Last Updated: June 1, 2026

The Canadian Scholarship Trust Foundation, C.S.T. Savings Inc. and C.S.T. Spark Inc., and their respective employees, sales representatives and mutual fund representatives (collectively, "CST", the “CST Entities”, “we” or “us”) are committed to taking steps to preserve and safeguard your right to privacy. As part of this commitment, we want you to be fully aware of what happens to your personal information, which we have in our possession. This Privacy Policy sets out the manner in which we will collect, use, store, disclose and otherwise manage your personal information

Who collects personal information?

We collect your personal information on our own behalf and on behalf of our affiliated entities.

In addition, your personal information may be collected on our behalf by our C.S.T. Savings Inc. commission-based independent sales representatives or our C.S.T. Spark Inc. commission-based independent mutual fund representatives. These individuals act as intermediaries and may gather information directly from you on our behalf in order to offer you our products and services, assist with account opening, and provide ongoing service and support relating to our products and services.

What personal information do we collect?

CST is required under securities legislation and anti-money laundering legislation to collect certain information to verify the identity of clients, to meet its regulatory obligations when opening a new account, recommending an investment and/or administering a Registered Education Savings Plan (“RESP”). The information we collect about you is limited to that which is necessary for our identified purposes, and it is retained in a client record within our client database.

You provide most of this information in one or more of the following ways:

• to one of our commission-based independent C.S.T. Savings Inc. sales representatives when you complete an application form to become a subscriber to one of our CST RESP;
• to one of our C.S.T. Spark Inc. employee mutual fund representatives when you complete the new client account and CST Spark RESP, Tax-free Savings Account (TFSA) and/or Non-registered Investment Account applications forms or use our self-serve website to complete these forms;
• to one of our C.S.T. Spark Inc. commission-based independent mutual fund representatives when you complete the new client account and CST Spark RESP, TFSA and/or Non-registered Investment Account applications forms; and,
• when you submit your personal information through our website for any purpose, which may include, without limitation, completing lead forms, application forms or a “contact us” form or updating your personal information in your online account.

 

The personal information that we collect from you and that we keep in your client record within our client database includes:

• Your name, address, email address, occupation, and birth date;
• Your social insurance number for income tax reporting and other government purposes;
• Your financial information including information related to your financial institution(s) and bank account information, and your estimated annual family disposable income and liquid net worth;
• Information about your investor profile;
• Information about beneficiaries such as the name, address, birth date and social insurance number of the child(ren) designated to receive benefits under your RESP; and,
• Information we need in the course of the administration of your RESP such as tax records, school transcripts, and other documentation necessary to support claims or requests for various types of payments and benefits.

 

We also collect information about you when you complete an application form for a Founders’ Award and retain it in an award record. The personal information in your award record includes:

• Your name, address, email address, occupation, and birth date;
• Your financial information including annual income to demonstrate financial need;
• Information we may need in the course of the administration of your award or bursary and documentation necessary to support claims or requests for various types of payments.

 

We may collect personal information, such as your name, contact information and information relating to the number and ages of your children, on a CST contest ballot or promotional entry form. We collect this information for the purpose of administering a contest or promotion. If you voluntarily provided your consent to be contacted to learn more about RESPs, the government grants and/or the Canadian Scholarship Trust Plan, and/or CST Spark Education Portfolios, a sales representative or one of our mutual fund representatives, respectively, may contact you and such information will form part of your client record in our client database. Providing consent is not a condition for your participation in the contest or promotional activity.

Automatic Collection:

We receive and store certain types of information when you interact with our websites, including the self-serve website. This may include information such as the type of internet browser or computer operating system you are using, the domain name of the website from which you linked to the website, the date and time you visit the website and the pages you visit on the website. In addition, when you view the website, we may store some information on your computer in the form of a “cookie”. Cookies are small pieces of data which are stored on your computer to allow your internet browser to remember something about a website, and for us to identify your computer and provide us with a record of your visits to our website. This statistical information helps us to understand how our website is used (e.g., which pages or sections are most popular and when are the peak activity times), which assists us in planning for future improvements to the site to better meet our visitors’ needs. At your option, you may turn off our cookies using the application features contained in your internet browser; however, doing so may prevent you from accessing all or parts of the website. We do not link your cookies to other personally identifiable information about you.

Social Media:

We may offer you the opportunity to engage with us through third-party social networking websites, plug-ins, and applications. Through these platforms, you may provide us with personal information or allow us to access information associated with your social media account. We may use this information to confirm your identity, respond to your posts or other inquiries and to personalize your experience on our website.

