ONLINE PRIVACY POLICY

  • Our Commitment to Privacy

We Love White Rock (“WLWR”) is a banner electoral campaign for two independent candidates, Darryl Walker, and Stephen Crozier. This campaign values the support and trust of our supporters and recognizes that maintaining this requires that we be open and accountable for how we treat personal information.

As a continuing quest to build a better City of White Rock, we gather and use personal information through our website www.welovewhiterock.ca. We fully comply with the requirements of applicable laws of British Columbia. Below is our privacy policy which provides information about why and how we collect and use personal information in accordance with our obligations under BC’s Personal Information Protection Act (“PIPA”): 

  • Personal Information

Personal information means information about an identifiable individual, such as an individual’s name, address, personal email or phone number, political affiliation and volunteer and donor history.

  • Why do we collect and use personal information?

The WLWR collects and uses personal information for use in our electoral campaigns and associated activities. Unless the purposes for collecting personal information are obvious, we will communicate the purposes for which personal information is collected, either orally, electronically or in writing, before or at the time of collection. We will only collect individual or member information that is necessary to fulfilling the following purposes:

  • To create and maintain a list of individuals to contact as is necessary
  • To employ and manage staff
  • To conduct the WLWR’s financial and administrative affairs
  • To promote the WLWR, its affiliate and member organizations, and its candidates to the public
  • To engage in public outreach and communications activities, including maintaining a web and social media presence
  • To identify member and individual preferences, including to improve our communications with you
  • To contact individuals and members to ask for their support for the WLWR’s campaigns, including support through donations, volunteering and taking a lawn sign
  • To manage donations and promote and support fundraising efforts
  • To meet legal or regulatory requirements
  • To conduct electoral campaigns and associated activities
  • To make decisions about current and future campaigns, including voter contact activities, campaign messaging, policies, and platforms
  • To maintain a list of voters
  • To maintain a list of volunteers
  • To conduct or commission polling, focus groups, surveys and other information-gathering activities related to the electoral process
  • To occasionally exchange direct mail donor lists with like-minded not-for-profit organizations to help reach new supporters 
  • Limits on collection, use, and disclosure

WLWR will always tell you why we are collecting personal information and seek your consent when we are collecting it if it is not obvious from the circumstances. We collect and use personal information only for the purposes identified at the time the information is collected or for a purpose related to the purposes identified in our privacy policy. 

  • Consent

Individuals may withdraw consent to the collection, use or disclosure of their personal information at any time upon giving reasonable written notice, unless PIPA or any other BC law permits collection, use or disclosure without consent. Upon receiving written notice, the WLWR will inform you of the consequences of withdrawing your consent.

 

Individuals cannot withdraw consent where this would frustrate the performance of a legal obligation. Therefore, whenever you make a contribution, we are required by election laws of BC to disclose your personal information to Election BC, regardless of the contribution amount.

  • How do we collect personal information?

We mostly collect personal information directly from you when you voluntarily provide this information, such as when you:

  • join us via our website;
  • contact us with inquiries;
  • sign up to receive our newsletters, including emails;
  • take action online (including responding to one of our surveys; signing an online petition, letter, entering a contest etc.;
  • sign up to take a lawn sign or volunteer;
  • apply to work or volunteer with us;
  • RSVP for an event;
  • Contribute or donate; or
  • interact with our canvassers via your phone or in-person.

We also collect and analyze other information about voters and the areas in which they live, including the Elections BC voters list and voter turnout data, and publicly available information such as census data, demographic data based on postal code, and telephone books.

  • How do we use personal information?

We analyze and use the personal information we collect in a variety of ways to:

  • canvass your political support and voting intentions; 
  • communicate with you about our policies, campaigns, events, and opportunities to get involved;
  • understand what issues are most likely to be relevant to each voter and each electoral area;
  • inform the timing, content, and audience for our campaign efforts, including in relation to canvassing, campaign materials and messaging;
  • inform the messages and content we send to you or show you on social media;
  • inform our policies, platforms, and messaging for the future;
  • estimate how you might vote in elections and referendums, including how likely you are to vote at all;
  • estimate how you might respond to requests for support or to campaign messaging;
  • ensure that your donations comply with the BC Elections Act; and
  • manage our governance and internal affairs and membership database.
  • We Love White Rock Website

While visiting www.WeLoveWhiteRock.ca, you do not have to identify yourself or provide personal information, except when you provide such information on a voluntary basis. When you contact us through our website, including when you subscribe to our email newsletters, RSVP to an event, or sign up to volunteer, we may ask you for your contact information and about your interests so that we can better communicate with you. This includes communicating with you about campaigns, nearby events, and other ways to get involved with the election campaign of candidates.

