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Privacy Policy


Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to any personal information (defined as any information about an identifiable individual) collected or generated by the Vector Institute (Vector), or anyone acting as an agent on our behalf, from or about our visiting researchers, postdocs, postgraduate affiliates, graduate students, research interns, and others who interact with us and are not Vector employees including program and event participants.

Any time that you interact with Vector in any manner, you are protected by the rights and safeguards contained in this Privacy Policy, and you explicitly agree to its terms.

Collection and Use of Personal Information

We collect most of our information about you directly from you, with your consent. We usually collect your name, address, phone number(s) and email address, as well as other information for purposes including reimbursement of expenses, payroll, and tax filings. We may also obtain personal information about you from third parties, for example from a University, with your consent.

Vector collects personal information from or about its postdocs, postgraduate affiliates, graduate students and research interns, and thereafter uses it, for the following purposes:

  • To authenticate the identity of postdocs, postgraduate affiliates, graduate students and research interns and confirm their academic standing and research grant funding;
  • Administration purposes e.g., for building security access cards;
  • Payroll and tax filing purposes (where applicable);
  • To ensure the health and safety of everyone who interacts with Vector and visits our premises i.e., by having a record of individuals that have completed training for health and safety requirements;
  • Internal training and quality assurance purposes e.g., for reporting usage of computing resources and physical space; and
  • To meet legal and regulatory requirements e.g., compliance with employment and immigration statutes.

Vector also collects a limited amount of information about its visiting researchers. Information collected generally includes names, university affiliation, and mailing address for the purposes of assigning an access card, reimbursing expenses, internal training and quality assurance purposes, and to meet legal and regulatory requirements.

We may also de-identify and/or aggregate your information so that it does no longer identify you, and use it for any permissible purpose, including analysis for multi-year budget planning and annual reporting as well as resource usage analysis.

Sharing of Personal Information

Your information may be made available by Vector to third-parties or service providers to fulfill the purposes for which it has been collected or as set forth in this Privacy Policy. We may also share your personal information when authorized by law or as follows:

  • Third party or affiliated service providers. We may hire service providers, which may be affiliates, to perform services on our behalf. This may include, without limitation, a person or an organization retained by Vector to perform work on its behalf. We provide them with a limited amount of information, which is necessary in order for them to provide the services required. They are prohibited from using the information for purposes other than to facilitate and carry out the specific services they have been engaged to provide. These service providers are not permitted to disclose this information to others. Vector will strive to protect personal information disclosed to third parties by contractual agreements.

Examples of situations in which we may share your personal information with service providers include attendance tracking (e.g., to register individuals to a Vector event or course), event registration (e.g., registration for an event may be checked upon admission to the program or venue), research promotion (e.g., videographers recording Vector research events for promotion of the Vector institute’s research achievements), and vendor compliance (e.g., tracking orders of food and drink at events).

  • As permitted or required by law. From time to time, Vector may be compelled to disclose personal information in response to a law, regulation, court order, subpoena, valid demand, search warrant, government investigation or other legally valid request or enquiry. We may also disclose information to our accountants, auditors, agents and lawyers in connection with the enforcement or protection of our legal rights. We also reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we, in good faith, believe to be unlawful or to law enforcement, in an emergency or where required or permitted by law. We may release certain personal information when we have reasonable grounds to believe that such release is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property and safety of others and ourselves, in accordance with or as authorized by law.

Personal Information Outside of Canada

Your personal information may in some cases be transferred to jurisdictions outside Canada. As a result, you understand that your personal information will be subject to the laws of other jurisdictions and may be available without notice to you to foreign government authorities under lawful orders and laws applicable in such jurisdictions. Regardless of the company or person who processes your information and where it is processed, we will take steps to protect your information in accordance with applicable data protection laws and this Privacy Policy.

Security of Personal Information

We will use reasonable security measures to protect your personal information against unauthorized access. Vector has implemented security measures that contain administrative, technical and physical controls that are designed to safeguard your personal information.

Retention

Personal information will be retained only as long as necessary for the fulfilment of the purposes for which it was collected and for which consent was received, unless otherwise authorized or required by law. Personal information that is no longer required to fulfil the identified purposes will be destroyed, erased or made anonymous.

Access and Correction

Vector respects your right to access and correct your personal information to exercise such rights, please contact us using the contact information detailed in the How to Contact Us section below.

How to Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns or complaints regarding this Privacy Policy or the personal information that Vector has about you or that it may have disclosed to third parties, please contact Vector’s Director, Communications & Engagement at [email protected] with subject header, “ATTN: Director, Communications & Engagement re: external privacy policy” or, alternatively Vector’s Chief Operations Officer at [email protected] with subject header, “ATTN: Chief Operations Officer re: external privacy policy”.

Change of Privacy Policy

Vector may review and update its policies and procedures as required to keep current with rules and regulations, new technologies and standards.

Our Privacy Policy may therefore change from time to time. We will inform post any privacy policy changes on our website and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on May 13, 2019.