Ornge.ca Website Privacy Policy
This privacy policy explains how Ornge collects, uses and discloses your information when you use our website.
Scope of Policy
This site contains links to external sites. This policy applies only to Ornge’s website, and not to third party websites which may be reached from such links. We are not responsible for the content or the privacy practices of sites other than our own. We encourage you to examine each site’s privacy policy and disclaimers and to make your own decisions regarding the accuracy, reliability and completeness of material and information found there.
Collection and Use of Personal Information Through Our Site
“Personal Information” is information that identifies you. This may include your name, address, phone number, and email address. It does not include business or professional contact information.
Ornge collects necessary Personal Information in accordance the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). We identify the purposes for which we use your Personal Information at the time we collect such information from you and obtain your consent, in any case, prior to such use. We generally use your Personal Information for the following purposes (the “Purposes”): (a) contacting you as requested by you; (b) providing or performing any services requested by you; (c) improving the website or our services; (d) providing you with information about products, services or promotions that may be of interest to you if you have specifically requested this information; (e) in connection with a testimonial; (f) for administrating, enforcing, overseeing, planning, analyzing, investigating or inspecting any aspect of this website and the products, services and information on it; (g) for purposes consistent with those listed here; and (h) as required or permitted by law.
Generally speaking, the only Personal Information that we collect from your visit to our website is what you voluntarily provide to us for specific purposes, such as to ask questions, provide feedback, or subscribe to our communications.
Safeguarding & Storing Personal Information
We will keep the Personal Information that we collect at our offices and contracted storage facilities in Ontario. Our service providers may, from time to time, also hold your Personal Information in connection with purposes for which you provided your consent.
We have implemented physical, technical and administrative safeguards to protect your Personal Information from loss or theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification. The only employees who are granted access to your Personal Information are those with a business ‘need-to-know’ or whose duties reasonably require such information.
We will retain your Personal Information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which that Personal Information was collected, and as permitted or required by law.
Disclosure of Personal Information
We will disclose your Personal Information for the purposes for which it is collected and which are communicated to you at the time that the information is collected, or as otherwise permitted or required by law.
We may disclose your Personal Information to service providers with whom we have an agreement where those service providers are assisting us in fulfilling the purposes for which the Personal Information was collected.
Other Data Collection
Not all data we collect on our website is Personal Information. You can visit our website without revealing your identity to us. Generally speaking, the only Personal Information that we collect from your visit to our website is what you voluntarily provide to us for specific purposes, such as to ask questions, provide feedback, or subscribe to our communications.
However, Ornge’s web servers automatically record non-identifiable details about website visits and interactions. Web server log files are generated when visitors view our webpages. Ornge’s web servers log the following data about your visit:
- Your Internet Protocol (IP) address. For analytics purposes, we retain only the first two octets of your IP address to prevent the possibility of re-identification (e.g. 38.112.93.137 is stored as 38.112.*.*),
- Your device type, brand, and model,
- Your operating system,
- Your browser type, plugins, and version,
- Pages you viewed on our website and time spent on each page,
- URL of the page that directed you to our website, and in some instances, the search term(s) you used to find us,
- Language of your browser, and
- Country (determined by IP address).
In most circumstances, this is de-identified statistical data. These methods are never used to gather specific Personal Information such as your name, your phone number or your e-mail address and Ornge makes no attempt to link this data, nor the IP addresses of the computers that have contacted our website, with the identity of individuals visiting our site unless a data security incident, such as an attempt to damage the site or our systems, has been perceived or detected. Server logs are automatically deleted when the server reaches maximum capacity, unless circumstances warrant longer retention, for example, to investigate a bug or malicious attack. Back ups are retained for longer to ensure the integrity of our network, applications and data.
In order to grant you permission to access restricted areas of the website, we may need to collect information about you, which may include Personal Information. This may include a request for your login credentials, name, mailing address, business name, postal code, fax and phone number.
Ornge uses and discloses server log data to:
- fix errors on our website;
- investigate, resolve and defend against data security incidents;
- generate website usage statistics; and
- improve service delivery in general.
Cookies
Cookies are used to track how our visitors use the site, to determine sites previously visited or to facilitate the use of secure portions of this site. A cookie is a file that may be automatically placed on your hard drive without your knowledge by a website to monitor your use of the site. The cookies we use do not allow us to identify individuals. They are compiled into statistical information on traffic patterns and are used to assess and improve the efficiency of the site.
We use two types of cookies:
- Session Cookies - These are used as an integral part of the identification process for some of our online applications. This is for security purposes to determine that you are who you say you are and, if and where applicable, to provide you with your confidential account information during an online session. No Personal Information is kept in session cookies and they are stored only in your browser's temporary (cache) memory. When you log out of your session, the cookie is no longer valid and is discarded when you close your browser.
- Persistent Cookies - These are more permanent and can be re-read when you return to the site that placed them on your computer. The information in them is written onto your hard drive and remains there until the expiry date of the cookie. They are used to identify and provide personalized features (for example, to help us remember which official language you prefer) and for tracking traffic patterns to and from our site. For more information on the tracking we use, refer to the Google Analytics section below.
Google Analytics, a Web analytics service provided by Alphabet Inc., helps to measure traffic patterns to, from, and within our site. This analytics measurement tool uses Session and Persistent cookies to collect standard Internet log information and to track visitor behaviour information in a de-identified form. Persistent cookies are stored on your computer and expire approximately two years after your last visit to our websites. The information generated by the cookies about your use of the website (including your IP address, truncated to ensure de-identify it) is transmitted to Google. No personal, identifying information is recorded or provided to Google. This de-identified information is then used to evaluate visitors' use of the website and to compile statistical reports on our website activity. The aggregate data and statistical reports are used only to help us make our site more useful to visitors and are made available only to web managers, IT staff, content managers, Communications staff, designers, other designated staff and service providers who require this information to perform their duties.
For further information about Google Analytics, please refer to Google Analytics Privacy Policy.
If you wish, you may opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics by disabling or refusing the cookies; by disabling JavaScript within your browser; or by using the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-On. Disabling Google Analytics or JavaScript will still permit you to access comparable information or services from our website. However, if you disable your session cookie option, you will still be able to access our public website, but you might have difficulties accessing any secure services.
From time to time and depending on our business needs, we may change analytics providers. We expect any new provider’s information practices to be similar to those described above.
If you have never disabled the session cookie option, it will likely be enabled by default. To disable cookies or JavaScript, please refer to your vendor's browser instruction guide.
Comments, Questions and Complaints
All comments, questions, concerns or complaints regarding your Personal Information or our privacy practices, should be forwarded to our Information & Privacy Office at privacy@ornge.ca.
Last revised: May 2017