Privacy Policy

Canadian Federation of Students, Canadian Federation of Students-Services, and our subsidiaries (collectively referred to as the “Federation”) Policy on the Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information
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Objective & Scope of Policy

This Policy Statement has been prepared to affirm the Federation’s commitment to maintaining the privacy of our members and others and to inform you of our practices concerning the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information collected by the Federation.

For the purposes of this Policy, “Personal Information” means any information, recorded in any form, about an identified individual, or an individual whose identity may be inferred or determined from the information. This policy does not cover any information, recorded in any form, about more than one individual where the identity of the individuals is not known and cannot be inferred from the information.

Using contractual or other arrangements, the Federation shall ensure that agents, contractors or third-party service providers, who may receive Personal Information in the course of providing services to the Federation, as part of our delivery of products and services, protect that Personal Information in a manner consistent with the principles articulated in this Policy Statement.

The Collection, Use & Disclosure of Personal Information

Your provision of Personal Information to the Federation means that you agree and consent that we may collect, use and disclose your Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these terms, you are requested not to provide any Personal Information to the Federation. Certain services can only be offered if you provide Personal Information to the Federation. Consequently, if you choose not provide us with any required Personal Information, the Federation may not be able to offer you those services.

The Federation collects only such information from individuals or organizations as is required for the purposes of providing services or information to them. The Federation collects e-mail and mailing addresses when individuals apply for a service offered by the Federation or requests additional information from the Federation. Federation uses information collected through such services and information requests to send individuals the information they have requested, and to provide information that may be of possible interest.

The Federation does not sell, trade, barter or exchange for consideration any Personal Information it has obtained. Unless permitted by law, no Personal Information is collected about an individual, without first obtaining the consent of the individual to the collection, use and dissemination of that information. Personal Information will be collected, to the extent possible, directly from the individual concerned. If guardian consent is provided, the Federation may collect Personal Information from anyone under the age of 18.

The Federation may disclose Personal Information to organizations that perform services on behalf of the Federation. Personal Information will only be provided to such organizations if they agree to use such information solely for the purposes of providing services to the Federation and under the instruction of the Federation and, with respect to that information, to act in a manner consistent with the relevant principles articulated in this Policy.

Please note that there are circumstances where the use and/or disclosure of Personal Information may be justified or permitted or where the Federation is obliged to disclose information without consent. Such circumstances may include:

• Where required by law or by order or requirement of a court, administrative agency or other governmental tribunal;
• Where it is necessary to establish or collect monies owing to the Federation;
• Where the information is public.

Where obliged or permitted to disclose information without consent, the Federation will not disclose more information than is required.

Accuracy

The Federation endeavours to ensure that any Personal Information provided and in its possession is as accurate, current and complete as necessary for the purposes for which the Federation uses that information.

Retention

The Federation keeps Personal Information only as long as it is required for the reasons it was collected. The length of time we retain information varies, depending on the product or service and the nature of the information. This period may extend beyond the end of a person’s relationship with the Federation, but it will be only for so long as it is necessary for the Federation to have sufficient information to respond to any issues that may arise at a later date. When your Personal Information is no longer required for the Federation’s purposes, we have procedures to destroy, delete, erase or convert it into an anonymous form.

Currently, the principal places in which the Federation holds Personal Information are in the cities in which the Federation has offices or production facilities.

Security

The Federation endeavours to maintain adequate physical, procedural and technical security with respect to its offices and information storage facilities so as to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, or modification of Personal Information.

In terms of communicating Personal Information to the Federation, you may wish to note that there is no method of transmitting or storing data that is completely secure. While the physical characteristics of each are different, mail, telephone calls, faxes and transmissions over the Internet are all susceptible to possible loss, misrouting, interception and misuse of the information being communicated or transmitted.

Federation Digital Services

The Federation provides members and others with general access to public web sites and restricted access to extranets. If you do nothing during your visit but browse through our web sites, read pages, or download information, we will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. This information does not identify you personally. We automatically collect and store only the following information about your visit: Internet Protocol (IP) address, date, time, and pages accessed. We use this information for statistical analysis to help us make our sites more useful to visitors. Such information is not correlated with any personal information.

You do not have to give us personal information to visit our web sites. If you choose to provide us with additional information about yourself through an e-mail message or form, we will only maintain the information as long as needed to respond to your question or to fulfill the stated purpose of the communication.

The Federation may use cookies from time to time. A cookie is a unique text file that a web site can send to your browser software. The Federation uses non-persistent cookies within multiple page online forms to remember you from page to page. These cookies do not store any personal information and are deleted at the end of your visit. Rejecting cookies will make these forms unusable.

The Federation employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. This software receives and records the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer that has contacted our network, the date and time of the visit and the pages visited. We make no attempt to link these addresses with the identity of individuals visiting our sites unless an attempt to damage a site has been detected.

In certain areas, such as when you provide credit card information to us, we work to help protect the security of your information during transmission by using industry standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption technology.

Consent

The Federation accepts the following two methods as your consent for existing and future collection, use and disclosure of your personal information for identified purposes:

• your express written consent or oral consent as obtained through an application process
• implied consent by requesting information, assistance, or acquiring a product or service

The achievement of the Federation’s objectives involves communicating with its membership. If an individual member does not consent, then their personal information shall be used by the Federation for purposes of communicating with the member only for identified purposes and shall not be provided to anyone else.

Amendment of the Federation Practices and This Policy

This statement is in effect as of January 1, 2004. The Federation will from time-to-time review and revise its privacy practices and this Policy Statement. In the event of any amendment, an appropriate notice will be posted on the Federation’s web site. Policy changes will apply to the information collected from the date of posting of the revised Policy Statement to the Federation’s web site as well as to existing information held by the Federation.

Updated as of May 2021.

Questions

In the event an individual has questions or compliant about (a) access to Personal Information; (b) the collection, use, management or disclosure of Personal Information; or (c) this Policy Statement, that person should contact the Federation’s Privacy Officer.

Chief Privacy Officer at:
200-2725 Queensview Drive
Ottawa, ON K2B 0A1
Telephone: (613) 232-7394
email: privacy@cfs-fcee.ca