Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Last modified: January 8, 2025 Current version: 2025.6
Page Locator

Why should you read our policy?

You interact with Browns Shoes Inc. ("Browns," "we," or "us") in many ways—like visiting our website, shopping in our stores, talking to our customer service team, entering contests, or signing up for promotional emails.

When you do, we may collect some personal information. By choosing to interact with us, you agree to this collection and use.

This policy explains:
If you have questions or want more details, our Privacy Officer is here to help. You’ll find their contact info at the end of this policy or by following this link.

WHAT KIND OF PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU?

What is personal information?

Personal information is anything that can identify you—on its own or when combined with other details. This includes things like your name, email, phone number, birthday, preferences, and even your IP address.

Categories of personal information

We collect different types of personal information depending on how you interact with us. If a type of information doesn’t apply to you, we don’t collect it.

Basic Identifying Information

This category includes the basic details we use to identify, communicate with you and deliver your orders.

EXAMPLES: name, email address, phone number, mailing address, birth date.
Physical Appearance and Voice

We collect images and video recordings of your physical appearance when you visit our stores or head office.
We also collect your voice when you contact our customer service by phone. These recordings are used for quality assurance, training, and security purposes.

Note: We do not use biometric information.

Information about your device

We collect technical details about the devices you use to access our services to ensure compatibility, improve user experience and enhance your security.

EXAMPLES: IP address, operating system, browser information, information about the screen size, and if you interact with us through a mobile device, we may also collect the make and model, its mobile device identification number (IMEI), MAC address, and device identifiers (e.g. AAID, IDFA).
Website & Digital Content Interaction

This information helps us understand how you interact with our digital platforms to improve your online experience.
If you activate this feature, we will—through a trusted third-party service provider—automatically and seamlessly capture how you interact with our website. Rest assured, we do not access or collect any information you enter into form fields.

EXAMPLES: information about the products you look at (product categories, brands, specific products), items you place in your shopping bag, navigation path and browsing history, when and where you click on buttons, whether or not you opened our emails or clicked on any links contained in them.
Account & Interaction Data

We collect information that helps us understand who you are, how you interact with us, and how we can serve you better. This includes details you provide when creating an account, sharing preferences, or communicating with us.

EXAMPLES: account details (username, password, language preferences, communication preferences), personal preferences (shoe size, style preferences, purchasing habits, opinions about our products or services), customer feedback (responses to surveys, product reviews, satisfaction ratings), communications (emails, chat transcripts, call summaries, complaints, or inquiries) engagement history (participation in contests, focus groups, or consultations).
Products & Orders

We collect this data to process your orders, provide customer support, and understand your shopping behavior. We may combine your personal information collected through your various interactions in our stores, our website and our digital content to enhance and personalize your shopping experience on our websites and facilitate product returns.

EXAMPLES: order information, purchase details and history (date, value, items and quantity), order number, transaction history, preferences, statistical information, gift card number and amount.

Why do we need your personal information and how will we use it?

The way we use and manage your personal information depends on how you interact with us. In the sections below, we explain how your information may be used in different situations. We may also process your personal information as required or permitted by applicable laws; this Privacy Policy should not be read as limiting our right to do so.

Order Processing
  • To confirm and ship your online or in-store purchases
  • To handle returns, exchanges, and refunds
  • To notify you when your order is ready for pickup
  • To remind you about items left in your cart
Managing your account
  • To create and maintain your account
  • To confirm your identity and ensure secure access to your account
  • To track your orders and purchase history
  • To keep your information accurate
Customer Support and Communication
  • To communicate with you via email or SMS according to your preferences
  • To answer your questions and resolve issues
  • To provide personalized support
  • To contact you if you are selected as a potential winner and to issue and send you your prize if you are declared a winner.
Feedback and Engagement
  • To seek your opinion and satisfaction after interactions or purchases.
  • To display your product reviews on our website.
  • To invite you to participate in consultations (with your permission).
Personalizing your experience
  • To recommend products based on your preferences
  • To send you special offers, birthday discounts, or promo codes
  • To tailor our emails, website, and ads to your interests
  • To register and manage your participation in our contests

When we have consent to do so, we may send you direct marketing communications. You can withdraw your consent by following the unsubscribe link in the footer of our emails, or by replying STOP for our SMS campaigns.

