Updated: February 28th, 2023 Great River Rapport, as a subdivision of the St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences (“River Institute”), is subject to follow all River Institute policies and procedures.

River Institute Privacy Policy (data collection)

We want you to understand how and why the River Institute (“River Institute”, “we” or “us”) collects and uses information about you when you use our online forms on our websites, mobile apps, widgets, and other online products and services (the “Services”) or when you interact with us or receive a communication from us. This Privacy Policy applies to all of our Services.

What We Collect

Information You Provide to Us We collect information you provide to us directly when you use the Services. This includes: Personal Information. To register for our programs, our newsletter or to send a donation, we may collect the following information: your name, your address, your phone number and email and for our camps, we will collect your child’s name, any health concerns and special considerations. Transaction information. If you pay online for any registration or provide an online donation through any of our Services, we will collect some personal information such as your name, address, email address, phone number and information about the Service you are purchasing or the donation you are making. Payments are processed by a third-party payment processor (Moneris), please refer to their terms and privacy policy for more information about how payment information is processed and stored. Other information. You may choose to provide us with other information. As an example, you may provide a response to a feedback form, participate in an online survey, or apply for a position that is posted. Information We Collect Automatically When you access our Services, we at times automatically collect information about you. This may include: Logs and usage data. Information we may log when you use our Services include your IP address, browser type, operating system, referral URLs, device information, pages visited, links clicked, requested URL(s), hardware and search terms. IP address information will be deleted after 90 days of its collection. Cookies. We may receive information from cookies. Cookies are pieces of data your browser stores and sends back to us. This information is used to improve your experience utilizing our Services. You can choose to disable the use of cookies on your browser but note that it may impact your experience using our Services. Location information. We may receive location information by your device. For example, with your consent, we may receive information about the specific location of your device by, for example, using GPS or Bluetooth. Your location may also be derived by other information you provided such as your IP address.

How We Use Information About You

We use information about you to:

• Research and develop new services;
• Communicate with you about products, services, offers and events that we think will be of interest to you;
• Monitor and analyze trend usage and activities in relation with our Services;
• Provide, maintain and improve the Services;
• Send you notices, updates, invoices and other support and administrative messages.

How Information About You Is Shared

When you use the Services, some information may be shared with the public. As an example:

• When you submit a comment on a web-poll or online form, other members of the public or visitors to the page will be able to see that comment, and the user associated with the comment unless the poll and/or form is filled out anonymously.
• When you send information via a web-form, the intended recipient of the message will be able to see the content of the form, your name, date and time of submission.
• On certain areas of our Services we offer social sharing features that let you share the content or action you take on our Services with other media. Your use of these features enables the sharing of certain information. Depending on the settings you’ve established with the third party, your friends or members of the public may be able to see the shared content. For more information on how the third party collects and uses this shared information, please refer to their respective privacy policies. (e.g.: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram)

Other than the situations above, we do not share, sell or give away your personal information to third parties unless one of the following circumstances occurs:

• To comply with the law. We may share information in response to a request for information if we believe disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, including, but not limited to, meeting national security or law enforcement requirements. To the extent the law allows it, we will attempt to provide you with prior notice before disclosing your information in response to such a request.
• In an emergency. We may share information if we believe that it is necessary to prevent imminent and serious bodily harm to a person.
• To enforce our policies. We may share information is we believe your actions are inconsistent with our policies or to protect the rights, property, and safety of ourselves and others.
• With your consent. We may share information about you with your consent or at your discretion.
• Aggregated or de-identified. We may share information about you that has been aggregated or anonymized such that it cannot reasonably be used to identify you. For example, we may show the total number of times a post has been shared without identifying who the visitors were.

Analytics Partners

We may use third party analytics providers (such as Google Analytics) to collect and summarize information on traffic and usage of our Services.

Your Choices

As a user of River Institute Services, you have choices on how to protect and limit the collection, use and disclosure of information about you. Controlling the Use of Cookies Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject first- and third-party cookies. Please note that if you choose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect the availability and functionality of our Services. Controlling Analytics Some analytics providers we partner with may provide specific opt-out mechanisms and we may provide, as needed and as available, additional tools and third-party services that allow you to better understand cookies and how you can opt-out. For example, you may manage the use and collection of certain information by Google Analytics. Do Not Track Most modern web browsers give you the option to send a Do Not Track signal to the websites you visit, indicating that you do not wish to be tracked. However, there is no accepted standard for how a website should respond to this signal, and we do not take any action in response to this signal. Instead, in addition to publicly available third-party tools, we offer you the choices described in this policy to manage the collection and use of information about you. Controlling Promotional Communications You may opt out of receiving some or all categories of promotional communications from us by following the instructions in those communications. If you opt out of promotional communications, we may still send you non-promotional communications, such as fundraising requests as allowed by law to Canadian Charitable Organizations. Controlling Location Information If you initially consent to our collection of location information, you can subsequently stop the collection of this information at any time by changing the preferences on your mobile device.

Other Information

Information Security We take measures to help protect information about you from loss, theft, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. For example, we use HTTPS while information is being transmitted. We also enforce technical and administrative access controls to limit which of our employees have access to non-public personal information. Data Retention We store the information we collect for as long as it is necessary for the purpose(s) for which we originally collected it. We may retain certain information for legitimate business purposes or as required by law. Changes to This Policy As a proactive organization, the River Institute regularly reviews PIPPEDA to remain abreast of important changes. As such, we may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we do, we will let you know by revising the date at the top of the policy. If we make a change to this policy that, in our sole discretion, is material, we will provide you with additional notice on the front page of the Services. We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy whenever you access or use our Services or otherwise interact with us to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy. By continuing to use our Services after Privacy Policy changes go into effect, you agree to be bound by the revised policy. Contact Please direct any questions regarding our privacy policy to our Privacy Officer: Christina Collard 613-936-6620 x 222 ccollard[at]riverinstitute.ca