Introduction

The Site is hosted by Social PinPoint. (“Social PinPoint”, “us”, “we”, “our”) ) on behalf of The Regional Municipality of Waterloo (“Region”) , The Corporation of the City of Cambridge, The Corporation of the City of Kitchener and The Corporation of the City of Waterloo, (each a “City” and collectively “Cities”) Township of Wellesley, Township of Wilmot, Township of Woolwich (each a “Township” and collectively “Townships”).

Social PinPoint, the Region, the Cities and the Townships take your privacy as a user (“user”, “you”, “your”) of this Site very seriously. This Privacy Policy applies to the behaviour and treatment of your information by us, the Region, the Cities and the Townships.

This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and forms part of our Terms of Use (TOU), which outlines the terms and conditions you agree to when accessing and using the Site and the service. All capitalized terms used in this Privacy Policy and not otherwise defined herein have the meaning ascribed such terms in the TOU.

Consent

By using this Site, the service, or voluntarily providing personal information while using any feature of the Site or service, you consent to Social PinPoint, the Region and the Cities and the Townships collecting, using and disclosing your personal information as regulated by the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (“MFIPPA”), the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada) (“PIPEDA”), and other legislation as applicable in Canada and the Province of Ontario, as amended. You can find more information about your privacy rights on the websites of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (www.ipc.on.ca) and Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (www.priv.gc.ca ).

When you voluntarily provide us with personal information you consent to our collecting it and using it pursuant to this Privacy Policy.

If you decide to withdraw your consent to allow us to collect, use, disclose your personal information that we consider reasonable to fulfill the needs of our relationship and/or your use of the Site and the service, we may not be able to continue to provide you with the service offered through the Site.

By using the Site and services and/or providing us with Personal Information you agree that you are at least the age of majority in Ontario or if you are under 18 years old you agree that you have the consent of your parent/legal guardian. This Site and the services are not intended for children under the age of 13. If you are under the age of 13 years of age, then please do not use the Site or service.

By using our Site, you consent to this Privacy Policy.

What information do we collect?

Basic Identifying Information

We collect information from you when you register to use this Site. This information includes but is not limited to your:

  • Screen Name
  • Email Address

Demographic Information

Additional demographic information such as municipality of interest, categories of interest, postal code, gender, year of birth is optional and will be used to identify your engagement interests and to allow the municipalities to understand who they are and are not hearing from. Additional information may also be collected during individual engagement opportunities to enhance the value of the engagement responses.

User-Generated Information

We collect information that you put on the Site after you have signed up including but not limited to:

  • Comments in forums
  • Votes on other comments in forums
  • Responses to surveys and quick polls

User-Behaviour Information

We collect information about your behaviour on the site including but not limited to:

  • Documents downloaded from the library
  • Videos viewed
  • Pages views

Note that you can browse the Site anonymously without signing up.

Why do we collect this information?

To Collect and Collate your Feedback to Inform Decision-Making

We collect this information for our public consultation program to help inform decision-making. The information is used by the Region, the Cities and the Townships for analysis and interpretation, including the use of Social PinPoint’s Analysis Assistant to automate the analysis of qualitative, open-ended feedback using advance Natural Language Processing technology. Your comments may at any time and without restriction, be edited, copied, compiled, used, distributed, translated, published and repackaged by the Region and the Cities in any forum or medium (e.g. council reports, webcast, published on websites etc.). Your comments may be irrevocable once you publish them. The Region and the Cities may also use all the information about yourself or other matters and information derived or generated from Site in any medium, including without limitation the right to search the information consistent with this Privacy Policy.

To Send You Periodic Emails

The email address you provide for registering on the Site may be used by Social PinPoint, the Region and/or your pre-selected City or Township to send you emails providing you with information about consultations which you have participated, information and updates pertaining to the Region or your pre-selected City of interest and topics you have already shown an interest in through past engagement opportunities and/or new engagement opportunities, and information about third-party websites in which you might be interested in based on your past Site activities and when you subscribe to a specific topic

Your consent to receive these emails does not affect your ability to unsubscribe from receiving future emails by activating the unsubscribe link at the bottom of each email.

To Protect the Integrity of the Discussion

By monitoring the information that you provide we are able to protect the integrity of the discussion from other users who may attempt to unduly influence the outcomes of the consultation process.

Who has access to this information?

When you register for a user account you provide four types of information:

  • Publicly available information;
  • Information available to Social PinPoint, the Region and Cities;
  • Information available to both Social PinPoint and the specific Region and/or City and/ or Township in which you engaged with (i.e. the City whose topic you responded to);

Publicly Available Information:

Publicly available information is limited to your screen name and any comments you leave under that name in the forums or other tools on the Site.

