OnlineCare and Your Privacy

Your privacy is important to us. We protect your privacy by adhering to national and provincial legislation as well as using intentional and secure data collection.

Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act (PIPEDA)

It is our legal duty to meet the standards of Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronics Document Act. PIPEDA legislates the collection, usage and disclosure of personal information in the course of an organization's work. In the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec (and Ontario in the case of health information), PIPEDA does not apply. However, these provinces have privacy laws substantially similar to PIPEDA and to which we also legally adhere.

Personal information is defined as acquired details that could identify you. This might include information such as home address, phone number, ID numbers or characteristics identifiable to you, such as physical description, educational qualifications and certain health details.

Information We Collect

OnlineCare collects a first name, your age range, gender and general location data. This limited amount of information means that your anonymity is protected.

The primary reason for this collection is to communicate with you. It is also used to identify who to assign to you as an online peer counsellor. It can assist us with knowing what services to refer to you by generally knowing what area you live in, as well as your age range and gender. Finally, we conduct statistical reports to assess what are the common characteristics and needs of the individuals seeking our help online. This assists us in providing better service to our users.

We collect information from you if you email us, post a personal story or use our site. Submitting your personal story through our People's Stories service gives permission for it to be posted on our site. For all email inquiries your information is kept confidential and only used for its intended purposes.

The information we collect will not be given to anyone outside this organization or to a third party unless you have given us permission to do so.

Website Data Collection

We may collect general information for statistical purposes. We may use cookies, or other tracking technologies to automatically collect information about your activities only on our website. We may collect and store information that your computer or mobile device provides to us in connection with your use of our website such as your browser type, type of computer or mobile device, browser language, IP address, mobile carrier, general location, and requested and referring URLs. This data does not contain personal information.  

Statistics will be collected from OnlineCare for trend analysis purposes. These statistics will not contain your personal information. Statistics will be used to identify patterns across Canada, improve on our services and for marketing purposes.

Cookies

Cookies are small files with a unique identifier that are transferred to your browser through our website. They allow OnlineCare to understand how users navigate through the website and to save user preferences. The cookies do not contain your personal information and cannot be used to personally identify you.

Confidentiality

Any contact or inquiry you have made with us is held in strict confidence. Please also take a moment to review our confidentiality information.

If you have any questions or concerns about your privacy, please feel free to contact us.