Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2024-01-07

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This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) describes how the Belgian Canadian Business Chamber, a non-profit organization headquartered at 26 Wellington St E Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario (the “BCBC” or “us”), collects, uses, discloses and otherwise makes use of Personal Information (as defined below) concerning our members, partners, and other individuals (“you”), other than our directors and service providers, when you visit and use the website [https://www.bcbc-ccbc.org/] (“Website”), when you submit a form to become a personal member, a corporate member, or a partnership member (collectively referred to as a “member”) of the organization and when you sign up to attend an event organized by the BCBC. This Privacy Policy also applies to the BCBC’s privacy practices with respect to Personal Information it collects by other means of communication, such as by telephone, text messages, or email.

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The BCBC is committed to the principles of caring, transparency, trust and accountability in all of its dealings with Personal Information. This Policy and these procedures have been put in place to respect your privacy and protect your Personal Information when you visit our Website and use our services. Directors and service providers of the BCBC are trained to adhere to this Policy. We have appointed a Privacy Officer responsible for ensuring compliance with this Policy. You may contact this person at andreas@bcbc-ccbc.org.

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We may change this Policy from time to time at our full discretion without any prior notice or liability to you or any other person. The collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information by the BCBC will be governed by the version of this Policy in effect at that time.

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If you do not consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information in accordance with this Policy, please do not provide any Personal Information to us. Of course, certain services can only be offered to you if you provide us with your Personal Information, and therefore we may not be able to offer you those services if you choose not to provide us with required Personal Information.

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1.     Personal Information

The term “Personal Information” refers to any information about an identifiable individual or any information that allows an individual to be identified. Examples of such information include name, date of birth, home address and phone number, occupation, etc. Please note, however, that Personal Information does not generally include business contact information, such as your name, title or position, business address, business telephone or fax number.

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2.     Consent

We obtain your consent and inform you of the purposes for which we are collecting Personal Information before or at the time it is collected. By supplying the BCBC with your Personal Information, you agree that the BCBC collects and uses this information in accordance with this Policy. We only collect necessary information for the purposes sought and identified in this Policy. You may vary or withdraw your consent to the use and disclosure of your Personal Information, or opt out of certain uses and disclosures, subject to legal and contractual restrictions. To vary or withdraw your consent, please contact our Privacy Officer.

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3.     Collection and Use of Personal Information

·       Application for membership and partnership, and communications: We may need to collect certain Personal Information about you, including names, age, addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, and other similar information in order to contact you after you have corresponded with us and to send you information you may have requested.

·       Cookies: We use “cookies” to enhance your browsing experience, serve personalized ads or content, and analyze our traffic. Cookies are used to collect information from visitors to our Website. These cookies remain on your computer and are retrieved automatically during your subsequent visits to the website. These cookies only contain information about the type of user and the pages frequently visited. No other information is stored in cookies. You can disable cookies on your computer at any time.

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4.     Other Use of Personal Information

The BCBC may also use and share your Personal Information for the following purposes:

·       to administer our Website and make it available to you;

·       to generate statistics, gather information, measure Website activity and detect and prevent security threats;

·       to help us develop and market our brand image, services, promotions and advertising;

·       to communicate with you, including our members, about our services, events, promotions, special offers and other news concerning the BCBC;

·       to communicate with you regarding our technical notices, updates, security alerts and support;

·       to respond to your requests, complaints, comments and questions; and

·       any other purposes we identify from time to time.

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5.     Targeted Advertising

As mentioned above, we use “cookies” and other similar monitoring technologies (including scripts, graphic images and web beacons) on our Website. Cookies are small text files that your browser installs on your computer or other device and that allow the Website to recognize you when you visit. Some cookies are necessary for the Website to function. We collect this information to help us analyze the performance of the Website, remember your preferences, track your usage and tailor advertising to you. We also have third-party service providers, such as Google Analytics, that use third-party cookies or other digital markers to maintain and improve the Website and our services.