Interest-Based Advertising and Audience Creation

We aim to ensure that our advertising is relevant and aligned with your interests. To do this, we work with select service providers to promote our products in ways that reflect your preferences. We also use browsing data collected through cookies and tracking technologies to enhance your experience on our website.

  • To deliver personalized ads through interest-based advertising on third-party platforms

We work with advertising and social media networks—that use their own tracking tools (like cookies and pixel tags) on our website. These partners help us deliver personalized ads on third-party platforms on our behalf by collecting data about your activity across devices and platforms (e.g., pages visited, interactions with ads or emails) to predict your interests and show you more relevant ads. This practice is known as interest-based advertising. The data may also be used to evaluate the performance of our advertising campaigns.

  • To help us evaluate the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns

To measure the impact of our advertising efforts, we may share encrypted versions of your personal information—such as your email address, name, phone number and/or products you recently purchased from us —with our advertising and social media partners. This allows us to determine whether you saw one of our ads before making a purchase, whether online or in-store. These insights help us understand which campaigns are most effective and refine how we connect with our customers. We do not access your social media profiles or receive any additional personal information beyond what you’ve directly shared with us.

Improving our customer experience
  • To analyze in-store foot traffic and support resource planning
  • To understand and analyze how our visitors are interacting with our website
  • To analyze customer behavior and trends
  • Design and build dashboards, indicators and other types of reports
  • To create tailored audience segments
  • To review call and chat quality
  • To use AI tools to improve support and recommendations
  • To assess the effectiveness of employee training and compliance with policies
  • To run surveys, focus groups, and market research
  • To generate aggregated statistics for all our clients as a whole to better understand overall customer behavior, preferences, and trends
  • To generate statistics for each specific customer to personalize services, improve recommendations, and enhance the individual customer experience
Security protection and legal requirements
  • To protect our employees, customers and assets.
  • To detect, investigate, deter and mitigate risks of fraudulent harmful, unauthorized, unethical or illegal activity, including communicating and collaborating with competent authorities.
  • To manage and protect our gift card program.
  • To document incidents in our stores, including by using video recordings.
  • To detect and prevent abuse of contests.
  • To comply with our legal requirements
  • To review and assess our internal operations to ensure they align with legal obligations, contractual commitments, and our internal policies
  • Protect your rights and interests as well as our own.
  • Respond to requests, warrants and orders from courts and other agencies or other organizations with the power to compel us to share information about you.
  • Cooperate in legal proceedings or administrative investigations.
  • Cooperate with any agency empowered to prevent, detect or repress crimes and violations of the law.

How do we collect your personal information?

Directly from you

In most circumstances, we will collect your personal information directly from you, through forms, emails, chat, phone calls or surveys. Sometimes it is possible that we will mandate a third party to collect and process your personal information on our behalf (for example when we conduct focus groups or other customer satisfaction surveys or analysis).

FROM A THIRD PARTY

We may, in certain circumstances, collect your personal information from a third party who’s acting on your behalf, for example:

People you know. We may also receive information about you from people who know you, such as your employer, family, or friends. This can happen when they send a product or a gift card to your address, or when they share a link to something on our website.

If you’re providing us with someone else’s information, please make sure you have their permission. It’s also a good idea to let them know about our Privacy Policy so they understand how their information may be used.

Social media platforms. When you use a social media platform to create or access your account on our website, we may collect certain information about you from that platform. The specific personal information we receive varies depending on which platform you choose and your privacy settings, but typically includes your name and email address. By choosing to create or log in to your account through a social media platform, you consent to our collection of this personal information from your selected platform.

Mobile payment platforms. When you choose to pay for your purchase through a third-party payment service such as Google Pay or Apple Pay, we will collect certain personal information from that service. The specific information we receive depends on the payment platform you select, but typically includes your name, email address, phone number, and complete shipping and billing addresses. By choosing to pay through a third-party payment service, you consent to our collection of this personal information from your selected payment platform.

AUTOMATICALLY

When you browse our website or visit our stores, we automatically collect certain information to help improve your experience and ensure security as disclosed in this policy.

Who will have access to your personal information?

