By submitting personal information to the Access Pro Bono Society of BC (APB), you agree that we may collect, use and disclose such personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and as permitted or required by law.
Consent
Subject to legal and contractual requirements, you may refuse or withdraw your consent to certain of the identified purposes at any time by contacting the APB Privacy Officer. If you refuse or withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide you or continue to provide you with certain services or information which may be of value to you. If you provide APB with personal information of another individual, you represent that you have all necessary authority and/or have obtained all necessary consents from such person to enable us to collect, use and disclose such personal information for the purposes set forth in this Privacy Policy.
What Personal Information do we collect?
Canadian privacy legislation defines “Personal Information” broadly as information about an identifiable individual or as information that allows an individual to be identified. For the purposes of this policy, Personal Information means information about an identifiable individual as defined from time to time in applicable privacy legislation. Generally speaking, Personal Information does not include what is considered business contact information: your name, title or position, business address, telephone number, facsimile number, or e-mail address. The types of Personal Information that APB may collect about you includes your name, business address, telephone number, personal email address, information about a client’s legal issue and other information incidental to providing pro bono legal services (including Personal Information about witnesses, family members, beneficiaries, directors, officers, employers, adverse parties, parties-in-interest, investigators, decision makers, experts, other professional advisors).
Why do we collect your Personal Information?
In general, APB collects, uses and discloses Personal Information about its registrants in order to provide our clients with professional legal services. More specifically, we collect, use and disclose your Personal Information for the following purposes:
- to establish and manage volunteer relationships, provide pro bono legal advice, perform pro bono legal services, fulfill legal duties, and avoid conflicts of interest;
- to share Personal Information to and from third parties for the purpose of providing pro bono legal services;
- to distribute our quarterly newsletter and other material to individuals on our mail and e-mail lists;
- to detect and protect APB against error, negligence, breach of contract, fraud, theft and other illegal activity, and to audit compliance with APB policies and contractual obligations;
- as permitted by, and to comply with, any legal or regulatory requirements or provisions; and
- for any other purpose to which you consent.
To whom do we disclose your Personal Information?
From time to time, APB may disclose your Personal Information to:
- our Program Coordinators and other service providers retained by APB to perform functions on its behalf;
- any third party or parties, where you consent to such disclosure or where disclosure is required or permitted by law.
Where do we store your Personal Information?
Your Personal Information is stored in secured locations and on servers controlled by APB.
How may you obtain access to your Personal Information?
Upon your written request, subject to certain exceptions, APB will inform you of the existence, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information and will give you access to that information. Access requests should be sent in writing to our Privacy Officer, using the contact information below.
How do we protect your Personal Information?
To help protect the confidentiality of your Personal Information, APB employs administrative and technological safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of your Personal Information. Where Personal Information is sent to a third party for processing, we ensure, through our contracts with them, that all Personal Information is kept secure. We operate secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems.
Privacy and our Website
Cookies - When an individual visitor accesses the www.accessprobono.ca website, we may use a browser feature called a ‘cookie’ to collect information such as the type of Internet browser and operating system the visitor uses, the domain name of the website from which the visitor came, date and duration of the visit, number of visits, average time spent on our website, pages viewed and number of cookies accumulated. A cookie is a small text file containing a unique identification number that identifies the visitor’s browser, but not necessarily the visitor, to our computers each time our website is visited. Unless a visitor specifically informs us (e.g. by registering for an event or sending us correspondence from the website), we will not know who the individual visitors are. In addition to the identified purposes described in our Privacy Policy, we may use this website information and share it with other organizations to measure the use of our website, to improve the functionality and content of the website and to facilitate usage by a visitor. Visitors can reset their browsers either to notify them when they have received a cookie or refuse to accept cookies. However, if a visitor refuses to accept cookies, he or she may not be able to use some of the features available on our website.
E-Mail Communications - Occasionally, we may send informational or promotional e-mail communications to you with information that may be useful, including information about pro bono opportunities with APB and third parties. We will include instructions on how to unsubscribe and inform us of preferences if you decide you do not want to receive any future informational or promotional e-mails from APB.
Links - Our website may contain links to other websites which are provided as a convenience only. Visitors are advised that other third party websites may have different privacy policies and practices than APB, and APB has no responsibility for such third party websites.
Changes to the Privacy Policy
APB reserves the right to modify or supplement this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make a change to this Privacy Policy, we will post such changes on our website and make such revised policy and changes available upon request to the APB Privacy Officer. However, APB will obtain the necessary consents required under applicable privacy laws if it seeks to collect, use or disclose your Personal Information for purposes other than those to which consent has been obtained unless otherwise required or permitted by law.
Further Information
APB has appointed Jimmy Yan as Privacy Officer to oversee compliance with this Privacy Policy and applicable privacy laws. For information on APB’s privacy practices, please contact the APB office at:
Access Pro Bono Society of British Columbia
300 – 845 Cambie Street
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6B 4Z9
Business Line: 604.482.3195
Fax Line: 604.893.8934
E-mail: privacy[at]accessprobono.ca