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The Students on Ice Foundation is committed to safeguarding the personal information entrusted to us by our participants and staff. We manage your personal information in accordance with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). This policy outlines the principles and practices we follow in protecting your personal information. This policy applies to SOI Foundation and to any person providing services on our behalf. A copy of this policy is provided to any participant or staff member on request.

What is personal information?

Personal information means information about an identifiable individual. This includes an individual’s name, home address and phone number, age, sex, marital or family status, an identifying number, financial information, educational history, etc.

What personal information do we collect?

We collect only the personal information that we need for the purposes of providing services to our participants and staff members, including personal information needed to enrol participants and staff members into SOI’s expeditions. We collect personal information directly from our participants and staff members. We may collect your information from other persons with your consent or as authorized by law.

We inform our participants and staff members, before or at the time of collecting personal information, of the purposes for which we are collecting the information. The only time we don’t provide this notification is when a client volunteers information for an obvious purpose (for example, producing a credit card to pay an expedition fee when the information will be used only to process the payment).

How do we use and disclose personal information?

We use and disclose personal information only for the purpose for which the information was collected, except as authorized by law. For example, we may use contact information to provide further information about an expedition.
If we wish to use or disclose your personal information for any new business purpose, we will ask for your consent.

Consent

We ask for consent to collect, use or disclose personal information, except in specific circumstances where collection, use or disclosure without consent is authorized or required by law. We may assume your consent in cases where you volunteer information for an obvious purpose. We assume your consent to continue to use and, where applicable, disclose personal information that we have already collected, for the purpose for which the information was collected.

We ask for your express consent for some purposes and may not be able to provide certain services if you are unwilling to provide consent to the collection, use or disclosure of certain personal information. Where express consent is needed, we will normally ask clients to provide their consent orally (in person, by telephone), or in writing (by signing a consent form). In cases that do not involve sensitive personal information, we may rely on “opt-out” consent.

A participant or staff member may withdraw consent to the use and disclosure of personal information at any time, unless the personal information is necessary for us to fulfil our legal obligations. We will respect your decision, but we may not be able to provide you with certain products and services if we do not have the necessary personal information.

We may collect, use or disclose personal information without consent only as authorized by law. For example, we may not request consent when the collection, use or disclosure is to determine suitability for an honour or award, or in an emergency that threatens life, health or safety.

How do we safeguard personal information?

We make every reasonable effort to ensure that personal information is accurate and complete. We rely on individuals to notify us if there is a change to their personal information that may affect their relationship with our organization. If you are aware of an error in our information about you, please let us know and we will correct it on request wherever possible. In some cases we may ask for a written request for correction.

We protect personal information in a manner appropriate for the sensitivity of the information. We make every reasonable effort to prevent any loss, misuse, disclosure or modification of personal information, as well as any unauthorized access to personal information.

We use appropriate security measures when destroying personal information, including shredding paper records and permanently deleting electronic records.

We retain personal information only as long as is reasonable to fulfil the purposes for which the information was collected or for legal or business purposes.

Cookies

We use cookies, which are text files placed on your computer, to better understand how our website is being used so that we can ensure we are providing the best possible user experience. We do not use cookies to retain personal information about our users and we do not sell information about our users’ web traffic patterns.

We use Google Analytics to help analyze how users use our site. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect standard Internet log information and visitor behaviour information in an anonymous form. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) is transmitted to Google. These aggregate statistics and other non-personally identifiable information is then used to evaluate visitors’ use of the website so that we can evaluate our site’s performance, and provide reports to partners.

We will never (and will not allow any third party to) use the statistical analytics tool to track or to collect any personally identifiable information of visitors to our site. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. Neither we nor Google will link, or seek to link, an IP address with the identity of a computer user. We will not associate any data gathered from this site with any personally identifiable information from any source, unless you explicitly submit that information via a fill-in form on our website.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

SOI’s privacy policy does not cover the links within this site linking to other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.

Access to records containing personal information

Individuals have a right to access their own personal information in a record that is in the custody or under the control of SOI Foundation, subject to some exceptions. For example, organizations are required under the Personal Information Protection Act to refuse to provide access to information that would reveal personal information about another individual.

If we refuse a request in whole or in part, we will provide the reasons for the refusal. In some cases where exceptions to access apply, we may withhold that information and provide you with the remainder of the record.
You may make a request for access to your personal information in writing. You must provide sufficient information in your request to allow us to identify the information you are seeking.

You may also request information about our use of your personal information and any disclosure of that information to persons outside our organization. In addition, you may request a correction of an error or omission in your personal information.

We will respond to your request within 45 calendar days, unless an extension is granted.

Questions and complaints

If you have a question or concern about any collection, use or disclosure of personal information by Students on Ice Foundation, or about a request for access to your own personal information, please contact us.