Privacy Policy

The Montreal Heart Institute Foundation is committed to protecting the privacy and personal information of the Montreal Heart Institute’s donors, volunteers, employees, patients and their families. That’s why we adhere to the highest ethical standards in terms of protecting personal information.

 

Objective of the policy

This policy is intended to help you understand the Montreal Heart Institute Foundation’s practices in terms of collecting, using, disclosing and retaining personal information.

More specifically, this policy provides the following information:

  • The type of personal information we can collect
  • How we collect your personal information
  • How we can use your personal information
  • Limitation on disclosure of personal information to third parties
  • The security of personal information
  • How your personal information is kept
  • Your rights
  • Modifications made to the privacy policy
  • Our contact information

 

The data we collect is used in compliance with Law 25 that aims to modernize legislative provisions as regards the protection of personal information.

 

The type of personal information we can collect

Personal information means any information that makes a person identifiable. We can collect and process various types of personal information, including:

  • Identifying information: your given name, surname, title, gender and date of birth.
  • Contact information: mailing address, email address(es) and phone number(s).
  • Professional information: professional background, networks, social involvement, professional affiliations, family ties and other information that is publicly available.
  • Donation details: billing address, information pertaining to a bank account, payment information and history of donations.
  • Donations related to event participation: history of participation and dietary preferences.
  • Technological data: Internet protocol (IP) address, type and version of your browser, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating platform and other technologies on the devices used to access our website.
  • Usage data: information on the way you use our website and services.
  • Marketing information and communication preferences: preferences pertaining to receiving marketing communications from us and third parties, comments and answers given to surveys, conversations we have had with you in person or communications you sent to us.
  • Information pertaining to recruitment: CV, information about education and employment history, details regarding professional affiliations and other relevant information related to potential recruitment at the Foundation.

 

Any other personal information provided.

If you provide personal information about another person, you must make sure you have duly notified them that you are providing us with their information and have obtained their consent. The Foundation reserves the right to request proof consent has been given.

We do not collect any personal information about your race, ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, political opinions, information about your health or genetic and biometric data.

 

How we collect your personal information

The Foundation collects different types of information in various ways.

The personal information you provide us

When you make a donation, subscribe to our newsletter, register for an event or webinar or contact our donor experience team, we retain the personal information you provide, such as your name, email address, mailing address, phone number and, in some circumstances, payment card details. We also keep track of your donations and may keep track of your communications with us.

Automated technologies and interactions

When you interact with our website, we can automatically collect technical data about your equipment and browsing actions and patterns. We use cookies and similar technologies to collect this type of personal information.

Information from third parties

We occasionally receive information about you from third parties, such as:

  • Analytics providers such as Google Analytics
  • Advertising networks such as Facebook and Google Ads
  • Search engine providers such as Google
  • Publicly available information about you

 

Consent

The Foundation only collects and uses personal information with the consent of the person in question or in compliance with the law. By accessing, visiting or using the Foundation’s website or any other related mobile application or transactional module (the “Website”), or by providing us with personal information, you agree to the terms and conditions of this privacy policy.

 

How we can use your personal information

We use personal information only to the extent permitted by law. We mostly use your personal information in the following circumstances:

  • When it is required for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and when your interests and fundamental rights do not take precedence over these interests.
  • When we must comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
  • When we have obtained your express consent to use your personal information in this specific situation. However, we do not generally rely on this consent as a legal basis for processing your personal information and you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us. The contact information of our Privacy Officer is listed at the end of this policy.

 

The Foundation collects personal information using fair and lawful means and only collects personal information required for the following purposes:

  • To process your donations and issue tax receipts in compliance with CRA requirements pertaining to the processing of donations.
  • To acknowledge your contribution in our publications or in physical formats, such as plaques located in Montreal Heart Institute pavilions, always with your consent and in line with the Foundation’s donor recognition plan.
  • To provide information on how donations are used by the Institute.
  • To periodically contact you in writing, verbally or electronically in order to keep you informed of our funding needs related to research, prevention, care, teaching along with information about our programs, services, special events, opportunities to volunteer, etc.
  • To build and maintain our relationship with you, understand your needs and adjust our approach to serve you better.
  • To comply with regulatory and legal requirements.
  • The Foundation will make reasonable efforts to ensure you are aware of the purposes for which your personal information is collected when it is collected and will do so either verbally or in writing.

 

Limitation on disclosure of your personal information to third parties

In certain circumstances, we may disclose your personal information to third parties:

  • To our service providers and partners with whom we organize soliciting activities and that process personal information on our behalf and on our instructions. We require every third party to keep your personal information private and to process this information in compliance with the law. We do not authorize our third-party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes and we only authorize them to process this information for specific purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
  • We may be legally obligated to disclose your personal information to governmental authorities and law enforcement agencies.

