At Ecojustice, we respect your privacy. We value the trust of our supporters and are committed to keeping the personal information you share with us — whether over the Internet, on the telephone, through the mail or in conversations with our staff or volunteers — confidential.
In carrying out our mission to defend nature, combat climate change and fight for a healthy environment for all, particularly with respect to raising funds to support our work, we collect, use, and may from time to time disclose personal information.
This Privacy Policy explains how Ecojustice protects the personal information of our donors, supporters, and people who submit new case inquiries.
It also explains how you provide your consent to use your information when you interact with Ecojustice and how you can raise a privacy concern, update or correct personal information, or withdraw your consent.
What is personal information?
Personal information is data about an “identifiable individual”. It is information that on its own or combined with other pieces of data, can identify you as an individual.
With your consent the primary information that we collect and reason why we collect it is listed below:
- Name, address, contact numbers – we use this to issue donation receipts for income tax purposes, thank our supporters and update you on our legal work and how your support is making a difference, and appeal to our community when we need additional support.
- Email addresses and social media identifiers – we use this to communicate program results, funding needs, opportunities to get involved, and other similar information to our community, through cost-effective digital communications and permission-based e-mail messages.
- Gender, age, date of birth – we use this to communicate activities we think interest specific demographic groups and allows us to wish you a happy birthday!
- Marital status and partner’s name – we use this to issue donation receipts in the names of both spouses where that is their wish, and this information helps us build relationships with our supporters.
- Donation history, bank account, credit card information – to provide a high-quality donation processing service and recognize donors’ years of support and cumulative contribution to our work.
- Personal information does not include your workplace contact information. Ecojustice may keep information about professional, employment and business relationships to conduct donor prospect research, to make targeted requests for fundraising assistance, and to inform donors of the opportunity to facilitate workplace giving contributions by their employers.
How Ecojustice protects personal information
At Ecojustice, we take the protection of your personal information very seriously. All personal information is kept in secure databases with controlled access limited to authorized staff, or individuals under their direct supervision.
Where paper copies of that information have been produced, they are kept in a separate office with a door that is locked when the office is not occupied by authorized staff or in a locked filing cabinet. If the information includes financial details such as bank account or credit card numbers, it is kept in a locked filing cabinet or locked storage facility.
Personal information provided by individuals or organizations seeking our assistance with a legal matter is kept in a central electronic database accessible to and managed by our legal and administrative staff.
Paper records are kept in separate files, as required by the circumstances of each inquiry. If an Ecojustice lawyer is retained to provide legal advice, or to act in his or her capacity as legal counsel, the communications between that Ecojustice lawyer and the client become subject to solicitor-client privilege.
This protects those communications from disclosure, unless the client chooses to disclose the communications, or the law requires those communications to be disclosed. Ecojustice retains your personal information only as long as it is required for the reasons it was collected or as required by law.
When your personal information is no longer needed or required, we have procedures to destroy, delete, erase or convert it to an anonymous form.
We collect personal information about our donors and other supporters in the following ways:
- from donation forms;
- from our website and other charitable giving web sites (e.g. Canada Helps);
- over the phone;
- in-person;
- from personal cheques;
- from public sources of information such as news media, published directories or annual reports;
- from list trading with other like-minded charities.
How we obtain your consent
Ecojustice is compliant with the privacy laws in Canada, as well as Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation which came into effect July 1, 2014, which requires that we obtain consent from the person to use personal information when it is collected. Consent can be either express or implied and can be provided directly
by the individual or by an authorized representative.
By signing up for electronic communications, responding to an action alert, or making a donation online a person has consented to receive email, mobile phone, and online community (social media) communications, these include breaking news updates, impact updates, fundraising solicitations, and commercial materials.
Express consent can be given orally, electronically or in writing. There is no expiry on expressed consent, unless an individual opts-out, or unsubscribes (see below for how to withdraw your consent at any time).
Implied consent may be reasonably inferred under certain conditions. We obtain implied consent when someone makes a donation or provides their email address to us without any restrictions. Implied consent lasts for a period of two years after the action that starts the relationship (e.g the date the donation was made).
Similarly, when someone contacts us with an environmental concern, we will use that person’s personal information to communicate with them and prepare research or work on their behalf.
Sharing personal information
Mailing addresses
In order to raise awareness and gather new support for our legal work, we may from time to time exchange the names and mailing addresses of donors with other like-minded organizations whose work may be of interest to them. Before we share personal information, we inform donors of our practice on tax receipts and/or in a welcome letter and provide them with the opportunity to “opt-out” of having their name shared by informing us of this either verbally, in writing by letter or email, or by simply returning a form with an opt-out check box completed.
Personal information is never provided directly to another organization. Instead, information is provided to an independent contractor, which holds and maintains the personal information and sends a communication on behalf of the organization. Personal information is only provided to the organization
when the supporter responds to the organization – i.e. replies to the solicitation, requests not to be contacted, etc. We ensure that any contractor we work with in this regard, has a privacy policy and information management system that meets our standards and conforms to applicable legislation.
Email addresses
We do not sell or trade email addresses with other organizations. We sometimes run actions or petitions on our website in collaboration with other non-profit organizations and/or our clients on specific cases.
When we do, we may ask whether you would like to subscribe to their electronic communications. If you opt-in to receive their materials, you provide your consent to allow us to share your personal information (name and email address) with them through a secure file transfer system.
The partner organization’s privacy policies will then apply to their communications with you, and you will need to contact them directly to update your personal information or communications preferences.
Withdrawing consent
All of Ecojustice’s electronic messages have an unsubscribe function allowing you to unsubscribe from our electronic communications directly.
You can also withdraw or change your consent to receiving information from us at any time by informing our Donor Relations Team directly at 1-800-926-7744 ext. 295 or donor@ecojustice.ca.
Keeping your information accurate
We make every reasonable effort to keep your personal information accurate and up-to-date. Having accurate information enables us to provide the best possible service to our incredible supporters who enable our legal fight for a brighter environmental future.
You can help by keeping us informed of any changes such as if you move or change telephone numbers or email addresses. If you find any errors in our information about you, please let us know and we will make the corrections as soon as possible.
Each mailing or communication that you receive from Ecojustice provides you with an opportunity to advise us of any inaccuracies in your personal information. If mail that we send to you is returned as “no longer at this address,” we will try and contact you to obtain updated contact information.
Online analytics and security
Ecojustice collects data and uses analytic technology across all of our websites and electronic communications in order to create a meaningful experience for our online community.
The data we collect is generally anonymous, but in some cases it is possible to put data together in an effort to communicate meaningfully and strategically to our audience. Our donation pages and main website pages are secured using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), a security protocol that provides communications and transactional privacy over the Internet.
We may also disclose and provide access to analytic data for our vendors and contractors who are performing services on our behalf. However, such vendors and contractors are not permitted to use your information for any purpose other than providing services to us.
If you have questions or concerns about your personal information
If you have questions or concerns about how Ecojustice is managing or using your personal information, please contact our Donor Relations staff directly at
1-800-926-7744 ext. 295 or donor@ecojustice.ca.
We will respond to your concerns in writing within 14 days.
If your concerns are not resolved, under the relevant privacy laws, you can ask for a review or file a complaint with the appropriate Privacy Commissioner.