Greater Vancouver Board of Trade's Privacy Policy

Introduction

Protecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your information — over the Internet, on the telephone, or through our offices — has always been fundamental to the way we do business at the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade (The Board of Trade). The Board of Trade operates on the basis of a Privacy Policy and related procedures that guide the handling of the personal information it collects. The Board of Trade has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate its firm commitment to protecting the privacy of its members, partners and potential web site visitors. This policy and related procedures are consistent with the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information (herein "CSA Model Code") and applicable privacy legislation.

Privacy Statement

This policy deals only with personal information handled by The Board of Trade. Personal information is information about an identifiable individual, excluding business contact information. The following explains how The Board handles personal information. The Board of Trade reserves the right to change this policy and it may be updated periodically. These changes may affect our use of your personal information. Accordingly, please check for changes regularly.

Accountability

The Board is accountable for all personal information under its control. The Board of Trade's privacy officer is the Chief Financial Officer, who is designated as responsible for The Board of Trade's Privacy Policy. The privacy officer can be reached by:

e-mail, at
telephone, at 604-640-5467
fax, at 604-681-0437
mail, at #400-999 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia V6C 3E1

Any questions about The Board of Trade's handling of personal information should be directed to the privacy officer. Please see below for more information about the process for referring questions about The Board's handling of personal information.

Purpose of Personal Information

The purpose for which The Board collects personal information will be identified at or before the time the information is collected. The Board of Trade may collect personal information for the purposes of:

administering The Board of Trade membership and providing member services;
registering for The Board of Trade events;
purchasing various Board of Trade products or services including, but not limited to, document certification, publications;
participation in The Board of Trade committees and task forces, and
processing and administering the above or other purposes as necessary.

The Board of Trade will not use personal information for any other purpose than identified at or before the time of collection.

Member Services

The Board of Trade may collect employee contact information from its members in order to:

send out newsletters and other relevant information;
inform members of upcoming Board of Trade events;
send out invoices and otherwise administer Board of Trade membership.

This contact information is voluntarily provided by Board of Trade Members. Members may, at any time, be taken off The Board of Trade's mailing lists at their request.

Through external merchants, The Board of Trade offers various services to its members. Members who chose to participate in these programs should refer directly to the privacy policies of the sponsoring companies. The Board of Trade does not collect, use or retain any personal information from these programs.

Consent

The Board of Trade seeks consent for all personal information it collects, uses and discloses through information provided to individuals prior to collection, or at the time of collection.

If you have voluntarily provided information, you have consented to the collection, use and disclosure of your personally identifiable information as described in this Privacy Policy. As required by the CSA Model Code, The Board of Trade will not use personal information for any purpose other than that for which you consented. Should The Board of Trade require personal information for a new purpose, we will contact you to seek consent for that new use.

Limits for Collecting, Using, Disclosing and Keeping Personal Information

The Board of Trade does not collect, use or disclose personal information of individuals except when individuals give consent and provide the information on a voluntary basis. There may be occasions where more specific personal information is necessary for us to proceed with a request for information, or provide you with a product or service. In such cases, we will provide you with a description on the information we need. In all cases, The Board of Trade limits the amount and type of information collected to only the personal information that is required to provide the individual with the requested information, product, or service. We collect only information that is voluntarily provided by you and undertake that such information will be kept strictly confidential.

The Board of Trade will not use or disclose personal information without the knowledge or consent of the individual except as authorized by applicable law.

The Board of Trade retains personal information only as long as is necessary to provide the individual with the requested product, service or information. In some cases, however, legal reporting and retention requirements necessitate that The Board of Trade retain information for a specific amount of time. In general, The Board of Trade retains information for a period not longer than seven years in secure storage.

The Board of Trade does not sell or trade any personal information with third parties. The Board of Trade may transfer information to service providers where information processing is outsourced by The Board of Trade in the course of its activities or administrative procedures in specific cases. Where personal information is transferred to a service provider for processing, we require the service provider to respect this Privacy Policy and we restrict them from using or disclosing personal information transferred to them for any purpose other than the provision of services to us.

Any personal information that The Board of Trade retains is kept in such a manner as to ensure its security and confidentiality at all times.

Safeguarding Personal Information

The Board of Trade respects the privacy of its members, partners, potential web site visitors and Internet users and will protect that privacy as vigorously as possible. We store personal information in electronic and physical files that are secure. Our security measures include secure locks on filing cabinets, using industry standard techniques such as firewalls, encryption, intrusion detection and restricted access to records and to equipment, including computers. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or receive from us electronically. This is especially true for information you transmit to us via e-mail. We have no way of protecting that information until it reaches us. Once we receive your transmission, we make our best efforts to ensure its security on our servers.

