Privacy Policy & Terms of Use

Who We Are

This is the Privacy Notice of Colleges and Institutes Canada (“CICan”). This Privacy Notice details how we collect, use, share and protect personal information in connection with the services we offer through our websites (referred to as the “Sites”) and through your dealings, memberships (referred to as “Memberships”), and enquiries with us. CICan also offers various projects / programs and services (referred to as “Projects / programs”) which may have their own Privacy Notices.

What is Personal Information?

Personal Information is information or an opinion that can be used to reasonably identify an individual. Personal Information includes information that you provide to us voluntarily, information we automatically collect when you visit our Sites, information collected on Membership, and information collected when you register for our Projects / programs or events.

Certain information is excluded from this definition, such as specific business contact information, or information that has been made anonymous or has been permanently de-identified, which means that we cannot identify you.

Applicability of This Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice applies to CICan’s headquarter operations, Memberships, and Sites, and may not reflect individual Projects / programs run by CICan that have their own Privacy Notices and terms of service.

Collection of Information

We limit the Personal Information we collect from you in order to provide you with Memberships, Projects / programs, and Services, and to maintain a relationship with you. We collect information directly from you when you engage with us such as when you enrol in a Project, enquire about offerings, participate to events, or become a member.

Information You Provide to Us

You provide information to us in various ways, including the following:

• Member Details: When a college and institute become a member they provide us with profile information such as the name, contact details such as the email address and
  phone number of the college and institute contact, and they provide us with information about their preferences, such as when they wish to receive notifications.
  When they enrol in a Project, they provide us with information according to the requirements of the project. This may differ from one Project to another, and as such detailed information relating to individual Projects / programs. [Our lawful basis for processing this data is “Performance of a Contract” in projects / programs].
• Student Details: When they enrol in a Project, specific project activities, or participate in the event or project activities, they provide us with information according to the requirements of the project and its funder. This may differ from one project / activities to another, from events, and as such detailed information relating to individual Projects / programs/ activities / events is available by request. [Our lawful basis for processing this data is generally “Performance of a Contract”, unless otherwise stated by a specific Project Privacy Notice].
• Other Stakeholders : like collaboration member, funders, associates, members, sponsors that provide us with profile information such as the name, contact details such as the email address and phone number, they provide us with information about heir preferences, such as when they wish to receive notifications.
  When they enrol in a Project, or specific project activities, participate in the event or project activities, they provide us with information according to the requirements required and this may differ from one project / activities to another, from events, and as such detailed information relating to individual Projects / programs/ activities / events. [Our lawful basis for processing this data is generally “Performance of a Contract”, unless otherwise stated by a specific Project Privacy Notice].
• Other Information: We collect information when you communicate directly with us by contacting us via the Sites or via social media (such as through LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook or YouTube pages, responding to surveys, participating in contests or events, engaging in a web chat, or subscribing to our newsletters. We may also monitor and record our virtual meetings (webinar, events…etc.) for statistical purposes, internal training, and maintaining a high level of service quality. In these circumstances, we may collect your contact information such as your name, email address, demographic information, social media profile information, and other information you choose to share with us. [Our lawful basis for processing this data is “Legitimate Interest”].

Information We Automatically Collect or Generate

Website Usage Information: Like most websites, when you visit our web Sites, we may receive information about your visit, use, or interaction with our Sites. Although most of the information, we collect is anonymized and aggregated usage data, such as how many individuals visited our Sites, peak hours of visits, the general location of your device, and which page(s) were viewed, we may also collect your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address. We collect this information through the use of cookies, pixel tags and similar technologies. Please see the section on Advertising, Cookies and Analytics for more information. [Our lawful basis for processing this data is “Consent”]

Information We Automatically Collect or Generate

We also collect information from third parties such as from our payment processors or third-party platforms where you may submit information as part of a Project. We may collect information about your social media profile when you interact with us on those platforms.

Use of Your Personal Information

We use your Personal Information to provide you with our Projects / programs and operate our Sites. We use your information for the following purposes:

• We may use de-identified and aggregated information for research and advocacy purposes. This information, whether used alone or in combination with other information, cannot identify you;
• To measure and understand the effectiveness of content on our Sites and our Projects / programs so that we can understand where we can have greater impact;
• Offer information, content, and/or opportunities that we think will be of interest to you such as newsletters, events to attend, and Projects / programs to participate in;
• Respond to your inquiries, surveys or requests; and to
• Comply with our legal or regulatory obligations.

We will only use your Personal Information for purposes described in this Privacy Notice, a Project-specific Privacy Notice, or for purposes that we informed you of at the time of collecting your information. If we intend to use or disclose your Personal Information for a new purpose, we will ask you for your consent first, unless we are otherwise permitted by law or court order.

Who Do We Share Your Personal Information With?

We limit who we share your Personal Information with and how much information we disclose.

We may disclose your Personal Information under certain circumstances. These circumstances include:

• Research Work we perform by means of our Projects and programs. Although our research results and polls do not disclose Personal Information, in the event the disclosure of Personal Information would be relevant, we will always seek your explicit consent to disclose such information to certain institutions and we will provide you with information about these institutions before you participate in the polls.
• Service Providers in order to deliver the Projects / programs and events to you. These providers offer solutions for hosting, applications, marketing, payment processing, and other business critical operations. They are contractually required to comply with our privacy requirements and standards, ensuring that your Personal Information is protected and remains confidential.
• CICan Projects / programs if we administer your information on their behalf, or where we share information with them to administer a Project.
• Third Parties to administer our Projects / programs. This may also include third parties that you request we share your Personal Information with and provide us with your consent to do so.
• Sponsors: such as major funders like Government of Canada, and other Foundations. We may share information related to specific projects / programs. These stakeholders may have their own privacy statement or policy, we encourage you to familiarise yourself with their practices and policies where applicable.
• Members Share the information related to specific projects / programs. Also share statistical data, but from stats Canada.
• Authorities such as law enforcement or competent courts, when it is necessary, or we are compelled to do so. This may include instances where there is a serious risk of harm to you or others, and/or where we have to take legal action to protect our or third-party rights.