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6.     Adapted Social Media Ads

The BCBC works with third-party social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, to display tailored ads to you. To deliver such ads, we may convert your email address, phone number or other contact information provided by you into a unique value to be linked to your social media profile by our members. While the BCBC does not provide Personal Information to these platforms, they may gain information about individuals who respond to the advertisements we display.

To unsubscribe from adapted social media ads, adjust your social media settings (for example, you can manage your settings through your Facebook profile), or use the links provided in the ad itself.

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7.     Management and Disclosure of Personal Information

Your Personal Information will not be disclosed to third parties other than in accordance with this Privacy Policy, except as required or permitted by law, or as ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction.

Personal Information is shared with third parties, strictly on a need-to-know basis, for the purposes of information storage and in compliance with applicable laws. For example, your Personal Information can be shared with our service provider responsible for the storage of data. Our contracts with our service providers contain clauses to the effect they are committed to respecting the confidentiality of your Personal Information. Information and personal data are communicated securely and only to the persons concerned.

We can share some of your Personal Information with our service providers in order to provide applicable services, including for the purposes set out below. Only authorized directors of the BCBC and our service providers who have a genuine need to know such information in order to perform their duties will have access to the file containing your Personal Information. Your Personal Information will be held at our offices and on our servers or those of our service providers.

We may also disclose your Personal Information to third parties for auditing purposes.

We may disclose to third parties certain non-personally identifiable information and collective non-personally identifiable information, such as the number of members located in a certain geographic area.

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8.     Information Storage, Retention and Destruction of your Personal Information

Your Personal Information is retained only as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected or to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. Information is destroyed when it is no longer required. When we destroy documents or Personal Information, we follow strict procedures and ensure that only authorized personnel have access to documents and Personal Information.

All Personal Information will be kept confidential in accordance with applicable federal and provincial (including Québec and Ontario) privacy and data protection legislation. The BCBC takes reasonable administrative, technical and physical measures to protect your information from loss, theft and unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction.

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9.     Transfer between Québec and Ontario

While most of our work is done by our executive members or authorized personnel who access Personal Information directly from our systems, we employ third-party service providers for certain specialized tasks such as data storage and processing. Our server and some of our third-party service providers are based in Ontario. As a result, the Personal Information may be sent between Quebec and Ontario for processing, and while the information is in these jurisdictions, the courts, law enforcement authorities and national security authorities may have access to it.

Your Personal Information will only be transferred where the recipient jurisdiction offers adequate protection for your Personal Information, and only where there is a written agreement requiring the recipient to protect your Personal Information.

 

 

10.  Your rights

To the extent provided by these laws, you have the right to access and request correction of your Personal Information if it is out of date, inaccurate, incomplete or ambiguous, or if the collection, disclosure or retention of the information is not authorized by law.

Please note that we will need to confirm your identity by an appropriate means of authentication before granting you access to your Personal Information.

We ask for your cooperation in notifying us of any changes to your Personal Information. In addition, if you find any errors or inaccuracies, please let us know, and we will make the necessary corrections.

Requests for access to, or correction of, your Personal Information, and notices should be addressed to info@bcbc-ccbc.org. We will respond to your request within 30 days. If we are unable to respond to your request, we will inform you of the reasons.

 

11.  Contact Us

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this Privacy Policy or the BCBC’s Personal Information practices, you can contact our Privacy Officer, Andreas Dhaene, at andreas@bcbc-ccbc.org. We are confident that we can satisfy your needs and adequately deal with any concerns or complaints you might have. We shall make inquiries in case of a complaint and if the complaint is well founded, we shall take the appropriate measures, including any modification of our policies and practices.

 

Privacy Officer

Email: andreas@bcbc-ccbc.org

Phone number: +1 (514) 673-7466

Business address:

1 Place Ville Marie, suite 3900

Montreal, QC

H3B 4M7