Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions

Privacy Policy

COVID-19 Resources Canada is committed to protecting the privacy and accuracy of personal information of its Canadian volunteers, researchers, and users to the greatest extent possible, subject to the provisions of Canada’s provincial and federal laws. Personal information refers to information that is or can be used to identify or contact a specific individual. Information that is publicly available is not considered personal information.  COVID-19 Resources Canada only uses your personal information for specifically consented purposes. Other than as required by the laws that guarantee public access to certain types of information, or in response to subpoenas or other legal instruments that authorize access, personal information is not shared outside of the organization without your explicit content.

I. Information collected

The purpose of this website is to centralize information about COVID-19 to facilitate a coordinated research and community driven response to supporting the COVID-19 pandemic across Canada. We do not require you to provide personal information to access and view this website. Providing us with your contact information, and other relevant personal details where required, is voluntary and it is only requested when you complete one of our webforms as described below. The initiative on this website is organized by COVID-19 Resources Canada, a group of Canadian researchers, students, activists, web developers, business analysts and volunteers who want to help our country’s COVID-19 response.

Should you decide to complete any of our webforms, we will ask for additional information to the extent and in the terms detailed below.

The COVID19Resources.ca website, and associated servers collect the following analytics:

  • Internet Protocol (IP) address of computer being used

  • web pages requested

  • referring web page

  • browser used

  • date and time

This data will be used in accordance with section II below. COVID-19 Resources Canada does not associate this data to individual user identities.

Cookies

‘Cookies’ may collect information such as your email address, username or keep track of pages visited and documents downloaded. The COVID19Resources.ca site may use ‘cookies’ in order to deliver web content specific to individual users’ interests or to keep you logged-in in the instances where this is enabled. You can always refuse or disable the use of cookies in your browser so none of the information associated with the cookies is collected. While this would not affect your access to the COVID19Resources.ca website, it may however, affect the normal functioning of some of its features.

Webforms

The COVID19Resources.ca site uses webforms to connect with its users, as well as to provide them with opportunities to share or get involved with volunteer or paid, research and community-based initiatives. These webforms usually require users to provide contact information such as first and last name and email address.

For candidates who register in our volunteer database, we also require that you provide us with additional information such as current employment, skill sets, past work experience, and the first 3 digits of your postal code. We also ask the first 3 digits of your postal code from researchers or organizations seeking volunteer or hired candidates to ensure we can send you opportunities that are applicable to your geographical vicinity/location.  We may, only with your explicit prior consent, share your contact information (name, email address, and CV) with researchers or organizations of COVID-19 Resources Canada for the sole purposes of putting you in contact them as a way of supporting and facilitating coordination of COVID-19 research efforts and capacity-building in public health, research, and grassroots initiatives.

For researchers who register in our reagents database, we require that you provide us with your full postal code to facilitate the sharing of reagents between participating researchers across Canada.

For website users who sign our petitions, we also ask for the first 3 digits of your postal code so we can accurately track signatures by province.

The information collected through our webforms is used only for the purposes for which it was collected, which include to send material relating to the purpose of our site and to provide you with free access to relevant information about the COVID-19 response in Canada. None of the information collected will ever be sold to another party.

II. Use and distribution of collected information:

  • The personal information collected through COVID19Resources.ca will be used for the purpose of communication back to individuals who contact us via the website.The browser-IP-address information and anonymous-browser history collected through COVID19Resources.ca will be used to report information about site analytics and to improve web presentation and utilization. IP address information may also be used for troubleshooting purposes.

  • Personal information collected about you through COVID19Resources.ca will not be disclosed, without your consent, except for certain explicit circumstances in which disclosure is required by law.

  • You may stop receiving emails from us at any time by unsubscribing (the link can be found at the bottom of any email).

III. Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)

You will not be sent any Commercial Electronic Messages as defined by CASL from COVID19Resources.ca, but we take all steps to ensure that we have your consent to send you electronic communications, such as emails for the purposes described in this policy and terms of use. For the purposes of this policy, we define Commercial Electronic Messages (CEM) to be electronic messages that have as one of their purposes an encouragement to participate in a commercial activity, including messages that include:

  • (a) offers to purchase, sell, barter or lease a product, goods, a service, or land;
  • (b) offers to provide a business, investment or gaming opportunity;

  • (c) advertises or promotes anything referred to in paragraph (a) or (b); or

  • (d) promotes a person, including the public image of a person, as being a person who does anything referred to in any of paragraphs (a) to (c), or who intends to do so.