  • Safeguard of Personal Information

Our web site and our servers have technological and operational security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, alteration, or unintentional destruction of the information under our control.

  • Cookies 

During your use of the Internet, you will learn of the common use of “cookies”. These are files or pieces of information that may be stored in your computer’s hard drive when you visit a web site. Cookies are primarily used to enhance your online experience and are not used to track the navigational habits of identified visitors beyond this site. Most internet browsers are initially set to accept cookies. If you do not wish to accept cookies, you can set your browser to refuse cookies or to alert you when cookies are being set. However, please be aware that this may impair or limit your ability to use our website.

  • Third Party services 

We may also use third party analytics services to provide reports on website traffic so that we can better serve your online needs. These services may include the use of data from Google’s third-party audience data (such as age, gender, location, and interests) with Google Analytics. No personal information is shared by the WLWR with Google or any third-party providers. We may also use embedded images in emails to track open rates and other ways in which you interact with our emails so that we can tell which email campaigns appeal more to our supporters.

You may opt-out of Google Analytics cookies by visiting Google’s opt-out page:
https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Sometimes we use third party providers to host petitions or to conduct surveys. We ensure that these third-party providers are compliant with all applicable privacy laws and that personal information you provide is used only by and for the WLWR.

  • Contributions (including Donations)

When you make a contribution (including donations), we ask you for information to confirm that you are an eligible contributor in accordance with our obligations under the BC Elections Act. Whenever you make a contribution, we are required by election law of BC to disclose your personal information to Election BC, regardless of the contribution amount. We do not share information related to your donations with any other third party.

When you contribute online, the WLWR engages reputable and reliable firms using state-of-the-art security protocols to protect sensitive data, such as personal information and credit card numbers. The privacy of this data is ensured with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) 128-bit encryption. Security features are constantly being enhanced to stay ahead of any potential issues.

  • Security of Financial information

When you contribute by telephone, by mail, or by filling out our donation envelopes or forms in-person, your personal information is entered into our secure database and then any related paper records are securely shredded. Your credit card information is transported via securely encrypted channels to a third-party payment processor. The WLWR does not retain credit card information after the completion of a transaction, unless you have signed up for a monthly pre-authorized contribution, in which case only the last four digits of your credit card are retained for future payment verification purposes.

We store other information related to your donations in secure databases with technological and operational security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, alteration, or unintentional destruction of the information under our control.

  • Volunteers

WLWR invites individuals to show their interest in volunteering by filling out online forms. Contact information will be retained for the purposes of contacting you regarding current as well as future opportunities to support WLWR campaigns unless you specifically ask us not to contact you about these. Individuals filling out the volunteer form may also be contacted about events, announcements, and other ways to get involved with and support the WLWR.

  • Request an election sign

Individuals can request election signs online. Contact information is retained for the purposes of delivering your sign, and individuals using this feature may be contacted about future opportunities, events, and announcements.

  • Events

WLWR encourages individuals to provide contact information and share specific content as part of occasional events. Contact information of participants will be retained for the purposes of contacting you regarding the event and may be used to inform you of future events and other opportunities. This information will not be shared or exchanged. Specific content sent to the WLWR as part of the event will be retained and used by the WLWR as it sees fit, as submission of content is deemed to constitute permission for use.

Social media

  • Other Social Media sites

Through our website, you can choose to access certain social media sites and services that are owned and controlled by third parties (e.g., Facebook and Twitter). When you choose to access and use these social media sites, you will be sharing your information with those sites. As with other third-party sites, any personal information you share with social media sites will be governed by the privacy policies of those sites, rather than ours.

While the WLWR tracks metrics related to how often a social media post is liked or shared, at no time do we collect the personal information of individuals who are liking or sharing our posts.

Online advertising

We may use your email address to participate in Facebook’s Custom Audience and Lookalike Audience programs, which enable us to display campaign messages to both existing and prospective supporters on Facebook.

To do this, we first send a digital “fingerprint” of your contact information to Facebook — we do not send your actual contact information, but instead a cryptographic piece of data that Facebook can use to find matches to contact information in their database. If you are not a Facebook user, or if the contact information you have given to us for the purpose of communicating with you is different than the information you use on Facebook, then there will be no match, and Facebook will not receive any information that they could use to identify you or target you in any way. If you are a Facebook user and the contact information you have given us is the same as the Facebook contact information, then our campaign messages may then appear when you access Facebook.

Facebook deletes this information (a) if it does not match with a Facebook account or (b) after they confirm you are a registered account holder. For more detailed information about how Facebook uses digital fingerprints — also known as a cryptographic hash — please see:

https://www.facebook.com/business/help/112061095610075

Facebook’s full data policy is here:

https://en-gb.facebook.com/policy.php

  • Email and Mobile numbers

The WLWR may ask for your email and mobile number when you sign up to receive communications from us. This information is always optional and is collected so that we may contact you in the future using emails and text messages. To unsubscribe, reply “STOP” to any emails or text message you receive.

