Call us: 613-­332­-4789

omfrcinfo@gmail.com

Privacy Policy and Terms

Privacy Policy/Website Terms

 

Last updated: 2023-04-09

First and foremost, we want everyone to know that we respect the privacy of our customers and our members.  We have developed a Privacy Policy that we feel demonstrates our commitment to your privacy.  This privacy policy is intended to describe to for you, as an individual who is a user of our products and services, the information we collect, how that information is to be used, with whom it may be shared with, and your choices about such uses and disclosures.  This Privacy Policy applies to transactions made via Internet, via our telephone call centers, and any other form of correspondence where your personal information may be involved.  All information provided by you will only be used and disclosed in accordance with this Privacy Policy.  This policy describes circumstances in which your use of our products or services constitutes your consent for the collection, use and disclosure of your information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.  This Privacy Policy is directed toward customers and not businesses and is not intended to cover information about businesses or business activities.

We encourage you to read this Privacy Policy carefully when using our website, products, or services or conducting business with us.  By using our website, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

Consent

We only collect, use and/or disclose your personal information with your consent for internal use only.  We will ask you for your express consent if you would like to receive offers and/or information from us and/or another service provider.  Additionally, this Privacy Policy identifies various purposes for which the personal information you provide us with will be used, such as processing the transaction you requested, processing payment, and preventing fraud.  By providing us with your personal information and engaging in a transaction with us, you implicitly consent to our collection and use of your personal information for these identified purposes.

Information That We Collect

General: Information that we collect from you, either online, or through our call centers, or any other form of correspondence can be categorized as anonymous or personally identifiable.  Anonymous information is information that is not specific to an individual, such as your website browser information, and what web pages you have accessed on our websites.  Personally identifiable information (or personal information) is information that you provide to us that is unique to you, such as your name, address, email address, telephone number, username, passwords, etc.  Unless we specifically tell you, we do not record anonymous information that we collect with your personal information.  When you provide personal information through our website, or any other means, the information will be sent to our servers located in Canada and protected with the safeguards described in this Policy.

Personal information: We may collect and store personal information that you enter on our website, provide through our call centers, or provide to us by any other means of correspondence.   The information you provide includes identifying information such as your name, address, telephone number, and, if you transact business with us, financial information such as your payment method, and family history.

How We use the Information We Collect

General: By using our products or services and providing us with your personal information, you consent to our collection and use of your personal information as follows:

– To deliver the products/services that you have requested

– To manage your membership and provide you with customer support

– To perform research on your family history to verify the validity of your claim to Metis lineage

– Display content and advertising tailored to your interests

– To verify your eligibility for membership

– To enforce our Terms and conditions

– To manage our business

If you have indicated an interest in receiving information from OMFRC, either by opting in at the time you purchased products or services or otherwise, we may use your information to communicate with you by email, telephone and/or mobile devices.  Regardless of how we use your personal information it will be protected by the safeguards described in this policy.

Financial Information: We may use financial information you have provided to process payment for any services or products you have requested through our website, our call centers or any other means of correspondence

Job applicants: If your personal information is submitted through our website, email, fax, or any other form of correspondence when applying for a position with our company, the information will be used solely in connection with considering and acting upon your application.  We may retain your personal information for a period of time, but only for the purpose of considering your application for future available positions.

Your Choices About Collecting and Use of Your Information

– You can choose not to provide us with certain information, but not providing it may result in you being unable to use certain features of our website, as well as unable to purchase our products or services.

– At any time you can choose to no longer receive commercial, promotional, or newsletter emails by following the instructions at the bottom of any such email.  It may take up to 5 days to process your opt-out request.

– You will not have the ability to opt-out of receiving transaction, and relationship email, such as notifications of your membership status, or any form of communication regarding your products or services.

Who We Share Your Information With

Personal information: We do NOT share your personal information with others except with your consent and in the following situations:

– Authorized Service Providers: We may share your personal information with our authorized service providers that perform certain services on our behalf.  These services include order fulfilment  processing of credit card/debit card payments, delivering packages, providing customer service, performing business and sales analysis, supporting our website functionality.  These service providers may have access to personal information needed to perform their functions but not permitted to share or use such information for any other purposes.  We require that our service providers company with the safeguards described in this policy.

