At a glance:

• This Policy covers what personal information we collect from you, what we do with it, and how you can find out more information.
• We mainly use your personal information to provide you with relevant information about how to get vaccinated.
• We may collect your personal information when you interact with us on social media.

The longer version

Vaccine Hunters Canada (“VHC”, “we” or “us”), is a non-profit organization made up of volunteers dedicated to helping Canadians navigate the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, understand the complexities of vaccine eligibility, and connect eligible Canadians with appointment opportunities.

This Privacy Policy applies to our website (available at vaccinehunters.ca and which includes appointments.vaccinehunters.ca) (our “website”) and any other interactions you may have with us, including on our social media accounts or channels or by email (we’ll call this the “Services”). We provide the Services to help provide Canadians with information on how to get vaccinated. We do not provide Services outside Canada or encourage people outside Canada to provide any personal information.

This Policy specifically covers our handling of personal information relating to identifiable individuals (“personal information” or “your information”) and does not apply to anonymous or business information.

By visiting or using our website or sharing information with us, you consent to the information handling practices described in this Privacy Policy.

Information we collect and use to provide the Services

We collect and use your personal information to provide the Services. The types of information we collect and use will depend on what you choose to provide when you interact with us, but will usually relate to your eligibility for vaccination (for example, your age) and your location.

We collect and use this information when:

• You communicate with us through the Services.
• When you ask us a question on social media or through email, we use the information you provide us to answer the question as best we can. We may ask for more information to help us answer the question.
• We may interact with you in the ways permitted on social media platforms, such as responding to, liking, re-posting, retweeting, and quoting your social media posts. These interactions are aimed at building our community and promoting awareness of vaccination information and opportunities to get vaccinated.
• You use one of our tools.
• We have developed, and are in the process of developing, tools to help you access vaccination information. These tools may require certain information from you to be of any use.
• For example, our Find Your Immunization (“FYI”) tool requires your postal code so we can pull up information on vaccination appointments that are relevant based on your location.

Keep in mind a few important reminders when you’re communicating with us:

• You never have to provide us with information you don’t want to, but this may impact our ability to help you or your ability to communicate or engage with us.
• When you provide us with someone else’s personal information, you represent that you have their consent or other legal authority to do so.
• When you contact us on one of our social media channels or accounts, that information will also be subject to the social media company’s privacy policy. For example, if you send us a message on Twitter, that message will be subject to both Twitter’s privacy policy and this Privacy Policy.

Other reasons why we collect and use your information

There are a few other cases when we collect and use personal information:

• We think we can improve our Services.
• We collect your personal information when you communicate with us through the Services to provide us with feedback, ideas, or other similar information.
• We may use the information you provide us to understand how you use our Services. For example, if we notice we’re getting the same question a lot, we may make a note of that and keep it in mind when we develop new tools or services. We won’t tie this information to you (or any specific individual) unless it’s necessary.
• We receive an application to work with us.
• We receive an application to work with us. If you apply to volunteer with us, we will use the information relating to that application (such as your employment history) to assess your suitability to any of our available positions. We may also collect information from third parties about you, such as references you list, for the same purpose.
• We need to comply with legal obligations or protect ourselves.
• We may need to collect or use your information to ensure we’re complying with legal requirements.
• We do not tolerate illegal activity, hate, harassment, or other toxic behaviour. If we witness you engaging in these activities on social media, we may block you or report you to the social media platform.
• In rare circumstances, we may also collect personal information to defend our legal rights. For example, we may collect and use personal information to investigate or resolve a breach of our Terms of Service.

Cookies and Do-Not-Track Requests

We use cookies on this website. Cookies are essentially small packages of data stored on your internet browser that tell us about your browsing behaviour. We use that information to monitor usage of our website and improve it.

For more information on cookies and how to manage them, check the support pages for your browser, such as Firefox, Safari, Chrome or Internet Explorer.

Because of the rapidly changing state of technology, we cannot make any guarantees that our systems will be able to honour Do-Not-Track requests sent by your browser.

How and when we may share your information

We don’t sell or lease your personal information to third parties.

We may share your information for two main purposes:

• To work with our service providers.
• We may share your information with “service providers,” which are organizations that assist us in operating VHC and providing the Services.
• When we share information with service providers, we require them to commit to protecting your personal information in line with our standards, and limit use and disclosure of the information for the specific purposes for which we supplied it.
• Some of our service providers may be based outside of Canada. This means your information may be accessible to law enforcement authorities outside of your jurisdiction, in accordance with the laws of that jurisdiction.
• For legal reasons.
• In rare circumstances, we may share your information about you if we reasonably believe that it is needed to:
• Comply with any valid legal process, governmental request, or applicable law, rule, or regulation;
• Investigate, remedy, or enforce potential Terms of Service violations;
• Protect the rights, property, and safety of us, our users, or others; or
• Detect and resolve any fraud or security concerns.

Getting and withdrawing your consent

When we collect, use or share your personal information we will do so with your consent for the purposes identified or as otherwise permitted or required by law. We may obtain your permission based on implied consent (including through this Privacy Policy) or through other means (such as express consent). However, in some situations, the law allows us to collect, use or disclose personal information without your consent.

You can withdraw your consent to the collection, use or disclosure of your information at any time. However, in some cases withdrawing consent will mean that we can no longer provide you with certain services or perform certain tasks where the information is required to do so. For example, we can’t respond to a question regarding available vaccine appointments if we don’t know what province you live in.

You may withdraw your consent to the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information at any time by contacting the Privacy Officer (see ‘Contact information’ below) and, subject to any legal constraints, we will comply with your request.

Data security and storage

We protect your information by limiting access to it and by implementing reasonable physical, organizational and technological safeguards as appropriate.

We only store your information for as long as it’s needed. After that, we will either destroy or de-identify the information.

Accessing your information

When requested in writing, we will inform you of the existence, use, and disclosure of your personal information that we maintain.

To access your personal information, submit a written a request that identifies yourself, the information you want to review and how we can contact you (see ‘Contact information’ below for how to contact us). We may not be able to provide you with all the information you request, depending on the circumstances, and there may be a charge for copies of your personal information.

Correcting your information

We make reasonable efforts to keep your information accurate and up-to-date to the extent we hold onto this information for any extended period of time. If a change or correction is required, let us know right away. We’ll make any appropriate updates needed. You can review your personal information by reviewing your communications with us, or by requesting access to your personal information as described above.

Contact information

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or about our handling of your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer in writing at:

Email: [email protected]

Please note that we may need to confirm your identity or request additional details in order to process your request. Please be patient with our response. We are a small organization run by volunteers and may not always have the resources to respond immediately.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may modify this Policy from time to time and will post the most current version online.

Last updated: June 18, 2021.