Privacy policy

Last updated: March 9, 2020

The MEHRIT Centre Ltd. (“TMC”) has prepared this Privacy Policy (“Policy”) to describe our privacy practices in connection with personal information we collect online through our website self-reg.ca, our Self-Reg eSchool website self-reg.brightspace.com/d2l and coregcommunity.com which are operated or controlled by TMC (collectively referred to as the “Sites”). BY USING ONE OF OUR SITES OR REGISTERING TO USE ONE OF THE FEATURES THEREOF, YOU CONSENT TO OUR COLLECTION, USE AND DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION AS DESCRIBED IN THIS POLICY. Please read this Policy carefully, and check back periodically as we may update it from time to time.

Scope

The objective of this Policy is to reflect our commitment to adhere to the requirements of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada), and other applicable privacy legislation in Canada, concerning the handling of your personal information when using our Sites. Personal information is information about an identifiable individual. This Policy does not apply to any information that is exempted from the definition of “personal information” in applicable privacy legislation.The Sites may contain links to third party websites that are not owned or controlled by TMC. TMC is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies and notices of such other websites that collect your personal information.

1. Accountability

1.1. TMC is responsible for the personal information under its control. This includes personal information under our direct control, as well as personal information that we may transfer to our third party service providers for servicing, processing, storage or other purposes that facilitate our operations and/or the administration of our Sites. We use contractual or other appropriate means to require third parties that provide services on our behalf to maintain a level of privacy protection comparable to our own practices.

1.2. TMC has designated a Privacy Officer who is accountable for TMC’s compliance with the principles set out in this Policy and applicable privacy legislation. While accountability for compliance rests with the Privacy Officer and senior management of TMC, day-to-day compliance may be delegated to other individuals within TMC. Questions pertaining to this Policy may be directed to TMC’s Privacy Officer using the contact information below.

2. Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information

2.1. What Type of Personal Information Does TMC Collect?
TMC may collect various types of personal information if you visit or use one of our Sites. The personal information we collect may include some or all of the following information, depending on which products or services you register, purchase or subscribe for or which features you use:

  • your first and last name
  • your e-mail address
  • your home address and/or billing address
  • your telephone number(s)
  • your company, title, work address and contact information
  • your profile picture
  • your billing and payment information (e.g. credit card information)
  • your transactional information (such as purchase or subscription history)
  • any other personal information that you may provide when you register on one of our Sites, create a user profile, participate in discussion forums or online communities, post comments, or otherwise share with us through communications with us via one of our Sites.

2.2. How Does TMC Collect Personal Information?
We may collect personal information from you in a variety of ways when you interact with the Sites. Some examples include but are not limited to situations when you:

  • sign up to our mailing list to receive TMC newsletters and other information about self-reg news, knowledge-sharing resources and learning opportunities
  • subscribe to or post a comment to one of our blogs
  • purchase items from our eStore through our website self-reg.ca
  • register and create a user account on one of the Sites, for instance, to order, register for or purchase any of our conferences, courses, webinars, programs and other offerings, and/or to participate in one of our discussion forums or online communities
  • use and participate in one of our discussion forums or online communities (e.g., Portal Plus or Parent Portal)
  • post information to our Self-Reg eSchool Site
  • contact us or make an inquiry about any of our Sites, products, services, resources or other offerings
  • communicate with any of our representatives including for technical support
  • engage with us on social media.

In most cases, we collect personal information directly from you. However, in some cases, we may obtain personal information about you from other sources such as third party payment processors (e.g. Stripe).

Technologies such as cookies are used by TMC for the following purposes: to authenticate users, remember a user as having logged into their account, and providing overall access to the Self-Reg eSchool. These technologies are further used to collect anonymous data on the offerings and websites a user visits, as well as information related to a users’ browsing habits.

2.3. How Does TMC Use Personal Information?
In general, TMC collects and uses your personal information in order to offer and provide you with information, products and/or services, to manage our relationship with you, to carry on our business operations and as may otherwise be required or permitted by applicable law. Some examples of how we may use your personal information include:

  • to process and fulfill your requests for information, products and services (including conferences, courses, webinars, programs and other offerings) and contact and communicate with you about those requests
  • if you have registered for our mailing list, to provide you with TMC newsletters and other information about self-reg news, knowledge-sharing resources and learning opportunities
  • to create, administer and maintain your user account
  • to respond to your questions, enquiries or complaints
  • to provide technical support
  • to operate, administer, and protect the security and integrity of our Sites including our blogs, discussion forums and online communities
  • to protect against error and fraud
  • to enforce our terms and conditions
  • to help us improve and customize our Sites and offerings
  • for billing and other administrative or internal business purposes including to collect and process payments; and/or
  • for any other purpose to which you consent or as may otherwise be permitted or required by law.

2.4 How Does TMC Disclose Personal Information?
TMC may disclose personal information we collect to selected service providers and other organizations outside of TMC that help us provide our services and other offerings (including, without limitation, our conferences, courses, webinars and programs) to you or help us with our business operations, such as third parties who perform services for us such as payment card processing, credit account verification or who support the technical operation and maintenance of our Sites. When TMC shares personal information with any such party, we limit the use and disclosure of such personal information to those purposes requested by us (except as may be permitted or required by law) and we require that the party have adequate safeguards for the protection of that personal information.