Other Situations   By using our services and providing us with your personal information, you consent to our disclosure of your personal information in the following circumstances:

– In response to a legal requirement, including response to a subpoena, court order or a request from law enforcement or other government agency, to establish or exercise our legal rights and to defend against legal claims.

– As reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of our company, our users, or our employees, including investigations or preventative actions regarding suspected illegal activity, suspected fraud or other wrongdoing, to enforce our website terms and conditions or other agreements or policies.

Third Party Websites

There are a number of places on our website where you may click a link to another website that does not operate under this Privacy Policy.  For example, if you clicked an advertisement, you may be taken to another website that we do not control.  These third party websites may independently solicit and collect information, including personal information.  We recommend that you consult their privacy statements before providing them with personal information.

How To Access Your Information

If you have access to our Online Portal, you have the ability to review and update your personal information online by logging into your account.  You can also review and update your personal information by contacting us.

If you do not have access to our Online Portal, are a member of our community and wish to gain access, you may contact us to have this setup for you.

Retention Policy 

If you cancel your membership, or your membership expires, we may still retain certain information associated with your account for analytical purposes and record keeping integrity, as well as to prevent fraud, collect any fees owed, enforce our terms and conditions, take actions we deem necessary to protect the integrity of our website, our database and our company, or take other actions permitted by law.  We have implemented a retention policy to prevent personal information from being retained for a period that is longer than reasonably necessary to deliver the products and/or services purchased from us.

Measures We Take To Protect Your Personal Information

We take every appropriate security measure (including physical, electronic, and procedural measures) to help safeguard and protect your personal information from unauthorized access and disclosure.  For example, only authorized employees are permitted to access personal information, and they may only do so to the extent such access is required to perform their permitted business functions.  We require our authorized service providers to protect your personal information in a similar fashion.  Additionally, we use encryption in the transmission of your sensitive personal information between your computer and our servers, we use firewalls to help prevent unauthorized persons from gaining access to your personal information.  We communicate your personal information to authorized service providers using secure connections.

Even though we take appropriate security measures as required by law, no security is perfect.  You should always take care with how you handle and disclose personal information and should avoid sending personal information through insecure means such as email.  For information how to protect your personal information, please refer to the resources from any of the following Government websites.

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (http://www.privcom.gc.ca/)

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta (http://www.oipc.ab.ca/home/ )

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia (http://www.oipc.bc.ca/sector_private/public_info/index.htm)

Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec (http://www.cai.gouv.qc.ca/index-en.html)

Blogs, Bulletin Boards, Reviews, Calendars

We may provide areas in our websites where you can post information about yourself and communicate with others, as well as post reviews, or post content.  Such postings are governed by our Terms of Service.  In addition, such postings may appear on other websites or when searches are executed on the subject of your posting.  Also, whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information on publicly viewable websites, that information will be publicly available and can be collected and used by others.  For example, if you post your email address, you may receive unsolicited messages.  We cannot control who reads your posting or what others may do with the information you post.

Children’s Privacy

Our website is intended for a general audience, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13 without parental consent.

Where We Store Your Information

This Privacy Policy is intended to cover collection of personal information from residents of Canada.  Please be aware that your information will be stored on our servers located in Canada, where our central Database is operated.  By using our services, you understand that your information may be transferred to our authorized third party service providers with whom we share it or otherwise disclose it as described in this policy.

Other Information Collected Using our Website

– Use of cookies and other technologies to collect information. We use various technologies to collect information from your computer and about your activities on our site.

Information collected automatically. We automatically collect information from your browser when you visit our website. This information includes your IP address, browser type and language, access times, the content of any undeleted cookies that your browser previously accepted from us (see “Cookies” below), and the referring website address.

