Georgia Straight Privacy Policy

Introduction

The Georgia Straight is owned and operated by the Vancouver Free Press Publishing Corp. Our privacy protections policy has been designed in accordance with Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act as well as British Columbia's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).

The Georgia Straight is committed to protecting your personal information and our policies and procedures have been designed with this in mind. The Policy will define what information we collect about you and how it is used and how we keep it safe and secure as well as our complaint process and Contact Information.

What is personal information?

Personal information is information that refers to an identifiable individual and is recorded in any form.

Personal information does not include "Contact Information" (the type of information that one would find on a business card, in a phone book or a directory).

Collecting, using and disclosing information about you

The Georgia Straight collects only basic information about you in order to maintain a business relationship and complete sales transactions. If you pay by credit card we collect and store you credit card information for the purpose of processing payments and processing refunds that you have authorized.

The information we collect from you is used solely for the reasons described above and is not shared or sold to other organizations.

Security

We keep your information safe with restricted access areas, secure servers and password protected computer systems with encrypted windows so that only authorized individuals can view your information. Employees with such access have been advised how to keep your information confidential.

Retention of personal information

The length of time we store information is done so in accordance with CCRA requirements

Consent

No personal information will be disclosed without written consent of the individual the personal information pertains to, unless The Georgia Straight has a legal obligation to provide it.

Withdrawal of consent

The client may withdraw consent for the disclosure, collection or use of personal information at any time. However, withdrawal of consent does not apply if it conflicts with the company's legal obligations.

Use of Cookies

The Georgia Straight uses web server logs as well as 'cookies' -simple data files that web browsers place on your computer when sites are visited- to help track site interaction. Cookies measure the number of visits, which pages have been viewed, average amount of time spent on the website and other such statistics relating to use of our site. Third-party vendors and advertising networks may be used to serve advertisements and they may place and access cookies on your browser for the purpose of delivering tailored advertisements. This information, by itself, does not reveal email address or who you are, and no personal information is stored within the server logs or the cookies. Cookies do not damage files and cannot read information from a user's hard drive. You may choose to reject cookies at any time. Please note certain features on our sites may not function if you do not accept cookies. We do not link any data collected to any personal information submitted online.

Online Security

The Georgia Straight is committed to maintaining and protecting your privacy as a visitor to our website. However, we remind you that the Internet is not a secure medium. As such, your privacy cannot be guaranteed when you communicate online or otherwise visit any website. The nature of Internet communications means that your communications may be susceptible to data corruption, interception and delays.

Requests to access one's own personal information

To access the personal information stored in our database about you, a request must be made in writing to one of our privacy officers. The privacy officer will then determine whether the request is legitimate, and if so, has 30 days to send the information to the applicant. In some cases, in accordance with legislation, it may take the company more than 30 days to respond, but in those cases a reason and projected time for response will be given to you. If the request is determined to be illegitimated under the Personal Information Protection Act, the policy officer will give you the reason for refusal and will answer all questions about the refusal. The company has the right to refuse to comply if the applicant's request is repetitious in nature of is frivolous or vexatious.

How to delete one's own personal data

You can remove yourself from our email newsletter by unsubscribing within the email.

For deletion of other data, please contact [email protected] with details about what you want to remove.

Complaints

If you would like to file a complaint please use the contact information provided below to contact our officers by mail or by phone. Once the complaint has been received, the policy officer will conduct an internal investigation, and a decision will be reached within 30 days. If the policy officer finds the complaint to be legitimate, the company will take steps to correct the situation.

Policy contact information