Privacy Policy

1. We respect your privacy
Ontario Centres of Excellence Inc. (OCE) is committed to protecting your privacy rights. This privacy policy (the “Policy”) describes how we collect, protect, use and share information gathered about you on our website (the “Site”). We hope that this disclosure will help increase your confidence in the Site and enhance your experience on the Internet. Please note that by visiting OCE at the Site, you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this Policy.

OCE will continue to review the Policy to ensure that it is relevant and remains current with changing laws, regulations and technologies, and reserves the right to change this Policy at any time, and from time to time. Our Policy will be kept up to date and clearly posted on the Site, and will be current as of the “Last modified date” set out above.

2. What is personal information?
Personal information is any information about an identifiable person.

3. What personal information does OCE collect and how does OCE use this personal information?
OCE collects your personal information on the Site from you, or otherwise submitted to OCE by you, to be retained and used for the purposes identified to you at the time of collection or for OCE’s administrative purposes in connection with fulfilling its mandate (the “Identified Purposes”). For example, OCE may collect your first and last name, email address and subject of inquiry (e.g. information requests), for the purpose of responding to your specific requests for information.

4. Under what circumstance does OCE disclose personal information?
OCE will not disclose such personal information to other persons, other than as follows:

(a) to the extent required for the Identified Purposes, as described to you at the time of collection;
(b) to other third parties that assist OCE in the course of fulfilling its mandate for administrative purposes, 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 OCE;
(c) as required by a governmental authority or under applicable law or regulation; or
(d) where OCE has reason to believe that disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of an indentifiable person or group.

5. What is aggregate information?
“ Aggregate information” is standard web server/visitor traffic information, commonly referred to as ‘aggregate information’, regarding overall website traffic patterns but does not include information specific to individual user sessions. Web servers normally collect this type of basic information as part of their web log processes. This aggregate information does not identify you and thus does not constitute personal information.

In addition to information provided by our visitors we use the normal Internet tracking tools associated with standard Internet protocols and web–based systems. This system information is typically stored in log files and the information is used for aggregate reporting. Aggregate reporting includes total number of visitors, most visited sections, peak traffic times, etc. Log files are simply transaction records web servers maintain. Those logs are used for recording information, such as:

service provider IP addresses;
browser versions;
referring websites;
search terms used;
average number of pages requested;
average duration of visit;
total visitor traffic.
We use aggregate information gathered from your visit to better design and administer our Site. This information supplies us with a broad picture of how people use our website in order to help the management of our systems and to better serve our audience.

6. How do we protect your personal information? Our commitment to data securiyt
In order to prevent unauthorized access, maintain the accuracy of your personal information and ensure that your personal information is used and disclosed only pursuant to this Policy, OCE strives to maintain physical, electronic, contractual and administrative safeguards to secure the personal information we collect from the Site with a level of security that is appropriate to the sensitivity of the personal information collected.

OCE endeavours to maintain adequate physical, procedural and technical security with respect to its offices and information storage facilities so as to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, or modification of personal information.

OCE further protects personal information by restricting access to personal information to those employees and third-party contractors that the management of OCE has determined need to know that information in order that OCE may provide its services.

In terms of communicating personal information, you may wish to note that there is no method of transmitting or storing data that is completely secure. As do many organizations, OCE attempts to strike a reasonable balance between security and convenience. In communicating with others, OCE reserves the right to use a method of communication that is less secure than some of its less convenient alternatives, such as e-mail.

7. What about practices of linked sites?
OCE is not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites to which it has links. We encourage you to read the privacy statements of each and every website that requests personal information from you.

8. How do we use cookies?
A cookie is a small text file sent from a Web server and placed on your computer's hard drive. A cookie is generally used to enhance your browsing experience. You can choose to set your browser to detect and reject cookies, to accept cookies from all sites, or to prompt you whenever a site wants to send you a cookie. Check your browser's "Help" files to learn how to do this. If you choose to refuse cookies, you may not be able to access some of the interactive features on our Site. Cookies used by OCE do not give us access to anything on your hard drive and cannot do anything to your computer.

Cookies used by OCE are encrypted for security purposes to make any information in the cookie unreadable to anyone outside of OCE. OCE uses two types of cookies: session cookies (temporary) or persistent cookies (longer-term continuing use).

Session cookies may be used to support on–line feedback/discussion, forms and registration and ‘e–commerce/shopping cart’ transactions. They are used only during your online session and expire when you close your browser. Without session cookies, moving around the Site could be much slower.
Persistent cookies are different from session cookies because they are stored on your computer’s hard drive for some length of time. They are usually used if you want us to remember information about your Web preferences and passwords for automatic log–in purposes.
OCE endeavours to ensure that any personal information collected by it and in its possession is as accurate, current and complete as necessary for the purposes for which OCE uses that data. Personal information contained in files that have been closed is not actively updated or maintained.

OCE retains personal information as long as OCE believes it is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected. Currently, the principal place in which OCE holds Personal Information is in the City of Toronto.

9. Who do I contact with questions or concerns about this privacy policy?
For all inquiries as to your personal information, including requests to access or correct personal information, please send a written request to Ontario Centres of Excellence Inc., 156 Front Street, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario M5J 2L6 – Attention: Privacy.

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