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Privacy Policy

Respecting Your Privacy

Canadian Water Network (CWN) is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy describes how and why we collect your personal information; how we protect, use and share such information; and how to contact us with questions or concerns about these practices.

This policy is limited to the personal information of individuals who are not employees, officers, directors, members, advisors or volunteers of CWN. For those persons, other policies apply and are available upon request.

CWN reserves the right to change this policy.

Personal Information

Personal information is information about an identifiable person who can directly or indirectly be identified in particular by reference to an identifier.

Collection and Use of Personal Information

CWN collects personal information when you sign up for events or digital updates, complete surveys or make inquiries. The information that you provide to CWN is retained and used for the purposes identified to you at the time of collection. It may also be used for statistical purposes to inform CWN’s strategic direction, programs and activities.

CWN does not disclose personal information to third parties except:

  • To the extent required for the purposes described at the time of collection
  • When third parties are assisting CWN in administrative, project management or research purposes or with the course of fulfilling its mandate, provided they agree to safeguard your personal information under terms substantially similar to this policy and to use it solely for the purposes of providing services to CWN consistent with the reasons that CWN collected the information
  • As required by a governmental authority or otherwise, under applicable law or regulation
  • To cooperate with law enforcement or to otherwise protect against violations of criminal or civil laws
  • Where CWN believes that disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of an identifiable person or group
  • When otherwise permitted by regulation without limitation for non-commercial purposes
  • In a non-personally identifiable aggregate form

Cookies

A cookie is an identifier that is sent by a web server to a web browser, where is stored and does not typically contain information that personally identifies a user. Cookies can be used by web servers to identify and track users as they navigate different pages on a website or identify users returning to a website. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies may be either “persistent” or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie is stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before that date. A session cookie expires at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

Other normal internet tracking tools associated with standard internet protocols and web-based systems are used to collect certain system information. These tools may use cookies to collect and generate information about your visit to the website, including IP address (but not email address), that is transmitted to third-party servers in an anonymous form for processing. This information is used for aggregate or statistical information about the site, such as the total number of visits, page errors, average time spent on the site and pages viewed in real time and within a specified historical timeframe. CWN uses this aggregated information to measure the use of its website and to improve its content and usage.

Data Protection and Retention

In order to prevent unauthorized access to personal information, maintain accuracy and ensure that it is used only pursuant to this policy, CWN strives to maintain commercially reasonable physical, electronic, contractual and administrative safeguards to secure the personal information we collect, with a level of security that is appropriate to the sensitivity of the personal information being collected. Access is restricted to employees and third-party contractors that require this information for their work.

CWN endeavours to ensure that any personal information collected is accurate, current and complete. CWN retains personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected. Personal information may be retained for different lengths of time, depending on the nature of the personal information and the purpose for which it was provided. Disposal of personal information is completed in a manner that ensures security is maintained.

Contact Us

Send all inquiries regarding personal information, including requests to access or correct information, to [email protected] or Canadian Water Network, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1.