Updated November 4, 2020

The B.C. Investment Agriculture Foundation (IAF) is an industry led, not for profit society that creates funding opportunities to support a thriving BC agriculture and agri-food sector through the effective delivery of programs. Protecting your privacy is very important to us. IAF is subject to British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). Any personal data you provide to IAF will be handled in compliance with current Canadian data protection legislation. The statement below outlines our policies and procedures on the collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information when you use the website and tells you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you. This policy does not apply to any other companies’ or organizations’ websites to which we may link to. By using the service, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

What information do we collect from you when you access this website and why?

Our website automatically collects usage data when you are using the service. Usage data may include information such as your device’s Internet Protocol address (IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our website that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

When you access the website through a mobile device we may collect certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device you use, your mobile device unique ID, the IP address of your mobile device, your mobile operating system, the type of internet browser you use, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data. We may also collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our website or when you access the website through a mobile device.

We use tracking technologies and cookies (small files stored on your computer’s hard disk, identifying your computer but not you personally), to gather anonymous information about visitors’ usage patterns. We do this in order to improve the navigation of website, the presentation of its content and the quality of its services. The information collected does not include personal details and does not allow personal identification of a user. For more information please see our Cookie Policy.

What information do we collect from you when you apply for funding and why?

When applying for funding that is being delivered by IAF, we require personal information and information on your organization and project concept. Personally identifiable information is information that identifies you, such as your name, email address, phone number and address and may be used to contact or identify you.

IAF uses personally identifiable information to liaise with the applicant / client and Information on your organization and project funding to:

  • To determine eligibility: the information is used to determine whether:
    • The organization is eligible for funding
    • The project activities are eligible
    • The project activity costs are eligible
  • Conduct due diligence: the information is used throughout the due diligence process to ensure that the applicant is capable of executing the project as proposed in the project plan.

The exact information that is requested is program dependent. The provision of some information may be optional, and if this is the case, this will be identified as such in the application form. IAF may contact you by e-mail, by post or by telephone. We will also contact you to ask if you are satisfied with our services, this will ensure that we continue to improve the service we provide to our applicants and clients. If you agree to be contacted for this purpose please tick the box during the application process. We would also like to add your contact information to our monthly e-newsletter which provides updates on upcoming and current funding opportunities and associated events in the IAF calendar. If you agree to be part of the mailing list please sign up to our e-newsletter via the website or tick the box during the application process.

Disclosure of Your Personal Data

We may disclose your personal data in the following situations:

Business Transactions

If IAF is involved in a merger / acquisition your personal data may be transferred. We will provide notice before your personal data is transferred and becomes subject to a different Privacy Policy.

Law enforcement

Under certain circumstances IAF may be required to disclose Your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency).

Other legal requirements

The Company may disclose Your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:

  • Comply with a legal obligation
  • Protect and defend the rights or property of the Company
  • Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
  • Protect the personal safety of Users of the Service or the public
  • Protect against legal liability

Becoming a Project Funding Recipient

In the event of you becoming a funding recipient we will share your information with the funder for the purpose of ensuring efficiencies and effectiveness of program administration. The funder may collect and disclose your information to other Government of Canada officials, to other levels of government in Canada and municipalities as well as to contractors or agents that assist in program administration. Further, the funder may make the following information publicly available on their website: the name, business number and location of the recipient, the description of the project and the name, date and value of the agreement. The specifics on how your information will be shared, in the event of you becoming a funding recipient, will be detailed in the Contribution Agreement that you sign and accept at the beginning of a project with IAF.

How do we protect information we collect?

The security of Your Personal Data is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. We follow technical and management practices we believe are reasonable under the circumstances to protect the confidentiality, security and integrity of information stored on our system however we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

How long do we keep user information?

We will retain your personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use your personal data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies. We will also retain usage data for internal analysis purposes. Usage data is generally retained for a shorter period, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of our service, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

Do we transfer your personal data?

Your information, including personal data, is processed at IAF’s operating offices and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located. It means that this information may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your province or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from your jurisdiction. Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer. IAF will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your personal data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of your data and other personal information.

Detailed information on the processing of your personal data

Service Providers have access to your Personal Data only to perform their tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.

Analytics

We may use third-party Service providers to monitor and analyze the use of our website.
Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google uses the data collected to track and monitor the use of our Service. This data is shared with other Google services. Google may use the collected data to contextualise and personalise the ads of its own advertising network. You can opt-out of having made your activity on the Service available to Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The add-on prevents the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js and dc.js) from sharing information with Google Analytics about visits activity. For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy Terms web page: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en

Usage, Performance and Miscellaneous

We may use third-party Service Providers to provide better improvement of our Service.
Invisible reCAPTCHA: We use an invisible captcha service named reCAPTCHA. reCAPTCHA is operated by Google. The reCAPTCHA service may collect information from You and from Your Device for security purposes. The information gathered by reCAPTCHA is held in accordance with the Privacy Policy of Google: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/

Amending your information

You can update your information at anytime by emailing info@iafbc.ca with the subject “Request to amend information”.

External links

Our website may contain links to other websites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third-party sites or services.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. We will let you know via email and/or a prominent notice on Our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and update the “Last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this statement or the practices of IAF’s websites, please email communications@iafbc.ca.