 

In all other cases, the Foundation will ask for your consent before sharing your personal information with third parties. Without this consent, your data will be anonymized in reports provided to third parties.

The Foundation does not sell or rent your personal information to third parties for any purpose whatsoever.

 

The security of your personal information

We have implemented the appropriate safeguards (both in our processes and the technology we use) to ensure the security of your personal information. We make sure that all third parties that treat your personal information have implemented these safeguards as well and that they only process your personal information in accordance with our instructions. Third parties also have a duty to keep your personal information private.

Even though we take reasonable measures to protect the information you share with us, we cannot guarantee they will remain secure. No method of transmitting or storing personal information electronically is infallible. Therefore, the Foundation cannot guarantee the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data will not be breached. You must take care when providing information over email and pay special attention to what information you choose to provide to us.

When you use your credit card to donate to us, we make sure that the transaction is secure and In compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

 

How your personal information is kept

The Foundation retains your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected or until you request the information be deleted. How long this period lasts depends on the purposes for which the information was collected and the nature of the information in question.

As part of our activities, and in order to acknowledge donors by having access to the total amount of their donations since our first contact with them, the Foundation retains donor information unless the donor requests that their information be withdrawn.

During certain interactions with the Foundation (when you make a donation, subscribe to our newsletter, register for an event, fill out a form, etc.) you will be asked to:

  • Agree to the terms and conditions outlined in this privacy policy
  • Agree to take on the risks related to your participation in an event, if applicable
  • Agree to share your information with third parties involved, if applicable

 

If, after your most recent interaction with the Foundation, you want to withdraw your consent, simply contact us. Please note that the Foundation will still have to retain any information that is necessary to meet our legal obligations for the length of time set forth by the law. The Foundation will commit to destroy or anonymize your personal information after this period of time has ended.

The Foundation has mechanisms to delete or anonymize your personal information when this information is no longer required for our purposes, even if you do not request that it be deleted.

 

Your rights

In some circumstances, and in compliance with privacy laws, a person has the following rights:

  • The right to access your information: you have the right to ask if we hold any personal information on you and request access to this information, if applicable.
  • The right to ensure the accuracy of your information: we are bound to take reasonable measures to ensure that the personal information we hold on you is accurate, complete, not misleading and up to date.
  • The right to correct your information: you have the right to request that any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold on you is corrected.
  • The right to de-index: you have the right to request that we cease transmitting your personal information or de-index any hyperlink attached to your name that provides access to information via technological means if this transmission harms you or violates the law or a court order.
  • The right to anonymization: our organization can anonymize personal information instead of destroying it but can only use this information for serious, legitimate purposes. For instance, storing information required for the purposes of eventual tax inspections.
  • You have the right to be notified when you are the subject of decision-making based solely on the automated processing of your personal information.
  • You have the right to be notified when identification, tracking or profiling technology is used to collect personal information about you and how to activate these features.

 

To exercise one or more of these rights, please contact the Privacy Officer using the contact information at the end of this policy.

You can also submit a complaint to our Privacy Officer if we hold personal information on you in a way you believe does not comply with this privacy policy.

 

Modifications made to the privacy policy

We reserve the right to modify our privacy policy at any time. We invite you to consult it every time you visit our website to make sure you understand how we process your personal information.

This privacy policy was last updated on September 12, 2023.

 

Our contact information

Please contact our Privacy Officer if you have any questions, comments or complaints about this privacy policy, our practices regarding the protection of personal information or to exercise your rights related to your personal information.

Nathalie Rochette
Vice-President, Communications and Relationship Marketing
Montreal Heart Institute Foundation
5000 Bélanger
Montreal (Quebec) H1T 1C8
Email: consentement.ficm@icm-mhi.org
Tel.: 514 593-2525

 

Cookie Policy

This Cookie Policy explains how the Montreal Heart Institute Foundation (“Company”, “we”, “us”, and “our”) uses cookies and similar technologies to recognize you when you visit our website at https://fondationicm.org/ (“Website”). It explains what these technologies are and why we use them, as well as your rights to control our use of them.

In some cases we may use cookies to collect personal information, or that becomes personal information if we combine it with other information.

 

What are cookies?

Cookies are small data files that are placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Cookies are widely used by website owners in order to make their websites work, or to work more efficiently, as well as to provide reporting information.

Cookies set by the website owner (in this case, the Montreal Heart Institute Foundation) are called “first-party cookies”. Cookies set by parties other than the website owner are called “third-party cookies”. Third-party cookies enable third-party features or functionality to be provided on or through the website (e.g., advertising, interactive content, and analytics). The parties that set these third-party cookies can recognize your computer both when it visits the website in question and also when it visits certain other websites.

