Last Updated April 15th, 2020

Innovation Island Technology Association (IITA) recognizes the importance of privacy and recognizes the sensitivity of personal and business information received by us in the course of our business practice.

The Basics: What you need to know

Collecting Information: We collect information to offer and deliver our products or services and do so with your consent or as otherwise authorized by law.

Disclosing or sharing information: We do not disclose personal or business information for purposes other than those for which it was collected, unless you have provided consent to do so or we are required by law to disclose the information.

Keeping your information safe: We have implemented critical measures to guard against unauthorized or unlawful access to personal information.

The Policy - Full Policy

At Innovation Island Technology Association (IITA), your privacy is of great importance to us. IITA is committed to the protection of the personal information of all clients, members, customers, prospects, partners, website visitors and other individuals whose personal information is entrusted to IITA. The following is the Innovation Island Technology Association’s online privacy policy, which governs how visitor information (your information) is gathered and used by Innovation Island Technology Association (IITA). Please take a few minutes to read this policy carefully. IITA provides its nonprofit services to businesses and consumers on Vancouver Island and does not market to businesses or individuals in the United States, European Economic Area or Internationally. Except as provided in this Privacy Policy, unless IITA previously agrees in writing, all information provided to IITA, including information exchanged through electronic communication, is neither privileged nor confidential.

Why we Collect your Information

In order to be able to give business consulting, coaching/mentoring/advice to our clients, we need access to all relevant facts and information that relate to our retainer and to the representation of our clients. This information may include personal or business information about our clients and about individuals other than our clients.

How we Collect Information

1. Directly from you (when you access and use the Platform and/or Services);
2. From our business partners and service providers;
3. From third party sources; and
4. Automatically from devices that you use to connect to our Platform and access our Services.

How we Use your Information

We will use information you affirmatively submit to IITA for the purpose for which it is submitted, such as to reply to your email, respond to your inquiry, submission/application to a program or service, register your participation in an event, respond to requests related to program participation, review applications to be a IITA client.

We collect and use personal or business information for the following specific purposes:  

• To establish and maintain a business relationship with you;  
• To verify your identity or contact you; 
• To process your application for an account, determine eligibility and suitability for certain products and services, and to provide on-going service;  
• To assess your needs and enhance IITA’s products and services;  
• To collect debts owed to IITA and enforce agreements between you and IITA; 
• To inform you about IITA’s products or services that may be of interest to you; 
• Services improvement and research.
• To meet legal and regulatory requirements.

We may also use such information to provide operational notices, in program record-keeping and to conduct research on industry marketplace practices. We may publish aggregate data, but the aggregate data will not include any user information you provided to us. We may contact individuals registering for events with information about other IITA events or, if relevant, membership or sponsorship opportunities. From time to time, under formalized agreements, we may use third party contractors to act on our behalf, and these contractors are obligated to not disclose or use your information for other purposes, as stated herein.

IITA relies on information collected from our users to develop new services and conduct analysis to enhance current content and services. Information collected from you may be used to review usage and operations of our site and address any resulting issues with our site.

Your consent can be withdrawn at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions, by providing us with written notice. Upon receipt of notice of withdrawal of consent, we will inform you of the likely consequences of withdrawing your consent before we process your request, which may include the inability of IITA to provide you with certain products or services. In addition, you can remove your name from a IITA mailing list by utilizing the appropriate unsubscribe feature contained in the emails or by emailing info@innovationisland.ca and being asked to be removed. 

Your Information that IITA May Collect Online

You can affirmatively submit to IITA certain user information pertaining to your interaction with IITA. User information may include a search query (such as the name and location of a business) or other information as described more fully below. You can also provide location information (so that you can search near you or in an area you specify), or billing or donation information. We also may infer your geographic location based on your IP address or other information. User information may also include information pertaining to a marketplace complaint, such as your name, postal and email address, phone and facsimile numbers, and description of the complaint or customer review. The IITA website is not designed with the purpose of attracting any person under age 13. IITA does not knowingly collect or maintain any personal information from children under the age of 13.

Sharing your Information

IITA takes all reasonable steps to protect the interest of our clients/members/partners/prospects when disclosing personal information. We do not disclose personal information for purposes other than those for which it was collected, unless you have provided consent to do so or we are required by law to disclose the information.