Information from Other Sources:

We may collect personal information about you or individuals that you or other sources refer to us, such as their name, contact information and information relating to the number and age range of their children. We collect this information for the purpose of marketing products and services that you or the other sources believe may be of interest to them, where permitted by applicable law and in accordance with anti-spam legislation. We will not use this information for any other purpose without their consent. We will contact such individuals using the telephone number, residential address, or e-mail or other electronic address you or the other source have given us and will provide your name or identify the other source in any such communication. If the individual referred does not want us to keep their information, we will remove it at their request (see “Withdrawing Your Consent” below).

We collect and use your personal information for one or more of the following purposes:

• To identify who you are;
• To understand your needs;
• To assess whether the recommended investment is suitable for you;
• To recommend other suitable investment accounts;
• To establish and administer your RESP;
• To provide you with financial statements, tax receipts and other information about your RESP;
• To improve our service offerings;
• To prefill applications that you complete or that we complete on your behalf for your review;
• To evaluate your Founders’ Awards or bursary application;
• To improve our website;
• To market other CST products or services offered by any of the CST Entities which may be of interest to you, with your express consent;
• To maintain the accuracy of our client database, which will be used by all CST Entities;
• To meet our legal and regulatory requirements;
• To manage and assess our risks;
• To protect us from error and to prevent or detect fraud or criminal activity; and,
• To administer a contest or promotional activity.

 

The CST Entities may share the information collected among themselves and with our sales representatives and mutual fund representatives for any of the purposes outlined in the list of possible uses above. This applies to both new and existing clients. For greater certainty and without limiting the foregoing, the CST Entities may share your personal information with one another when you apply for, or to determine if you may qualify for, a new product or service. In addition, we may share your personal information among CST Entities to keep your contact information and other personal information accurate and up-to-date, and to better manage your relationship with us. For example, if you update your personal information with one entity, we may use this information to update our records across other CST Entities.

We do not directly provide all the services related to your relationship with us. We may use third party service providers to process or handle personal information on our behalf and to assist us with various services such as the preparation and mailing of client statements, data processing, award application administration, document storage and contest or promotional activity administration. Some of our service providers are located and/or store data outside of Canada, including in the European Union (EU) and United States (US). As a result, your personal information may be communicated outside of Canada, for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. In this case, your personal information will also be subject to the laws of the relevant jurisdictions. We require our service providers to maintain the confidentiality and security of personal information and do not authorize them to use or disclose personal information for any purpose other than providing the services on our behalf or as otherwise required by applicable law. 

We, our sales representatives, our mutual fund representatives or our trusted referral partners, may ask you for your contact information, such as your telephone number, residential address, e-mail, or SMS and your express consent to share this information within CST for the purpose of marketing products and services that we believe may be of interest to you. We keep and use this information so that we may contact you directly through these channels for the purpose of marketing, including telemarketing, in accordance with applicable laws. Your consent to this is not a condition of doing business with us and you may withdraw it at any time (see “Withdrawing Your Consent” below). 

From time to time, we may also send you information about products and services offered by third parties that we believe may be of interest to you. At no time will your name, contact information or the information that you have shared with us be provided to any of our marketing partners. 

Your personal information is disclosed to our authorized employees such as our customer service and compliance teams and your sales representative or mutual fund representative who have a business need to access it to carry out their duties. These individuals can only use personal information pursuant to the terms of this Privacy Policy and our other policies. We have informed our employees, sales representatives and our mutual fund representatives of their obligation to preserve the privacy of personal information, and we continue to raise awareness about its importance.

We disclose personal information in your client record to Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), Canada Revenue Agency, Revenu Quebec and any other government body necessary for the purposes of administering your RESP(s), and to otherwise comply with legal and regulatory requirements. We only disclose the information that is reasonably necessary for you to obtain the benefits of your RESP.

Certain personal information in a client record may be shared with the custodial parent of a beneficiary of an RESP, where such communication is necessary for the administration of the RESP. 

We disclose personal information in your award record to Canada Revenue Agency for the purposes of administering our programs, and to otherwise comply with legal and regulatory requirements. We only disclose the information that is necessary.

CST and its Canadian, EU, US and other third-party service providers may provide your personal information in response to a search warrant or other legally valid inquiry or order (including lawful access by EU, US or other courts or governmental authorities), to an investigative body or as required by applicable Canadian, EU, US or other law. We may also disclose personal information where necessary for the enforcement or protection of our legal rights, to investigate or prevent loss or harm to persons or property, or as otherwise permitted by law.

