Website Privacy Policy
This privacy policy explains how the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) collects, uses and discloses your information when you use our website. The policy also explains how our privacy commitments apply to our website operations.
Privacy Policy Commitments:
- The only personal information that we collect from your visit is what you voluntarily provide to us for specific purposes.
- Our website analytics only use non-identifiable data.
- We do not share data about your visit with third parties except to report malicious attacks or as required by law.
- We take reasonable efforts to minimize the number of third parties that may track you on our website. Pages that utilize third party code that may track your visit include those with embedded YouTube videos or podcast players. In these examples the media playback cannot be reliably delivered without the reliance on third parties.
Personal Information
The only personal information that we collect from your visit is what you voluntarily provide to us for specific purposes, such as to ask questions, submit documents, make a payment, provide feedback, use our search tool, or subscribe to our communications.
The IPC only collects personal information that is authorized and is in compliance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). At the time of collection, you will be informed of the specific purpose for which your personal information is being collected.
We take reasonable precautions to protect your personal information in our possession from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction.
Data Collection
IPC web servers automatically record non-identifiable details about website visits. Web server logs are generated when visitors view and interact with our web pages. IPC web servers log the data about your visit including:
- 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.*.*).
- Date and time of the interaction.
- Your device type, brand, and model.
- Your operating system.
- Your browser type, plugins, and version.
- Pages you viewed and documents downloaded 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.
- Country (determined by IP address).
If you voluntarily provide information to the IPC such as through a web form or our search function, information such as the above will be retained by the IPC in a log alongside the information you provided.
Server logs are automatically deleted on a revolving basis , unless circumstances warrant longer retention, for example, to investigate a bug or malicious attack.
How We Use Your Data
Our website analytics only use non-identifiable data. We log and analyze transaction data from website visits to:
- fix errors on our website;
- defend against malicious attacks;
- generate website usage statistics; and
- improve service delivery in general.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that a website creates and accesses through your browser when you visit the site. Cookies are used for many purposes, such as to track language preferences, provide customized web page content, and display website navigation history.
You do not have to accept any cookies to access or search the IPC website. However, there may be minor loss of functionality if you have disabled or deleted all cookies. Please consult your browser settings (and browser extensions or plugins) which allow you to configure whether and how you receive cookies.
Cookies used by the IPC do not contain personally identifying information, and do not give us access to anything on your device. Data generated from IPC cookies are not used to identify visitors, used to track them across the Internet, or shared with third parties. The foregoing does not apply to certain third party cookies associated with embedded content, discussed below.
Third Party Cookies
When visiting our site, your browser may receive longer-term “persistent” cookies from third parties including Google and Simplecast. This may happen because some IPC web pages host embedded content such as videos and podcasts hosted by third party providers. Consequently, these providers could potentially track your online activities across other websites.
Third Parties
The IPC collects and analyzes website usage data solely for internal purposes. We do not sell, rent, exchange, or otherwise disclose any information that we collect about our website visitors to third parties, except in the case of a malicious attack or as required by law.
Email Communication
If you sign up to receive email news, updates or communications from the IPC, your email address will only be used to provide you with the requested service. If you do not wish to receive e-mail communications from the IPC regarding new resources and the work the Office is undertaking, you may unsubscribe at any point or e-mail us at @email.
External Sites
This website contains links to websites controlled by other Government of Ontario organizations and to third party websites. We are not responsible for the content and the privacy practices of sites other than our own. We encourage you to examine each site’s privacy policies and to make your own decisions regarding how your personal information is protected as well as the accuracy, reliability and completeness of material and information found there.
Contact Us
For the full menu of contact options, visit our Contact Us page.