Privacy Policy

1. Scope of the Policy

1.1. Our sites

Équiterre manages the following Web sites and platforms (the "Sites"):

• equiterre.org

• communassiette.org

• epluchetaville.org

• futurspossibles.org

• lamarmiteeducative.ca

• pareilpaspareil.com

• roulonselectrique.ca

• vireauvert.org

1.2. Your consent

When you browse any of our Sites or otherwise provide us with personal information (for example, over the telephone), we will assume that you (1) agree to the terms of this Policy and (2) consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your information in accordance with it.

1.3. Policy updates

We reserve the right to update this Policy, for example, to adapt it to new laws or regulations or to provide you with information about new Sites. Therefore, we encourage you to periodically review this Policy.

If you continue to browse any of our Sites or otherwise provide us with personal information, we will assume that you agree to these updates. If you object to these updates, you must stop using our Sites.

The updates are summarized in the section entitled "Description of modifications to the Policy".

2. Data collected

2.1. Data collected automatically

When you visit any of our Sites, your computer and our servers automatically exchange data, including: 

• Your IP address (the digital address that accurately situates a computer that is connected to the Internet, for example: 123.45.67.890);

• The type of browser (e.g.: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox or Safari) and operating system (e. g.: Windows, macOS or Linux) you are using;

• The pages you visit;

• The date and time you access those pages;

• The address of the referring site, if you access our Sites from another website.

These automatically transmitted data do not allow us to identify you. They are collected because of technological requirements related to use of the Internet (so that our servers can send you a file that is compatible with the electronic equipment you are using), and for statistical purposes. The data are used to track the number of visits and the most frequently accessed pages, the technology used by visitors, the addresses of referring sites and the visitor's country of origin.

2.2. Data not collected automatically

We may also collect data if you complete certain tasks on our Sites, including when you:

• Create a user account;

• Save personal information to your account;

• Fill out a form;

• Take part in a survey, petition, contest or promotion;

• Subscribe to a newsletter;

• Make a donation or complete a transaction;

• Request information or a service.

We may also collect these data when you contact us in person (for example, when you sign a petition on the street or when you visit a booth or enter a contest), by phone or by e-mail.

Below is a list of the data we collect:

• On equiterre.org, we collect the following personal information:
  • when you subscribe to our newsletter:

    • E-mail address; 

  • when you sign a petition or when you submit, on your own behalf, an opinion or statement prepared in advance by Équiterre to an organization (such as a media outlet or political party) or a public figure (such as an elected official):

    • First and last names;

    • E-mail address;

    • Telephone number;

    • Postal code;

  • when you join the Vélovolt project:

    • First and last names;

    • Employer;

    • E-mail address;

    • Photograph;

    • We also collect a variety of information from the participating organizations, such as the name and business contact information of the person coordinating the project at each organization;

• On communassiette.org, we collect the following personal information when you register:

  • First and last names;

  • Title;

  • Employer;

  • Phone number;

  • E-mail address;

• On epluchetaville.org, we collect the following personal information when you sign up for our newsletter:

  • E-mail address;

• On lamarmiteeducative.ca, we collect the following personal information:
  • when you create a user profile:

    • First and last names;

    • E-mail address;

  • when you sign up for our newsletter:

    • E-mail address; 

• On roulonselectrique.ca, we collect the following personal information:
  • when you register:

    • First and last names;

    • Mailing address;

    • E-mail address;

    • Phone number;

    • Preferred language of communication;

    • Name of your auto insurance carrier (for certain events only).

  • when you answer the post-event survey:

    • Age and date of birth (by age bracket);

    • Gender, sex;

    • Household income (by income bracket);

    • Level of education;

• On vireauvert.org, we collect the following information when you sign a petition or when you submit, on your own behalf, an opinion or statement prepared in advance by vireauvert.org to an organization (such as a media outlet or political party) or a public figure (such as an elected official):

  • First and last names;

  • E-mail address;

  • Telephone number;

  • Postal code;

• We do not collect any personal information on pareilpaspareil.com or futurspossibles.org.

2.3. Use of third parties

With your consent, some of our partners may choose to share with us the personal information you provide to them. This allows us to keep in touch with you when you participate in one of our partners' projects. Your consent takes the form of a checkbox along with wording similar to the following:

"I agree to receive additional information from Équiterre. I authorize [Partner] to share my contact information. I may unsubscribe from this list at any time. [Instructions for obtaining more information and/or to unsubscribe]."

