Privacy and data protection policy

Mission of the organization and relevance of the privacy policy

Alternatives’ mission is to work for justice and economic, social, political, civil, cultural, and environmental rights in Quebec, Canada, and elsewhere in the world.

In order to carry out our mission and objectives, we need to communicate with our partners in Canada and abroad, our staff, our interns, and even our volunteers. As part of our activities and to carry out our mission, we collect personal information and sensitive data. Alternatives attaches the utmost importance to respecting the privacy of the individuals and partners with whom it interacts. It is therefore crucial for us to have a clear, thoughtful, and rigorous policy that addresses all aspects of protecting the privacy of the people with whom we work. Consequently, the protection of personal information and compliance with Law 25 are priorities for Alternatives. In this policy, you will find explanations of our procedures and actions regarding the collection, use, and protection of your personal information, as well as your rights regarding its verification, modification, or deletion.

This policy does not apply to third-party websites, even if they are accessible via hyperlinks on our website. If you wish to access information collected by third parties, we suggest that you check in advance whether they have their own privacy policies.

Definitions

Our policy uses the definitions of the engages.ca website regarding personal information and sensitive data. (https://www.engages.ca/blogues/31339-pour-tout-savoir-ou-presque-sur-la-loi25)

What is personal information?

Personal information “is data that can be used to identify a physical person, either directly or indirectly. A person’s first and last name, photo, telephone number, and voice recording are all examples of personal information”.

What is sensitive data?

“The broad category of personal information includes sensitive data. Data is considered sensitive when, ‘by its nature or due to the context of its use or communication, [it] raises a high degree of reasonable privacy concerns.’ Examples include social security numbers, biometric data, banking information, medical data, and a person’s orientation (sexual, political, etc.).”

Alternatives’ Commitments

Consent – Alternatives is committed to collecting your personal information only if you give us permission to do so via a consent form. However, by browsing our website and accepting cookies, you authorize us to collect certain information (see the section below on cookies).

Responsibility – Alternatives assumes responsibility for the flow of information you provide and is committed to processing it using methods that protect its confidentiality.

Transparency – Alternatives is committed to acting with complete transparency in the management of your personal information by informing you of its policy, having you sign a consent form, and committing to notify you in the event of a confidentiality incident.

In concrete terms

Alternatives is committed to:

Ensuring the security and confidentiality of the information obtained;
Implementing mechanisms to protect confidential information;
Ensuring the confidential handling of complaints;
Collecting only necessary or useful data;
Applying the privacy policy in accordance with its values;

Standards of discretion

Anyone within Alternatives who engages in exchanges that are not related to the performance of their duties must act with discretion. As such, they must:

Respect people’s privacy;
Not disclose confidential information obtained within the organization;
Know how to keep sensitive information about people who confide in them confidential;
Act in accordance with the organization’s values.

Confidentiality standards

Anyone within Alternatives who obtains confidential information in the course of their duties is required to respect the confidentiality of that information.

Exceptions are made in certain cases where it is essential for stakeholders to exchange certain information to improve their intervention. In such cases, the individuals concerned must also maintain the confidentiality of the information exchanged.

Browsing cookies

The Alternatives website uses browsing cookies, which are small text files placed in your browser by a website you visit.

These cookies facilitate navigation of the site by storing certain information to improve the experience during subsequent visits.

The small amount of data contained in these files is stored on the user’s hard drive or on the hard drive of another device.

These cookies are often automatically accepted by browsers. However, you can disable certain options in your browser settings. Please note that this may affect your browsing experience by disabling certain features on the Alternatives website.

Cookies are treated with the same degree of confidentiality as other information collected by Alternatives.

Use of collected personal data

We use your personal data to fulfill our mission, for example to measure the reach of a campaign, an event, or the visibility of a project. We also collect personal data when recruiting staff, including interns (via online or paper forms), for billing purposes, and for the management of our files. Finally, we may aggregate data for any other purpose that is permitted by law or to which you consent.

Embedded content from other websites.

Articles published on Alternatives may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the same way as if the visitor had visited that other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed third-party tracking tools, track your interactions with this embedded content if you have an account logged in to their website.

Storage period and destruction of your data

As part of its activities and in order to fulfill its mission, Alternatives may retain certain personal data for up to seven years in order to comply with certain government requirements, for example. However, only information that is necessary for reporting purposes or that can be verified by a third party is retained. We destroy any unnecessary personal information within the limits of the Act to modernize legislative provisions as regards the protection of personal information. Finally, we anonymize certain data and keep a record of the erasure and anonymization procedures.

Procedures implemented in the event of a data breach

In accordance with Law 25, we keep a record of personal data breaches. This record allows us to keep track of any incidents. Furthermore, if such a breach of confidentiality were to occur, we would notify the Commission d’accès à l’information (Access to Information Commission) and the person concerned.

Your rights regarding the protection of your personal and sensitive data

Right to portability

According to the Act to modernize legislative provisions as regards the protection of personal information (Act 25), any person who gives their consent for the collection of their personal data has the right to the portability of their information. In practical terms, in this policy, this means that Alternatives formally undertakes to communicate personal information and sensitive data to any person who requests it. The data will then be sent in a commonly used technological format.

Right to be forgotten

You may also request the deletion of your personal data. This does not include data stored for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Contact Information

If you have any questions or require further information about your personal information and sensitive data, please contact Yasmina Moudda, Executive Director of Alternatives, and Jérémy Bouchez, Personal Information Protection Officer at Alternatives:

Address : Alternatives, 3720 avenue du Parc, bureau 300, Montréal, QC, H2X 2J1
Email addresses: ymoudda@alternatives.ca and jeremy@alternatives.ca

If, despite our responses to your questions or requests, you are not satisfied with our practices for protecting your personal information, we suggest that you contact the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec, which oversees the management and processing of personal information in Quebec (or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada). Please note that we will contact you within a reasonable time following your request for access to the information collected.

Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec

Address: Bureau 900, 2045, rue Stanley, Montréal (Québec) H3A 2V4
Telephone: 514 873-4196
Fax: 514 844-6170
Toll-free Telephone: 1 888 528-7741
Email: cai.communications@cai.gouv.qc.ca
Website: http://www.cai.gouv.qc.ca

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada: https://www.priv.gc.ca/fr

Additional information

This policy may be modified at any time. Any modifications made will be listed and explained in an “Updates” section, which will allow you to fully understand the changes we have made and how they affect the protection of private data. This policy and any subsequent modifications will take effect as soon as they are published on our website.