Internally, access to personal information is restricted to employees who need access to information in order to do their jobs. Those employees are limited in number and are knowledgeable about and committed to The Board of Trade's Privacy Policy.

Accuracy of and Access to Personal Information Collected
The Board of Trade makes every effort to keep personal information as accurate, complete, current and relevant as necessary for the identified purposes.

The Board of Trade makes readily available to individuals our Privacy Policy and related procedures for managing personal information. Member access to the Privacy Policy and related procedure to individuals is provided on The Board of Trade's web site. Any questions about the handling of personal information by The Board can be raised with our privacy officer.

Upon request of an individual, he or she may view or edit their personal information as collected by The Board of Trade. The Board of Trade will inform them of what personal information it has about the individual, what it is being used for and, in cases where it has been disclosed, to whom it has been disclosed. There may be exceptional circumstances as provided by the CSA Model Code under which The Board of Trade may not be able to give an individual access to the personal information about her or him held by The Board of Trade. In this case, The Board of Trade will explain the reason for this lack of access, as provided by the CSA Model Code.

To make a request, please send a letter, e-mail or fax addressed to our privacy officer at the address indicated above. In your request, please include the following information:

Name, contact details, membership number (where applicable), the nature of your request, including whether you wish to view and/or edit information or inquire regarding use and/or disclosure.

The Board of Trade will reply to your request in no later than 30 days after receipt of the request, or if we are not able to respond within this time period, we will send you a notice of extension. If we are not able to disclose all the personal information we hold on you, we will give you a reason for our inability to do so, unless prohibited by law.

Use of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade Web Site

The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade ("The Board of Trade) believes that online privacy is important to the success of the Internet and electronic commerce in general and is strongly committed to each visitor's right to privacy. This statement sets forth The Board of Trade's Privacy Policy for its web site located at www.boardoftrade.com and describes the practices that The Board of Trade follows in respect to the privacy of the users of this site. By accessing and using materials from this web site or sending or posting materials to it, you (the "user") agrees to the terms of this privacy commitment and to our practices to collect, use or disclose personal information.

This Privacy Statement may be updated periodically to reflect enhancements to The Board of Trade's web site that may affect the use of personal information. Accordingly, please check back periodically.

Information on this Web Site

Information which includes all facts, data and other information, collectively the "Information" in the pages of this web site is of a general nature, is intended only for informational purposes, is subject to change without notice, and is not intended to be relied on by visitors as binding legal advice on any particular matter.

Individual information provided to The Board of Trade to gain access to any feature of this web site will not be sold or made available to any third party, except where information processing is outsourced by The Board of Trade in the course of its regular administrative procedures.

The Board of Trade reserves the right to perform statistical analyses of aggregated user behaviour and characteristics, in order to measure interest in and use of the various sections of its site so as to improve design and navigation and to gather information for marketing purposes. Only aggregated data from these analyses, not individual data, will be used for this purpose.

"Cookies" are only used with the Members' Area and the shopping cart. A "cookie" is a piece of data that is stored on the hard drive of a computer that contains information about use of the web site. The only cookie that remains after a user session on www.boardoftrade.com is the one on the checkout page, which saves the user's data for the next time they checkout. Cookies are not used to track any personal/user information or browsing patterns other than the site statistics from the web server.

Accuracy of the Information on this Web Site

The information is believed to be accurate, complete and current when posted, but The Board of Trade cannot guarantee that it will remain accurate or complete or that it will be current at all times.

The Board of Trade is not responsible for direct, indirect, special or consequential damages, regardless of the cause, arising out the use of this web site.

Accuracy of Information on Linked Web Sites

Through the links to other sites found on The Board of Trade's web site, the user may enter domains that are beyond the boundaries of The Board of Trade and, once there, The Board of Trade is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these web sites. The Board of Trade has no control over the accuracy, completeness or relevance of the information on these sites and provides links to these sites solely for the information and convenience of visitors to our web site.

Copying Information from this Web Site

Information on The Board of Trade's web site may be used or copied provided The Board of Trade's web site co-ordinator is contacted and grants approval in writing. Contact the web site co-ordinator at .

Questions

Any questions or comments about The Board of Trade's handling of personal information should be directed to our privacy officer.