 

Why do we use cookies?

We use first- and third-party cookies for several reasons. Some cookies are required for technical reasons in order for our Website to operate, and we refer to these as “essential” or “strictly necessary” cookies. Other cookies also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our Online Properties. Third parties serve cookies through our Website for advertising, analytics, and other purposes. This is described in more detail below.

 

How can I control cookies?

You have the right to decide whether to accept or reject cookies. You can exercise your cookie rights by setting your preferences in the Cookie Consent Manager. The Cookie Consent Manager allows you to select which categories of cookies you accept or reject. Essential cookies cannot be rejected as they are strictly necessary to provide you with services.

The Cookie Consent Manager can be found in the notification banner and on our website. If you choose to reject cookies, you may still use our website though your access to some functionality and areas of our website may be restricted. You may also set or amend your web browser controls to accept or refuse cookies.

The specific types of first- and third-party cookies served through our Website and the purposes they perform are described in the table below (please note that the specific cookies served may vary depending on the specific Online Properties you visit).

Analytics and customization cookies:

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our Website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our Website for you.

    • Google Analytics 4
      • Purpose: Used to distinguish individual users by means of designation of a randomly generated number as client identifier, which allows calculation of visits and sessions.
      • Provider: fondationicm.org
      • Service: Google Analytics. View Service Privacy Policy.
      • Country: United States
      • Type: http_cookie
      • Expires in: 1 year 1 month 4 days

 

    • VWO
      • Purpose: This cookie is called internally by the VWO Analytics platform and tracks unique visitors for an account. It also tracks the visitor settings timeout events.
      • Provider: dev.visualwebsiteoptimizer.com
      • Service: VWO. View Service Privacy Policy.
      • Country: United States
      • Type: pixel_tracker
      • Expires in: session

 

Advertising cookies:

These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

    • Google AdSense
      • Purpose: Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services.
      • Provider: fondationicm.org
      • Service: AdSense. View Service Privacy Policy.
      • Country: United States
      • Type: http_cookie
      • Expires in: 2 months 29 days

 

    • Google Ads 
      • Purpose: A session cookie used to check if the user’s browser supports cookies.
      • Provider: doubleclick.net
      • Service: DoubleClick. View Service Privacy Policy.
      • Country: United States
      • Type: server_cookie
      • Expires in: 15 minutes

 

    • Facebook Pixel
      • Purpose: Facebook tracking pixel used to identify visitors for personalized advertising.
      • Provider: fondationicm.org
      • Service: Facebook. View Service Privacy Policy.
      • Country: United States
      • Type: http_cookie
      • Expires in: 2 months 29 days

 

How can I control cookies on my browser?

As the means by which you can refuse cookies through your web browser controls vary from browser to browser, you should visit your browser’s help menu for more information. The following is information about how to manage cookies on the most popular browsers:

 

In addition, most advertising networks offer you a way to opt out of targeted advertising. If you would like to find out more information, please visit:

 

What about other tracking technologies, like web beacons?

Cookies are not the only way to recognize or track visitors to a website. We may use other, similar technologies from time to time, like web beacons (sometimes called “tracking pixels” or “clear gifs”). These are tiny graphics files that contain a unique identifier that enables us to recognize when someone has visited our Website or opened an email including them. This allows us, for example, to monitor the traffic patterns of users from one page within a website to another, to deliver or communicate with cookies, to understand whether you have come to the website from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website, to improve site performance, and to measure the success of email marketing campaigns. In many instances, these technologies are reliant on cookies to function properly, and so declining cookies will impair their functioning.

 

Do you use Flash cookies or Local Shared Objects?

Websites may also use so-called “Flash Cookies” (also known as Local Shared Objects or “LSOs”) to, among other things, collect and store information about your use of our services, fraud prevention, and for other site operations.

If you do not want Flash Cookies stored on your computer, you can adjust the settings of your Flash Player to block Flash Cookies storage using the tools contained in the Website Storage Settings Panel. You can also control Flash Cookies by going to the Global Storage Settings Panel and following the instructions (which may include instructions that explain, for example, how to delete existing Flash Cookies (referred to “information” on the Macromedia site), how to prevent Flash LSOs from being placed on your computer without your being asked, and (for Flash Player 8 and later) how to block Flash Cookies that are not being delivered by the operator of the page you are on at the time).

Please note that setting the Flash Player to restrict or limit acceptance of Flash Cookies may reduce or impede the functionality of some Flash applications, including, potentially, Flash applications used in connection with our services or online content.

 

How often will you update this Cookie Policy?

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to the cookies we use or for other operational, legal, or regulatory reasons. Please therefore revisit this Cookie Policy regularly to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies.

This policy was last updated on September 12, 2023.