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Privacy Policy

Pickering College (the “school”) is committed to protecting the privacy of its community members’ personal information. This Privacy Policy (the “policy”) provides detailed information about how the school collects, uses, and discloses the personal information of its community members.  It should be read in conjunction with our other school policies. 

The school collects personal data and information about its prospective, current and past students and their families; current and former faculty, staff, volunteers, suppliers and contractors; donors, friends and supporters; Board of Directors; community affiliates and partners; website visitors; and other individuals connected to or visiting the school.

“Personal Information”, as used in this policy, means information about an identifiable student of, alumnus/alumna of, parent of a student or alumnus/alumna of, or donor to the school, but does not include professional information such as job title, business address, business telephone number or business email address of parents and alumni. Some of this information may be publicly available; some of it may be provided through individuals’ interactions with the school. It may have been collected before or after this policy was first published.

Examples of the personal information that the school may collect about stakeholders include:

  • Names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, and other contact details;
  • Family information;
  • Admissions application and open house information; 
  • Fundraising, communication, and advancement information;
  • Academic information such as attendance, grades, progress reports etc., and information about special educational needs;
  • Employment data;
  • Images, audio, and video recordings;
  • Financial information;
  • Courses, meetings, or events attended;
  • Website visitor information;
  • Health information; and
  • Police reference check information.

The school will limit the amount and type of personal information it collects to that which is necessary for the purposes of school operations.
 

How we use and store personal information

The school uses personal information as required in order to carry out its educational mission and provide related services to its students and other community members.

For example, the school may use personal information collected from its prospective, current, and past students and their families for the following purposes:

  • To teach and evaluate students, monitor their progress, and provide them with individualized academic and other support as appropriate;
  • To accommodate students with particular educational needs;
  • To administer its admission and financial aid programs;
  • To communicate with current, former, and prospective students and their families about school events and activities, volunteer opportunities, and fundraising efforts;
  • To administer co-curricular and extra-curricular activities;
  • To provide health care services;
  • To supervise off-campus activities and trips;
  • To process applications and open and maintain a student file;
  • In connection with fundraising initiatives;
  • For billing and the processing of fees and donations;
  • To communicate with designated contacts about and manage emergencies; to obtain insurance and file insurance claims;
  • In connection with a sale or other transaction or reorganization of the school’s operations; and
  • To comply with legal requirements and cooperate with law enforcement activities.
  • To provide information to other academic institutions like colleges and universities.

Further, the school may use personal information collected from its current and former faculty, staff, and volunteers to create and manage its employment and volunteer relationships, including, for example:

  • To solicit and evaluate applications;
  • To hire and retain individuals;
  • To administer employment-related services such as payroll and benefits and
  • To monitor performance.

Only certain individuals within the school are authorized to view and use personal information. Those individuals are permitted to use the information only for the purposes for which the information was collected. The School has implemented policies on the appropriate handling and safeguarding of personal information. It trains its faculty and staff on these policies, and requires their adherence to these policies.

Some of the personal information collected by the school is stored by outside hosted databases or cloud storage providers. The school requires these outside entities to maintain its personal information securely and in accordance with the school’s privacy policies and all applicable laws.

In some cases, personal information collected by the school may be stored outside Canada. In such cases, the personal information will be subject to the laws of other jurisdictions and may be available to foreign government authorities under lawful orders and laws applicable therein.
 

Principle 1 – Accountability

Accountability for compliance with this policy rests with the school’s Privacy Officers, even though others within the school may have responsibility for the day-to-day collection and processing of personal information. All employees are required to sign a Code of Conduct.  The school is responsible for personal information in its custody and under its control, including personal information that it has transferred to an external service provider for processing. Where the school uses external service providers that require access to personal information, for example to maintain its computer system or to assist with clerical or administrative activities, it requires the service providers to provide personal information with a comparable level of protection to that provided by the school.
 

Principle 2 – Consent

The school only collects, uses, or discloses personal information with the knowledge and consent of the individual to whom it relates (or their parent or guardian), except where otherwise permitted or required by law. The way in which the school seeks consent varies depending upon the sensitivity of the personal information, the reasonable expectations of the individual to whom it relates (and in the case of students, their parents) and the purpose for which the personal information is to be used. Consent may be given in writing, orally, through action.  Consent may be withdrawn, subject to legal restrictions and reasonable notice, however the withdrawal (or refusal) of consent to use or disclose personal information may restrict or prevent participation in programs or the receipt of certain services. The school will make best efforts to provide notice where there will be implications to withdrawing consent. Parties may continue to receive in-process communications before the request of withdrawal to use and disclose your personal information is received. For example, you receive a statement of your outstanding payments and receipt of your payments etc. 
 

