Privacy Policy

Who we are

The Students on Ice (SOI) Foundation is a charitable organization based in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. For the past 20 years, our mission has been to contribute to a healthy and sustainable future by providing a platform for learning, and for ideas and cross-cultural collaboration to flourish. Expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic for youth is our flagship program. Through immersive learning journeys and a global network of professional development opportunities, we connect youth to nature and foster in them the inspiration and leadership skills to serve tomorrow.

The Students on Ice Foundation is committed to safeguarding the personal information entrusted to us by our participants and staff. We manage your personal information in accordance with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). This policy outlines the principles and practices we follow in protecting your personal information. This policy applies to SOI Foundation and to any person providing services on our behalf. A copy of this policy is provided to any individual on request.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Personal information means information about an identifiable individual. We collect only the personal information that we need for the purposes of providing services to participants in our programs, including personal information needed to feature individuals (e.g. alumni, educators and partners) on The Bridge or to collect statistical data to help us better understand the audiences viewing our content (through Google analytics)This includes:

  • an individual’s name, home address, email and phone number, age, gender, language, communication preferences, social media contacts, etc.
  • Donation information such as date of gift, amount of gift, appeal (the program you contributed to), name of spouse or partner if it was a joint gift; receipt number.
  • Financial information such as your payment methods and preferences, billing and banking information (credit card number and expiry date or chequing account transit numbers, whichever payment type you prefer in order to process your donation); preferences, etc.

How we use and disclose personal information

We use and disclose personal information only for the purpose for which the information was collected, except as authorized by law. For example, we may use demographic information to provide further information our audiences so that we can better tailor our content to you. If we wish to use or disclose your personal information for any new business purpose, we will ask for your consent.

Consent

We ask for consent to collect, use or disclose personal information, except in specific circumstances where collection, use or disclosure without consent is authorized or required by law. We may assume your consent in cases where you volunteer information for an obvious purpose. We assume your consent to continue to use and, where applicable, disclose personal information that we have already collected, for the purpose for which the information was collected. We ask for your express consent for some purposes and may not be able to provide certain services if you are unwilling to provide consent to the collection, use or disclosure of certain personal information. Where express consent is needed, we will normally ask clients to provide their consent orally (in person, by telephone), or in writing (such as opting in to a newsletter). 

An individual A participant or staff member may withdraw consent to the use and disclosure of personal information at any time.

We may collect, use or disclose personal information without consent only as authorized by law.

How we safeguard personal information

We make every reasonable effort to ensure that personal information is accurate and complete. We rely on individuals to notify us if there is a change to their personal information that may affect their relationship with our organization. If you are aware of an error in our information about you, please let us know and we will correct it on request wherever possible. In some cases we may ask for a written request for correction.

We protect personal information in a manner appropriate for the sensitivity of the information. We make every reasonable effort to prevent any loss, misuse, disclosure or modification of personal information, as well as any unauthorized access to personal information. We use appropriate security measures when destroying personal information, including shredding paper records and permanently deleting electronic records. We retain personal information only as long as is reasonable to fulfil the purposes for which the information was collected or for legal or business purposes.

Cookies

Like many other websites, we use cookies, which are text files placed on your computer, to better understand how our site is used, to make sure our information and dynamic content are served correctly, and to improve the performance of our site for our users, particularly the way search pages are delivered. SOI does not use cookies to retain personal information about our users, and we do not sell information about our traffic patterns. Aggregated site usage data may be provided to our sponsors and underwriters.

This website uses Google Analytics to help analyze how users use the site. The tool uses cookies to collect standard Internet log information and visitor behaviour information in an anonymous form. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) is transmitted to Google. This information is then used to evaluate visitors’ use of the website and to compile statistical reports on web site activity for SOI.

We will never (and will not allow any third party to) use the statistical analytics tool to track or to collect any personally identifiable information of visitors to our site. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. Neither we nor Google will link, or seek to link, an IP address with the identity of a computer user. We will not associate any data gathered from this site with any personally identifiable information from any source, unless you explicitly submit that information via a fill-in form on our website.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behave in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.