Privacy

Last updated :  2023-05-05

Vivre en Ville; an association for sustainable urban, rural and village development, a non-profit organization ("Vivre en Ville," "our", "we") takes your privacy and the protection of your Personal Information seriously. This Privacy Policy (the "Policy") describes our privacy practices, the types of Personal Information we may receive or collect from you and how we use, disclose, store and secure it so that you can make informed choices.

This Policy applies to our website, available at registredesloyers.quebec (the "Registry"). However, the rights and obligations described in this Policy do not cover third-party websites that may be linked to or mentioned on the Registry. These third-party websites have their own privacy policies, and we encourage you to read them carefully.

1. Personal information

For the purposes of this Policy, "Personal Information" means any information about an identifiable individual, including information that can be used alone or in combination with other information to identify, contact or locate a single individual. Personal Information generally does not include business contact information, such as your name, title or business contact information.

2. What personal information do we collect ?

The Personal Information we collect may include, but is not limited to:

• Your contact information, such as your email address, to identify and correspond with you;
• Your demographic information, such as your age, home occupants or residential history; 
• Professional information such as your position, organization, employer and geographic location (territory and municipality);
• Registry connection information, such as the date of your submission to the Registry; 
• Information about your use of the Register, such as the date of use or your interactions with it;
• Information about your communication preferences and comments; and
• Any other Personal Information you have provided to us.

3. How do we collect your personal information ?

Directly from you

Generally, we collect the Personal Information we need directly from you, for example, when you complete the Registry submission form or contact us. However, we may also collect information about your use of the Registry, including technical information about your visits, the average length of visit, action taken on the Registry, the type of device used or any other information collected through cookies or pixels. For more information, please read the "How we use cookies."

With your consent

We generally collect your Personal Information with your consent unless the law provides an exception to this principle (for example, to comply with our legal obligations, where necessary, to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim or proceeding).

Refusal of Collection and Withdrawal of Consent

You have the right, if you wish, to refuse the processing of your Personal Information. You may also, at any time, and subject to reasonable notice and any applicable legal or contractual restrictions, withdraw your consent (if any) to the processing of your Personal Information in our possession by contacting us. However, if you choose not to provide us with your Personal Information, this may prevent you, for example, from using certain features of the Registry, as this information is sometimes essential to such uses. If you have any questions, you can contact us as indicated in the "How to contact us" section.

4. Why do we collecte your personal information ?

For specific and limited purposes 

Vivre en Ville generally collects your Personal Information to:

• Establish and manage our relationship with you;
• Provide and maintain the services you have requested, i.e. access to the Registry and the processing of submissions made;
• Carry out research and development projects, in particular for statistical purposes;
• Improve the Registry and your user experience;
• Respond to your requests for information;
• Respond to your requests for assistance.

(collectively, the "Purposes").

To send you messages

If you consented to receive such information, Vivre en Ville might send you newsletters, electronic messages such as e-mails, news, updates and/or other written communications ("Messages") about Vivre en Ville's services and/or its partners' products and services. You may choose not to receive Messages in the manner indicated in the "Contact Us" section or through the unsubscribe link included in Messages. However, Vivre en Ville may continue to send you Messages to validate your submission to the Registry, to inform you of the expiration of your submissions, of critical technical issues related to the Registry, or to provide you with important information about your submission (if any).

Secondary purposes

Depending on the circumstances, Vivre en Ville may also aggregate and anonymize the Personal Information you have provided to create statistical data that Vivre en Ville may use for secondary purposes, to improve the Registry, to examine trends, to develop knowledge concerning the development of territories, to respond to statistical requests from some of our partners or to otherwise respond to requests for information by partner researchers. This statistical data does not include any Personal Information.

5. How do we share or disclose your personal information ?

Vivre en Ville does not rent or sell your Personal Information to third parties and will not share it with third parties without your consent unless required by law or for the reasons set out below.

With our employees 

In the course of their work, our employees may need access to your Personal Information, for example, when you contact us or request assistance. However, their access is limited to what is necessary to perform their duties.

