may contact you to ensure that you are completely satisfied with the delivery, setup, or installation of your new product.

We may use contact information collected in-store, online, or via our call centres to conduct occasional surveys and other customer research. These surveys are entirely voluntary and you may easily decline to participate. The information obtained through our surveys and customer research is used to help us understand our customers, to enhance our product and service offerings, promotions and events, and/or to assist in the selection of store locations.

Online Accounts (My Best Buy)

To engage in certain special features or functions of our Web Sites, or to order products and services from our Web Sites, you may be asked to provide certain personal information, such as your name, email address, postal address, telephone number, or payment card information. We use this information to create your My Best Buy account, process your payment, contact and correspond with you about your order, respond to your inquiries, and monitor functions of our Web Sites that you choose to use, such as Customer Reviews.

If you purchase an e-gift card, we collect the recipient’s name, email address, and any message you provide in order to send the gift card on your behalf. We rely on you to ensure that you have obtained all necessary consents to provide this information to us.

If you choose to ship an order to a third party, you represent and warrant that you have obtained all necessary consents from the third party to permit Best Buy to collect, use, and disclose the third party’s personal information for the purposes of fraud prevention and processing and shipping the order. 

Customer Reviews

The Customer Review functionality is provided as a rating system that offers you the chance to share your thoughts on a product. These reviews are accessible to all Web Site visitors so please use discretion when posting information to them and do not post personal information.

Newsletters, Updates or Promotional Communications

Best Buy offers a variety of newsletters and promotional communications. If you sign-up or are subscribed for our newsletter or other promotional communications, we will send you communications that may be tailored based on your interests, preferences, and behaviour. You may choose to stop receiving these communications at any time. Each marketing or promotional message we send to you will include a link or other method to quickly and easily unsubscribe and decline further similar messages.

You may unsubscribe from promotional emails using the Preference Centre. Please see the “Manage Your Preferences” section below for more details.

Please note that even if you unsubscribe from receiving our promotional communications, you may continue to receive certain transactional or account-related communications from us. Our subscriber list is not sold or rented to other parties.

Participate in a Contest or Promotion

From time to time, we may run contests or promotions. If you participate, you may be asked for contact information as well as additional optional survey information (for example, product preferences). Personal information from contest entries will be used to administer the contest and contact you if you win. 

For internal research and analysis purposes, we may also summarize contest survey information in an aggregated manner. All contests and promotions are subject to this Privacy Policy and the rules that will be available with each particular campaign. Some contests are conducted by third parties and will be subject to the third parties’ policies.

Email a Friend

While visiting our Web Sites you may choose to use the "Email a Friend" tool which allows you to inform a friend about products of interest to you. The information you provide will be used to send a one-time email to your friend, inviting them to our Web Sites. We will not add your friend to a mailing list and will not send them further email unless they choose to receive such communications from us or where otherwise legally permitted.

If you provide us with personal information concerning another individual (e.g., email address), you represent and warrant that you have a personal or family relationship with the recipient and obtained all necessary consents from that individual to enable us to use that personal information for the identified purpose. 

Subscription Services and Activations

Best Buy may offer activation of certain products and services like cellular plans, satellite services, Internet services, or smart-home services. These activations may require that certain contact and financial information be collected and provided by Best Buy to the respective service providers as part of the activation process. For example, a cellular carrier may need to perform a credit check prior to activation so certain identification such as a government-issued ID number and your credit card number may be provided to the carrier for that purpose.

Call Centres

Best Buy operates customer support call centres to accept and address your questions, concerns, or complaints. When you contact our call centres, we may ask for personal information to help us respond to your inquiry or to verify your identity. For example, if you have a question about the status of a recent online order, we will ask for personal information to verify that you are the account holder. 

We may also monitor or record your telephone discussions with our customer support representatives for training purposes and to ensure service quality. If you do not want your call to be monitored and recorded, please let us know and we will provide you with an alternative means of communicating with us.