To whom we disclose your personal information

In accordance with this Policy, we may share your personal information in the following manner to fulfill the purposes identified in this Policy and for purposes related thereto, and to provide you with access to the Platform and our Services:

• if we have your consent;
• within our Company (including contractors of the Company);
• with third party services providers who help us provide certain aspects of our Platform and Services, including without limitation: providers who facilitate payment processing (e.g. PayPal);
• providers who assist in event organization and communication (e.g. Eventbrite and Mailchimp); and
• cloud service providers (e.g. Google Drive). 
• Each third party service provider has its own policies and terms of use and we encourage you to review such terms and policies;
  • • with our financial, insurance, legal, accounting or other advisors that provide professional services to us;
    • as necessary to complete any transactions while using our Platform;
    • to respond to a subpoena, order, legal process, or government request;
    • to protect, establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims;
    • to investigate, detect, suppress, prevent or take action regarding illegal or prohibited activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the reputation or physical safety of any person;
    • as otherwise required by law;

Keeping your Information Safe

We recognize our professional and legal obligations to protect the confidential information of our clients/members/partners/prospects/visitors. We recognize as well our legal obligations to protect the personal information we have gathered about our clients/members/partners and prospects.

IITA has implemented critical physical, organizational and technical measures to guard against unauthorized or unlawful access to the personal information we manage and store. We have also taken steps to avoid accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, your personal information. While no system is completely secure, the measures implemented by IITA significantly reduce the likelihood of a data security breach. Here are some examples of the security controls we have in place:  

• Secure office premises
• Locked filing cabinets and a secure shredding practice for paper records
• The use of encryption and robust authentication processes, including complex passwords, for electronic records 
• The use of data centers with effective physical and logical data security controls
• Staff that are keenly aware of their data protection and Privacy responsibilities.

Overall, we have made arrangements to secure against the unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification, disposal or destruction of personal information. We may store personal information outside of Canada (for example, online backup services) under the terms herein.

In addition, IITA uses third party vendors and hosting partners to provide the necessary hardware, software, networking, storage, and related technology required to run our website and related online services or systems. Although IITA owns or licenses these systems and databases, and all rights thereto, you retain all rights to your data.

Accessing your Information

We make every effort to ensure that the personal information we hold is accurate, complete and up-to-date for the purposes for which we collect it. At any time you can contact us to: stop receiving emails from us; review the personal information held by the IITA in connection with your account; withdraw your consent for our use and disclosure of your information; request a list of third parties to which the Company may have provided your personal information; you can make a written request for access to your personal information at any time, and also request that it be corrected if there are any inaccuracies. You can do so in writing to 13-327 Prideaux Street Nanaimo, BC V9R 2N4.

You will need to provide as much information as you can to help us process your request, such as dates, business information and any other details that can help us locate the information you require. We may charge a fee related to responding to your access request. Upon your request, 

IITA will also inform you of how your personal information has been or is being used, and who your personal information has been shared with. IITA responds to access requests within 30 days, unless an extension of time is required. However, there may be contexts where access is refused or only partial information is provided. You can always unsubscribe from receiving promotional emails from us by simply clicking the “unsubscribe” link provided in email newsletters or by emailing info@innovationisland.ca from us.

How Long We Keep Your Information

IITA retains personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill legal or business purposes and in accordance with our retention schedules. Once your information is no longer required to administer products or services and meet legal or regulatory requirements, it is securely destroyed, erased or made anonymous. Although we strive for limited retention of personal information, any information that is used to make a decision that affects you will be retained for at least one year, to provide you with an opportunity to access it. Also, keep in mind that residual information may remain in back-ups for a period of time after its destruction date.

Cookies and Other Persistent Identifiers

IITA or third parties we contract with may use persistent identifiers such as cookies, embedded scripts, web beacons, pixel tags, log files, or similar technologies to collect certain information about visitors to our site and interactions with our online and mobile sponsorship information or advertisements.

For example, we may automatically collect certain non-personal information from you, including but not limited to your browser type, device type, geographical location, operating system, unique device identifier of any of your computer(s) or device(s) that are used to access the site, software version, Internet Protocol ("IP") address, phone model, phone operating system, and the domain name from which you accessed the site. We also may collect information about your use of the site, including the date and time you visit the site, the areas or pages of the site that you visit, the amount of time you spend viewing or using the site, the number of times you return to the site, other click-stream or site usage data, emails that you open, forward or click-through to our site, advertising that you click on, and other sites that you may visit.

You can still use IITA's websites if you have set your browser to reject cookies or tracking identifiers, but it may prevent you from viewing or accessing some of the features of our sites. IITA websites do not track visitors from the European Economic Area.

Problems or Complaints with IITA Privacy Policy

IITA takes privacy complaints very seriously and has a procedure in place for escalating and managing any privacy related concerns to ensure that they are responded to in a timely and effective manner. Any suspected privacy breach must be escalated internally to our Privacy Officer who oversees the containment, investigation and corrective actions for the breach situation. If you have a complaint about IITA compliance with this privacy policy, you may contact us at info@innovationisland.ca

In the event that you are not satisfied with IITA’s resolution of a complaint or privacy breach, you may contact the B.C. Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Visit https://www.oipc.bc.ca/about/contact-us/

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time in order to better reflect our current personal information handling practices. Thus, we encourage you to review this document frequently. The “Last Updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy indicates when changes to this policy were published and are thus in force.