Our commitment is simple: we do not and will never sell your personal information to anyone. However, in the course of operating our business, we may share your information with trusted third parties, as outlined below:

Service Providers

We work with companies and individuals who perform services on our behalf or assist in running our business. These services include IT support, web hosting, payment processing, customer service, chat and call handling, printing and mailing, order fulfillment and shipping, data storage and management, email and SMS delivery, marketing, analytics, fraud prevention, security monitoring, event coordination, and managing promotions, contests, and surveys.

Research Partners

We may share your information with research partners to better understand how our services are used. This helps us improve our offerings, develop new products, respond to trends (including feedback from social media or direct communication), enhance our marketing strategies, and address any concerns or complaints.

Third-Party Platforms

If you log in or link your account through a third-party platform (e.g., Facebook), we may share your personal information with that platform. Their use of your data will be governed by their own privacy policies and your account settings with them.

Advertising Partners

We may share your personal information with advertising partners to deliver interest-based ads, as described in this policy.

Professional Advisors

We may disclose your personal information to professional advisors—such as lawyers, accountants, auditors, bankers, and insurers—when necessary for the services they provide to us.

Authorities

We may share your information with law enforcement, government agencies, courts, or other parties when we believe it is necessary to comply with legal obligations or to protect our rights and the safety of others.

Public

Any nickname and review you submit may be visible to the public. Publicly visible information can be collected and used by others (including by search engines). We are not responsible for how others use this information.

International Transfers

Your personal information may be transferred to third parties outside of Quebec or Canada. When this occurs, we assess and mitigate any risks to your data’s protection. These third parties are only allowed to use your information for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy. We implement contractual and other safeguards to ensure your data receives a level of protection consistent with this policy and applicable privacy laws, even when processed or stored outside Canada.

Security Measures and Inherent Risks

We take the protection of your personal information seriously and have implemented appropriate physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to help secure it against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.

While we take reasonable steps to protect your personal information, no system is completely secure. Due to the inherent risks associated with the use of computer systems and the internet, we cannot guarantee the absolute security or confidentiality of any information you transmit to us. You share this information at your own risk.

Your Rights Regarding Your Personal Information

ACCESS

You can ask us whether we hold any personal information about you. If we do, you have the right to access that information.

If you have an account with us, you can view and update your personal information at any time by logging into your account on our website.

rectification

You can ask us to correct any incomplete or inaccurate personal information we hold about you.

If you have an account with us, you can update your personal information by logging into your account on our website.

withdraw your consent

You may withdraw your consent to the disclosure or use of the personal information we hold about you. Please note that this withdrawal only applies to future use and only in situations where we rely on your consent to process your information.

However, please understand that in such cases, we may be unable to complete your order or process any return or exchange of a product you have purchased.

Depending on the extent of your withdrawal of consent, we may also decide to delete your account.

portability

You may request that the personal information we hold about you be provided to you or transferred to another organization in a commonly used and structured technological format.

file a complaint

You have the right to file a complaint with a privacy regulator if you believe your rights have been violated.

How can you exercise your rights?

If you have any concerns, complaints, or feedback about how we handle or process your personal information, we encourage you to contact our Privacy Officer.

All complaints will be carefully reviewed to determine whether our practices comply with our internal privacy policies and applicable privacy laws. We aim to resolve all complaints fairly, respectfully, and as quickly as possible—ideally within 30 days.

Before contacting a regulatory authority, we invite you to reach out to us directly so we can address your concerns. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may also file a complaint with your province’ regulatory authority.

Our Privacy Officer may need to confirm your identity before able to process your request.

External Sites and Services

This Privacy Policy does not apply to third-party websites, applications, or services that may be accessed through our products or services. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of these third parties.

If you choose to follow a link to a third-party site or service, please be aware that they may have their own privacy policies. We strongly encourage you to review those policies before providing any personal information.

How We Update This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time at our sole discretion to reflect changes in our business practices, technologies, or applicable laws and regulations.

When we make changes, we will post a notice on our website along with a summary of the key updates. These changes will take effect on the date specified in the notice. We encourage you to review this Policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your personal information.

CONTACT US

You can contact our Privacy Officer:
2255 Cohen Street
Saint-Laurent, Québec, H4R 2N7
Attn: Privacy Officer.
Privacy Officer: CONTACT NOW