In-Store Video Surveillance

Best Buy retail stores are under video surveillance for safety and loss prevention purposes. The recorded images of our customers are viewed only when required. There may also be occasions where video footage is used for general demographic or traffic flow analysis.

In some cases, we automatically collect certain information.

Our Web Sites

Our Web Sites can be browsed without you providing us with any personal information. However, when using our Web Sites, we may collect the Internet Protocol (IP) address of your computer, the IP address of your Internet Service Provider, the date and time you access our Web Sites, the Internet address of the Web site from which you linked directly to our Web Site, the operating system you are using, the sections of the Web Site you visit, the Web Site pages read and images viewed, and the content you download from the Web Site. 

This information is used for Web Site and system administration purposes, to understand Web Site activity, and to improve the Web Sites. 

Cookies, Tracer Tags, and Web Beacons

The Web Sites use "cookies", a tiny element of data that our Web Sites can send to your browser, which may then be stored on a Web Site user's computer to permit the Web Site to recognize future visits using that browser. Cookies enhance the convenience and use of the Web Site. For example, the information provided through cookies is used to recognize you as a previous user of the Web Site (so you do not have to enter your language preference every time), to offer personalized Web page content and information for your use, to track your activity at the Web Site, to respond to your needs, and to otherwise facilitate your Web Site experience. 

For more information on cookies, including cookie consent preferences, please see our separate Cookie Policy and Preference Centre.

Our Web Sites or email communications may also use technology such as "tracer tags" or “Web Beacons”. This technology allows us to understand which areas of our emails you click on and our behaviour on our Web Sites, such as which pages you visit. These tracer tags are used to help us optimize and tailor our Web Site for you and other future visitors to our Web Site, and to help provide you with email content and ads tailored to your interests.

Need to update your cookie preferences? Go to your Preference Centre.

Here's a detailed list of the types of cookies we use

Web Site Tracking Information

We may use web beacons, JavaScript tags, or marketing pixels to compile web and advertising performance reports regarding Web Site usage, user demographics, traffic sources, and purchases. We may then aggregate results from these reports and provide performance reports to advertising partners and others.

For our own internal research purposes, we may link tracking information with personal information voluntarily provided to us, including information related to your online My Best Buy account with us. Once such a link is made, all of the linked information is treated as personal information and will be used and disclosed only in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Interest-Based Advertising

We or third parties such as ad networks and other advertising companies may serve advertisements on our Web Sites and on other websites and social networking sites.

We or those third parties may use cookies, tracer tags or web beacons to report certain information about the actions you take on our Web Site and other websites, such as web pages you visit and your engagement with ads, in order to measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns, better understand our customers and to deliver ads that are more relevant to you, both on and off our Web Sites.

If you opt out of receiving interest-based ads, you will continue to receive advertising, but it will not be based on online behavioural information about you. 

We may also use services provided by third-party platforms, including social networking platforms, to serve you tailored ads. In some cases, we may share a hashed version of your email address with the platform provider in order to match it with your profile information on the platform. This helps us tailor ads to your interests or exclude you from campaigns that may not be relevant to you. To opt-out of this type of tailored advertising, please visit our Preference Centre. If you opt out of receiving interest-based ads personalized advertising, you will continue to receive advertising, but it will not be based on online behavioural information about you.

Social Media

We may offer you the opportunity to engage with our content on or through third-party social networking websites, plug-ins, and applications. When you engage with our content on or through third-party social networking websites, plug-ins, and applications, you may allow us to have access to certain information associated with your social media account (e.g., name, username, email address, profile picture, gender) to deliver the content or as part of the operation of the website, plug-in or application. 

When you provide information from your social media account, we may use this information to personalize your experience on the Web Site, including to provide you with personalized ad experiences, and on the third-party social networking websites, plug-ins and applications, and to provide you with other products or services you may request.

Links to Other Web Sites

Our Web Site may contain links to other Web sites or Internet resources that are provided solely for your convenience and information. When you click on one of those links you are contacting another Web site or Internet resource. Best Buy has no responsibility or liability for, or control over, those other Web sites or Internet resources or their collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information. 