Cookies

When you visit our website, we may assign your computer a “cookie” (a small, unique identifier text file) or series of cookies, to facilitate access to our site and to personalize your online experience. For example, when you sign in to our website, we will record your membership identification number of your OMFRC membership in the cookie file on your computer.  For security purposes, we will encrypt any usernames, passwords, and other user or member account-related data that we store in such cookies. In the case of sites and services that do not use a user or member ID, the cookie will contain a unique identifier. Through the use of a cookie, we also may automatically collect information about your online activity on our site, such as the web pages you visit, the links you click, and the searches you conduct on our site. Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies. If you choose to decline cookies, please note that you may not be able to sign in or use some of the interactive features offered on our website. The “Help” portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether.

Other Technologies

We may use standard Internet technology, such as pixel tags, web beacons and other similar technologies, to track your use of our site. We also may include web beacons in promotional e-mail messages or newsletters to determine whether messages have been opened and acted upon. A web beacon is a small file placed on a web page that allows a website to perform various tasks, including count users who have viewed that page or to access cookies. We also may receive an anonymous identification number if you come to our site from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website. The information we obtain in this manner enables us to customize the services we offer our website visitors to deliver targeted advertisements and to measure the overall effectiveness of our online advertising, or other activities.

– Information collected by third-party advertising companies. We may allow third-party advertising companies, including ad networks, to display advertisements on our site. These companies may use tracking technologies, such as cookies, to collect anonymous information about users who view or interact with their advertisements. Our website does not provide any personal information to these third parties, but they may collect information about where you, or others who are using your computer, saw and/or clicked on the advertisements they deliver, and possibly associate this information with your subsequent visits to the advertised websites. They also may combine this information with personal information they collect from you. The collection and use of that information is subject to the third-party’s privacy policy. This information allows them to deliver targeted advertisements and gauge their effectiveness.

Anonymous and aggregated information. We may combine anonymous information —

and/or aggregate information we collect with additional anonymous information collected from other sources. We may share anonymous information (including aggregate information) we collect regarding our users with third parties (such as advisers, advertisers and investors) for various business purposes including developing and delivering targeted advertising on our websites and on websites of third parties, conducting general business analysis, and developing website content and services.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We will occasionally update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices and services. When we post changes to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the “last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share your personal information, we will notify you by sending an e-mail to the e-mail address you most recently provided us in your account, profile or registration (unless we do not have such an email address), and/or by prominently posting notice of the changes on our website. We recommend that you check our website from time to time to inform yourself of any changes in this Privacy Policy or any of our other policies. Regardless of any change to this Privacy Policy, your personal information will only be used and disclosed in the manner described in this Privacy Policy at the time your personal information was collected unless you otherwise consent.

How To Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our information handling practices, or you would like to access, update or correct your personal information, please contact us by email or postal mail.

Privacy Officer

OMFRC

1314 Hybla Road

Bancroft, Ontario

K0L1C0

omfrcinfo@gmail.com

Cancellation/Refund Policy

Cancellation during Cooling Period

You have 10 days from your original receipt date to receive a full refund.  Your membership application will become null and void and you will not receive any benefits of membership to the Ontario Metis Family Records Center.

Limitation of Cancellation of Rights

You may cancel your membership at any time.  However, you will only receive any form of refund if your cancellation request is within 10 days of your original receipt date.

Return of Material Goods

In order to process a cancellation request, you must return all material goods (including, but not limited to the Membership Identification Card) to the OMFRC at the following postal address at your own expense.  Cancellation/Refund requests will not be processed until we have received your material goods.

OMFRC c/o cancellations

RR 5

Bancroft, Ontario

K0L 1C0

 

Method of Cancellation Request

You may request to cancel your membership by the following means:

By Telephone: (613)332-4789

By email: omfrcinfo@gmail.com

By Mail: OMFRC c/o cancellations

RR 5

Bancroft, ON

K0L 1C0

Method of Refund

Your refund will be made in the manner in which you paid.  If you paid by credit card or debit card, a refund will be issued by the same method to the original card.  We cannot issue a refund to any other credit card or debit card other than the one you originally paid with.  Refunds take 5-7 business days from the time of processing to show on your credit/debit card statement.

Purchases made by any other means will be paid by check.

Delivery Policy

All membership materials are shipped via regular Canadian postal mail.  Delivery of your membership card will take 6-8 weeks from membership verification.