We may also use other third parties to collect data about you. These third parties may include, but may not be limited to, (1) software tools that we use to create forms (such as registration forms, surveys and petitions) or host webinars, (2) ticket vendors handling registrations for our events, and (3) marketing tools (such as those provided by Canada Post). Such third parties will process your personal information according to their respective policies.

Équiterre does not purchase contact lists from third parties.

2.4. Use of cookies

We use cookies to help make it easier to browse our Sites. You can set your browser to block cookies at any time, but doing so may prevent you from using some of the features offered on our Sites.

If you are using a computer in a public place or sharing one with other users, be sure to clear your browsing history before ending each session.

2.5. Use of Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics, a Web analytics service.

Google Analytics collects information on your use of our website using cookies, which are stored on servers situated primarily in the United States. Google may pass this information on to third parties if it is required to do so by law or if those third parties process the data on its behalf.

The information collected by the service includes, for example, the pages you view, the date, time, duration and frequency of your visits, and the links you clicked on. The type and language of your computer's operating system, the name of your Internet service provider and your geographic location (region) are also collected. Your IP address is also collected, but it is anonymized (truncated) to ensure the privacy of your information. Anonymizing an IP address prevents the identity of an Internet user from being learned from it.

Google only uses the information collected to produce statistics and reports on the traffic to our Sites, and this allows us to improve our services.

If you wish, you can prevent Google from saving information about your visit by installing the free Google Analytics Opt-out browser add-on on your computer.

3. Use of collected data 

3.1. General

The information we collect is necessary for us to carry out our mission. In particular, we use it to:

• Maintain a record of topics of interest to you;

• Communicate relevant news, promotions, and updates to you (by phone, mail, or e-mail);

• Process membership applications;

• Process online transactions or donations;

• Provide invoices and receipts;

• Provide you with services, if requested;

• Conduct quantitative and qualitative research and studies;

• Improve our Sites, our services and your experience;  

• Provide certain information to business partners;

• For regulatory compliance purposes.

When you give us your contact information for a specific purpose, we may use it to communicate with you about other aspects of our work. For example, if you sign a petition, we may contact you by e-mail or telephone to invite you to support our work through a donation. 

We fully respect your right to control your personal information. Please contact us immediately if you wish us to stop using your information for any purpose whatsoever. To do this, please refer to the section entitled "Your Rights." We will comply with your request as soon as possible.

Note - We may not be able to provide you with certain services without specific personal information. For example, we would not be able to provide you with a tax receipt if we do not have your postal address or send you our newsletter if we do not have your e-mail address.

3.2. A word about e-mails

Équiterre complies with the requirements of Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

We will only contact you if you wish to be contacted. If you have not subscribed to any of our newsletters, you should not receive any communication from us. If you wish to unsubscribe from a newsletter, simply click on the link provided. The link is usually located at the end of the newsletter. 

If you continue to receive newsletters from us after having unsubscribed, please let us know by getting in touch with the contact person listed in the section entitled "Your Rights."

You may, however, continue to receive communications from us in the following circumstances:

• You are a Member and we need to contact you about the Annual General Meeting;

• You are a donor and we need to contact you about your donation or send you a tax receipt;

• You have registered for an event (for example, a webinar or a booth) and we need to contact you to organize it, make sure it runs smoothly, or find out if you are satisfied;

• You have purchased a service or product and we need to send you an invoice or hear about your level of satisfaction;

• You have entered a contest or signed a petition and we need to contact you to announce the results.

3.3. A word about fundraising

We would not be able to carry out our mission without the support of our many generous donors. This support not only ensures our financial sustainability, but also our valuable independence. As a registered charity in Canada, we are permitted by regulation to contact you for fundraising purposes. We may contact you by e-mail, with or without your explicit consent (opt-in), or by telephone, whether or not you are registered on the CRTC's National Do-Not-Call List.

You may opt out of these communications at any time by contacting the contact person identified in the "Your Rights" section. We will comply with your request as soon as possible.

3.4. Aggregated data

In certain cases, we will combine your information with that of others in order to monitor our projects. For example, we might track the number of individuals who have made a donation or signed a petition, based on their postal code. This allows us to know where our supporters are active, and communicate accordingly. For example, we might report that “1,993 people participated in the ABC campaign in Montréal,” but we would never post your personal information.