We encourage you to read the privacy policies of those other Web sites to learn how they collect and use your personal information.

In addition to the uses described above, Best Buy may use your personal information for a number of different business purposes, for example to:

• fulfill orders and requests for products, services, or information;
• process returns, exchanges, and layaway requests;
• detect and protect against fraud and error;
• establish and manage your accounts with us;
• track and confirm online orders;
• deliver or install products;
• process Best Buy credit card applications;
• customer experience personalization by tracking and analyzing your purchases and preferences to better understand your product and service needs and eligibility;
• third party sharing or social media;
• market and advertise products and services;
• communicate things like special events, promotions, and surveys;
• tailor our online content or in-store offerings to you based on your interactions with us and your preferences, including ads displayed on our Websites and on third-party platforms such as social networking platforms;
• conduct research and analysis, including measuring the effectiveness of our digital marketing campaigns;
• use for testing and training purposes, including conducting research and analysis, enterprise analytics, and operating, evaluating and improving our business; and
• for other purposes as described in this Privacy Policy.

We keep your information only as long as we need it for legitimate business purposes and to meet any legal requirements. We have retention standards that meet these parameters. We destroy or erase your information when it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected, or we remove your personally identifiable information to render it anonymous.

Best Buy does not sell or rent our customers’ personal information to any other party. However, in the normal course of business, we may share some of your personal information within our corporate family and with third parties acting on our behalf or as permitted or required by applicable law.

Our affiliates and third party service providers may be located outside of Quebec or elsewhere in Canada (including being located in the United States) and this may result in personal information collected by Best Buy being stored or processed outside of Quebec or elsewhere Canada and, as a result, your personal information may be accessible to law enforcement, courts and regulatory authorities in accordance with the law of these foreign jurisdictions.

Disclosure to Service Providers and Third Party Advertisers

Best Buy may use third parties to manage one or more aspects of our business operations, including the processing or handling of personal information. When we do use an outside company, we use contractual or other appropriate means to ensure that your personal information is used in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Policy.

For example, we may share personal information with third parties to perform services on our behalf such as: fulfilling online orders, processing non-cash payments, sending marketing communications, servicing products, conducting research surveys, verifying and validating information that you have provided to us, delivering products, measuring the effectiveness of our digital campaigns to help us improve them, and providing customer support services.

Best Buy may also share personal information, including information regarding your use of our applications and services, with third-party advertising technology providers. Sharing such information allows us to serve personalized ads, measure campaign performance, and create statistical and/or aggregated reports to share with advertisers through Best Buy websites or applications or other third-party websites or applications you use. These partners may act as (i) joint controllers, who jointly determine the purposes and means of processing shared data with Best Buy; or (ii) independent controllers, who independently determine the purposes and means of processing shared data in accordance with their own privacy policies.

Key partners with whom Best Buy shares personal information and their applicable privacy and cookie policies include:

• Google: https://policies.google.com/privacy, https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/privacy/center, https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policies/cookies

• Criteo: https://www.criteo.com/privacy, https://www.criteo.com/privacy/disable-criteo-services-on-internet-browsers, https://www.criteo.com/privacy/disable-criteo-services-on-mobile-applications
• X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/en/privacy, https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-cookies
• Pinterest: https://policy.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy,
  https://policy.pinterest.com/en/cookies
• ROKT: https://www.rokt.com/privacy-policy, https://www.rokt.com/cookie-policy

Please consult our partners’ privacy policies to learn more about their information handling practices and applicable opt-out options, including for interest-based advertising and other applicable uses of web-viewing data.

Authentication

Best Buy has taken precautions to prevent the fraudulent use of your information on our Web Sites. Best Buy has adopted industry standard authentication procedures to ensure your protection while shopping with us online. This includes, but is not limited to, contacting financial institutions or credit reporting agencies to ensure the authenticity of your credit card and to validate your credit card billing information.

