About Us : Frequently Asked Privacy Questions

Sterling Talent Solutions completes background checks on behalf of its clients, but is not in any way involved with the final hiring decisions. Once background screening reports are released to its clients, Sterling Talent Solutions does not know how the information will be used. Questions regarding why certain types of background checks have been requested, or about how results are interpreted or used, should be directed to the organization which has requested your background check.

Before a background check is conducted, the organization requesting the check must advise you of the background checks to be completed and of what information will be collected. This may be done through paper forms or the Sterling Talent Solutions background screening platform. The purpose of collecting personal information is to complete components of a background check. When conducting a background check, Sterling Talent Solutions will only collect personal information that is necessary to complete the background check.

If you require further clarification on exactly how your information will be handled, you should ask your contact at the requesting organization or ask the Sterling Talent Solutions Privacy team.

Sterling Talent Solutions does not keep personal information longer than is necessary. How long your personal information is kept is determined by the organization that has ordered your background check. The retention period is to allow for the resolution of any disputes or complaints. Once the retention period has elapsed, or where otherwise instructed by its clients to delete any personal information, Sterling Talent Solutions ensures that the information is immediately destroyed in a secure manner. Neither an electronic nor a hard copy of personal information is retained after this time.

Sterling Talent Solutions operates worldwide with offices located in Canada, the United Kingdom, United States, India and the Philippines. Our international presence means that we may transfer your data to countries outside Canada. These countries may not have laws regulating the use and transfer of personal data; however, in all circumstances, Sterling Talent Solutions will ensure that your personal information receives at least the same level of protection as within Canada. This includes ensuring that it is kept secure, and only used and released in accordance with the law and for the purposes our client has indicated to you at the time of collection of the data.

Our servers are located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Sterling Talent Solutions takes the security of your personal information very seriously. We have advanced security measures in place to secure and protect your personal information, including multiple layers of firewalls to ensure your personal information is kept as secure as possible, specialty devices to detect and prevent intrusion attempts, and encryption systems to ensure data is scrambled while being transmitted between systems, through e-mail and when stored in our databases. We monitor all security incident logs on a 24×7 basis, and all of our critical systems are frequently audited by independent third-parties. We monitor the movement of sensitive data through data loss prevention software, and can detect and block inappropriate data movement. Our secure online delivery system is password protected and ensures that unauthorized individuals are not given access to personal information.

We employ equally rigorous physical security policies to prevent physical access to our data centre. Any personal information in hard copy form is kept securely in lockable, non-portable storage systems that are accessible only to named individuals.

Sterling Talent Solutions does not use personal information for reasons other than those specified at the time of collection, or where otherwise permitted or required by law. Personal information is not sold or otherwise released to third parties for marketing purposes.

The background checks conducted by Sterling Talent Solutions are one-time events. If multiple background checks are ordered on you at the request of different companies, new research is conducted for each one and data from old records is not reused.

Sterling Talent Solutions conducts the vast majority of background screening work in-house, and only collaborates with external parties for specialised services that we could not otherwise offer. This generally consists of background checks outside the countries where we operate. We only select vendors that conform to our security and privacy standards, to ensure that your information is protected as well in a vendor’s custody as it is in our own.