Privacy Policy
The Kitchener Horticultural Society (gardenKitchener) is a not-for-profit charitable organization with a volunteer Board of Directors dedicated to promoting horticultural and environmental awareness while fostering community throughout Waterloo Region.
GardenKitchener has developed this privacy policy and related procedures (the “Privacy Policy”) to comply with Canada’s federal privacy law, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). PIPEDA’s fair information principles form the ground rules for the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information, as well as for providing individuals access to their personal information. These principles inform the collection, use, and disclosure of the personal information of our members and our volunteers. While the Privacy Policy may be amended from time to time, the most recent version will always be available on our website.
What is personal information?
Under PIPEDA, personal information includes any factual or subjective information, recorded or not, about an identifiable individual, including information that, when combined with other information, may make an individual identifiable. This includes information in any form, such as:
- age, name, ID numbers, income, ethnic origin, or blood type, and/or
- opinions, evaluations, comments, social status, or disciplinary actions, and/or
- employee files, credit records, loan records, or medical records.
We follow PIPEDA’s Fair Information Principles:
1. Accountability
We’re responsible for the personal information under our control. We have policies in place to help make sure we follow these principles. Protecting your personal information is important to us.
2. Identifying Purposes
We collect only the personal information required to effectively communicate with and serve you as a member and/or volunteer, and to assess your eligibility to receive the benefits and programs offered by gardenKitchener and its partners. This includes your name which allows us to create and maintain your membership, to register for our events, and process any online payments you may make through our website. When you make a payment on our website, you enter your information directly into Stripe, our secure third-party payment processor. We do not receive or store your full credit card details. Stripe processes your payment in accordance with their own privacy and security practices which can be found at https://stripe.com/en-ca/privacy.
We use your email address to communicate with you through our Newsletters and other ad hoc communications. We use Mailchimp, a third-party email service provider, to manage our mailing list and send newsletters and updates. When you subscribe, your name and email address are stored and processed by Mailchimp for the purpose of delivering these communications. You can review Mailchimp’s privacy practices at https://www.intuit.com/privacy/statement/.
Some of the service providers we use, such as Stripe, Mailchimp, and our website hosting provider (Funio), may store or process personal information outside of Canada, and that information may be subject to the laws of those jurisdictions.
Our website uses “cookies” and collects technical and navigational information that is not personally identifiable to any particular user. For example, computer browser type, Internet protocol address, pages visited and time spent on our website. This information may be used or analyzed by gardenKitchener to improve our web design and functionality and our ability to service you and your accounts. Cookies cannot profile your system or collect information from your hard drive.
Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can set your browsers to refuse cookies.
Additionally, when you ask a question, participate in a survey, or enter a contest (sponsored by or affiliated with gardenKitchener) through our websites, we may collect your name, phone number, and/or email address. We use this information to administer your participation.
We may, from time to time, share your information with other third parties for the administration of your member account or to help provide the benefits of membership.
3. Consent
At the time of completing a membership application, or other interactions with us, your consent will be requested for the collection, use, retention and disclosure of your personal information for the purposes set out in the gardenKitchener Privacy Policy.
You may choose not to provide some or all of the personal information requested, but if we are unable to collect sufficient information to validate a membership and its benefits, your application may be turned down, or you may be ineligible to receive our direct communications.
We also require your consent to send you our Newsletter and other updates via email. You are asked to consent to this as well when you sign up for a membership. You are always able to unsubscribe from those communications.
4. Limiting Collection
We only collect your information in fair and appropriate ways, and we limit what we collect to those purposes identified in Principle 2 above. We obtain it primarily from you directly, unless you are part of a Family Membership or someone chooses to purchase a membership for you as a gift! In those instances, we involve you in the collection of your information as soon as we can, without spoiling the surprise.
5. Limiting Use, Retention & Disclosure
We use, retain, and disclose personal information for only those purposes we have detailed in Principle 2 above. Personal information will be disclosed to only the gardenKitchener Board of Directors or Friends of the Board where necessary, for example, checking the status of your membership at a gardenKitchener event.
We do not share your information for any purpose other than what has been identified in this Privacy Policy without your consent.
6. Accuracy
Information we collect should be accurate and up to date. We do everything we can to ensure it is, but we do depend on you to keep us informed of personal information changes you would like reflected in our records.
You can review and update your personal information by logging into your member account on our website at My Account – gardenKitchener.
7. Safeguards
GardenKitchener maintains physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect your personal information. We strictly limit access to information about you to those who need to know the information in order to perform their duties or to provide service to you as a member or volunteer.
Personal information contained on gardenKitchener computers and the electronic databases are password protected and are subject to restricted access profiles. Such databases may be accessed by the gardenKitchener Board of Directors or Friends of the Board on their personal devices, but remain password protected.
Notwithstanding the technological safeguards implemented by gardenKitchener all internet transmissions are susceptible to possible loss, misrouting, interception, and misuse.
You should always safeguard your own personal information by protecting passwords used to access websites and by safely disposing of records no longer needed.
8. Openness
We make information about our Privacy Policy and how we manage your personal information available to you through this Privacy Policy and by answering any questions you may have as quickly and accurately as we can.
9. Individual access
An individual who wishes to review or verify what personal information is held by gardenKitchener, may do so by making a request, in writing to our Chief Privacy Officer either by mail or email at the addresses listed below. Upon verification of the individual’s identity, the Chief Privacy Officer will provide a written report within 60 days. Alternatively, you can review and update your personal information by logging into your member account on our website My Account – gardenKitchener.
10. Questions and/or Concerns
Any question or concern about the way gardenKitchener uses, retains, or discloses your personal information may be made, in writing, to the Chief Privacy Officer either by mail or email at the addresses listed below. Depending on the nature of your question or concern, we may need to verify your identity before we can release information to you. We will work with you to resolve any questions or concerns to the best of our ability. If you don’t feel like we have adequately resolved your question, we will continue to work with you, but if we are unable to, you may escalate it to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Contact Information
If you have any questions regarding the Privacy Policy, how we protect your personal information or you wish to make an access to personal information request, please contact:
Chief Privacy Officer
Kitchener Horticultural Society or email us at info@kitchenerhs.ca
7 Floral Cres.
Kitchener, ON N2G 4N9
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
For a copy of PIPEDA, for answers to other questions regarding privacy legislation, or to escalate a question or concern regarding our Privacy Policy you can reach out to:
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada:
30 Victoria Street
Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 1H3