With strategic partners

Vivre en Ville may share your Personal Information with its partners to facilitate its activities, such as developers and service providers (e.g. hosting). Our service providers may access your Personal Information for a limited time in connection with these activities. Where Vivre en Ville uses third parties to process any Personal Information, Vivre en Ville endeavours to implement commercially reasonable contractual and technical protections to ensure that such third parties keep strictly confidential any Personal Information they process. Please note that these third parties may not be located in your geographic location. In such cases, Vivre en Ville takes commercially reasonable steps, as described below in the section "Where is your Personal Information hosted and transferred?".

When required by applicable law

We may also share your Personal Information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to: (i) conform to the law; (ii) conform to the order of a competent judicial authority in any jurisdiction; (iii) conform to legal process served on Vivre en Ville; (iv) protect and defend the rights or property of Vivre en Ville ; (v) enforce or verify your compliance with any agreement you have entered into with Vivre en Ville, if any; (vi) prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the Registry; or (vii) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of Registry users or the general public.

During a business transaction 

We may share your Personal Information without your consent when our business transactions require it. In such circumstances, we may also share some or all of your Personal Information with the relevant third party (or its advisors) for a due diligence process.

For other purposes, with your consent

If you have expressly consented, your Personal Information may be shared with other third parties. For example, there may be specific cases where additional conditions apply, and through these, we make it clear that specific third parties are processing your Personal Information.

6. Third-party services and platforms

We may include links on the Registry to third-party sites or services we do not control, for example, if you use an integrated Google feature or social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). These third parties may share certain information about you with us. You may also be able to share Registry content on social networking platforms. If you click on one of these links, you will be directed to sites we do not control. Please read the privacy policies of those sites, applications or platforms that may collect Personal Information to understand their privacy policies and Personal Information collection practices.

7. Where is your personal information stored and transferred ?

Vivre en Ville may hold your Personal Information in jurisdictions other than your province, territory or country of residence, including Canada, the United States and the province of Quebec. Vivre en Ville may also outsource the processing of, or share your Personal Information with, third parties in jurisdictions other than your province, territory or country of residence. In such cases, we try to limit access to Personal Information by third parties to what is necessary to perform the tasks entrusted to them. Please remember that we also strive to establish contractual agreements with these agents and service providers to ensure the confidentiality and security of your Personal Information. This may include implementing robust and adequate security measures. In addition, Vivre en Ville will ensure that your Personal Information is adequately protected by appropriate technical, organizational or other legal means. If you would like more information about these security measures, please get in touch with us as indicated in the "How to contact us" section.

8. How long de we keep your personal information?

Personal Information will be retained only as long as necessary to fulfill the Purposes or as required by law. At the end of this period, we endeavour to destroy or anonymize such information. In determining the appropriate retention period for your Personal Information, we take into account the amount, nature and sensitivity of the Personal Information, the potential risk of harm arising from unauthorized use or disclosure of your Personal Information, the Purposes for which we process your Personal Information and the possibility of achieving those Purposes by other means, as well as applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements. If you would like more information on this subject, please contact us.

9. How do we protect your personal information?

With necessary and appropriate measures 

Vivre en Ville has implemented security measures to protect your Personal Information. The standard security measures we use depend on the type of information collected. However, Vivre en Ville uses electronic, physical and procedural safeguards to protect your Personal Information. We encourage you to use caution when using the Internet, including not sharing your passwords. If you believe that an unauthorized submission has been made using your e-mail, please get in touch with us as indicated in the "How to Contact Us" section.

Children's Privacy

If you believe that Personal Information has been collected from children under the age of 14, or if you are a parent or legal guardian and believe that your child under the age of 14 has provided us with Personal Information, you may contact us as described in the "How to Contact Us" section.

