British Columbia Library Association Privacy Policy

Effective Date of Privacy Policy: Revised by the BCLA Board September 22, 2023

The British Columbia Library Association (the “BCLA”) values its members and respects your privacy and personal information. Personal information is information about you, that may include your name, email or other addresses, phone numbers, or other information that could reasonably be linked back to you.

This Privacy Policy explains how and why the BCLA collects, uses, discloses and keeps safe personal information. In this Policy, when we say “we”, “us” and “our”, we are referring to the BCLA. When we say “you” and “your”, we are referring to individuals who participate in a forum or interest group, individuals who register for conferences as well as individuals who have purchased a membership on our website (the “Website”).

If this policy changes in the future, we will post an updated version on our Website. You can tell if this policy has changed by checking the effective date that appears at the top of the policy. Depending on the circumstances, we may also notify you of an update via email or other contact information you have provided.

By registering for the BCLA, any BCLA member programs or services or by using our Website, you agree to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please do not register and do not use our Website.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact our privacy officer whose contact information is set out below.

 

A. INFORMATION WE COLLECT

The BCLA collects only the minimum amount of personal information which is reasonably necessary to meet the purposes identified.

Specifically, when you register for the BCLA, a BCLA member program or service, or any BCLA event, we will collect information about you including your first and last name, address, email address, and your credit card information to process the payment required for registration. Depending what services and groups you participate in, from time to time we may collect further information from you, such as your age range and employer information.

For non-members, we collect your first and last name and email address.

 

B. WHY DO WE COLLECT, USE OR DISCLOSE PERSONAL INFORMATION?

The BCLA collects, uses, and discloses personal information for the following purposes:

• To create, maintain and administer accounts with the BCLA;
• To process membership payment, and reminders to renew your membership each year;
• To deliver membership benefits and services, including user content, communications regarding professional development opportunities, annual general meetings, conferences and other BCLA events and activities;
• To register individuals, on request, in BCLA activities and events, such as conferences and professional development opportunities;
• To administer events that you register for, maintain a record of your registrations, and to send reminders about events from time to time, depending on the nature of the event;
• To inform you of, and to administer and fulfill, surveys and other promotions;
• To provide you with the benefits you sign up for, including through registration for a section or interest group;
• To administer an individual’s membership in, and support the activities of, the BCLA board or a board committee;
• For business administrative purposes including to understand how our website is used and improve our online services; and
• As otherwise permitted or required by law.

By voluntarily providing your personal information in the course of your participation in sections, programs, services and interest groups, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of that personal information as necessary for the purposes for which it is provided.

From time to time, we may use some personal information to create aggregate statistical reports.  There is no identifiable information about any individual in these reports. We use these reports to help us better understand our member population, including demographics, average level of involvement with the BCLA and related activities and location. This helps us meet current needs and predict future growth and member needs so we can make budgeting and planning decisions.

If a survey collects personal information, we will tell you at the time of the survey what the purposes of the collection are.

If necessary, we may use or disclose personal information to comply with applicable law, enforce our Website policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property, or safety.

You may opt out from receiving communications from the BCLA at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails or by contacting our privacy officer.

 

C. PERKOPOLIS

The BCLA offers its members the option to opt-in to Perkopolis, a free program that provides exclusive discounts on a number of services. If a member joins Perkopolis, any information a member provides to Perkopolis will be subject to Perkopolis’s privacy policy, which can be found here:  Privacy Policy – Perkopolis Discount Programs

 

D. COOKIES

Cookies are small pieces of information that are stored by your browser on your computer’s hard drive.  We use cookies to ensure our Website functions so that you can use the services on the Website.  Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can control cookies through your browser preference settings, however please be aware that your settings choices may affect how you can use the Website. We also use Google Analytics cookies to help us understand how our Website is used, including to understand the number of visitors, the average time spent on the site and on each page.  To reject the Google Analytics cookies, download and install Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-on. (Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on Download Page)

When accessing our Website, you are asked whether you consent to our use of cookies. You are not required to provide your consent.  If you do provide your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time.

 

E. DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We do not sell or trade your personal information for marketing, advertising, or promotional purposes.  We may disclose personal information to third party contractors, including service providers who assist us in delivering services for the BCLA, including our Website host providers and event planners. We use contracts to ensure that those parties agree to keep this information secure and use it only for the specified purposes.

The BCLA provides a platform for the creation and operation of sections and interest groups for members and non-members. When you register for a section or interest group, your personal information may be collected, used and disclosed for the purposes of that section or interest group.  At that time, you will be told about the scope of the activities of that section or interest group, and about who is involved in managing it.  You will also be told what information may be posted on the section/interest group pages that are hosted on the BCLA website.

 

F. SECURITY

We use technical, administrative and contractual measures to protect personal information in our custody or under our control.  Access to personal information is limited to those employees, contractors, service providers and volunteers who need access to carry out the purposes for which the information was collected and otherwise as described in this Privacy Policy.

All personal information is encrypted, stored on secure servers and behind a firewall. We ensure our employees, contractors and volunteers are trained to protect personal information with appropriate security safeguards and are required to respect the confidentiality of such information.

Your password controls access to your account. You are responsible for protecting the security of your passwords.  Please be aware that, despite our best efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. To help ensure the privacy of your information, we strongly recommend you store your password in a safe place, change it frequently, and not share your user name and password with others.

 

G. CHILDREN’S INFORMATION

Except where a BCLA program is specifically intended to be used by children (such as the BC Summer Reading Club Program), we do not otherwise intend to collect information about children. Any program that is specifically intended to collect personal information about children has a program-specific privacy policy. If we discover that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child, we will promptly delete that information.

 

H. STORAGE, RETENTION AND DISPOSAL

We retain information for as long as necessary for the identified purposes and as otherwise required by law. Our database is kept active with your registration information from year to year; however, you are required to renew your membership each year.  If you choose to no longer be a member of the BCLA, your status will become inactive.  We will securely dispose of personal information when it is no longer needed for identified purposes or as required by law.

 

I. ACCURACY

We take reasonable efforts to ensure that we maintain the accuracy of personal information, but we rely on you to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the personal information you provide.  Please ensure you update your contact information with us if you move, change employer or change your email address, and if you believe that information we have about you is inaccurate please contact the privacy officer at the address below.

 

J. ACCESS, CORRECTION, WITHDRAWAL OF CONSENT

Individuals have the right to request access to their personal information held by the BCLA, and to request correction to any inaccurate information.  Individuals also have the right to withdraw consent to the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information, subject to certain legal limitations.  You may exercise these rights by writing to our privacy officer at the address below.

 

K. LINKING TO THIRD PARTY CONTENT/WEBSITES

Please keep in mind that this Privacy Policy applies only to the BCLA Website, its member programs and services and committees. The Website may contain links from and to third party websites whose privacy practices may be different from ours. Once you leave our Website, our Privacy Policy does not apply.   Please review the linked website’s and third party content provider’s privacy policies, and do not use or further visit these sites if you do not agree with the terms of these policies. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and practices or the content of the websites operated by third parties or of any linked site or subsequent links from that website.

 

L. CONTACT OUR PRIVACY OFFICE

If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy or our information management practices, or if you wish to exercise your rights, please write to us at:

Privacy Officer, British Columbia Library Association

PO BOX 19008 Rocky Point PO
Port Moody, BC V3H 0J1

Or email us at [email protected]