Age Verification

In order to create a My Best Buy account on Bestbuy.ca and be eligible to make purchases online, users must have reached the age of majority within their province of residence. If Best Buy determines that a user is below the age of majority according to the applicable law of their province, such user’s My Best Buy account may be blocked or fully deleted as a consequence.

Some products require age verification at checkout to ensure the safety of young consumers for mature or adult-rated products. For age-restricted products, Best Buy does not use credit card information to verify the customer's age; ownership of a credit card is evidence that the purchaser is at least 18, which is the minimum age to obtain a credit card in Canada.

Unless there is an outstanding balance, the credit card used to verify the customer’s age will not be processed. The credit card may be stored with Best Buy in the customer’s account.

Best Buy may share personal information gathered on our Web Sites with Best Buy retail stores (and vice versa) and amongst our corporate parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, or divisions for internal business purposes in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If Best Buy shares your information within its corporate family, we will ensure that your information continues to be used only in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Product Safety Recalls

In the event we receive notice from a manufacturer of a product safety recall, we may provide your contact information, limited to name, address, and telephone number, to the manufacturer so that they may notify you of the recall and supply details of any replacement or repair programs. This transfer or your contact information will occur only for recalls that may impact your personal safety or impair the functionality of the product you purchased from us.

Sale or Transfer of all or part of Best Buy

Any information we have about you may be transferred or disclosed to a purchaser or prospective purchaser in the event of a sale, assignment, or other transfer of all or a portion of our business or assets. Should such a transfer occur, we will use reasonable efforts to try to ensure that the transferee uses your information in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Policy unless otherwise permitted or required by applicable law.

Legal Disclosure

Best Buy and its Canadian, US, and other service providers or affiliates may disclose your information as permitted or required by applicable law. For example, we may be compelled to release information by a court of law or other person or entity with jurisdiction to compel the production of such information. If we have reasonable grounds to believe the information could be useful in the investigation of unlawful activity, we may disclose information to law enforcement agencies or other appropriate investigative bodies. We may also disclose personal information to other organizations in the case of investigating a breach of an agreement or contravention of law or detecting, suppressing or preventing fraud.

The security of your personal information is a high priority for Best Buy. We maintain appropriate physical, technical, and administrative safeguards and industry-standard security standards in an effort to protect your personal information in our custody and control, whether recorded on paper or captured electronically, against unauthorized access, disclosure, or misuse. 

For example, electronic records are stored in secure, limited-access servers; we employ technological tools like firewalls and passwords, and we ensure our employees are trained on the importance of maintaining the security and confidentiality of personal information.

Encryption Technology

Our Web Sites use encryption technology to protect your personal information during data transport. Such technology encrypts ordering information such as your name, address, and credit card number.

Choosing a Password

When you create an online account on our Web Sites, you need to select a personal password. To maximize your level of protection, you should choose at least 6 characters including a combination of both letters, numbers, and special characters and a mix of upper and lower case letters. 

You are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your password and any account information. Best Buy will never send an unsolicited communication asking you for your password.

How You Can Verify Your Information

You may check your information to verify, update, or correct it. If you created an account on one of our Web Sites, you can access and change your online account profile yourself. You can also ask to access or review any of the information in our records, how we have used it, and to whom we have disclosed it at any time by contacting us as indicated below under the heading "Contacting Best Buy". Subject to certain exceptions prescribed by law, and provided we can authenticate your identity, you will be given reasonable access to your personal information, and will be entitled to challenge the accuracy and completeness of the information and to have it amended as appropriate.

Data on Returned Product

When returning products that may contain stored or recorded personal information, like computers, tablets, mobile devices, smart devices, digital cameras, etc., you are responsible for deleting or removing all personal information and media from your product before you return it. Best Buy is not responsible for any use by a third party of personal data or media left behind on a returned item.

Best Buy’s Preference Centre allows you to adjust the ways in which we can communicate with you and also offers you choices on how you experience our website and its functions.

You can use the Preference Centre to update your “Marketing Preferences”. For example, if you no longer wish to be contacted regarding promotions, new product and entertainment releases and how to make the most of the latest technology, you can unsubscribe from receiving promotional communications. Please note that you may continue to receive certain transactional or account-related email messages from us even after you have unsubscribed from promotional communications.