We will not sell or rent your Personal Information. Furthermore, our contracts with service providers dictate that they may not use your information for their own benefit or for any services other than those requested by us.

Where Is Your Personal Information Processed?

CICan offers services and Projects / programs across the globe. To involve you in Projects / programs, facilitate Membership or participating to events, we may need to store, process or transfer your Personal Information to a country other than your country of residence, and your Personal Information may be subject to the laws of a foreign jurisdiction including but not limited to foreign governments, courts, law enforcement and regulatory agencies.

These countries may not have the same information protection laws as the country in which you initially provided the information. When we transfer your Personal Information to other countries, we will protect that information as required by law, for example, by signing UK Standard Contractual Clauses.

By proceeding to use our Sites or enrolling in Projects / programs, Memberships or events, you are agreeing to your personal information being processed and transferred in terms of this Privacy Notice.

How Is Your Personal Information Protected?

We have technical, organizational, and physical safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of your Personal Information. These include safeguards such as ensuring our staff sign confidentiality agreements, limiting access to our facilities, and granting access to information based on a need-to-know basis. We review and update our safeguards regularly to ensure your Personal Information is protected.

It is important to note that no computer system or online communication is perfectly secure. We encourage you to take appropriate steps to protect your information, including not sharing with us more information than is necessary.

How Long Do We Keep Your Information?

We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purpose we originally collected it for or as required under applicable law.

Your Personal Information will be kept for at least as long as it is necessary to carry out the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice and subject to applicable laws. We may retain anonymized and aggregated information without time limits to the extent that we have a legitimate and lawful interest in doing so.

As a member, we keep your Personal Information for as long as you have a Membership with us. Once your membership has expired, we will retain your information for as long as necessary to meet our legal obligations, after which we will discard it.

As a participant, we keep your Personal Information for as long as you remain part of a Project with us. Once your participation has ended and the Project concludes, we will retain your information for as long as necessary to meet our legal and sponsor obligations or, as per the terms of your participation, after which we discard it.

As a member, we keep your Personal Information for the duration of your membership. Should you cancel your membership, we will retain your information if you have opted to remain on our mailing lists, or for as long as necessary to meet our legal and contractual obligations, after which we discard it.

Even if we discard your Personal Information, it may persist on electronic backup made in the normal course of business for an additional period of time.

Advertising, Cookies and Analytics

Our Sites, like most other websites, use cookies, which are small text files installed on your computer when you visit our Sites. Cookies collect non-identifiable information about you and help us understand how visitors use our Sites so we can improve their design, layout, content and function.

We may use first-party, analytics, and third-party cookies on our Sites. First-party and analytics cookies are set and maintained by us, while third-party cookies are maintained by external companies.

Our first-party cookies are used to store your preferences so that you don’t have to enter them every time you visit our Sites. They also make our Sites more functional.

Analytics cookies may be used internally for our research and are not shared with any third parties. Their purpose is to aid in improving our Sites and services to you. These cookies assess how you interact with our Sites. The information we collect is de-identified.

We may engage third parties to monitor and analyze the use of our Sites. For example, we use Google Analytics to track, monitor and report on traffic to our Sites. Google may track information such as your IP address, the type of web browser being used, and pages visited on our Sites. Any such third-party cookies are governed by the respective terms of service and privacy policies of those providers. For more information on how Google Analytics collects and processes information, please visit Google’s site “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps” located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

You can delete all cookies that are already on your device by clearing your browser history. You can also disable cookies being stored on your device; however, this may affect the functionality of our Sites and other sites you have visited. These settings are found in the “settings” section of your browser.

Be aware that clearing your browser history will clear all of the cookies for all the sites you have visited, even those where you have opted in. You may also lose saved login information and preferences for other websites.

What Are Your Rights?

You have the right to access and correct the Personal Information you provide to us. Simply send us a written request to privacy@collegesinstitutes.ca. Before granting you access to your Personal Information; we may need to authenticate you. Please note there may be exceptional circumstances, in accordance with law, that we will be unable to grant you access or correct your information. If this is the case, we will inform you and provide you with a reason why we cannot fulfill your request.

It is your duty to ensure you provide us with accurate and up-to-date information so that we can correctly facilitate Projects / programs and Memberships.

At any time, you may also withdraw your consent to have your Personal Information processed. In order to withdraw your consent, you can send us a written request to privacy@collegesinstitutes.ca. If you wish to stop receiving marketing or promotional emails from us, including newsletters, you can opt-out of these communications by unsubscribing directly in the email or by contacting us. Please note, you cannot unsubscribe from some emails such as those related to the provision of our Projects / programs or Memberships in which you are registered.

Changes to the Policy

This Privacy Notice is current as of the date, which appears at the top. We recommend that you read this Privacy Notice carefully on a periodic basis as we may revise it from time to time. When you share your Personal Information with us, you consent to the collection and processing of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Notice.

Complaints, Questions, or Concerns? Contact Us

If you have any questions, complaints, or concerns, we’d like to be informed in order to address and resolve them. Please do not hesitate to contact us at privacy@collegesinstitutes.ca or

Colleges and Institutes Canada
1 Rideau Street, Suite 701
Ottawa, Ontario K1N 8S7
+1-613-746-2222

If our resolution does not meet your satisfaction, you have the right to contact the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
30, Victoria Street
Gatineau, Quebec K1A 1H3
+1-800-282-1376

Last updated: June 30, 2023