Privacy Policy for the Business Climate Action Toolkit

At Sustainable Hamilton Burlington (“SHB”, “we”, “us” or “our”), we consider the privacy of our online visitors to be extremely important. As such, we have designed this Privacy Policy which outlines to visitors how we collect, use, disclose, and otherwise manage their personal information with respect to the Business Climate Action Toolkit (the “Toolkit”)

Our policies and practices have been designed to comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (the “Act”) and any other relevant privacy legislation.

SHB respects the privacy of each individual with whom it comes into contact as a user of the Toolkit.  SHB will not sell or otherwise provide any of your personal information to any organization or individual unless you give us permission to do so.

By using the Toolkit, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy, as they may be amended by us from time to time, and agreeing to our collection and use of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Collection and Use of Personal Information

Personal information is information that refers to an individual specifically and that is recorded in any form. Personal information includes such things as full legal name, date of birth, age, full address, city, state/province, country and postal code, but does not include aggregated data from which the identity of an individual cannot be determined.

The following part of the Privacy Policy describes specific ways in which we may collect and use your personal information.

Like most websites, we receive certain types of information whenever you interact with us. For example, when you use the Toolkit, we will collect and make use of :

  1. Log Files: These files capture information when visitors visit the Toolkit. In some contexts, the information it captures can be classified as personal information. For example, log files capture visitors’ internet protocol (IP), browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date/timestamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks made while using the Toolkit. This information is used to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement around the site, and gather demographic information.

 

  1. Cookies: These are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser to enable our systems to recognize your browser. This helps us prepare the Toolkit for your customized use. The “help” portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether.

There are only a few circumstances where we may ask you to provide us with personal information:

  • If you decide to register your company as a Service Provider in our Sustainability Service Provider Directory, we will ask you to provide a contact name, email and phone number so that it can be listed publicly on the directory. It is your responsibility to ensure this data is up-to-date. Please let us know of any changes or if you would like to have the listing removed.
  • If you are submitting a form to Suggest an Editon our website, you have the option of providing contact information in case you would like us to follow up with you.
  • If you are submitting a form on our Contact pageor Become a Volunteer page, we do require your name and email address so that we can reply to your message or inquiry.

However, if you do not provide us with certain information as set out above, your use of the Toolkit may be restricted or prevented altogether.

We are responsible only for the personal information under our control. Third party services (i) that assist us in providing the Toolkit; (ii) that may collect information about you themselves; or (iii) that we may share your information with in accordance with this Privacy Policy are governed by the respective privacy policies of those third parties.

Except as set out in this Privacy Policy, SHB does not collect any other personal information that you do not expressly provide. If you do not want your personal information collected, you are not obligated to provide it to us. If you have already submitted the information and would like us to remove it from our records, or you would like to know what information is held in our records or wish to have any of the information updated or modified, please contact us at the address set forth below. SHB will not disclose your personal information to any third party without your consent, except as detailed in this privacy policy.

Any personal information or content that you voluntarily disclose while using the Toolkit which can be viewed by other users or visitors becomes publicly viewable and can be collected and used by others.

Due to the global nature of the Internet, you may be transferring your personal information to countries outside of your jurisdiction of residence, whose legal systems do not offer the same protection for your data as the laws of your jurisdiction of residence.

Disclosure and Sharing of Personal Information

Except as set out in this Privacy Policy, SHB does not collect any other personal information that you do not expressly provide. If you do not want your personal information collected, you are not obligated to provide it to us. If you have already submitted the information and would like us to remove it from our records, or you would like to know what information is held in our records or wish to have any of the information updated or modified, please contact us at the address set forth below. SHB will not disclose your personal information to any third party without your consent, except as detailed in this Privacy Policy.

Except with your consent and as set out herein, we will not sell, license, trade or disclose your personal information to or with others.

We may disclose or share non-personally identifiable information with partners, advertisers or prospective partners or advertisers to help explain our business and the effectiveness of our business or for promotional purposes.

SHB may disclose personal information to third party providers of SHB, including third parties engaged to assist us in providing the Toolkit (including, but not limited to, software development and hosting and data processing) to you or to carry out one or more of the uses described above. These service providers are prohibited from using your personal information for any purpose other than to provide this assistance and are required to protect personal information disclosed by SHB and to comply with applicable privacy laws.

SHB reserves the right to disclose personal information to a third party if a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order legally requires or authorizes us to do so.

You are deemed to consent to disclosure of your personal information for the purposes set out above.

Non-Personal Information

It is possible that we may also, now or in the future, request non-personally identifiable information in order to improve the Toolkit. This information will only be shared in an aggregate, anonymous form, which means that the information will not contain any personally identifiable information about you or any other person. SHB and our current and/or future third party service providers may also use a variety of technologies that collect non-personal, aggregated information about the registered users’ use of the Toolkit. Usage Information may include the browser you are using, the URL that referred you to the Toolkit, all of the areas within the Toolkit that you visit and the time of day, among other information. This information is not personally identifiable and will only be used to find out how our registered users use the Toolkit. The collection of this information allows us, among other things, to create new features.

Email Communications

From time to time, now or in the future, we may send you e-mail with information that we believe would be of interest to you. SHB will not send e-mail communications to you without your express consent and in accordance with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation. SHB may use a third party to deliver email. Such third party shall be under a contractual requirement to keep all personal information confidential and to only use any personal information for the sole purpose of sending you email on behalf of SHB and to return any personal information once their services are completed.

Security

We use physical, electronic, and administrative safeguards to assist us in preventing unauthorized access, maintaining data accuracy and correctly using your personal information. Except as specified in this Privacy Policy, we use commercially reasonable efforts to limit access to your personal information to the employees, agents, and officers of SHB on a need-to-know basis.

Updates

SHB reserves the right to make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time by posting the updated version of this Privacy Policy here. You are bound by any changes to this Privacy Policy when you use the Toolkit after such changes have been posted.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on: October 31, 2018.

If you wish to know what information we have in our files about you, ask a question about your personal information in our possession, request a change or correction to such information or if you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us by email at info@sustainablehamiltonburlington.ca.