  • Canvassing

We canvass voters over the phone, via text message and on the doorstep as part of our campaigns. Our canvassers may ask you questions about your political support, your voting intentions, your interests and your thoughts about our policies, platform, and other campaign issues. You do not have to identify yourself or provide personal information in response.

However, if you voluntarily provide information, we may use this to communicate with you about our campaigns, including future opportunities to show your support by taking a lawn sign, volunteering, or donating. We may also use this information to manage our communications with you in the future and to estimate your likelihood of supporting our campaigns.

The personal information that you voluntarily provide is entered into our secure databases. Any related paper records, such as canvass sheets, are carefully tracked and securely shredded once entered the database. We secure our databases with technological and operational security measures to protect against the loss, misuse, alteration, or unintentional destruction of the information under our control.

  • Internal research and profiling

We may carry out research and analysis on information provided by www.WeLoveWhiteRock.ca visitors and other supporters to gauge the effectiveness of our approach and campaigns and to help us provide you with a better experience (for example so that you receive communications about the campaigns that you are mostly likely to be interested in). We may evaluate, categorize, and profile your personal information to tailor communications to your preferences and/or needs and to help us to understand our base of supporters. For example, we may keep track of the amount, frequency, and value of your donations, and may use automated systems to target and send emails. This information helps us to ensure our communications are relevant, timely and effective.

  • Aggregated personal data

In our continuing quest to build a better British Columbia, raise funds and build a powerful base of support, we strive to understand www.WeLoveWhiteRock.ca visitors and other supporters better and to gauge the effectiveness of our campaigns. To do so, we may conduct research on visitor/supporter demographics and interests based on personal information and other information provided to us. This research may be compiled and analyzed on an aggregate basis. Aggregated data may be derived from your personal information but is not considered personal information as this data does not directly or indirectly identify you. For example, we may aggregate data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific www.WeLoveWhiteRock.ca feature. However, if we combine or connect aggregated data with your personal information so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal information which will be used in accordance with our privacy policies.

  • How long we retain personal information

The WLWR will retains personal information in accordance with the requirements of PIPA for as long as necessary to fulfil the identified purposes or if required for a legal or business purpose. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of the personal information, the purposes for which we use your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Different purposes will have different retention periods. Individuals can request further information regarding retention periods for various aspects of their personal information by contacting the WLWR Privacy Officer.

  • How can I unsubscribe?

You can unsubscribe from our emails at any time by clicking the unsubscribe included in the bottom of every email we send. 

You can unsubscribe from our text messages at any time by replying “STOP” to any text you receive. 

You can unsubscribe from our telephone calls by telling the caller that you do not want to be contacted by telephone anymore.

You can also contact us through our website or by contacting our privacy team.

  • How individuals can access information, complain, or ask questions 

The WLWR’s designated Privacy Officer or their delegate is responsible for ensuring compliance with this policy and PIPA.

Individuals and members have the right to access their personal information under the control of the WLWR, subject to limited exceptions. WLWR will make a reasonable effort to assist and to respond to each applicant as accurately and completely as reasonably possible.

A request for access to personal information must be made in writing and must provide sufficient detail to identify the personal information being sought. The WLWR may require individuals to prove their identity before giving them access to their personal information.

Upon request, the WLWR will also provide individuals with information about the ways in which their personal information is or has been used, and, if applicable, to whom it has been disclosed.

PIPA allows the WLWR to charge a “minimal” fee for providing an individual with access to their personal information. While the WLWR will avoid charging a fee, depending on the scope of the access request, a fee may be required, in which case, we will provide the individual with a written fee estimate in advance and may require a deposit or pre-payment before releasing the information.

The WLWR will provide the requested personal information within 30 business days after it is requested, or we will give the individual written notice if we need more time to respond.

In some cases, the WLWR may not give an individual access to certain personal information where authorized or required by PIPA to refuse access. The WLWR will not disclose information that would reveal personal information about another individual or confidential business information that, if disclosed, could harm the competitive position of the organization.

If a request is refused in whole or in part, WLWR will tell the applicant in writing, providing reasons for the refusal and outlining further steps that are available to the applicant (including any internal review by the WLWR in the case of members and the right to ask the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia to review the decision).

The WLWR privacy team can be contacted at:

Mailing address:  1228 Maple St, White Rock BC. V4B 4M7
Email:  team@welovewhiterock.ca
Phone: 236-547-7420

 

This policy may be amended at any time without notice other than the posting of such amendments on this site.