Respecting the privacy of employees, donors, volunteers and partners of the Pediatric Research Foundation is fundamental to us.
Privacy Policy
The Pediatric Research Foundation recognizes the importance of protecting personal information, which is why we are committed to respecting privacy and protecting all personal information collected in accordance with current regulations applicable to the processing of personal data.
Our Privacy Policy is intended to help you understand our practices regarding the collection, use, protection, retention and disclosure of personal information, and to enable us to act with transparency, integrity and diligence.
PRIVACY POLICY
Effective date: September 22, 2023
Table of contents
- Background
- Definition of “personal information”
- What personal information do we collect?
- How do we collect personal information?
- How do we use your personal information?
- Who do we share your personal information with?
- How long do we keep your personal information?
- Transfer of personal information outside Quebec
- Minors
- Governance rules and other measures to protect personal information
- What are your privacy right?
- Notification of updates to this Policy
- How to contact us
1. Background
The Pediatric Research Foundation (the“Foundation”, “we”, “us”or “our”) recognizes the importance of protecting personal information, which is why we are committed to respecting privacy and protecting all personal information collected in accordance with applicable laws.
This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) describes how the Foundation collects, uses, discloses and retains personal information about you, regardless of the nature of your relationship with us, for example if you make a donation, participate in one of our events, are one of our partners, visit our website fondationrecherchepediatrique.ca (“Website”), communicate with us via social networks, subscribe to our newsletter, participate in our marketing campaigns, or apply for a position as an employee, volunteer or intern with the Foundation.
This Policy does not apply to personal information collected by the Foundation from its employees and members of the Board of Directors, who are subject to separate internal policies. It also does not apply to information collected from participants in a funded research project.
2. Definition of “personal information”
In this Policy, “personal information” means any information (regardless of format) about an individual that directly or indirectly identifies that individual. Examples of personal information include your name, date of birth and email address. Data that does not allow an individual to be identified, either directly or indirectly, i.e., anonymized information, is not considered personal information.
3. What personal information do we collect?
We may collect different types of personal information about you in the course of our activities, as follows:
- Identifiers and contact information, such as your name, address, date of birth, telephone number, email address, gender and, with your consent, your photograph. We may collect this information if you contact us by email or telephone, or if you contact us by other means, including when you apply for a position as an employee, intern or volunteer, make a donation to the Foundation, or contact us to establish a partnership.
- Financial information, including details and history of your donations and associated billing address. Note: We do not retain any information relating to credit or debit card numbers. We may collect this information directly from you if you donate to the Foundation.
- Employment-related information, including information about your work experience, education, visa and work permit if required, and any information you may include in your curriculum vitae or cover letter. We collect this information if you apply for a position as an employee, intern or volunteer with the Foundation.
- Information about your marketing preferences, including whether you subscribe to our newsletter.
- Information related to your participation in our marketing campaigns, including your photos and videos, and any personal information you may provide when you share your testimonial with us in the context of a Foundation marketing campaign.
- Information you provide via our social media accounts. The Foundation has a presence on social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and LinkedIn. When you interact with our social media accounts, for example if you “like” our page or make comments, we may collect certain information about you, such as your name and profile picture. The information we collect depends on what these social networks share with us and the privacy settings you have selected. We suggest you review the privacy policies of these social networks to learn more.
- Technical information when you visit our Website. When you visit our Website, we may collect technical information electronically (e.g., through the use of cookies) about your browser or device and your use of our Website. This information may include information about your visit to or use of our Website, including the IP address of your device or computer and the browser you used to access our Website. To find out how to limit the type of information we collect, use or disclose about you when you visit and/or use our Website, please see section 4. How do we collect personal information?
4. How do we collect personal information?
We may collect your personal information in the following ways:
Information you provide:
- When you make a donation of any kind;
- When you register for our newsletter, events, and activities in person or via a registration form available on our Website;
- When you contact our team by phone or email;
- When you apply for a position;
- When we provide services to you; and
- When you interact with our Website, our dedicated event sites or our social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube).
Information from third parties:
We occasionally receive personal information about you from third parties, as indicated below:
- Event registration platforms;
- Analysis providers such as Google Analytics;
- Advertising networks such as Facebook and Google AdWords;
- Professional references;
- Computerized database platforms such as Donor Perfect;
- Publicly accessible information about you.
Information we collect automatically using cookies and similar technologies:
The Foundation’s Website uses cookies to collect technical information about you and improve your browsing experience, deliver personalized advertising or content, and analyze traffic to our Website. First-time visitors to our Website are invited to choose whether to consent to the use of cookies; although the consent banner is not usually displayed on subsequent visits, you may withdraw your consent at any time by following the instructions below.
If you do not agree to the use of cookies, please disable them by accessing our consent banner. However, some services will not function as effectively if cookies are disabled. Cookies categorized as “essential” are stored on your browser and cannot be disabled, as they are required for basic Website functionality.
5. How do we use your personal information?
We may use your personal information for the following purposes, or otherwise with your consent or as permitted or required by law:
- Provide our services and operate our Website, forexample to send charitable donation receipts, conduct satisfaction surveys following an event, and ensure the proper functioning of our Website.
- Manage our operations, forexample to detect and prevent fraud (or other illegal activity), conduct background checks as permitted by law, collect and process payments owed to us, and ensure the safety of participants, employees and volunteers at our activities and events.
- Communicate with you, in particular for marketing purposes, for example to send our newsletter, ask for a donation to the Foundation, give information about our offers and events, share news about the Foundation, or to respond to requests we receive.
