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1. Introduction

The Alzheimer Society of B.C. (ASBC) is committed to protecting the privacy of people whose personal information is collected and held by the Society. We recognize our responsibility to be transparent and accountable in how we use the personal information we have on our donors, the people we serve, our employees, volunteers and various other stakeholders.

During the course of various ASBC activities, we gather and use personal information such as contact information. We have established this policy in compliance with the Personal Information Protection Act (Bill #38) so that the personal information of all our stakeholders is protected.

You will find this statement on many of our publications:
The Alzheimer Society of B.C. (ASBC) is committed to protecting your privacy and your personal information. The information you provide will be used to issue a tax receipt and may be used to keep you informed of ASBC activities including programs, services, special events, funding needs, opportunities to volunteer or to give. If at any time you wish to be removed from any of these contacts, please let us know by calling (604) 681-6530, toll-free 1-800-667-3742 or e-mail info@alzheimerbc.org

2. The Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) Bill #38

British Columbia's Personal Information Protection Act governs how private sector and not-for-profit organizations may collect, use or disclose personal information. For more information, go to http://www.legis.gov.bc.ca/37th4th/3rd_read/gov38-3.htm

3. What is personal information?

Personal information is any information that can be used to distinguish, identify or contact a specific individual. Exceptions to this are business contact information and publicly available information. Personal information does not include the name, title, business, address, telephone number or other contact information of an individual at a place of business and can be collected, used or disclosed without consent.

4. Why does the ASBC collect, use or disclose personal information?

We collect, use or disclose personal information to issue tax receipts, deliver services, to keep you informed and up-to-date on our activities including programs, services, special events, funding needs, opportunities to volunteer or to give. We do not rent, sell or trade our mailing lists.

5. Consent

Your knowledge and consent are required before we collect or disclose your personal information. This consent may be implicit or explicit, depending on the sensitivity of the circumstances.

5.1 Implicit and "Deemed" Consent
Your knowledge and consent are required for the collection, use or disclosure of personal information except where it clearly benefits you and our expectations are reasonable. For example, when you make a donation to us, you provide identifiable information in order to receive a tax receipt. We will assume you have "deemed" consent for us to use your personal information, and we will issue you a tax receipt.

In addition to issuing tax receipts, this information may be used to keep you informed about ASBC activities including programs, services, special events, funding needs, opportunities to volunteer or to give. We routinely offer you the opportunity to opt not to have your information shared for these purposes, and you will always be given the option to withdraw your consent and opt not to receive anything further from ASBC.

5.2 Explicit Consent
Explicit consent means that we must obtain written or oral consent from you before collecting, using or disclosing the information. This is usually in the case of more sensitive information. For example, we will obtain written consent from people who attend our support groups, which includes those with Alzheimer's disease and their caregivers. To provide quality support services, sensitive information including personal health information, may be asked. In addition to general contact information, this may include diagnosis, relevant health history and physician's name. This information is kept completely confidential, will not be shared with anyone and will only be used for the stated purpose, which is to provide quality support services. We will destroy, erase or make anonymous personal information that we no longer need.

6. How we use non-personal information?

Our Web site's operating system may automatically record some general information about your visit, such as:

• The Internet domain for your Internet service provider, and the IP address of the computer accessing the Web site.
• The type of browser (such as 'Netscape' or 'Internet Explorer') you are using.
• The date and time you visit our site and the Web pages that you visit on our site.
• The Web address of the previous Web site you were visiting, if you linked to us from another Web site.

6.1 What about spam?
You will not receive marketing e-mail from us unless you have consented to receive it. From time to time we may use e-mail as a way to keep in touch with you. However, we do not send spam (unsolicited marketing e-mail).

If you agree to receive e-mail communications from us, every e-mail message we send to you will include an e-mail address to which you can respond. If at any time you decide you do not want to receive e-mail from us, simply let us know and we will remove your name and e-mail address from our database. We will do the same with your mailing address and telephone number on request.

6.2 When you leave this site
This policy discloses the privacy practices for the ASBC Web site. However, our site contains links to other sites. Once you link to another site, you are subject to the privacy and security policies of the new site. The ASBC is not responsible for the contents of any linked Web site, any link contained in a linked Web site or any changes or updates to such Web sites. The inclusion of any link does not mean that the Alzheimer Society of B.C. endorses that Web site.

We encourage you to read the privacy statements of all Web sites you visit, especially if they request any personal information from you.

7. How does the ASBC protect your personal information?

We are committed to protecting personal information by ensuring appropriate security safeguards are in place. Safeguards will vary depending on the sensitivity of the information and may include password-protected electronic documents, locking paper files and ensuring only authorized personnel have access to certain documents.

We will strive to maintain your personal information as accurate and up-to-date as necessary for the identified purpose for which you provided it to us.

8. Your right to access your personal information

Upon written request, you have a right to see and ask for corrections to your personal information that we have on file. We will respond to your request within 30 days.

9. Complaint Process

We are committed to having an accessible and responsible complaint-handling process in place to ensure individuals are able to make complaints about ASBC's compliance with the Personal Information Protection Act.

If you have questions, concerns or complaints relating to our treatment of personal information, please contact our ASBC Privacy Officer:

Cheryl Swallow
Director, Finance and Administration
#300 - 828 West 8th Avenue
Vancouver, BC
cswallow@alzheimerbc.org
(604) 681-6530 or toll-free 1-800-667-3742

PO Box 9038, Stn. Prov. Govt.
Victoria, BC V8W 9A4
Telephone (250) 387-5629 or 1-800-663-1376
E-mail: info@oipc.bc.ca
Web site: www.oipc.bc.ca