Confidentiality and Personal Information Policy
(Last update: February 2025)
1. Introduction
Villa Maria Fund understands and respects the importance of the personal information handled by the organization in the course of our business and service delivery. To this end, we operate on a “need-to-know” basis, whereby access to your personal information can only be given to duly authorized and authenticated users. We have developed this Privacy and Use of Personal Information Policy (the “Policy”) to explain how we collect, use, store and disclose your personal information and your rights in this regard.
2. What is personal information?
Personal information is any information that allows a natural person to be identified, directly or indirectly.
Personal information is confidential. Its confidentiality derives from the right to privacy, which enables every individual to exercise control over the use and circulation of his or her information.
3. How do we collect personal information?
We collect your personal information when you register a student at Villa Maria College, when you are hired by Villa Maria College, when you register for events and communications, when you make a donation to our organization, regardless of the form of your donation, when you register as a volunteer for our organization or in the course of providing services to you. This information may be collected via e-mail and certain cookies on our Web site.
4. Who is responsible internally for managing the processing of personal information?
All our staff and partners are responsible for ensuring the confidentiality of personal information. However, we have appointed a person in charge of the protection of personal information (“PCPPI”) to oversee our compliance with applicable privacy legislation and assist you if you have any questions.
If you have any questions or comments about this Policy or our handling of your personal information, please contact our PCPPI:
Marc-André Normandin
Director and Person in charge of the protection of personal information
Villa Maria Fund
Email: normandinm@villamaria.qc.ca
Phone: (514) 484-4950, ext. 7204
- The following responsibilities are incumbent upon the PCPPI:
Work with the Board of Directors of Villa Maria Fund to update this policy, any guidelines that may accompany it, and any other policies, notices or procedures relating to personal information; - Act as a point of contact for Villa Maria Fund requests relating to the protection of personal information, and ensure the processing of such requests.
5. What personal information do we process, and for what purposes?
Villa Maria Fund may process the following personal information only when it is useful and necessary for the purposes identified below:
- For a donor, potential donor or participant in a fundraising event:
- Identity and contact information: including your name, physical and e-mail address, telephone number, date of birth, marital status, educational or professional background, or tax status;
- Financial and payment information: including your bank account number and address and other information needed to process payments and prevent fraud, including credit/debit card numbers;
- Related information: including photos and video or audio content, your networks, social involvement, professional affiliations and family ties;
- Profile and usage information: including your communication preferences and information about how you use our website, including the services you have accessed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits to particular pages and interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks and mouse-overs). To learn more about our use of cookies or similar technologies, please see our cookie policy, which you can find on our website;
- Technical information: including information collected during your visits to our website, Internet Protocol (IP) address, connection data, browser type and version, device type, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, and operating systems and platforms.
This includes creating a contact list, organizing fundraising events, carrying out donation transactions and accounting, conducting promotional activities, and other related operational needs.
- For a candidate or an employee:
- Application or employee file: including all pre-employment information, such as your resume, diplomas, letters of recommendation, and background; all information generated in the course of your employment, such as evaluations and medical records, personal information of your beneficiaries, and all post-employment information.
This includes managing your application for a job vacancy, assessing your eligibility for the position, managing your hiring, processing payroll and other tax obligations related to the employment relationship, as well as other related operational needs.
Please note: if you provide us with personal information about someone other than yourself, you must ensure that they understand how their information will be used and that they authorize you to provide it to us and allow us and our outsourced service providers to use it.
If we are required to process your personal information for purposes other than those described herein, we will obtain your consent before doing so, except in the circumstances set out in section 9 below.
Villa Maria Fund will not use your personal information to make automated decisions.
Villa Maria Fund will not, without your consent, use personal information for purposes other than those for which it was collected, except in the following cases:
- Legal, medical or security reasons make it impossible to obtain consent;
- Villa Maria Fund is authorized or required to do so under applicable law.
6. How do we collect your personal information?
When you communicate with us verbally or in writing, or when you use our portal, we collect your personal information.
7. What happens if I do not provide my personal information?
Where we need to collect personal information in order to process your instructions or perform a potential agreement or contract we have entered into with you, and you do not provide such personal information when requested, we may not be able to carry out your instructions or perform the contract we have entered into or are trying to enter into with you. In this case, we may have to cancel the mandate you have given us or the contract we have entered into with you, but we will inform you if this is the case at that time.
8. What is the extent of the personal information that we require?
We limit the personal information we process to what is necessary to manage our business and fulfil our mandate.
Do we share your personal information?
Villa Maria Fund may share your personal information in the following cases and with the following recipients:
- With the members of our professional team who need it to ensure our service;
- Confidentially with third parties for the purpose of collecting your comments on our service, of assisting us to measure our performance, to improve and promote our services;
- With government departments when required by law;
- With financial institutions;
- With courts of law, law enforcement agencies, regulatory bodies, government representatives, lawyers or other parties, when reasonably necessary to make, substantiate or contest a legal claim, or for a confidential out-of-court dispute resolution process;
- With service providers that we retain at the national level or abroad (for example shared services centers), to process on our behalf personal information in any of the above-mentioned circumstances and only in accordance with our instructions.
Please note: Villa Maria Fund, its third-party service providers and other third parties to whom we disclose information may operate outside Quebec or even Canada. In such cases, please be assured that we perform due diligence in our selection of service providers to ensure the confidentiality of your personal information.
Personal information that is processed in countries other than Canada may be subject to the laws of those jurisdictions (for example, when an external service provider operates at the international level). Consequently, it is possible that personal information be communicated in response to valid requests of government authorities, courts of law, or law enforcing authorities in foreign countries.
You can obtain additional information concerning the processing of your personal information outside of Canada by reaching our PCPPI whose contact information appears in Section 4 above.
10. How long do we keep your personal information?
Since the duration of the period of time the personal information will be kept varies depending on the nature of the information and our applicable legal obligations, we keep a retention schedule of personal information. We invite you to contact our PCPPI for any question that concerns you.
11. How do we guarantee the exactness of your personal information?
The Villa Maria Fund makes reasonable efforts to ensure that your personal information is retained in such a way that it is as exact, complete, and up-to-date as possible. Unless necessary, we do not regularly update your personal information. In order to assist us update your information and ensure its accuracy you must inform us without delay of any change in the information that you provide us.
12. What are your rights?
In addition to what the law provides in this regard, if you have questions or concerns about how we handle your personal information, please discuss them with our PCPPI, whose contact information appears in Section 4 above. Your concerns will most often be resolved quickly.
You may also (a) submit a request to us for access to your personal information that we process, or (b) request a correction or update of personal information if it is incorrect or outdated.
In addition, you have the right to withdraw your consent, if any, at any time, subject to applicable contractual or legal restrictions and reasonable notice to enable us to do so. You will be informed of the implications of such withdrawal.
You may also report any complaints to our PCPPI by email.
13. Prohibition of reprisals
We will not take reprisals against a person who, in good faith and on reasonable grounds, raises questions or concerns regarding personal information.
14. The law prevails
The provisions of the law regarding the collection, keeping, use and communication of personal information take precedence over this Policy.
15. Coming into effect and amendment of this Policy
This version of the Policy replaces all previous versions.
Privacy legislation continues to evolve and, as a result, we may amend this Policy from time to time, in our sole discretion, without prior notice or liability to you or any other person. Our treatment of your personal information will be governed by the version of this Policy in effect at that time, notice of which will be posted on the Villa Maria Fund website.
