Our organization is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal information of its employees, members, customers and other stakeholders. We value the trust of those we deal with, and of the public, and recognize that maintaining this trust requires that we be transparent and accountable in how we treat the information that you choose to share with us.

During the course of our various projects and activities, we frequently gather and use personal information. Anyone from whom we collect such information should expect that it will be carefully protected and that any use of or other dealing with this information is subject to consent. Our privacy practices are designed to achieve this.

Personal information is any information that can be used to identify an individual. This information can include an individual’s opinions or beliefs, as well as facts about, or related to, the individual.

When you interact with us, you may choose to provide some personal information required to complete our online forms, when you register for events and workshops, when you request our services or sign up for our newsletter. The type of personal information you may provide includes:

• • Contact information, such as your name, email, address, and phone number, so we can contact you;
  • Financial information, such as credit card information, billing address, needed to process your registration for courses, seminars, events and workshops; and
  • Identification information, such as social insurance numbers, needed to verify your identity and eligibility for certain government support programs.

  When you visit our website, we may use cookies and other automatic data collection technologies, to automatically collect certain technical information from your device. The data we collect may include:

  • unique identifiers and preference information, such as IP address, device identification, unique device identifiers,
  • technical usage data, such as browser type, time zone settings, language preferences, operating system, search history, page response times and length of visit, pages viewed,
  • marketing preferences or navigation and clickstream behavior for online interactions.

  This information helps us understand how you use the features and content of our website in order to make improvements and tailor our website to your preferences. You can opt out of cookies on your browser. Note that if you opt out, you may not be able to take full advantage of all the features or services available on this website.

In addition to improving and personalizing your experience on our website, we may also use the personal information we collect to:

• help us maintain our contact/client files and mailing lists;
• track business trends, and program usage and service ratings in order to evaluate and improve our service offering;
• advise you of news and upcoming events that may be of interest to you;
• generate a sample for our annual survey where we contact past clients of the Entrepreneurship Centre to participate in an optional, anonymous survey about business trends and services used;
• generate and issue tax related documentation;
• identify you when you return to our website or when you contact us;
• provide you with technical support;
• detect, investigate, and prevent activities that may violate our terms or policies, applicable law or regulations, or the rights of any persons, organizations or entities;
• protect our or third-parties’ legitimate interests, including to enforce rights or to comply with applicable laws;
• to fulfill our legal obligations;
• provide you with information, products, advice or services that you request from us;
• assess your eligibility for information, products, advice or services that you request from us;
• fulfill the purposes for which you provided the information or that were described when it was collected, or any other purpose for which you provide it; and
• carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts with you.

We collect, use and disclose personal information only for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in light of the circumstances.

We take all reasonable precautions to prevent the fraudulent and unauthorized use of your personal information. To that end we use reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect your personal information against unauthorized use, loss, access, modification, destruction or disclosure while it is in our custody or under our control.

Personal information gathered by our organization is kept in confidence. Our personnel are authorized to access personal information based only on their need to deal with the information for the reason(s) for which it was obtained. Safeguards are in place to ensure that the information is not disclosed or shared more widely than is necessary to achieve the purpose for which it was gathered. We also take measures to ensure that the integrity of this information is maintained and that it is protected from loss or destruction. These measures include physical, organizational and technological measures that are proportionate to the sensitivity of the personal information.

Individual personal information is never disclosed, shared with a third party or used for any purposes other than described here:

• shared with our partner organization Innovation Centre at Bayview Yards when we collaborate to offer programs and services to you;
• shared with organizations, including Federal, Provincial and Municipal government agencies, who provide funding for Invest Ottawa’s programs. We only share your personal information with the program’s funders so we can provide our services to you and as part of our contractual obligation to report progress on our programs. If information shared with Federal, Provincial and Municipal government agencies becomes subject to access to information request, Invest Ottawa will have an opportunity to restrict disclosure of personal information in accordance with applicable access to information laws and your consent;
• with consent, where required, shared or disclosed to service providers who help us provide our services to you, such as credit card processing services, website development, marketing, database hosting, web analytics, and providing customer service. These service providers are under legal and contractual obligations to comply with applicable privacy and data protection legislation, to safeguard your personal information in accordance with the sensitivity of the information, to only use the personal information provided to them for the purposes in which it was disclosed, and to comply with this policy;
• shared with another entity in connection with any change of ownership, change of organizational structure or similar transaction, such as, for example, a transfer to an entity with which we have merged, that we have acquired or that has acquired Invest Ottawa. Under such circumstances, Invest Ottawa will require the transferee to agree to follow the practices described in this policy, as it may be amended from time to time;
• shared to comply with a court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory authority request, in accordance with applicable law, or when we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of Invest Ottawa, our customers, or others.

The personal information we collect is stored and processed in Canada and the United States. Information that is stored in the United States is subject to United States legislation.

We only retain your personal data as long as it is needed for the purpose for which it was collected. We delete your personal information as soon as we no longer need it in connection with the purpose for which it was collected, unless we are required by law to retain it for a longer time.

You have certain rights with respect to your personal information that we collect and use:

· Right of Access – you have the right to request access to your personal information we have about you and to request supporting information explaining how the personal information is used;

· Right of Rectification. You have the right to request that we correct any inaccurate, outdated or incomplete information we may have about you;

· Right of Erasure – you have the right to request that we erase personal information about you;

· Right to Withdraw consent – you withdraw your consent at any time to the collection, use, disclosure or any other form of processing of your personal information by Invest Ottawa and Innovation Center at Bayview Yards.

To exercise any of these rights, please email us at [email protected]

We regularly review our privacy practices for our various activities, and update our policy. Please check investottawa.ca on an ongoing basis for information on our most up-to-date practices.

Questions, concerns or complaints relating to Invest Ottawa’s privacy policy on the treatment of personal information should be e-mailed to: [email protected].