The Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) is a national professional association with a mandate to:
- improve the health and welfare of all Canadians;
- promote excellence and innovation in psychological research, education, and practice;
- promote the advancement, development, dissemination, and application of psychological knowledge; and
- provide high-quality services to members.
In fulfillment of this mandate, CPA collects personal information about its members and, affiliates and, in some limited situations, other users or consumers of its products and services.
CPA recognizes that the privacy and protection of personal information is important. Below, we outline the types of personal information we collect, how we use it, and how we protect it.
Information We Collect and How We Use It
Provision of Services
The main reason we collect personal information is to provide services to members, affiliates and other non-member users. We collect the personal information you (or, in some instances a colleague of yours) provide to us. Your provision of personal information to CPA means that you agree and consent that we may collect, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with this privacy policy. Certain services can only be offered if you provide personal information. If you refuse to provide the necessary personal information, CPA may not be able to offer you those services.
With the personal information you provide we:
- confirm your ongoing candidacy as a member or affiliate;
- provide services from our membership, publications, convention, accreditation, and executive/administrative departments, including services provided to non-members; and
- conduct other routine tasks as specifically outlined elsewhere in this document.
What is Personal Information?
Your personal information includes:
- your name, mailing address, e-mail address, and phone number;
- your education history, work history, and professional affiliations;
- your year of birth, gender, and language;
- your membership type and status;
- your payment history;
- information you communicate through e-mail, faxes, letters, and phone calls; and
- other personal information collected to provide a specific service or to research our membership.
Personal Financial Information
We do not store members’ and affiliates’ full credit card numbers in our electronic databases. Once an online financial transaction is complete, we retain just the last 4 digits to facilitate payment auditing. If you provide a payment by another method (such as phone, fax, mail, or by cheque) we may retain your full financial information which we securely store.
Online Browser Data
We automatically collect technical data from visitors to our websites. This data is not connected to your personal information. It includes:
- server logs, which permanently records your computer IP address, browser type, operating system, and timestamp for each web page you visit; and
- session cookies, which temporarily stores on your computer your login information, the page you are viewing, and your language preference.
Surveys
From time to time, we conduct surveys on-line. Such surveys are undertaken in order to better understand the characteristics and needs of our membership and the discipline of psychology. Surveys you opt to begin and/or finish will not be connected to your personal information record unless we notify you in the survey disclosure. Data derived from these surveys will be used and shared publicly in the aggregate and not in a way that identifies any individual survey participant.
Access, Security, and Data Integrity
Access to your Personal Information
You have full access to the personal information we retain about you. We count on you to keep your personal information current. If any of your personal information changes, you may update it online, or you can request that we update it on your behalf.
Protection of your Personal Information
We restrict access to the personal information we collect to employees and volunteers of CPA. CPA maintains a confidentiality policy to which employees and volunteers of CPA are accountable.
Third parties have restricted access to your personal information as outlined in this document under “Information Sharing and Disclosure.”
We protect information using electronic, physical, and procedural safeguards.
We follow industry standards in protecting your information online. This includes:
- requiring login and password to view any personal information;
- encrypting personal information with SSL/HTTPS and security certificates; and
- maintaining firewall technology to block unauthorized access to our servers.
Storing of Personal Information
We store personal information permanently electronically, and on paper when necessary.
Our data and servers are located in Ottawa, Canada. Some third parties we work with are based in the United States of America.
We confidentially destroy personal information stored on paper when it is no longer needed.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
General
We do not give personal information to any third parties except as outlined below. You may opt-out of all services provided by third parties; however this will restrict the range of services available to you. We only provide third parties with the minimum information required to provide a given service. We do not give third parties the independent right to share your personal information with others.
Public
The only personal information that CPA will make known to any member of the public is confirmation of whether or not an individual is a member of CPA.
We publicly announce the names of award and fellowship recipients, unless you advise us otherwise.
We publicly announce the names and contact information of CPA volunteers, including the board of directors, section executive, committee members, and task-force members.
Members and Affiliates
We provide an online Membership Directory as a service to our active members and affiliates. The Directory is not available to the public. By default, members can view your name, membership type, mailing address, work phone number and e-mail address. You can prevent other members and affiliates from viewing any or all of this personal information by logging into the Membership Directory and recording these preferences on-line or by calling our membership department to record these preferences on your behalf.
Agents
We engage a small number of trusted companies and individuals to assist in providing services to you. These include our banks, printers and publishers, auditors, internet service providers, phone companies, and continuing education providers and businesses upon whom we rely to run our annual convention (e.g. hotels, convention centres, caterers, audiovisual companies). While most of these are in Canada, the publisher of CPA’s journals, for example, is the American Psychological Association (APA) which publishes the journals on CPA’s behalf.
Partners
Members and affiliates of CPA are eligible for group benefits from third-party Partners, including our professional liability insurance partner, our home and vehicle insurance partner, and our small business banking and/or other financial management partners.
We continue to expand our partnerships with the goal of increasing or enhancing member benefits. The membership will be advised when CPA takes on a new partnership.
Our trusted third-party Partners may request your name, mailing address, and language preference. We do not provide e-mail addresses to partners.
Advertisers
Our membership department may sell our mail directory of active members and affiliates to trusted third party Advertisers for one-time use. We do this on a case-by-case basis, for companies that demonstrate that they are providing a service of interest to our membership. The most common instances are ones involving the advertisement of professional books and materials and continuing education. Third party advertisers help keep your membership dues lower. Our third-party Advertisers may request your name, mailing address, and language preference. We do not provide e-mail addresses to Advertisers.
Advertisers and Partners may also place ads on our websites, and by following a link to their site, you may reveal technical data to them. We do not receive personal information from Advertisers.
Surveys
When we offer to conduct online surveys on behalf of a third party, such as a university researcher, we retain the survey data and allow that third party to retrieve and use the data at their discretion. Such survey data will not be connected to your CPA personal information. If you agree to participate in a survey hosted by CPA, it will be clearly disclosed to you who is conducting the survey and who will have access to any information collected.
Government Requests and Legal Proceedings
We will provide personal information as is reasonably necessary to comply with applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable government request.
Merger and Acquisition
In the event that the Canadian Psychological Association is merged, acquired, or dissolved, we will provide notice before personal information is transferred.
Aggregated Data
We may provide third parties with aggregated, non-personal information, such as the total number of members by region. Such demographic information does not identify you personally.
Choice
Opting-Out of Communications and Information Sharing
You can opt-out of the following member services:
- voluntary mail communications, such as periodicals and third-party advertising;
- voluntary e-mail communications, such as CPA News and Psynopsis; and
- the publishing of your name and contact information in our online Membership Directory.
You can opt out of these services by logging into our Members Area and exercising the opt-out options, or by calling our membership department.
Even if you opt out of voluntary communications and information sharing, we retain the ability to contact you on non-voluntary communications such as membership renewal notices.
Cancelling Membership
You may opt out of membership entirely by contacting our membership department. We will continue to retain any personal information you have provided us in the event, for example, you decide to re-join at a later date. We also retain personal information from membership applicants for the same reason.
Changes to This Policy
This privacy policy may be changed from time to time, as it represents our current practices. If any significant changes to the policy are implemented, we will notify our active members and affiliates.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns about our Privacy Policy or your Personal Information, please contact our Privacy Officer:
Lisa Votta-Bleeker, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Canadian Psychological Association
1101 Prince of Wales Drive, Suite #230
Ottawa, ON K2C 3W7
613 237-2144 [or toll-free: 1-888-472-0657] ext. 1323
executiveoffice@cpa.ca