We may also disclose your personal information in connection with a change in corporate control such as merger, acquisition, sale, reorganization, transfer, or stock sale. 

Except as set out above, we will not otherwise sell, transfer, or disclose any of your personal information to any third party without your knowledge and consent unless required or permitted by law.

Subject to legal, regulatory, and contractual requirements, you may refuse to consent to our collection, use or disclosure of your personal or business information, or you may withdraw your consent to our further collection, use or disclosure of your information at any time in the future by giving us reasonable notice. Withdrawal of your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any use that occurred prior to its withdrawal. Depending on the circumstances, withdrawal of your consent may impact our ability to provide you or continue to provide you with some products, services or information that may be of value to you and may result in you or your beneficiary not being able to receive benefits that you would otherwise be entitled to under your RESP. We will act on your instructions as quickly as possible but there may be certain uses of your information that we may not be able to stop immediately. 

You may withdraw your consent to receive emails about other products and services offered by CST or its marketing partners, excluding emails directly related to the administration of your account, at any time by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link provided in the email. Alternatively, you may contact us or your sales representative or mutual fund representative using the contact information provided in the email to be removed from our mailing list.

Even if you have opted out of receiving marketing communications from us, please be aware that we may still contact you for other purposes. For example, we may contact you to provide communications you have consented to receive regarding the services we provide to you, or if you contact us with an inquiry.

Our website may include links to third party websites. Except as outlined in this Privacy Policy, we will not provide any of your personal information to these third parties without your prior consent. CST provides links to third party websites as a convenience to the user. The inclusion of any link does not imply CST’s endorsement of any other company, its websites, or its products and/or services. These linked websites have separate and independent privacy policies, which we recommend you read carefully. We have no control over such websites and therefore have no responsibility or liability for the manner in which the organizations that operate such linked websites may collect, use or disclose and otherwise treat your personal information

We maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards, as set out in our Security Policy, in an effort to protect against unauthorized access, use, modification and disclosure of personal information in our custody and control. We will maintain the strict confidentiality of all personal information collected and will only disclose such information to employees and authorized service providers of CST who require such information for the purposes set out above. We will keep your personal information for as long as it remains necessary or relevant for the purposes stated above or as otherwise required by law. Even after you cease to be a CST client, we keep some information about you on file in order to meet certain legal requirements.

We retain your personal information for only as long as needed to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, or for as long as necessary to comply with applicable laws. The retention period depends on the purposes and the nature of the personal information. Personal information that is no longer required is destroyed, or anonymized. Your consent to CST’s collection, use and disclosure of your personal information for such purposes remains valid after the termination of CST’s relationship with you.

CST makes commercially reasonable efforts to keep your personal information complete, up-to-date and accurate. You have the right to access, update, correct your personal information, or express any concerns regarding our use of your personal information. To do so, please contact our Chief Privacy Officer at the contact information below. We ask that you provide us with the name, address and email address that you previously provided to us, a brief description of under what circumstances you provided your personal information to CST, and the purpose of your request. If you are unsure as to whether CST is holding any personal information that belongs to you, you may also contact our Chief Privacy Officer for confirmation.

CST will make reasonable efforts to respond to your request as soon as practicable, and in any event, in compliance with applicable laws. In order to protect your privacy and security, CST will take steps to verify your identity before granting access or making any changes to the personal information that we maintain.

CST has appointed a Chief Privacy Officer. If you have any inquiries or comments about this Privacy Policy, please contact CST’s Chief Privacy Officer by mail at: CST Savings Inc., 1600-2235 Sheppard Avenue East, Toronto ON M2J 5B8 or by e-mail at [email protected]. 

You may file a complaint with our Chief Privacy Officer if you believe that we are not complying with our obligations to protect personal information. We will confirm receipt of your complaint, contact you for more information as needed, conduct a confidential investigation and share its conclusions with you. If your complaint is justified, we will take appropriate measures to correct the situation. If you are unsatisfied with our internal review of your complaint, you can contact the following organizations responsible for the protection of personal information: the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (federal), Québec’s Commission d'accès à l’information, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia or the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta.

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time to take into consideration changes in legislation or other issues that may arise. The most up-to-date version of our Privacy Policy is always available on our public website. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy in order to stay informed of how CST is protecting your personal information. Each time this Privacy Policy is amended, the “Last Updated” date above will be revised.