Privacy Policy
The Trail and its related companies (hereinafter collectively referred to as “The Trail”) are committed to protecting the privacy of the individuals whose personal information is collected and held by The Trail. We recognize our responsibility for transparency and accountability in how we use the personal information of our donors, partners, volunteers and the people we serve.
As part of the activities carried out by The Trail, we collect, use and communicate various personal information.
Responsibility
The Trail is responsible for all personal information in its possession or under its control.
What is personal information?
Personal information is any information that can be used to distinguish, identify or contact a specific person. Exceptions to this definition are business contact information and publicly available information. Personal information does not include an individual’s name, title, company, address, telephone number or other workplace contact information, which may be collected, used or disclosed without consent.
Why is personal information collected, used or disclosed by The Trail ?
We collect, use or disclose personal information to issue tax receipts to donors, to provide services to veterans, customers and members of the public, to keep you informed of our activities, including our programs, services, special events, fundraising needs, opportunities to volunteer or to invite you to make a donation. The Trail does not rent, sell or trade its mailing lists.
Some of The Trail programs are carried out in collaboration with government departments, agencies and various non-profit organizations. Certain information relating to these programs may be shared with these ministries and public bodies if this proves necessary or appropriate within the framework of the agreements with the service providers.
In general, The Trail restricts its collection of personal information, internal distribution of personal information and external sharing of personal information to that which is reasonably necessary to pursue its objectives and programs. The Trail also has the right to collect, use and disclose personal information as required or permitted by applicable law.
Consent
In general, before we collect or disclose your personal information, it is necessary that you know and consent to such use. This consent may be implicit or explicit, depending on the circumstances.
Implied and “presumed” consent
Implied consent is when the information is provided voluntarily and the purpose is obvious to a reasonable person. For example, when you donate to us, you provide personally identifiable information in order to receive a tax receipt. We will assume in this case that you give “deemed” consent for us to use your personal information to issue you a tax receipt.
In addition to being used to send tax receipts, this information may be used to communicate information to you about The Trail activities, particularly with regard to programs, services, special events, financing needs, opportunities to volunteering or ways to donate. We periodically provide you with the opportunity to opt out of using your information for these purposes, and you will always have the option to withdraw your consent and opt out of receiving this type of material from us.
Express consent
Express consent means that The Trail will obtain your written or oral consent before collecting, using or disclosing the information. This is usually the case for more sensitive information. For example, we seek written consent from people who participate in our programs. To provide quality support services, sensitive information, including personal health information, may be requested. These can include diagnoses, relevant medical history and names of doctors. Subject to the Quebec Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, this information remains confidential, will not be shared with anyone and will only be used for the specific purpose of providing quality assistance services. Some denominated data is sent to the federal government through their systems. We will destroy, erase or anonymize personal information that we no longer need.
What about spam?
You will not receive promotional emails from us unless you have consented to receive them. From time to time, we may use email as a means of keeping in touch with you. However, we do not send unsolicited e-mail except in accordance with applicable law.
If you agree to receive e-mail messages from us, each e-mail message we send to you will include an e-mail address to which you can respond. If at any time you prefer not to receive e-mail from us, simply let us know and we will remove your name and e-mail address from our database. Upon request, we will do the same with your postal address and telephone number.
How does The Trail protect your personal information?
We are committed to protecting personal information by ensuring that appropriate security measures are in place.
Protective measures vary depending on the sensitivity of the information and may include measures such as password protecting electronic documents, locking down paper files and ensuring that only authorized personnel have access to certain documents.
We will endeavor to keep your personal information as accurate and up to date as necessary.
Subject to other legal information retention obligations, this means that The Trail will only retain your personal information for as long as we maintain and maintain a relationship with you, or as necessary for statistical purposes.
Privacy and The Trail Website
Our website’s operating system may automatically record certain general information about your visit, such as:
- The internet domain of your internet service provider and the IP address of the computer accessing the website.
- The type of browser you are using (such as “Safari” or “Internet Explorer”).
- The date and time of your visit to our site and the web pages you visit on our site.
- The address of the previous website you visited, if you linked to us from another website.
We may also use cookies to determine the usefulness of information on our website to our users and to help you find the information you need.
We use this information only for statistical analysis purposes and to help us make our site more useful to visitors. We may disclose this non-personal information to third parties such as suppliers or partners and/or use it for audit purposes. This tracking does not record personal information about individuals and does not link this information to the personal data collected.
If you prefer not to allow cookies while browsing our website, you can configure your browser to notify you when cookies are present so that you can individually refuse them. You can also refuse all cookies by disabling them in your browser, but you may not take full advantage of our website if you do.
When you leave our website
This policy discloses the privacy practices used for The Trail website. However, our site contains links to other sites. Once you access another site, you are subject to the privacy and security policies of the new site. The Trail is not responsible for the content of any linked website, any link contained in a linked website, or any changes or updates to such sites. The inclusion of a link does not imply endorsement by The Trail of any website.
We encourage you to read the privacy statements of all websites you visit, especially if they ask you for personal information.
Your right to access your personal information
Upon written request, you have the right to inspect and request corrections to personal information about you in our records. We will normally respond to your request within 30 days. You can make a request by contacting us. Contact details are listed below.
Questions and Complaints
For more information about The Trail information management practices or to file a complaint, please contact us by mail at
The Trail
195 Saint-Charles West, Suite 305
Longueuil, QC J4H 1C8
The Trail will investigate all complaints and take appropriate action following any investigation.