Privacy Policy

Welcome to the University of Toronto Government Relations Office Website. We respect the privacy of our users and we are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”), which describes our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting and disclosing information collected through the use of this Website and the services offered by the GRO.

By using or accessing our Website or services in any manner, you are consenting that we may collect, use, and share your information as described herein.

How We Use Data 

This Privacy Policy covers our practices for handling personally identifiable information. This is information that is connected to you specifically and may include name, mailing address, email address, telephone number, or any other information defined as personally identifiable information (or similar term) by applicable laws. Personal Information does not include your information that has been deidentified, pseudonymized, anonymized, aggregated and/or otherwise processed so as to be unidentifiable (i) in such a way that the data can no longer be attributed to a specific individual, or (ii) in such a way that the data can no longer be attributed to a specific individual (by reasonable means) without the use of additional information, and where such additional information is kept separate and under adequate security to prevent unauthorized re-identification of a specific individual such that one could not, using reasonable efforts, link such information back to a specific individual.

We may collect this information directly from you when you provide it to us, such as when you sign up for our services, corresponded with us, respond to surveys, or by “liking” or “following” us on social media. We may receive information via third-party services provided by FullContact, Inc. (“FullContact”) to enable us to retrieve publicly available information about you including, without limitation, social media information, profile information, gender, company, job titles, photos, physical addresses, and Website URLs (“Social Media Data”) based on your email address input into the services. FullContact uses your email addresses as described in its Privacy Policy, available at https://www.fullcontact.com/privacy/.

We use your Personal Information internally in connection with our services:

  • To present our Website and its contents to you.
  • To track correspondence.
  • To fulfill your requests for information, products and services.
  • To provide, analyze and improve our services
  • To communicate with you regarding updates to policies or services, changes to features of our Website, or other information. If you do not want us to use your information in this way, please unsubscribe through this link: https://uot.nationbuilder.com/unsubscribe or by emailing gro@utoronto.ca (Contact: Research Analyst and Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator, Government Relations Office, University of Toronto, 416-978-5409).
  • To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into with you.
  • In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.

As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns, including:

  • Details of your visits to our Website, including, but not limited to, usage details, search queries, traffic data, geolocation data, logs and other communication data, as well as the resources that you access and use on the Website, and the information collected through cookies, web beacons and other tracking technologies,
  • Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system and browser type.
  • We also may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party Websites or other online services (behavioral tracking).  For more information on how to opt-out of advertiser tracking mechanisms, please visit networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

Information we collect automatically helps us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service. This information is statistical data and may include Personal Information, which we may associate with Personal Information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. Some content or applications, including advertisements, on the Website are served by third-parties, including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers and application providers. These third parties may use cookies alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use the Website. We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly.

Cookies (or browser cookies)

  • A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer or mobile device. It may contain certain data, including, but not limited to: the name of the server that has placed it there, an identifier in the form of a unique number, and, an expiration date (some cookies only). Cookies are managed by the web browser on your computer (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome).
  • We use cookies to implement tracking technology on our Website. This allows us to display content that is tailored to you on our Website, which parts of our content interest you the most and which service categories you request. This tracking uses De-Identified Personal Information data (i.e., data that cannot be identified as being specifically associated with you) and does not use your Personal Information. We will not combine this data with your other Personal Information without your express permission. At any time, you can prevent the use of cookies like this in the future. To do so, if you email us at gro@utoronto.ca, we can provide an opt-out cookie that you have to accept once.

We use the NationBuilder™ platform to organize our community of members, supporters and prospects. You can read more about that company and its features and polices at NationBuilder.com. When you visit our Website, NationBuilder may send one or more cookies to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser and lets you log in faster and enhance your navigation through our Website. You can reset your web browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some features of our Website may not function properly if the ability to accept cookies is disabled.

We also use Google Analytics to help us understand use of our Website. This service collects the information sent by your browser as part of a web page request, including cookies and your IP address, and their use of it is governed by their Privacy Policy.

How Your Information is Shared

Except as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy, we will not disclose Personal Information to any third party unless required to do so by law, court order, legal process, or subpoena, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.

Security

We have implemented measures designed to secure your Personal Information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration and disclosure. All Personal Information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers (or those of our service providers) behind firewalls. We may store, retrieve, access, and transmit your Personal Information in the US or in other countries.

Retention

A profile account is created on the Website when you supply your email address. Following termination or deactivation of your account, we will retain your Personal Information and other data for 2 years, but will maintain it as confidential as required by applicable law. We have the right to delete all of your Personal Information and other data 2 years after termination of your account without notice to you. We may also retain your profile information and user content for a reasonable time for archival purposes.

Your Rights to Your Data You may be able to access, update, or request deletion of your Personal Information we have on file. When you update information, however, we may maintain a copy of the unrevised information in our records.

Requests regarding your Personal Information can be made by emailing us at gro@utoronto.ca (Contact: Research Analyst and Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator, Government Relations Office, University of Toronto, 416-978-5409).

Individuals Under the Age of 18

We do not knowingly collect, solicit or maintain Personal Information from anyone under the age of 18 or knowingly allow such persons to register for our services.  In the event that we learn that we have collected Personal Information from a child under age 18 without verification of parental consent, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to delete that information from our database. 

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We are continuously working to improve our services, and may update this Privacy Policy at any time. We will alert you to changes by placing a notice on our Website, by sending you an email, and/or by any other appropriate means.

Use of information we collect is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information was collected.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Website, please contact us at gro@utoronto.ca (Contact: Research Analyst and Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator, Government Relations Office, University of Toronto, 416-978-5409), or send mail to:

GOVERNMENT RELATIONS OFFICE

University of Toronto

27 King’s College Circle, Toronto, ON, M5S 3K1