Privacy policy

Source for the protection of personal information

The Protection of Personal Information Law (Law25) governs the collection, use, disclosure and retention of personal information. The Law applies to personal information regardless of the medium in which it is held.

Defining personal information

Personal information is any information that identifies an individual. The name of a natural person is not personal information, except when it is mentioned in conjunction with information about that person. Personal information may include name, residential address, phone number, age, sex, identification number or financial information.

​Why do we need to collect personal information ?

We need to collect information about you in order to provide high quality services. The nature and sensitivity of the information we collect about you will vary depending of the services we provide and the legal requirements with which we must comply.

Collaborating Partners

We work in partnership with a number of organizations which, in the performance of their duties, have limited access to the personal information we hold. These include IT consultants providing technical support, auditors, health and educational institutions, funders and police force.

We limit their access to the personal information we hold according to legislative requirements and their authority. We also ensure that they comply with appropriate confidentiality principles.

We do not share or sell your information with third parties other than as identified in this policy.

Regarding our clients

As a licensed provider of crisis and suicide prevention services, we collect, use and disclose personal information to better serve our clients.

Your personal information is shared only in certain cases with recognized institutions such as police forces and Quebec’s health department.

Regarding our employees

For our employees, our primary purpose for collecting personal information is to complete payroll, provide benefits and dependants, etc.The second purpose is to meet legislative requirements.

We do not collect personal information for any other purpose.

Regarding our members and donors

For our members, we limit ourselves to their name, full address, telephone number and email address. Our members have access to their personal information at all times. They may, on simple notice, ask us to remove their information from the list of members.

Regarding our Board of Directors

The main purpose of collecting information is to enable the distribution of relevant information to enable them to fulfil their responsibilities as members of the Board of Directors. A secondary purpose of collecting personal information is to complete documents required by government bodies.

Consent

When we receive personal information about you, we obtain your consent to use it for the purposes for which it was collected. We must obtain your consent to use your information for others purposes or to receive additional information about you.

As a general rule, we require your express written consent to receive, use and disclose your personal information. For less sensitive information, we may, under certain circumstances, accept your verbal consent.

Consent must be given by you or by a duly authorized person such as a guardian or a proxy.

You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions. We will inform you of the consequences of such withdrawal, including the possibility that we may not be able to provide you with a service. If you choose to withdraw your consent, we will record it in our files.

Limits of collection, use and communication

​We limit the collection of your personal information to that which is necessary for the purpose explained to you.

We collect personal information directly from you, unless you have not consented, to collect it from third parties or are authorized to do so by law.

We use your personal information only for the purpose for which it was collected. This means that we cannot use your personal information for any other purpose without your consent, except as required by law.

Your personal information is accessible only to those persons authorized to access it and for whom it is necessary in the performance of their duties.

Accuracy

We are doing everything we can to ensure that your personal information are as accurate and complete as required for the purpose for which they are collected, used or communicated.

​Responsabilité

We are responsible for the personal information that we have in our possession or that are in our custody, including information that we entrust to third parties for treatment purposes. We require third parties to maintain this information according to strict confidentiality and security standards.

Our client’s information is stored on the ASO software of the company Services de Développement Professionnel Inc. (SDP). You can consult their data governance policy as well as ASO hosting on their servers at the following addresses.

https://sdpinc.ca/SDP-Politique-de-gouvernance-des-donn%C3%A9es.pdf

https://sdpinc.ca/SDP%20ASO-S%C3%A9curit%C3%A9-et-acc%C3%A8s-aux-donn%C3%A9es.pdf

Information about our employees are stored on FOLKS. You can consult their privacy policy at the following address.

https://folksrh.com/politique-vie-privee

Security measures

We understand the importance of protecting personal information. For this reason, we have implemented and will continue to develop stringent security measures to ensure that your personal information remains strictly confidential and is protected against loss and theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification.

Those security measures include organizational measures such as a restricting access to only what is necessary; physical measures (backup and archiving of data using an external system, information on paper is under surveillance or secured in a locked or restricted area, staff are trained to collect, use and disclose personal information only as necessary to perform their duties and in accordance with our privacy policy) and technological measures such as the use of password on computers and hardwares are secured in a locked or restricted area.

​Conservation and destruction of personal information

We must retain personal information for a certain period of time to ensure that we can meet your needs for the services provided and for the requirements of government authorities.

We destroy paper files containing personal information by shredding. We destroy electronic information by deleting it when the equipment is disposed of, ensuring that the hard drive is formatted to erase all information it contains.

Request for access to information and rectification

You have the right to know whether we have personal information about you and to view that information. You also have the right to ask how we collected your personal information, how we used it and to whom it may have been communicated.

This information will be provided to you within a reasonable time from the day we receive your written request. We reserve the right to charge a reasonable fee for processing such requests.

If you believe that there is an error in the information, you have the right to request that it be corrected. This applies to factual information and not to any professional opinions we may have formed. We may ask you to provide documentation that our files are in error. When we agree that we have made an error, we will make the correction and notify anyone to whom we sent this information. If we do not agree that we have made a mistake, we will always agree to include in our file a brief statement from you on this point.