- Process your application for employment, an internship or volunteer work, including reviewing your application and assessing your suitability for the position in question or other positions matching your profile, obtaining and checking information about you or references from third parties (with your consent) and informing you of job opportunities that may be of interest to you.
- Improve our services, our operations and our Website, for example by analyzing your use of our Website, and by carrying out analyses to better understand the socio-demographic profile of our community, our donors and our event participants, and to develop our services and offers accordingly.
- Fulfill other purposes permitted or required by law. We will not use personal information for other purposes without your consent, unless we are permitted or required to do so by law, for example to comply with a legal obligation or to protect the rights, including property rights, and interests of the Foundation.
6. Who do we share your personal information with?
We may share your personal information with certain third parties to fulfill the purposes indicated in the section 5. How do you use your personal information?, such as :
- Service providers. We hire companies and individuals to perform certain tasks on our behalf and/or to provide us with services. These suppliers assist us in particular with managing and soliciting donations, managing payments, sending emails, providing legal advice, organizing and holding events and auctions, recruiting and placing staff, hosting websites, storing data and providing IT support. We require these third parties to respect the confidentiality of your personal information and to handle it in accordance with the law.
- Foundation staff members. We may share your information with individuals (e.g., employees and volunteers) within the Foundation to enable them to perform their respective duties, including recruiting, organizing events (e.g., using your contact information and food preferences), and soliciting financial or other contributions.
- Parties to a business transaction. If we undertake a reorganization process (for example, merging, consolidating or divesting part of our organization’s mission), we may be required to transfer some or all of the Personal Information we hold to an applicable third party (or its advisors) as part of any due diligence process or transfer to such entity resulting from the reorganization or third party for the same purposes as set out in this Policy or for the purpose of analyzing any proposed reorganization. In such a situation, we will take all possible steps to ensure the protection and security of personal information.
- Protecting the interests and ensuring the security of the Foundation and third parties.
We may disclose personal information when we believe it is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our agreements, or protect the rights, property rights or security of the Foundation, its employees, its service recipients, or other parties. This includes situations in which the Foundation is required to disclose certain personal information to comply with a subpoena or other legal process or to respond to an emergency that threatens the life, health or safety of an individual.
- Other situations. We may share personal information in other situations, in which case we will inform you and obtain your prior consent (or as required or permitted by law).
7. How long do we keep your personal information?
The Foundation has processes and retention periods in place to ensure that we retain your personal information only as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this Policy or to meet our legal obligations.
8. Transfer of personal information outside Quebec
Some of our external third-party service providers are based outside Quebec, including outside Canada, and their handling of your personal information may therefore involve a transfer of information outside Quebec. Third parties based outside Canada may not be subject to privacy laws that provide the same level of protection as in Canada. As a result, personal information may be subject to the laws of a foreign jurisdiction, including any laws permitting or requiring the disclosure of information to law enforcement or national security authorities upon request.
All documents containing personal information that are likely to be printed are kept in secure locations such as filing cabinets at our Quebec offices.
9. Minors
We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 14. If you are a child under the age of 14, please do not provide us with any personal information without the express consent of a parent or guardian. If we learn that we have collected personal information from children under the age of 14 without verification of parental consent, we will take steps to delete such information from our servers.
10. Governance rules and other measures to protect personal information
The Foundation implements reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect personal information in its possession or under its control against unauthorized access, use, modification or disclosure.
The Foundation has adopted policies and practices that ensure the protection of your personal information, including:
- Internal policies and procedures define the roles and responsibilities of our employees throughout the information life cycle and limit their access to information on a need-to-know basis;
- If information is collected or stored electronically, technical safeguards such as firewalls, passwords, anti-virus software and similar measures are implemented. For example, when we receive a donation via a credit or debit card, we ensure that the transaction is secure and compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS);
- A privacy officer has been appointed to ensure the protection of personal information in compliance with applicable privacy legislation;
- Employee training in privacy and information security is provided;
- A process for handling privacy complaints and inquiries, including any privacy incidents involving personal information, is in place; and
- Contractual protections and other measures ensure that service providers with whom we share personal information maintain adequate safeguards and security standards.
11. What are your privacy rights?
In certain circumstances, under privacy laws, you have the following rights with respect to your personal information:
a) Right to access
You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. Please use the contact details at the end of this Policy if you wish to exercise this right, or any of the rights listed below.
b) Right to rectification
You have the right to ask us to rectify any personal information that you consider to be ambiguous or inaccurate, and to complete any information you consider incomplete. You may also have the right to request the rectification of your personal information if the collection, communication or retention of such information is not authorized by law. Please use the contact information at the end of this Policy if you wish to exercise this right.
c) Right to withdraw consent
You may withdraw your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this Policy by providing us with written notice, subject to legal or contractual restrictions. Withdrawal of your consent may affect our ability to provide you with certain services or to process requests that require the use and/or disclosure of your personal information. In certain circumstances, withdrawal of consent may not be possible due to legal requirements. Please use the contact details at the end of this Policy if you wish to exercise this right.
12. Notification of updates to this Policy
We may review and update this Policy in keeping with changes in our practices and applicable legislation. We encourage you to visit this section of our Website regularly to stay informed of the latest changes to our Privacy Policy. If we make important changes, we will highlight them when required by law, including by posting a notice on our websites. By continuing to use our Website after the modified Policy has been published, you agree to the changes made to this Policy.
13. How to contact us
If you have any questions about this Policy, please contact the Foundation’s privacy officer at vieprivee@fondationrecherchepediatrique.ca.