Since you will not be sent CEMs from COVID19Resources.ca, we are exempt from the sections of CASL [paragraph 6(1)(a)] that require implied or express consent to be obtained from recipients of Commercial Electronic Messages.

In addition to the above, all emails from COVID19Resources.ca will always clearly be identified as such as the sender of any electronic messages and they will provide a clear opt-out link in the footer of each message.

Privacy Policy revisions

This Privacy Policy was last revised on March 16, 2021. We may change this Privacy Policy at any time and for any reason. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy each time you visit the web site. If we make a significant change to our Privacy Policy, we will post a notice on the homepage of our web site for a reasonable period after the change is made.

Your privacy is important to us. We welcome comments and questions about our Policy or complaints about a privacy-related issue.

Please contact us using the Contact Us form at

https://covid19resources.ca/contact-us/

Content disclaimer

The main purpose of this website is to provide resources to support the Canadian response to the COVID-19 pandemic, through research, volunteer and community initiatives, it is not a resource for patients or potential patients. If you, or someone you know, are concerned about COVID 19, you can find relevant information on the Government of Canada public health website at

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/symptoms.html

or by calling the Government of Canada COVID-19 information line 1 833 784 4397. Provinces have also adopted official websites and phone numbers to provide assistance in this emergency period.

All information on this site is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute a legal contract, and cannot be incorporated in a legal contract, between COVID-19 Resources Canada and any person or entity unless otherwise specified. COVID-19 Resources Canada reserves the right to change, modify, add or remove content from the website (such as areas available to volunteer, features offered in the site, etc.) without prior notice at any time.

Disclaimer of warranties and liability

COVID19Resources.ca and all its content, as well as information included or accessible from its site are provided without any form of warranty or representation, including, but not limited to, warranty of suitability of the information found through this website for any particular purpose. The use of this site is at the user’s sole risk and neither COVID-19 Resources Canada nor its affiliated researchers or contributors shall be held responsible for any damages caused based on the use of this website or its content.

COVID-19 Resources Canada acknowledges no responsibility or liability for the suitability, conduct and actions of any of the organizations, volunteers (professional or from the community), or any other individual or entity referred to on the site. COVID-19 Resources Canada may not be held responsible for any injury and/or damage to persons or property resulting from the liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any content, suggestions, information, recommendations or external link contained on its site.

COVID-19 Resources Canada shall not be held responsible or liable in any way for any errors, mistakes or missing information in the content of the site. Neither COVID-19 Resources Canada, its affiliated researchers, nor any third-party contributor makes any warranty whatsoever that the operation of the site will be uninterrupted or error-free or that any problem with its use should be corrected; that this site, the server that makes it available and the links included are free of viruses, malwares, or other harmful components; that the accuracy, completeness, reliability, availability, suitability, quality, non-infringement or operation of any content or external link provided on or accessible from the site.

Link disclaimer

COVID19Resources.ca provides links to other Internet sites. COVID-19 Resources Canada is not responsible for the availability, content or policies of external sites, and does not endorse nor can it be held liable for any content, advertising, products or other materials on or available from such sites. COVID-19 Resources Canada is not responsible for any transaction any user may make through these websites. It is the responsibility of the user to review the privacy policies, terms and conditions, and licensing restrictions of these sites prior to using them.

Destruction of information or secondary use

As mentioned before, this information is collected to provide resources to support the Canadian response to the COVID-19 pandemic, through research, volunteer and community initiatives. Once the COVID-19 pandemic is over, we would like to use this information for other relevant Canadian science-related causes. If we do find a cause that we consider would benefit from the platform COVID-19 Resources Canada created, we will contact you in due time to ensure you consent to use your information for this cause.  Should you not consent to this, we will destroy any information we collected from you.

If you want to be removed from our databases, (right to be forgotten), send us an email.

Update of Personal Information

To change, modify or update any personal information that you have provided, please follow the process applicable to you as described in the FAQ section.

Safeguards and Access

We have security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information to protect your personal information.

Access to your personal information is restricted to authorized individuals within COVID-19 Resources Canada who have valid reasons to access to personal information and those stakeholders with whom we have reason to believe you would like to be put in contact with based on skill sets and desired contributions you expressed when you completed one of our webforms.