Note: We strongly recommend use of an anonymous screen name. However, if you choose to identify yourself through your screen name or otherwise then your name will be publicly visible. Based on the nature of your comments and/or information provided to the Site, your identity may be apparent to other users. Your screen name may be edited by you at any time through the edit profile function on the Site.

Depending on the engagement tool, your responses may be publicly visible.For example, survey responses are not visible, but comments and questions on forums or in the question and answer tool are publicly visible.Feedback (including overall results of polls and surveys, and in some instances, unidentifiable and randomly chosen quotes or comments from surveys) may be published in publicly available reports at the end of the consultation period, you would not be identifiable in these cases.

Please also keep in mind, however, that under MFIPPA formal submissions uploaded to this Site may be made available for public viewing by the Region and/or the Cities and/or Townships at its own volition or at the request of a member of the public.

Information available to Social PinPoint, the Region, the Cities and the Townships includes:

  • Publicly available information;
  • All information from the Registration form.
  • Comments;
  • Survey, Quick Poll, and comment voting responses;
  • General site activity such as document downloads.

Third Party Links

Occasionally, the Region and/or a City and/ or a Township may include links to third-party sites that are independently owned and operated by other entities which are not associated or affiliated with the applicable Region, City or Township. You understand and agree that the Site’s Privacy Policy is applicable only while using this Site. When you click on third-party links on our Site, the links may direct you away from our Site. These third-party linked sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. If you decide to access third party linked sites you do so at your own risk.


Terms of Use

Please also visit our TOU section establishing the use, disclaimers, and limitations of liability governing the use of our Site.

Access and update to Personal Information

We support your right to access your personal information that we have collected. To make a request for access to your personal information that we have on file, please contact us at the contact information as set out below. Please note that your right to complete access cannot be guaranteed due to certain legal restrictions to your right to access. For example, you will not have access to files that contain personal information about other users or our confidential information. If you are denied access, we will notify you of the reason and any recourse available to you.

We will keep your personal information as complete, accurate and up to date as necessary. To amend or update your personal information to ensure its completeness and accuracy, please contact us at the contact information set out below. If there is a discrepancy or disagreement about the accuracy of your personal information this will be noted on your file. Notwithstanding anything in this Privacy Policy, if your personal information is provided as part of your comment, then it may not be possible to retract it if it is re-published.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to update, change or replace any part of this Privacy Policy without further notice or liability. If we do this, we will post the changes to this Privacy Policy on the Site and will indicate at the bottom of this Privacy Policy the date this Privacy Policy was last revised. It is your responsibility to check our Site periodically for changes. Your continued use of or access to our Site or the Service following the posting of any changes to this Privacy Policy constitutes acceptance of those changes. Notwithstanding the above, we will not change the use of your personal information unless you consent to such change in use.

Who do I contact for more information?

Personal information collected for the Region, the Cities and the Townships is collected pursuant to section 11 of the Municipal Act, 2001, S.O. 2001, c. 25, as amended, for the public consultation program in accordance with the requirements of MFIPPA and may be used by the Region, the Cities and the Townships in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Questions about this collection, use, disclosure, and storage of personal information, or notice of collection can be directed to the following applicable municipality:

  • The Regional Municipality of Waterloo: PDLCASFOI@regionofwaterloo.ca, 519-575-4400, or (TTY) 519-575-4608, or to the Regional Clerk’s Office, 2nd Floor, 150 Frederick Street, Kitchener, ON N2G 4J3.
  • The Corporation of the City of Cambridge: 519-740-4680, or to the Clerk’s Office, Cambridge City Hall, 50 Dickson St., Cambridge ON N1R 5W8.
  • The Corporation of the City of Kitchener: communications@kitchener.ca, 519-741-2200 ext. 7221, or (TTY) 1-866-969-9994, or to Corporate Communications & Marketing, 2nd Floor, 200 King St W, Kitchener, ON N2G 4G7.
  • The Corporation of the City of Waterloo: clerks@waterloo.ca, 519-886-1550 or (TTY) 1-866-786-3941 or to City Clerk, Waterloo City Centre, 100 Regina St. S., P.O. Box 337, Station Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2J 4A8.
  • Township of Wilmot: clerks@wilmot.ca, 519-634-8444, or to the Clerk’s Office, 60 Snyder’s Road West, Baden, ON N3A 1A1.
  • The Corporation of the Township of Woolwich: clerk@woolwich.ca, 519-669-1647 or (TTY) 1-877-969-0094, or to the Clerk’s Office, 24 Church Street West, Elmira, ON N3B 2Z6.
  • The Township of Wellesley: Municipal Clerk - gkosch@wellesley.ca, 519-699-3946, or to the Clerk’s Office, 4639 Lobsinger Line, St. Clements, ON N0B 2M0

For information about how Social Pinpoint will use your data, please visit their privacy policy.