Personal Data Privacy Policy

Who we are

We are Love Abbotsford, a ministry of the local Christian churches of Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada. Throughout this document "we" and "ours" refers to the Love Abbotsford organization, and "you" and "yours" refers to any and all public site users.

What personally identifiable information we collect from/about you

We collect a variety of information from our users in different ways through our online resources. This allows us to provide better service to you, to personalize our web sites for individuals, to personally contact you if necessary, and to ensure the effectiveness of our various electronic ministries.

If you visit any one of our web sites we may place a cookie on your computer. (See section on cookies for an explanation). In addition, we may collect IP addresses for purposes of system administration, to calculate aggregate statistical information, to identify general usage records, and to measure traffic patterns for all visitors to our web sites. These do not identify individual users, but may be used for general statistical and auditing purposes.

If you request electronic information via one of our web sites, or if you send us a comment or question via e-mail address, we may keep your e-mail address in a database. This allows us to send you a reply or to provide further information pursuant to your request. For further information about e-mails we send see section below on "Spam".

If you request printed material via one of our web sites or by e-mail, we will require your name and mailing address to send this to you. You may also be asked to provide an optional e-mail address.

If you have any other contact with our organization, we may ask for and record your personal details including an optional e-mail address.

What we do with your personally identifiable information

We will store this information only within our own secure internal databases. We may combine this information with any other relevant data held in our databases to build a picture of your interests, likes and dislikes, to enable us to provide you with individualized service.

We will NEVER sell, rent or give this information to any outside entity, except to comply with legal requirements or with legal process. We may also disclose this information to the appropriate authorities if we believe in good faith that your activities represent violations of the law or may be causing injury to or interference with -- unintentionally or intentionally -- our rights or property, other users or their property, or anyone else.

We may use this information internally within our organization or within our member ministries to send you information by mail or by e-mail to inform you about ourselves or to solicit donations. In the event that you reside outside of the country of Canada, we may make this information available to one of our ministries in your locale so that they might initiate contact with you. If you do not wish to be contacted by us, you may inform us of that, and we will abide by your preferences.

How we protect your personally identifiable information?

We make every reasonable effort to protect your personally identifiable information, by storing it in secure databases and by using secure servers to receive/transmit your sensitive data. However, this does NOT apply to personal data - including sender and/or recipient e-mail addresses -- contained in ordinary e-mail notes while these are enroute between your computer and our servers, during which time these notes must be considered public data. For security reasons we will never send you e-mail notes containing any sensitive or private information (such as credit card details), and strongly urge you to never place such information in e-mails.

We internally make all staff and contractors aware of this privacy policy, and that violation of this policy is subject to disciplinary action - up to and including termination.

How you consent to our organization collecting and using this information

You give us permission to collect and utilize as here described any of this personally identifiable information by making use of any of our online resources, including but not limited to:

• browsing any of our web sites,
• requesting information or materials via a web site,
• sending us an e-mail;
• completing a donation through any of our web sites,
• purchasing materials through any of our web sites.

What cookies are and how we utilize them

Cookies are tiny files containing small bits of information that your web browser stores on your hard drive at our request. Cookies enable us to remember you and your personal information from one session to another, thereby enabling us to provider better individualized service to you. Cookies also enable us to remember any information you gave us so you don't have to re-input it on each subsequent visit.

Most browsers accept cookies, but you can alter your browser settings to disable that feature. If you do you can still access most features available at our web sites, but you might have to re-input more data between sessions.

What Spam is and our policy on it

Spam is, by definition, unsolicited e-mail sent for the purpose of marketing to someone who either has specifically requested it not be sent or has no reasonable expectation of receiving it. We consider spam to be an invasion of privacy, and will never send unsolicited e-mails of this type.

We publish a number of ezines (electronic magazines or newsletters), and our policy is to operate on the principle of "opt-in". It is NOT our policy to send you one of these without your express permission or your reasonable expectation. If we are unsure for some reason about your preference(s) in this matter (ie. if you gave us your e-mail address without specifically asking to "opt-in" or "opt-out"), we may send you an unsolicited e-mail asking if you'd prefer to "opt-in" or "opt-out". We will abide by your preferences!

What we do to protect the privacy of children (under 13)

Although our web sites are primarily targeted at adult users, we may also choose to provide online resources for younger persons. Safeguarding the personal privacy of children is of paramount importance, therefore we will obtain verifiable parental consent prior to the collection of any personally identifiable information about children, and will not knowingly give children the ability to post publicly or otherwise distribute personally identifiable contact information without prior verifiable parental consent.

How you can find out what personal information we hold about you

If you believe that we may hold any personal information about you, you may contact our Privacy Officer by telephone at 604-514-2000 Ext.240, by mail at Box 300, Vancouver, BC V6C 2X3 or by e-mail at info@loveabbotsford.com asking us about that information. For security reasons we will require verification of identity before providing any details.

How you can update or delete personal information that we hold about you

If you believe that the personal information that we hold about you is incorrect, or if you wish us to remove any information about you, you may contact our Privacy Officer by telephone at 604-514-2000 Ext 240 by mail at Box 300, Vancouver, BC V6C 2X3 or by e-mail at info@loveabbotsford.com asking us to update or delete that personal information. For security reasons we will require verification of identity before taking any action.

How you can request that we not use your personal information to contact you

If you do not want us to use the personal information gathered from our web sites or from your e-mails to contact you, you may request that we restrict or entirely eliminate sending you any mail or e-mail, other than what is required for legal reasons or operational necessity. You may inform us of this by telephone at 604-514-2000 Ext. 240 by mail at Box 300, Vancouver BC, V6C 2X3 or by e-mail at info@loveabbotsford.com.

How you can request more details about this privacy policy

If you would like more details about this privacy policy, clarification of any of the information provided here, or if you have comments or suggestions concerning this privacy policy, please contact our Privacy Officer by telephone at 604-514-2000 Ext 240, by mail at box 300, Vancouver, BC V6C 2X3 or by e-mail at info@loveabbotsford.com

What else you should know about our Privacy Policy

You must be aware that any personal data voluntarily disclosed by you on bulletin boards, in chat rooms, in e-mail notes or in any other public forum provided by our organization, could potentially be accessed and "harvested" by third parties and is therefore not subject to our privacy policy. In addition, external web sites that are linked to by any of our sites may not adhere to our Privacy Policy, and you should refer to their Privacy Policy to understand the rules under which they operate.