WCCHSE Privacy Policy 

Last revised July 2025.

Western Canada Collaborative of Health Sciences Educators Society (the “WCCHSE” or “we”) values privacy and is committed to protecting the privacy of its website users (“users”) and collaborators (“collaborators”, and together with users, “you”). This webpage outlines the types of personal information we may collect and how this information is used, disclosed, and protected (the “Privacy Policy”).

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices for collecting, processing, and storing your information. By accessing or using the WCCHSE website (www.wcchse.ca) (the “Website”) or submitting personal information, you indicate that you have read, fully understand, consent and agree to be legally bound by the terms of the Privacy Policy. If you do not accept and agree to be legally bound by and comply with the Privacy Policy, do not use the Website or submit any personal information. We suggest you print a copy of the Privacy Policy for your records.

SCOPE OF THIS POLICY

This Privacy Policy only applies to the information we collect, use, or disclose about you:

• On this Website.
• In email, text, and other electronic messages between you and this Website.
• In the WCCHSE portal.

The Website contains links to other websites, social networks or applications. Once you link to another website, you are subject to the privacy and security policies of the third-party website and enabling those connections may allow a third party to collect or share data about you . WCCHSE does not control these third-party websites and encourages you to read the privacy policies of all websites you visit. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for these third-party policies.

If any function or service of the Website requires you to provide payment information, including registering for a conference or education session, you will be directed to process your credit card payments through a third-party secure server website. When you are directed to the third-party secure server website, you will then be subject to the privacy policy of those websites. WCCHSE does not collect or retain your payment information directly.

AMENDMENTS TO THE PRIVACY POLICY

WCCHSE reserves the right, in its sole and absolute discretion, to change or modify all or a portion of the Privacy Policy at any time. Such changes, modifications, additions, or deletions shall be effective immediately upon notice thereof, which may be given by means including, but not limited to, posting on the Website and indicating at the top of this page the date the Privacy Policy was last revised, or by any other means by which you obtain notice thereof. Your continued access to and/or use of the Website after any such modification or changes constitutes your acceptance of, and agreement to be legally bound by, the Privacy Policy, as revised.  It is your sole responsibility to regularly check the Website to determine if there have been any changes to the Privacy Policy and to review such modification or changes.

This ensures that our users and collaborators are always made aware of the kind of information we collect online, the way we use it, and the choices we make available to them.

COLLECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION

“Personal information” means information about an identifiable individual, including, without limitation, an individual’s name, email, home address, phone number and employment information.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM YOU  

WCCHSE collects and uses several types of information from and about users and collaborators, including:

• Personal Information, that we can reasonably use to directly or indirectly identify you, such as your name, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number, internet protocol address used to connect your computer to the internet, user name or similar identifier and other information= provided to WCCHSE on a voluntary basisto become a collaborator and access the collaborator only portal. We provide an opportunity for any user to unsubscribe from our communications by using the unsubscribe mechanism at the bottom of our e-mails.
• Non-personal Information, that does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity or directly relate to an identifiable individual, such as statistical or aggregated information.
• Business information, that relates to business duties including title, duties, business email.
• Technical information, including your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, or information about your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our Website and usage details.
• Non-personal details about your Website interactions, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), clickstream to, through and from our Website (including date and time), page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), methods used to browse away from the page, or any phone number used to call our customer service number.

HOW WE COLLECT YOUR INFORMATION

We use different methods to collect your information, including through:

• Direct interactions with you when you provide information to us, for example, by registering or signing up for e-newsletters, conferences and events or by contacting WCCHSE through email, telephone or other electronic means.
• Collaborator contributions when you provide information for us to publish or display on the Website in the collaborators only portal and may be viewed by other collaborators (“User Contributions”). Your User Contributions are posted on and transmitted to others at your own risk and will be associated with your full name and any Personal Information that you choose to include in your User Contribution. If you choose to include Personal Information in a User Contribution, you are deemed to consent to the public disclosure of the Personal Information you choose to submit in this manner. If you do not wish to publish your Personal Information in this manner, please do not include it in your User Contribution. Although we limit access to certain pages including the collaborator portal, please be aware that no security measures are perfect. Additionally, we cannot control the actions of other users of the Website with whom you may choose to share your User Contributions. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that unauthorized persons will not view your User Contributions.
• Automated technologies or interactions, as you navigate through our Website. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies.

HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any Personal Information:

• To present our Website and its contents to you.
• To provide you with information or services that you request from us.
• To fulfill the purposes for which you provided the information or that were described when it was collected (if the purpose would not be considered obvious), or any other purpose for which you provide it.
• To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts with you, including for billing and collection or to comply with legal requirements.
• To notify you about changes to our Website or any products or services we offer or provide though it.
• To improve our Website, products or services, marketing, or customer relationships and experiences.
• To verify your identity.
• To open a collaborator account.
• To set out collaborator information.
• To contact our collaborators for conferences, events and WCCHSE announcements that may be of interest.
• To conduct user and collaborator surveys in order to enhance the provision of our services or Website.
• To submit and share content to other collaborators of the Website through the collaborator only portal.
• To submit and share content from other organizations if the message supports collaboration in health science education.
• In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
• For any other purpose with your consent.