We may also disclose personal information where necessary to protect our assets and interests, for any other purpose to which you consent, or as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law. For example, disclosure may be necessary to assist us in collecting a debt owed by you, to comply with a subpoena, warrant or court order, to prevent, detect or suppress abuse, fraud or criminal activity, in connection with a potential disposition or sale of all or part of our business or assets, or in the case of a breach of agreement or contravention of law.

Your personal information may be processed and stored in any country in which our service providers maintain facilities and may be accessible to the government, courts or law enforcement or regulatory agencies of any such country through the laws of such country.

2.5. Information You Share
The Sites may provide messaging features and other ways to share information with or send communications to others including discussion forums and online communities; it is your choice whether to use any such available features or functionalities.

When you join, or post information to, one of our discussion forums or online communities, you share your profile information and other information that you choose to share with other members or users of that forum or community. When you post a comment to one of our blogs, you share information within your comment, along with the name you provide, with the general public.

3. Consent

3.1. By choosing to provide TMC with your personal information, you are consenting to our collection, use and disclosure of such personal information in accordance with this Policy and as permitted or required by applicable law. If you provide TMC with or post or submit to the Sites personal information of another individual, you represent and warrant that you have all necessary authority and have obtained all necessary consents from such individual to enable us to collect, use and disclose such personal information for the purposes set forth in this Policy.

3.2. Subject to any legal and contractual restrictions, you may withdraw your consent to certain of the identified purposes at any time, on reasonable notice, by contacting TMC’s Privacy Officer using the contact information set out below. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide you or continue to provide you with certain products, services or information which may be of value to you.

3.3. You may also unsubscribe at any time from receiving our TMC newsletters or other commercial electronic messages by clicking on the unsubscribe or opt-out link included in any such message. Please allow up to 10 business days for the change to take effect. Please note that we reserve the right to send you certain communications relating to your user account or your transactions or as otherwise permitted by applicable law, and these transactional account messages and other non-commercial messages may not be affected by your choice to unsubscribe or opt-out from commercial electronic messages.

4. Retention of Personal Information

4.1. TMC will retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary for the fulfilment of the identified purposes, or as otherwise required or permitted by law.

5. Accuracy

5.1. You are entitled to challenge the accuracy and completeness of your personal information and have it amended as appropriate. In most cases, TMC relies on you to provide any updates to or correction of your personal information. Where personal information is used on an on-going basis, TMC undertakes to correct any information that is shown to be inaccurate, incomplete, or not up-to-date. Otherwise, TMC does not routinely update personal information unless it is necessary to fulfill the purposes for which the information was collected.

5.2. Some areas or features of our Sites provide you with the means to access, update, edit or delete certain user or registration information by going to the appropriate page on the Site and changing or deleting such information as desired. For example, if you are a registered user of TMC’s Self-Reg e-School Site, you can access, review and update your user profile, including your contact information, at any time by clicking on your profile button at the top of any page on the Site. Alternatively, or for other information, you may contact TMC’s Privacy Officer using the contact information set out below.

6. Safeguards

6.1. TMC protects personal information in its control against loss, theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use, or modification, by the use of reasonable security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information. These security safeguards include physical, organizational and technological measures.

6.2. While we take reasonable care in maintaining the security of our Sites and your personal information, the Internet is not 100% secure and we cannot guarantee that any information that you may choose to disclose via the Internet will not be intercepted by third parties or that unauthorized disclosure will not occur. We assume no responsibility for personal information disclosed through the Internet, which is intercepted, diverted or otherwise accessed.

6.3. If you create a user account on a Site, your account information is protected by the password you use to access your online account. You are responsible for keeping your password secure and logging out after each use to prevent any unauthorized access to and use of any TMC offerings to which you have access.

7. Access

7.1. TMC provides a right of access and review of personal information in accordance with applicable law. Upon your written request, subject to certain exceptions, TMC will inform you of the existence, use and disclosure of your personal information and will give you access to that information. Access requests should be sent to our Privacy Officer, using the contact information below. In order to verify that the information is being released to the proper individual, you may be asked to provide suitable identification or to otherwise identify yourself. In certain circumstances, access to personal information may be denied. If we deny your request for access to your personal information, we will advise you in writing of the reason for the refusal.

8. Changes to our Privacy Policy

8.1. Our policies and procedures are reviewed periodically and, as such, we may change this Policy from time to time. We will post the most up-to-date version of this Policy on the Sites and indicate the date it was last updated at the top of the Policy. Please check this Policy periodically for changes. We may also notify you and other users by placing a notice on the Sites.

9. Privacy questions and compliance; how to contact us

9.1. If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this Policy or our privacy practices or wish to challenge our compliance with this Policy, please contact TMC’s Privacy Officer using the contact information below. If TMC finds a complaint to be justified, appropriate measures will be taken, including if necessary, amending our policies and practices.

The MEHRIT Centre
10 Woodland Drive, Suite 101
Peterborough, ON, Canada K9L 0G9
Attn: Privacy Officer
Tel.: (705) 917-1243 │Email: susan@self-reg.ca

9.2. If you are not satisfied with our response, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPCC) investigates complaints under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada). The OPCC can be reached at:

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
30 Victoria Street
Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 1H3
1-800-282-1376
website: http://www.priv.gc.ca.