Principle 3 - Limiting Collection

The school will limit the amount and type of personal information it collects to that which is necessary for the identified purposes.
 

Principle 4 - Limiting Use, Disclosure, And Retention

Similarly, the school will not use or disclose personal information for purposes other than those for which it was collected, except with consent or as permitted or required by law. The school retains personal information for as long as required to fulfill the identified purposes or to comply with statutory retention periods.
 

Principle 5 – Accuracy

The school will use its best efforts to ensure that personal information is as accurate and complete as is necessary for the purposes for which the information is to be used and asks students, parents, faculty, staff, alumni, volunteers, Board of Directors to update personal information they have provided to the school as it changes. You have the right to ask us to change or delete personal information that is incorrect and incomplete. 
 

Principle 6 – Safeguards

The school employs physical measures (such as locks on offices and other areas of the facilities), organizational measures (such as policies permitting access to personal information on a “need-to-know” basis only), and technological measures (such as the use of passwords for access to the school’s computer system) to protect personal information against loss and theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, use and modification. The school requires compliance by its employees with this policy, enforces that requirement and exercises care in the disposal of personal information to prevent unauthorized access.
 

Principle 7 – Openness

Through this policy, the school makes available a general account of its personal information management practices, including the purposes for which it uses and discloses personal information, instructions on how to gain access to and correct personal information and how to obtain additional information about the school’s privacy practices and/or its use and disclosure of particular personal information.
 

Principle 8 - Access, Correction, Inquiries

Upon written request, the school will provide an individual with information about the use and disclosure of personal information relating to himself/herself (and, if applicable, his or her child’s personal information) and, except in limited circumstances or where prescribed by law, will give the individual access to such personal information. The school will correct or complete personal information, on the written request of an individual, where it is satisfied the information is inaccurate or incomplete. Individuals are invited to direct any requests for access or correction and any questions they may have about this policy, the school’s privacy practices or the school’s management of their personal information to the Privacy Officers whose contact information is provided below.

The school will respond to written requests for correction or access as promptly as possible. The school may ask for additional information it needs to process a request and/or to verify identity and ensure that it does not disclose personal information to someone who is not authorized to receive it or otherwise in violation of this policy.
 

Principle 9 – Contact: Privacy Officer

If you have questions regarding your personal information or its use, please contact our Privacy Officer by email at privacyofficer@pickeringcollege.on.ca by telephone at 905-895-1700, or by mail to 16945 Bayview Ave, Newmarket, ON, L3Y 4X2.

 

Privacy Policy on the website

Pickering College operates and maintains the website and its contents. We do not collect personally identifying information about you when you visit our website, unless you choose to provide such information to us during inquiry, registration or donation. Providing such personal information is strictly voluntary. Except as might be required by law, we do not share any personal information we receive with any outside parties. This policy is your guide to how we handle basic information we learn about you from your visit to our website.
 

Sending us an email

You also may decide to send us personally identifying information, for example, in an electronic mail message containing a question or comment, or by filling out a web form that provides us this information. We use personally identifying information from email primarily to respond to your requests. We may forward your email to other employees who are better able to answer you questions. We may also use your email to contact you in the future about our programs that may be of interest.

If you sign up for one of our email lists, we will only send you the kinds of information you have requested. We won't share your name or email address with any outside parties.
 

How we use basic information

We collect and store the basic information about you: the name of the domain from which you access our website from. the date and time you access our website, web pages you viewed and the operating system and the browser you used. We collect and use this information to measure the number of visitors to the different sections of our website, and to help us make our site more useful to visitors.
 

Third party sites

Throughout our websites, we provide links to other websites and servers which may contain information of interest to our readers. We take no responsibility for, and exercise no control over, the organizations, views, quality, completeness or accuracy of the information contained on other websites and servers.

Creating a text link from your website to our website does not require permission. If you have a link you would like us to consider adding to our website, please send an email to info@pickeringcollege.on.ca with the subject "Link request."
 

Use of text and images

If you would like to publish information that you find on our website, please send your request to info@pickeringcollege.on.ca. Where text or images are posted on our site with the permission of the original copyright holder, a copyright statement appears at the bottom of the page. Information about using our logo and images is available by contacting info@pickeringcollege.on.ca.
 

Changes to this policy

Pickering College may amend this policy from time to time and in its sole discretion, without providing any notice to you. You may find the most updated policy on our website. The date on which the policy was last amended is provided at the end of the policy.