Our Privacy Policy was created to meet the criteria of the federal privacy legislation, The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPED Act) and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada states that the question of whether the PIPED Act applies to charities, non-profit organizations, associations and organizations similar to ourselves is referenced in that a commercial act is defined in Section 2 of the Act as “…any particular transaction, act or conduct or any regular course of conduct that is of a commercial character, including the selling, bartering, or leasing of donor, membership or other fundraising lists.” Consent is required for disclosing this information. Collecting membership fees, organizing activities, compiling a list of members’ names and addresses, mailing out newsletters are not considered commercial activities.

We believe that in this time of enhanced electronic communications and the uncertainty of how privacy is ensured we need to be open and clear about how we are protecting your privacy. This means that we keep your information in the strictest confidence; your information is not sold; you have control over how we obtain, use, and give out information about you; and we respect your privacy when we market products or services.

Accountability

The Canadian Association for Couple and Family Therapy (CACFT) is responsible for keeping your personal information confidential and applying it for the intended purposes. An appointed Privacy Officer is accountable for the CACFT’s compliance with this Privacy Policy.

Why do we need personal information?

We will identify why personal information is needed at the time of, or prior to collection. Your information identifies you as a member of the CACFT.

We need this information to understand your needs, protect you and us from error or fraud, provide ongoing services including advocacy, and keep your information accurate and up-to-date and to comply with the law.

We collect, use and disclose personal information only for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances.

What personal information do we collect?

We only collect personal information that we require to provide you with the services and benefits you are entitled to as a member of the CACFT. Depending on the purposes for which we need to collect it, we may ask you for the following:

• Basic information such as your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, birth date, insurance coverage and provider, educational background
  
• Association Fees and fees for service or salary
  
• Description of typical client characteristics
  
• Average number of sessions, length of sessions
  
• Scope and location of practice
  
• Theoretical orientation
  
• Training and supervisory needs and experiences
  
• Your information is obtained or used only with your consent.
  

Your knowledge and consent are required for the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information (except as permitted by the PIPED Act). We may do a survey, as we have done in the past assessing needs, scope and location of practice, characteristics of clients. We may review training needs or advocacy required and to determine national trends or issues. This information will be used only for purposes we believe you would consider appropriate under the circumstances.

We may communicate with you by mail, telephone or electronic means to communicate with you about products, services, or benefits that are available to you.

The CACFT does not sell or disclose any of your personal information to any other organization. The CACFT may however disclose information in the following cases:

• If we use an outside researcher/company to process information. This would include when a national survey is done.
  
• Data is analyzed from the website of the Canadian Association for Couple and Family Therapy www.cacft.ca. 
• If we must disclose information for ethical or legal reasons. This would occur when we may be compelled to release information by a court of law, or other legal or regulatory authority
  
• To provide information to a government agency which can oblige us to do so. We will provide only information necessary for these purposes to these service providers, and it is done on the basis that they will maintain the confidentiality of the information

 Safeguards

The Canadian Association for Couple and Family Therapy Board and any of their staff who have access to your confidential information are made aware of how to keep it confidential. All Board members and staff are up to date on our policies and procedures for protecting personal information.

• We do not collect, use or disclose your personal information for any purpose other than those that we identify to you
  
• Keep personal information only for as long as we need to fulfill the stated purpose or as mandated by law 
  
• Maintain your personal information in accurate, complete and up-to-date forms as possible
  
• Safeguard your information to the best of our ability
  
• Respond to any request you may make to access or correct the personal information we hold about you
  
• Obtain the appropriate consent from you for the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information. You can ask to check your information to verify, update and correct it and to have any information removed. We may ask you to put your request in writing
  

If you do not consent to certain uses of information, or if you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide you with a particular service, product or benefit. If so, we will try to explain the situation to you to help you with your decision.

Member Access

The Canadian Association for Couple and Family Therapy Board appoints a Privacy Officer for a term of two years. Please contact the Privacy Officer at the address below if you:

• Wish to change your consent to ways in which we collect, use or disclose your personal information.
  
• Have a complaint about your privacy policies, or the manner in which we have handled your personal information
  
• Have any other questions about our privacy policies or require additional information. There is no charge for verifying or correcting information. Members are able to access and change their own information in their profile or they can contact [email protected] to have it changed. We will amend any personal information that is demonstrated to be inaccurate or incomplete. We will respond to you promptly and do our utmost to resolve your concerns. To find out more about federal privacy laws, please contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at 1-800-282- 1376 or visit their website at at www.privcom.gc.ca.

Internet Related Policies

When you visit www.cacft.ca without registering or otherwise interacting with the site, your personal information and e-mail address are not recorded. We use standard web server log files to count visitors and evaluate our site’s technical capacity. We use this information to find out how many people visit our website and to make our pages more useful to members and to visitors.

When you do identify yourself on the CACFT website a “cookie” is created. A cookie is a file sent by a website and stored on your computer. We also use cookies to track hits, transmit potentially useful information, and personalize your future visits to the website. Our cookies do not capture your individual e-mail address or any private information about you.

We may choose to send you information by email. You may choose to stop receiving these e- mail messages at any time.

This policy discloses the practices for our website, however, it does not extend to the links contained within our site. Once you are linked to another site, you are subject to the privacy and security policies of the new site.

Contact Information:
For information, question or to register a complaint, please email  [email protected] with "attention Privacy Officer" in the subject line.