3.5. Transferring data abroad

We arrange with third parties to store the personal information we collect. These third parties' servers may be located in the United States. By using our Sites, you authorize us to store your personal information in the United States. Please see the following section to learn about the security measures that are in place.

4. Protection of collected data

4.1. Our security measures

We take the necessary precautions to ensure that your personal information is adequately protected against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, reproduction, disclosure, use or modification, taking into account such factors as the sensitivity of the information and the purposes for which it is to be used while in our possession.

To ensure the security of your personal information we use a number of physical, administrative and technical measures, including:

• Secure access to premises;

• Access approval and authorization logs;

• Secure access to servers and computers;

• Firewalls;

• Encryption;

• Regular updates to security safeguards.

All employees who have access to personal information are required to sign confidentiality agreements and are trained in this matter.

We ensure that the third parties we work with comply with security best practices, including ISO/IEC 27001 (information security), 27017 (security controls for cloud services), and 27018 (protection of personally identifiable information in public clouds), as well as SOC 2 and 3 (security, confidentiality, integrity and availability controls) audits.

4.2. Protection of financial information

Certain financial information will be requested if you make a payment or donation by credit card. This information is processed by a third party through a secure PCI compliance gateway in order to complete the credit card payment. Équiterre does not store your banking information in digital format.

4.3. Security measures for which you are responsible

As a user of our Sites, you also have a responsibility to ensure that your personal information remains secure. Among other things, you should protect the security of the computer and the network you use when transmitting your personal information to us, and ensure that you use unique and confidential passwords.

External Links - Our Sites contain links to other resources on external sites that are operated by third parties. This Policy does not govern those external sites. We have no control over their privacy policies and practices. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of each Web site you visit.

5. Disclosure of collected data

5.1. Employees 

We may disclose to any employee of Équiterre such personal information as is reasonably necessary to achieve the objectives set out in this policy.

5.2. Partners

Provided you consent, we will share the personal information you provide to us with some of our partners. This will allow them to keep in touch with you when you are taking part in a joint project (*). Your consent will be in the form of a check box with accompanying text similar to the following:

"I hereby consent to receive additional information from [Partner]. I authorize Équiterre to communicate the information required to contact me. I may unsubscribe from this list at any time. [Instructions for obtaining more information and/or to unsubscribe]."

(*) For example, we may jointly organize and promote an event or petition.

5.3. Third parties

We may share certain information with the third parties listed in the section entitled "Use of Third Parties." The third parties will not be able to access any user data beyond what is reasonably necessary to achieve the stated objective.

5.4. Additional provisions

We will not sell or disclose your personal information without your express consent, except in the following cases:

• A legal or judicial requirement;

• To prove or protect our legal rights;

• In the event of a complete or partial transfer of our operations to a third party. 

6. Your rights

6.1. Applicable laws

Équiterre is committed to respecting the applicable laws in Canada and Quebec. For more information regarding the protection of your personal information and your associated rights, you may contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec.

• Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)

  • Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations 

  • Site explaining how to fight spam

  • CRTC page - Frequently Asked Questions about Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation

• Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) (Canada)

• Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (ARPPIPS)(Quebec)

• Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada 

• Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec 

6.2. Your rights

We are committed to providing you with the following rights:

• Right of access: You may request access to the personal information we have collected about you;

• Right of correction: You may request that we make a correction to the personal information we have collected;

• Right of withdrawal: You may withdraw your consent to the use of the information collected, in whole or in part. For example, you may opt out of receiving some or all of our communications;

• Right of deletion: You may request the deletion of your personal information if it is no longer required for the purposes for which it was collected and if there is no other legal basis for retaining it (*).

(*) Note - Canada Revenue Agency regulations require us to retain records of donations and prohibit us from removing this information from our internal records, even if you request it.

To exercise any of your rights, contact the person whose name appears below.

6.3. Contact Person/Privacy Officer

You may exercise your rights under the Policy or direct any other questions or complaints about our privacy practices to our Privacy Officer:

Name: Thibault Gautier (on leave)

Title: Assistant Director, Administration and Digital Transformation

Name: Nicole Bergeron

Title: Director of Finance and Administration

E-mail: confidentialite@equiterre.org

Address: 50 Ste-Catherine Street West, Suite 340, Montréal (QC) H2X 3V4

Please be sure to include your full name and the contact information you use to receive our communications (for example, your e-mail address if you wish to unsubscribe from our newsletters). There may be a delay in processing your request and you may continue to receive communications from us in the meantime. We will respond to your request within 30 days of receipt.