IBDS Directory Privacy Policy

You control your personal information

Users can add, remove or correct their personal information in our contact database by contacting us via telephone, fax or e-mail. By removing your name, you will not to receive future communications.

Tel: (902) 423-3607
Fax: (902) 423-3154
Email: ibds@misa.ns.ca

Our Privacy Commitment

The Metropolitan Immigrant Settlement Association is a voluntary association to assist newcomers to Canada by providing a range of services described on our website. MISA protects the privacy of personal information that it collects, uses and discloses. Our privacy commitment is based on the ten principles of the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information. In this commitment, "personal information" means information about an identifiable individual, but does not include the name, title or business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization.

MISA is responsible for personal information under its control. As part of this accountability, MISA has designated its Privacy Administrator to be responsible for MISA's compliance with this policy and applicable legislation. Any inquiry or compliant related to the MISA�s privacy practices may be directed to our Privacy Administrator, whose contact details are below:

Privacy Administrator
Metropolitan Immigrant Settlement Agency
7105 Chebucto Road, Suite 201
Halifax, NS B3L 4W8
Tel: (902) 423-3607
ibds@misa.ns.ca

At the time that any personal information is collected, MISA will inform the individual concerned of the purposes for which the information is being collected, unless such purposes are reasonably obvious to the individual concerned. Depending upon the circumstances of the collection, this information may be provided orally or in writing.

MISA will seek the consent of the individual concerned for any use or disclosure of personal information. The MISA will not use personal information for secondary or marketing uses of personal information without explicit consent. There are extraordinary circumstances where, under law, we can dispense with the usual requirements for consent.

MISA will not collect any personal information that is not reasonably necessary for the legitimate purposes that we have identified and for which consent has been obtained. MISA will only use, disclose or retain personal information for the legitimate purposes identified to the individual and for which consent has been obtained. Personal information shall be retained only as long as necessary for the fulfillment of those purposes, except where a longer retention period is required by law.

MISA protects all personal information in its custody with safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information.

Individuals may request to have access to their personal information by making a request in writing to the privacy officer. If your personal information is inaccurate, please let us know and we will update our records if appropriate.

How our website collects and protects personal information

Our website server software logs IP addresses to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our web site. IP addresses are logged to track a user's session. This gives MISA an idea of which parts of our site users are visiting, providing us with information about how the site is of value to our users. We do not link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable. This means that a user's session will be tracked, but the user will be anonymous.

Check this with the webmaster:

Our website uses [per-session/persistent] cookies. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by our website server software to assist us in understanding how you use the website. Cookies are sometimes used to help us save your preferences so that you will not have to input data a number of times. Using cookies, we can understand how a visitor uses our website, but the user will always be anonymous. Cookies are not required for the proper use of this website.

[Per-session cookies are used to store technical information only within a session particular visit. These cookies are on your computer only while you are visiting our website and are deleted from the cache when the user closes the session. Per-session cookies are frequently used by websites using content management systems to store session information as the user navigates to multiple pages in a site.]

Our website has the following security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control.

  • A firewall is in place to filter all inappropriate access to our web server.
  • All web server access is logged, including date/time, IP address, and logon username (if entering a restricted area).
  • Our web server has a comprehensive backup plan, which includes daily backups and off-site storage.
  • The data collected from these forms is accessible to authenticated and authorized users only.
  • Physical security includes an access controlled server room and a strictly enforced corporate security policy.