OAG Privacy Statement

The Ontario Association of Gastroenterology (OAG) respects your privacy. We also strive to protect the confidentiality of any personal information you may give us. We would like you to know: (a) the circumstances under which we collect information, (b) the kind of information we collect, and (c) how we may use that information.

We will let you know specifically before we collect any of your personal information (details that can identify you as an individual, such as your name or address). We will explain what information is being collected and how it will be used. You have the right to decline to have this information collected or transferred.

We will only collect personal information you choose to provide to us. We do not use techniques that collect personal information about you without your knowledge.

You may provide us with information on-line, in a telephone conversation, or through a completed printed form. The information you provide will be securely stored either on a computer or as part of a hard-copy filing system.

1. On the Internet
Currently, we do not collect anything from you on-line. We do not use cookies (small, encrypted text files that contain information about you) to track your usage of our site.

We may, from time to time, offer seminars, conferences and workshops and will accept registration on the Internet. In that case, we will collect only such information as is required to: (a) ensure that your confirmation is sent to you at the address of your choosing and (b) that your payment is processed correctly. We will ask you for your name, mailing address, phone number, e-mail address and your credit card information. Credit card information provided on-line would be processed over a secure link with our credit card provider.

As part of the registration process, we may ask you if you would like to receive information about other seminars. You are free to opt in or out. If you opt in, we would maintain your contact information in a database solely used for that purpose. This database would not be shared, given, sold or rented to any other party under any circumstances. It would reside on our computer, and may only be accessed by an Association Concepts employee who has (a) been authorized to do so and (b) has a password issued by our IT department.

2. By phone, mail or in person
At this time, we do not collect anything from you for our own account.

In future, we may, as mentioned above, offer seminars, conventions and workshops and take registration by phone, mail or in person. Registration information would include name, address, telephone number and e-mail address, along with payment information. Such data would be collected only by our membership or special events department, and would be maintained on a secure server not connected to the Internet. This information would be used only to facilitate event registration and administration. No data collected would be sold, rented, or given to third parties.

All payments would be processed either through our credit/debit card machine (our accounting department would retain copies only for bank verification/reconciliation) or (for cheques/money orders/cash) deposited directly to bank. Once again, they would be processed securely, and the account information would only be entered into a secure computer or manual database.

How We Use Non-Personal Information associationconcepts.ca's (the management company for OAG) operating system may automatically record some general information about your visit, such as:

• The Internet domain for your Internet service provider, such as 'company.com' or 'service.ca' and the IP address of the computer accessing the website, such as 'ppp-55' or '123.123.123.123';
• The type of browser (such as 'Netscape version x' or 'Internet Explorer version x') you are using;
• The type of operating system you are using (such as Macintosh, Unix, or Windows);
• The date and time you visit our site and the web pages that you visit on our site, along with the address of the previous website you were visiting, if you linked to us from another website.
• We use this information for statistical analysis, to help us make our site more useful to visitors. We may disclose this non-personal information to third parties such as sponsors or clients and/or use it for auditing purposes. This tracking system does not record personal information about individuals or link this information to any personal data collected.
• We may use 'cookies' that identify you as a return visitor. A cookie is a piece of data that a website can send to your browser, which may then store the cookie on your hard drive. So, when you come back to visit us again, we can tailor information to suit your individual preferences. The goal is to save you time and provide you with a more meaningful visit and to measure website activity. Cookies do not contain any personally identifying information. Browsers such as Netscape allow you to disable cookie collection if you wish, or inform you when a cookie is being stored on your hard drive.

Currency of data collected

OAG may contact you requesting updates of data. This will normally be by regular mail or an e-mail directing you to the appropriate website. We do not use third parties to collect this data on our behalf, and you will never be directed to a third-party website for this purpose. If you receive any communication the authenticity of which is doubtful, please contact OAG immediately.

Privacy Officer
OAG has a privacy officer who may be contacted for any concerns, clarifications or possible abuse of the privacy policy. Please direct your communications to:

Chief Privacy Officer
Ontario Association of Gastroenterology
2800 – 14th Ave., Suite 210
Markham, ON L3R 0E4
Local: (416) 494-7233
Fax: (416) 491-1670

E-mail: privacy@associationconcepts.ca