Privacy Policy
Pets Niagara is a non-profit organization that has as its' primary goal to become a respected destination for those who are seeking the warmth and companionship of a new pet. Bearing in mind this goal, Pets Niagara has adopted the within Privacy Policy, which is now set out, here, in writing, to inform persons accessing any and all portions of Pets Niagara website as to the activities of Pets Niagara with respect to the collection, maintenance, and transfer (collectively referred to as "processing") of Personal Information in its' possession.
For purposes of this Policy, "Personal Information" (hereinafter referred to as "personal information") is limited to the data of "living", as distinguished from "deceased" individuals.
We are very sensitive to concerns about the use and security of the personal information that may come into our knowledge pertaining to our users. Therefore, we endeavour to provide the user all information regarding our identity, how we use personal information that is collected, how to contact us and how to access and update the user's personal information. We also endeavour to inform users of all potential recipients of the personal information. We do not use any personal information for purposes beyond those stated herein.
I. OUR IDENTITY, HOW TO CONTACT US
This site is owned and operated by Pets Niagara and is made possible through the donation of the time and resources of our founder and Executive Director, Susan D. Young as well as through the generation donations of our members, partners and sponsors.
Users can contact us by proceeding to the Contact Us locations posted throughout this site and providing us with a message detailing any questions or concerns. Users may also contact Pets Niagara by email at administrator@petsniagara.org.
II. PERSONAL INFORMATION: COLLECTION AND USE
To assist Pets Niagara in achieving its' goal, from time to time and for certain circumstances we need to collect information that will assist us in understanding what services and data will best meet the needs of our audience. Accordingly, we will collect up to two types of information from every web visitor - "anonymous information" (hereinafter referred to as "anonymous information") and personal information.
A. Personal Information:
The extent of the personal information that will be collected by Pets Niagara from certain users is limited to full name, age, address, telephone number and email address. Registration or the divulging of personal information is not required for general browsing or searches of the Pets Niagara website.
In regard to personal information, we will only collect your personal information directly from you as you voluntarily submit the same in the course of visiting and using the Pets Niagara website for the following purposes:
1. should you volunteer;
2. should you volunteer to provide Pets Niagara with casual submissions of data and/or images;
3. should you make a donation of money or goods to Pets Niagara, including collections of data and/or images;
4. should you request to become a contributor (which activity is more fully addressed in the Terms and Conditions of Use) and/or user with edit privileges to Pets Niagara Facebook page or Twitter page;
5. should you request a user account on Pets Niagara's current or future discussion forum or bulletin board(s), Facebook page or Twitter page;
6. should you request a written reply or information be sent to you via regular postal mail;
7. to identify and verify your identity when returning to and accessing the site for any of the above stated purposes;
8. to ensure that users abide by the Terms and Conditions of Use also associated with Pets Niagara website; and/or,
9. to produce demographic usage statistics to assist Pets Niagara to better meet the needs of users and determine interests.
At no time, except under the most exceptional circumstances, will we require your banking or credit card information or any other such financial information. At no time will the personal information be used to generate unsolicited mass emailings on any subject. All announcements and special offers will only be posted on the Pets Niagara discussion forum and/or bulletin board(s), Facebook page or Twitter page.
We regard your personal information as confidential and do not use it for non-Pets Niagara purposes or sell rent, or lease it to any third parties. Except in the instance of any user's unlawful use of the Pets Niagara website or any portion or part thereof, we do not disclose any personal information to any third party without a user's express written permission so to do.
Upon written request and if local law so requires, you may be allowed access to your personal information collected by the Pets Niagara web site; you may specify that information be corrected, or you may oppose processing of the information. You can correct or remove your personal information (or other information you have provided) that is stored by Pets Niagara by contacting us by one of the methods set out in section I., above.
B. Anonymous Information:
As regards anonymous information, such information refers to that information that is related to your computer and connection such as your Internet Protocol ("IP") address, including whether you are logged on from a .ca, .com, .gov or .edu domain; referral data such as the address of the last URL you visited prior to logging on to our web site; and, browser and platform type, such as if you are using a Netscape browser on a Macintosh platform.
We also collect aggregate statistics relating to each page viewed by every visitor to the site to gauge the performance of certain areas of our web site.
The anonymous information and aggregate statistics are collected by Pets Niagara for purpose of product monitoring website activity and to direct our efforts in the continuous improvement and upgrading of our web site. To collect and analyze this information Pets Niagara utilizes log analysis tools. In future, we may have to combine the log analysis tools with data-tagging techniques. Data tags would allow us to measure which software plug-ins were being utilized by our visitors, thus resulting in a more efficient and effective web site design and productive website content.
C. Retention of Personal Information:
Pets Niagara retains personal information only for so long as necessary to achieve the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy. For instance, should you discontinue your involvement with Pets Niagara, your personal information is immediately destroyed in all places accessible and directly under the control of Pets Niagara. We are not, however, able to destroy or otherwise remove or obliterate any personal information that you may have provided to us and made public on any page of the website, Facebook page or Twitter page that has been cached by Internet search engines and thereafter may reside in the cached memory of www.archive.org.
D. Protecting Personal Information:
Pets Niagara and www.petsniagara.org has security measures in place to protect against the loss and unauthorized alteration of the information that comes under its' control. We impose strict rules on employees and volunteers who may from time to time have access to the personal information that you have chosen to provide to us. Furthermore, only persons who have a need to know your personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including for the performance of his or her duties, are granted access to the personal information and/or user data that you choose to provide to us. We cannot, however, guarantee that the information will not be lost, misused or altered, but we make every effort to ensure that it is secured to avoid such problems. Please be aware that neither Pets Niagara nor www.petsniagara.org is liable for any use, misuse, alteration or disclosure of your personal information that is beyond our reasonable control.