With respect to collaborators of WCCHSE, their name and one piece of contact information may be shared with other collaborators of WCCHSE for the purposes of the Societies Act of British Columbia. Such collaborators can specify which piece of information they would like to have made available to other collaborators (e.g. home phone, personal phone, personal email, work email or other) by submitting such request to contact@wcchse.ca.

CONSENT

We will obtain user and collaborator consent to collect, use or disclose Personal Information (except where we are authorized or required by law to do so without consent).

Unless the purposes for collecting Personal Information are obvious and the user or collaborator voluntarily provides his or her Personal Information for those purposes, we will communicate the purposes for which Personal Information is being collected, either orally or in writing, before or at the time of collection.

Consent can be provided orally, in writing, or electronically, or it can be implied where the purpose for collecting using or disclosing the Personal Information would be considered obvious and the user or collaborator voluntarily provides Personal Information for that purpose.

Consent may also be implied where a user or collaborator is given notice and a reasonable opportunity to opt-out of his or her Personal Information being used, and the user or collaborator does not opt-out.

Consent will not be required beyond what is necessary for the purposes noted above under “How We Use Your Information”.

You may withdraw consent at any time by giving WCCHSE reasonable notice in writing to contact@wcchse.ca unless withdrawing consent would frustrate performance of a legal obligation (such as a contract between you and WCCHSE); however, withdrawing consent may result in WCCHSE not being able to provide certain services which require the collection of Personal Information.  We will explain the impact to you at the time to help you with your decision.

USING AND DISCLOSING PERSONAL INFORMATION

We will only use or disclose user or collaborator Personal Information where necessary to fulfill the purposes identified within the Privacy Policy, the purposes identified at the time of collection, to fulfill the purpose for which you provided it or with your consent. We may collect, use or disclose Personal Information with or without the user or collaborators knowledge or consent in the following limited circumstances: (a) when the collection, use or disclose of Personal Information is permitted or required by law, court order or legal process; (b) when the Personal Information is available from a public source; (c) when we require legal advice from a lawyer; (d) to protect ourselves from fraud; (e) to investigate an anticipated breach of an agreement or a contravention of law; (f) to enforce or apply our terms of use https://wcchse.ca/terms-conditions/ and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes; (g) identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be violating an agreement they have with us; (h) to protect and defend the rights or property of WCCHSE; and (i) to act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users or collaborators of WCCHSE, the Website, or the public.

STORAGE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

 WCCHSE shall keep Personal Information only as long as it remains necessary or relevant for the identified purposes or as required by law.

WCCHSE shall maintain reasonable and systematic controls, schedules and practices for information and records retention and destruction which apply to Personal Information that is no longer necessary or relevant for the identified purposes or required by law to be retained. Such information shall be destroyed, erased or made anonymous. We reserve the right to use such anonymous information for any legitimate business purpose without further notice to you or your consent.

Your Personal Information is important to us.  Any Personal Information about the WCCHSE collaborators or users is stored securely and used only for the purpose for which it is provided to us.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, you acknowledge that: (a) there are security and privacy limitations of the internet which are beyond the control of WCCHSE; (b) the security, integrity and privacy of any and all information (including Personal Information) and data exchanged between you and WCCHSE through the Website cannot be guaranteed; and (c) any such information, Personal Information, and/or data may be viewed or tampered with in transit by a third party.  Therefore, we cannot guarantee or ensure the security of information you provide us.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone. We urge you to be careful about giving out information in public areas of the Website like message boards, which any Website visitor can view.

ACCESSING AND CORRECTING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

It is important that the Personal Information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your Personal Information changes. By law you have the right to request access to and to correct the Personal Information that we hold about you.

You can review and change your Personal Information by logging into the Website and visiting your account profile page.

If you want to review, verify, correct, or withdraw consent to the use of your Personal Information you may also send us an email at contact@wcchse.ca to request access to, correct, or delete any Personal Information that you have provided to us. We cannot delete some of your Personal Information except by also deleting your collaborator account. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect, but will note the request to correct the information. We may charge you a fee to access your Personal Information, however, we will notify you of any fee in advance.

We may request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and your right to access, and to provide you with the Personal Information that we hold about you or make your requested changes. Applicable law may allow or require us to refuse to provide you with access to some or all of the Personal Information that we hold about you, or we may have destroyed, erased, or made your Personal Information anonymous in accordance with our record retention obligations and practices. If we cannot provide you with access to your Personal Information, we will inform you of the reasons why, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions.

We will provide access to your Personal Information, subject to exceptions set out in applicable privacy legislation. Examples of such exceptions include:

• Information protected by solicitor-client privilege.
• Information that is part of a formal dispute resolution process.
• Information that is about another individual that would reveal their Personal Information or confidential commercial information.
• Information that is prohibitively expensive to provide.

If you are concerned about our response or would like to correct the information provided, you may contact our the individual responsible for WCCHSE privacy at contact@wcchse.ca.

COOKIES

“Cookies” are small data files containing information to specify unique preferences and to provide personalized content. Cookies collect information such as your browser type, time and length of your visit and any Personal Information you agree to provide. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but visitors always have the option of disabling cookies and you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you refuse cookies, you may be limited in some areas of the website.

QUESTIONS AND COMPLAINTS

Users and collaborators should direct any complaints, concerns or questions regarding the Privacy Policy or via email to the personal responsible for WCCHSE privacy at contact@wcchse.ca. To opt-out of receiving communications, please provide your name, e-mail, postal address, and any other relevant information about yourself  to the email address contained herein.