10. How do we use cookies?

A cookie is a small text file stored in a dedicated location on your computer, mobile device, tablet or other device when you use your browser to visit an online service. Web beacons are tiny images we may place on our web pages or e-mails. They can be used, for example, to anonymously obtain the number of times an Internet user has visited a particular page or whether an e-mail has been read. As their name suggests, web beacons are invisible, and any part of our Sites, including the advertising messages displayed on them, may contain web beacons. Unlike cookies, web beacons are not placed on your computer. Other tracking technologies, like web beacons, may be used for similar purposes. In this Policy, all such tracking technologies are collectively called "Cookie(s)." Any Personal Information collected using Cookies by or on behalf of Vivre en Ville (if applicable) is treated with the same level of confidentiality as any other Personal Information held by Vivre en Ville.

Strictly necessary cookies

These Cookies are necessary for the operation of the Registry and cannot be turned off in our systems. Strictly Necessary Cookies must be present for the Registry to perform its essential functions. They may include logging in, adding courses and other services to a shopping cart or electronic billing. In addition, they enable a user to navigate from one page to another without losing previous actions in the same session.

Non-essential cookies

If you have consented to their use, Vivre en Ville and/or its third-party partners may also use non-essential Cookies in connection with the Registry, including the following:

Functionality Cookies (also known as "Preference Cookies"): These Cookies are not essential to providing our services. They enable us to personalize and improve the user experience. For example, if you have consented to their use, these Cookies will store your communication preferences.

Performance cookies (also known as "statistical cookies" or "analytical cookies"): These Cookies are not essential to the provision of our services. However, if you have consented to their use, we use Performance Cookies to understand how you interact with the Registry, produce location reports, and have analytical reports on Registry errors. Our partners may also use this type of Cookie to analyze your use of the Registry and provide us with information about it. Again, these cookies are intended for statistical purposes only.

Deactivation of Cookies to which you have consented

Except for strictly necessary Cookies, we will only place Cookies on your device with your consent, and these Cookies will be kept for a maximum period of 13 months from the time they are installed on your device. At the end of this period, your consent will again be required. You can also manage your Cookies by changing the settings on your browser or device. For details on configuring your browser, please look at the help center for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Edge or Opera. However, if you refuse Cookies, specific pages or sections of the Registry may not be displayed correctly, or certain functions may no longer be available.

11. Social media features

As mentioned in the previous sections, we may use various tools to improve your experience on the Register and better understand user behaviour. The following section aims to give you more information about our use of these tools.

Vivre en Ville uses Google Analytics, provided by Google Inc (Google), to analyze the browsing behaviour of visitors to the Register, which is a tool for analyzing website traffic and usage. The information collected by Google Analytics is used to analyze the Registry's use and produce statistical reports on visitor activity. You can find out more about Google Analytics here. You can disable Google Analytics while browsing by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser or computer tool and your ad settings.

The Registry includes social media features like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn share buttons. If you use these features, they collect your IP address and the page you visit on the Registry and create a cookie to enable these features to function correctly. These features may be hosted by a third party or directly on the Registry. Your interaction with these features is governed by the company's privacy policy providing the functionality and not by this Policy.

12. What are your rights?

Depending on the applicable legislation, you have various rights, such as the right to be forgotten, the right to access or rectify your Personal Information, the right to withdraw your consent (if applicable), the right to de-indexing, or the right to data portability [note that this is an early inclusion, these rights will only be enforceable between September 2023 and 2024], that is, the right to receive a copy of all Personal Information that Vivre en Ville holds about you in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. To exercise any of these rights (to the extent they are available), please contact us as indicated in the "How to contact us" section.

13. How to contact us?

Vivre en Ville may accept or deny your request under applicable laws. Vivre en Ville will take prompt corrective action upon learning of any breach of this Policy. Vivre en Ville shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential or punitive damages related to this Policy. At any time, you may file a complaint with the appropriate authority if you think Vivre en Ville is not handling your Personal Information in a manner consistent with this Policy or the applicable law.

14. Policy changes and updates

Vivre en Ville may occasionally update, revise, modify, or supplement this Policy. If material changes are made to the Policy, you will be notified when you log in, and/or we will send you a link to the new version of the Policy. In addition, the Policy and any related documents will be posted on the Registry. Therefore, Vivre en Ville asks its users to review and accept the revised Policy before using the Registry.