E. Sharing of your Personal Information:
Pets Niagara may contract with third party service providers to track and analyze usage of and statistical information about the Pets Niagara web site. Service providers do not collect personal information from web site users, only general summaries of site activities. This information is used only to improve the site's quality.
In future, we may offer opinion polls, sweepstakes, contests or promotions on the Pets Niagara web site. Those sweepstakes, contests or promotions may be operated by third parties on behalf of Pets Niagara, in which case personal information may be collected by such third party, or disclosed by us to such third party. If you do not want to have us share your personal information for such purposes, you can choose not to opt-in to any or all of the opinion polls, sweepstakes, contests or promotions as those are offered from time to time.
Notwithstanding anything herein contained to the contrary, we reserve the right to disclose aggregated user statistics, such as "30% of our users are female" or "20% of our users live in Spain" in order to describe our service to prospective partners, advertisers and other third parties. Under protection of confidentiality agreements, Pets Niagara administration may match common user information, such as name, address and phone number with third party data to avoid duplication and prevent errors.
The personal information that is provided to Pets Niagara by individual users is not provided to any unrelated third parties except in rare cases or as otherwise set forth in this Privacy Policy or as may be required by law.
F. Publication of your Personal Information:
Posts contributed by Pets Niagara web site users to discussion forums and other community areas or bulletin boards, Facebook page or Twitter page may include information on the living. While we advise our users to be sensitive to privacy issues, we have no control over the content of user posts. If you identify a post that violates our Terms and Conditions of Use you may notify us by any of the methods set out in section I., above and we will work toward resolving the issue.
As a user of the Pets Niagara web site, discussion forums and/or other community areas or bulletin boards, Facebook page or Twitter page you may provide information about yourself to other users, but only at your sole and free option. If provided in a public area of the web site, the Facebook page or the Twitter page the data is, of course, public. Participation in public areas and services is at your sole discretion.
III. COOKIES
In our effort to improve your site experience, we use cookies, as do many major web sites, to provide pages and features that are most compatible with your preferences. Many browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. If you prefer, you can reset your browser either to notify you when you have received a cookie, or to refuse to accept cookies. A cookie is a small text file that contains unique identification numbers and is stored on your computer when you visit an Internet site. The text file, or cookie, is transferred from a web site to the hard drive of your computer. The unique number identifies and recognizes your browser whenever your browser is logged on to our web site. The cookie does not recognize the individual user or owner of the computer. A cookie does not identify you personally; it tracks settings, preferences or features associated with a particular Web site. When you return to the site, your browser sends the cookie to the Web server to customize your visit to that site. Furthermore, since the cookies used by www.petsniagara.org are only text files, they cannot run or execute programs on your computer, search your computer for other information or transmit information to any site other than to www.petsniagara.org.
IV. ADVERTISER, SPONSOR AND THIRD-PARTY COOKIES
Pets Niagara may, from time to time, engage third-party advertising companies to serve ads on its' behalf to the Pets Niagara website. These companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel gifs or web beacons) to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that is collected via such cookies and action tags is completely anonymous.
V. FOREIGN TRANSFER OF DATA
Pets Niagara and its' web site are designed, maintained and administered in Ontario, Canada. The www.petsniagara.org website is hosted in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you are not a resident of Canada you can use this site but you are responsible for ensuring that your actions comply with the laws in your area. Any personal information provided to or processed by this website may be received or transferred to individuals and/or entitles located in other countries which may have less stringent data protection laws than the country where you reside. Every attempt is made to comply with local privacy and data transmission laws. However, it is also incumbent upon Pets Niagara users to comply with local regulations regarding online conduct, acceptable content and interjurisdictional transmission of data. If you choose to submit any personal information about yourself or others that is likely to be made public, such as your contact details during your involvement on any discussion forum or bulletin board(s),the Facebook page and/or the Twitter page you alone are responsible for the consequences of submitting such personal information and any incident transfers thereof. In many jurisdictions informed consent of all data subjects is necessary before transjurisdictional or international transfers of personal data are permitted.
VI. CHILDREN'S PRIVACY
We do not knowingly collect information from or about children under the age of 18 years. They are advised to obtain permission from their parents, guardians or other responsible adult before they send any information about themselves or others to Pets Niagara, its' web site it's Facebook page and/or it's Twitter page.
VII. THIRD-PARTY LINKS
If you click away from the Pets Niagara web site to visit the site of any third party advertiser or sponsor, you may be asked for your credit card, banking or other personal information in order to purchase or use products and services offered by that third party, advertiser or sponsor. These companies have their own privacy and data collection practices. Pets Niagara has no responsibility or liability for the policies or practices of such independent third parties, advertisers or sponsors. For your own protection, you should carefully review the policies of all web sites that you visit, or wish to visit, to ensure that they meet your personal expectations of privacy and to determine how such independent sites will use your personal information.
VIII. FUTURE CHANGES AND AMENDMENTS TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY
We reserve the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of this Privacy Policy at any time and from time to time. We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy periodically to become apprised of any changes.
IX. EFFECTIVE DATE
This version of the Privacy Policy became effective on Sunday, 22 April 2012, at 6:00:00 p.m., updated 21 August 2015 at 11:10 a.m..
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