The Canadian Council for the Americas - Alberta is committed to safeguarding the personal information entrusted to us by CCA members and event attendees (which for purposes of this policy includes prospective members and attendees), visitors to the CCA website ("web visitors"), and others who express an interest in CCA (collectively "you"). We manage your personal information in accordance with Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act and other applicable laws. This policy outlines the principles and practices we follow in protecting your personal information.

This policy applies to the Canadian Council for the Americas - Alberta ("CCA" or "We" or "Our" or "Us").

A copy of this policy is provided on request.

What is personal information?

Personal information means information about an identifiable individual. This may include an individual's name, home address and phone number, personal financial information such as a credit card number used for payment, and educational history. However, not all the information we collect about or from you is necessary personal information. For example, business contact information used to contact individuals as representatives of their employers, and information about corporate members of the CCA, is not personal information.

What personal information do we collect?

In the event a member registers as an individual member, and in the instances where we collect more than an individual's business contact information from individuals under membership held by a corporation or as a result of their employment with a corporation, this information may be personal information. We collect only the personal information that we need for the purposes of providing our services, including personal information needed to:

• Issue memberships
• Manage payment for memberships
• Administer memberships
• Notify members of upcoming CCA and related events of interest
• Register members or others for events
• Manage event attendance and payment
• Respond to requests to receive communications

Such personal information typically may include your name, your contact information, your membership status if you are contacting CCA in your individual capacity, credit card or other payment information, and event registration status.

In addition, CCA uses cookies to maintain your login status as guest, registered user or purchaser on the CCA website, storing a code that does not reveal personal information.

Please note that when payment for a CCA service is made online at the CCA website, CCA uses an outsourced payment service provider to process such payment, and CCA itself does not actually collect your credit card information. Rather, your credit card information is collected on a website of that service provider by the service provider itself, and the corresponding financial transaction is then processed by that service provider.

We normally collect member information directly from our members and event attendees. However, we may collect your information from other persons with your consent or as authorized by law, or certain information limited to your name, membership status and event registration status, in the case that another person registers you to attend an event, in which case you will be deemed to have consented to this collection of information.

Through this Policy and through other means, we inform our members, before or at the time of collecting personal information, of the purposes for which we are collecting the information. The only time we don't provide this notification is when a member volunteers information for an obvious purpose (for example, producing credit card information for payment of membership or event attendance fees), or if another person registers you to attend an event.

Consent and Purpose of Collection, Use and Disclosure

Through this policy, we obtain your consent to collect, use or disclose member personal information, except where collection, use or disclosure without consent is authorized or required by law. CCA uses your Personal Information to help us manage CCA operations. As CCA's membership and event registrations are primarily web based, we will assume your consent in cases where you or someone on your behalf volunteers information on CCA's website for an obvious purpose, such as an event registration, or the administration of memberships. The CCA website URL is: cca-alberta.com

In particular, by registering for a membership or registering for an event, either yourself or through another person, you hereby agree and are deemed to provide your consent for CCA to collect and use any personal information CCA may collect about you for the purposes described below.

More particularly, the CCA uses personal information in order to:

• manage and administer CCA memberships and lapsed memberships (both corporate and individual), as further discussed below;
• manage and administer event attendance, whether you register yourself individually or someone registers you on your behalf at an event;
• send you notices about the CCA or events organized or sponsored by the CCA;
• send you notices about events organized by other organizations that we believe would be of interest to our membership; an
• disclose event registration and attendance information to co-organizers of an event, such as private companies, other trade organizations or government agencies that from time to time may co-organize an event with the CCA by (for example) arranging for speakers or providing substantial services to such an event.

Also, please note that in cases where we collected personal information before January 1, 2004, we assume consent to our use and, where applicable, disclosure for the purpose for which the information was collected.

If we wish to use or disclose your personal information for any other business purpose, we will ask for your consent.

We may from time to time ask for your express consent for some purposes and may not be able to provide certain services if you are unwilling to provide consent to the collection, use or disclosure of certain personal information. However, as most foreseeable cases will not involve sensitive personal information, we may rely on "opt-out" consent. CCA does not disclose its membership list to other organizations (other than certain of its service providers).

A member may withdraw consent to the use and disclosure of their personal information at any time, unless the personal information is necessary for us to fulfil our legal obligations. CCA will respect such a decision, but may not be able to provide certain products and services if it does not have the necessary personal information.

We may collect, use or disclose member personal information without consent as authorized by law. For example, we might not request consent when the collection, use or disclosure is reasonable for an investigation or legal proceeding, to collect a debt owed to the CCA, in an emergency that threatens life, health or safety, or when the personal information is from a public directory.

Please note that, CCA may outsource certain functions to third parties. At the time of writing of this version of this Policy, these third parties include a website service provider, an email distribution list service provider, and an online payment service provider (discussed above). In order to provide services to the CCA, each of these third parties will have access to personal information about you, and one or more of these service providers may be located in the United States, and subject to the laws of the United States regarding personal information disclosure.

How do we safeguard personal information?

We make every reasonable effort to ensure that member information is accurate and complete. We rely on members to notify us if there is a change to their personal information that may affect their relationship with the organization, and to enter any such changes themselves on their member profile on the CCA website. If you are aware of an error in our information about you, please let us know and we will correct it on request whenever possible.

In some cases we may ask for a written request for correction.

We protect member personal information in a manner appropriate for the sensitivity of the information. We use reasonable effort to prevent any loss, misuse, disclosure or modification of personal information, as well as any unauthorized access to personal information.

We use reasonable security measures when destroying member's personal information, including shredding paper records and otherwise deleting records.

We retain member personal information only as long as is reasonable to fulfil the purposes for which the information was collected or for legal or business purposes.

Access to records containing personal information

You have a right of access to your own personal information in a record that is in CCA's custody or control, subject to some exceptions. For example, organizations are required under the Personal Information Protection Act to refuse to provide access to information that would reveal personal information about another individual. Organizations are authorized under the Act to refuse access to personal information if disclosure would reveal confidential business information. Access may also be refused if the information is privileged or contained in mediation records.

If we refuse a request in whole or in part, we will provide the reasons for the refusal. In some cases where exceptions to access apply, we may withhold that information and provide you with the remainder of the record.

You may make a request for access to your personal information by writing to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (Attention: President). You must provide sufficient information in your request to allow us to identify the information you are seeking.

You may also request information about our use of your personal information and any disclosure of that information to persons outside our organization.

You may also request a correction of an error or omission in your personal information.

We will respond to your request within 45 calendar days, unless an extension is granted. We may charge a reasonable fee to provide information, but not to make a correction. We will advise you of any fees that may apply before beginning to process your request.

Questions and complaints

If you have a question or concern about any collection, use or disclosure of personal information by the Canadian Council for the Americas - Alberta, or about a request for access to your own personal information, please contact the President of the CCA in the first instance, as follows:

via email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Attention: President Re: Privacy Matter

via post:
Canadian Council for the Americas - Alberta
Attention: President Re: Privacy Matter
P.O. Box 20262, Calgary Place RPO
Calgary, Alberta T2P 4J3

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you should contact the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta:

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta
Suite 500, 640 - 5th Avenue S.W.
Calgary, Alberta T2P 3G4
Phone: (403) 297-2728 Toll Free: 1-888-878-4044
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Web site: www.oipc.ab.ca

Please click here to download and print our privacy policy in its entirety.

If you feel that we have misrepresented this policy in any way, please do not hesitate to Contact Us.