Privacy Policy
We are committed to maintaining confidentiality and personal privacy. Collection, use, disclosure and retention of personal information is subject to, and must comply with, the provisions of the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
The purpose of this policy is to describe our practices regarding personal information use and collection through this website. If you have any questions regarding the collection or use or your information or the content of this policy, you may direct those inquiries to Cindy Brice: cbrice@phsa.ca.
What is Personal Information
Personal information means recorded information about an identifiable individual other than contact information and would include, but is not limited to, such things as an individual's name, address, birth date, e-mail address, phone number, blood type and health care history.
What kind of information is being collected and how is it used?
We use a web analytics tool (described below) to analyze site usage, what visitors do on the site, which browser they use, etc. The information collected for this purpose is not personally identifiable information and will not be used to attempt to identify you.
However, personal information is collected through this website in certain circumstances, such as when you send an email message to us or complete a questionnaire, form, or other on-line survey found on our website. We only use the personal information you provide to us through this website for responding to and processing your requests for information or (if applicable) processing the results of any surveys or other applications to which you have responded.
Personal information collected via this website will only be used for the specific purpose for which you provided the information and will not be made available to others for any other purpose. We are authorized by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to collect and use personal information for purposes that are directly related to and necessary for our authorized programs and activities or, in appropriate circumstances, with your consent (s. 26(c)(d)).
You should also be aware that information provided by you becomes a record of the organization and is subject to the access and privacy protection requirements set out in the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. This information may be further collected, used and disclosed in accordance with that Act or as otherwise required by law. Under this legislation you are also entitled to access and correct any of your personal information that is within our custody and control. You may make such requests by contacting the privacy representative listed above.
We do not disclose, give, sell or transfer any personal information about our website visitors unless required for law enforcement or otherwise provided for by law.
Cookies
Some of our web pages use "cookies" which are small amounts of information stored by your web browser software on your work station. Cookies are designed to track browsing history on a website generally for the convenience of the user. They help the website "remember" what areas of a website a browser has accessed or used previously. Cookies can, however, be misused, and have become a privacy concern for some because they can be used to record and analyze an individual's broader browsing history.
It's important to know that cookies are plain text files and cannot execute files or make copies of themselves. They do not carry or deliver viruses and cannot scan or retrieve your personal information.
The cookies we use on this site and what we use them for are described below. This site operates on 'implied consent', which means that by visiting and clicking through the site, we assume you agree with this usage. If you do not agree, then you should not use this site, or you can delete the cookies after visiting this site, or use your browser's anonymous usage setting (called "Incognito" in Chrome, "In Private" for Internet Explorer, "Private Browsing" in Firefox and Safari).
More information on cookies, what they are used for and how to delete cookies after visiting this site can be found at http://www.allaboutcookies.org/cookies/session-cookies-used-for.html
Session Cookies
Session cookie information is deleted as soon as you leave our website. The use of temporary session cookies is solely for the purpose of allowing the user to interact with our website in an effective manner. An example of how session cookies help is when you enter information in a form and accidentally click the back button and then the forward button to get back to the form – the session cookie keeps the information in the form and you don't have to re-enter it.
In a few cases our website may use cookies to store information for longer periods than the current session. In those cases the web page is clearly noted and the user can choose not to use that web page feature.
Analytics Cookies
We use Webtrends which is a software application that allows us to understand how our site is being used so that we can improve the user experience. All data collected is anonymous. We collect only the following information as you browse through our website:
- Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser-type and operating system.
- The date and time of the visit.
- The pages visited within the site.
- The address of the referrer website.
- The search term(s) used to find the site (if referred from a search engine).
We collect this information for statistical purposes and for evaluating our website to make it more useful to visitors. We use IP addresses to generate geographic-related statistics, and to help administer the site, in general. We make no attempt to link addresses with the identities of individuals visiting our site.
Social buttons
You might see 'social buttons' on some PHSA sites. Social buttons let visitors share or bookmark web pages, and are often identifiable by the + sign with Share beside it. There are buttons for: Twitter, Facebook 'Like', LinkedIn 'Share', StumbleUpon, Digg and others. In order to connect social buttons to the relevant external sites, there are scripts from those domains, which are outside of this site. Those sites could be collecting information about what you are doing all around the internet, including this site. To be certain what information those sites collect, and how to opt out, check the respective policies of each site.
We do not disclose, give, sell or transfer any personal information about our website visitors unless required for law enforcement or otherwise provided for by law.
E-mail
Information sent to our website over the Internet is not secure. This means that if the visitor uses the Contact Us page, or other e-mail addresses published on this site, to send an e-mail, the information provided may be intercepted as it travels to our website. We will not be responsible for any damages suffered by individuals as a result of the transmission and information that is sent to us or for any errors or changes made to transmitted information.
Related Links
This PHSA web site contains links to other websites. PHSA is not responsible for the privacy practices of these websites or the accuracy or reliability of any content found on such sites.