Updating “Marketing Preferences” also lets you choose whether Best Buy can use your email and your online and in-store purchases and interactions with us to personalize our communications to you based on your interests. This allows us to send you relevant Best Buy and third-party ads on our website, apps or other digital properties, and on third-party platforms like Facebook and Google.

The Preference Centre is also where you can make changes to your “Cookie Preferences”. Using the Preference Centre, you can choose to accept all cookies or manually select which types of non-essential cookies you do not want. To learn more about the types of cookies Best Buy employs, please see our Cookie Policy.

You have certain choices regarding the use and disclosure of your personal information. As described below, you may submit a Personal Information Request to exercise those choices.

Information Request: You can request information on how we process your personal information.

Data Access and Portability Request: You can request that we disclose to you a copy of the personal information we have collected about you. This may include:

• the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you;
• the categories of sources from which we collected the personal information;
• the purpose for which we collected the personal information; and
• the name or category of any third parties with whom we collected personal information on behalf of or shared the personal information with.

Correction or Update Request: You can request changes to be made to any personal information we have processed that may be incorrect, outdated, incomplete, or out of context.

Deletion Request: You can request that we delete certain personal information we have collected from you. Please note that we are not able to identify and delete all browsing behaviour associated with your use of the Web Sites. Where you have previously provided consent to third parties, including Google, Facebook and Criteo, to collect personal information from you, you will also need to send separate data deletion requests to them.

Consent: You can withdraw your consent to our data collection measures regarding your personal information. Please visit our Preference Centre in order to make changes to your cookie consents (including choices you may have made previously using our cookie banner) and read more about this in our Cookie Policy.

Such choices are subject to certain exceptions and limitations applicable by law. To submit a Personal Information Request, please click here.

Verifying Requests

To help protect your privacy and maintain security, we will take steps to verify your identity before granting you access to your personal information or complying with your request. In order to verify your identity, we require you to provide the following: any names, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses you may have provided us.  

Please remember that emails sent over the public Internet are not secure. If you send an email directly to us from your own email account the contents will not be encrypted. We strongly recommend that you do not send sensitive information (like a credit card number) to us via unencrypted email. Best Buy is not responsible for any transmission by you of any personal information over the public Internet. We cannot promise that your use of our Web Sites or mobile applications will be completely safe. We encourage you to use caution when using the internet, protect your personal information, and know your rights regarding privacy.

To learn more about protecting your privacy online, we encourage you to visit the website of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada:

• Tips for Creating and Managing Your Passwords
• Protecting your Privacy Online
• Recognizing Threats to Personal Data Online
• Top 10 Tips to Protect Your Inbox, Computer, and Mobile Device

Governing law

This Privacy Policy is intended to meet the requirements of Canadian law. If you are a California resident, please visit our page on the California Consumer Privacy Act for information that may apply to you in addition to our Privacy Policy.

Best Buy is responsible for all personal information under its control. Our Privacy Manager is accountable for Best Buy's compliance with the principles described here. If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about the privacy practices of our organization or would like information on our use of service providers located outside of Canada please contact us at the following:

Email:

privacymanager@bestbuycanada.ca*

Telephone:

1-866-237-8289

Mail:

Best Buy Canada Ltd.

Attention: Privacy Manager

Suite #102, 425 West 6th Avenue

Vancouver, BC V5Y 1L3

*We will respond to your request or investigate your concern as quickly as we can, but no later than 30 days from the date of receipt of your query.

To accommodate changes in our services, personal information practices, changes in technology, and legal developments, this Privacy Policy may change over time without notice to you. We may add, change, or remove portions of the Privacy Policy when we feel it is appropriate to do so. 

We encourage you to review our Privacy Policy periodically. Each time you submit personal information or use our services you agree to be bound by the then-current terms of the Privacy Policy. Whenever we update the Privacy Policy we will change the date to indicate when the changes were made.