Privacy policy
By using this website and when providing the National Research Council (NRC) with your personal information, you are consenting to the NRC's collection, use and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this privacy policy. You may choose not to provide personal information through this website; however in doing so, you may not be able to engage in certain transactions or activities offered through this website.
Personal information you provide
The NRC may ask and collect from you your full name, postal address, phone number and e-mail address in order to complete shipping orders, convene and operate the website discussion forum or provide publications and e-mail news you have requested. When you order a publication, we also collect credit card information to process payment. If you participate in a survey or questionnaire, the NRC may collect financial information, demographic information, gender, age, education, marital status, language, household information, purchase history and/or other personal information from you.
Use of personal information you provide
Questionnaire and surveys
From time to time the NRC may conduct online or telephone surveys or issue user questionnaires in which we collect personal information from respondents who voluntarily provide it. Users are not required to participate in these surveys or to provide the personal information requested. Where personal information is provided, it is used by the NRC to profile its website users generally, generate statistics and aggregate reports for internal use. Where consent has been obtained at the time of collection of the personal information, the NRC may also contact you to get feedback on NRC products and services.
Product purchases and on-line offers
The NRC asks for and collects the personal information listed above to create an account for purchases of NRC products or services.
We use this information to perform or process on-line offers or on-line purchase order transactions and telephone orders, to communicate with you and to respond to your inquiries. The NRC will also use your personal information to verify your credit, to bill you for products and services and to enable you to participate in discount, rebate or other similar types of programs. By submitting a purchase order and purchasing an NRC product, service or subscription, you consent to us providing your personal information to our service providers and other third parties that we deem necessary to process your transaction. In order to process website or telephone transactions, the NRC may share and disclose your personal information with our agents, representatives, contractors and service providers so that they can provide us with services such as authorization of credit card transactions, order fulfillment, shipping etc. The NRC requires these entities not to use the information for any other purpose than for that for which it was provided.
If you consent by using the option feature on the NRC Virtual Store page, the NRC will also use your information to provide you with e-mail product offers, announcements about NRC services or news that we think will be of interest to you.
Contests
If contests are made available through this Website, the applicable contest rules may contain provisions pertaining to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information. To the extent that the contest rules differ from this privacy policy those contest rules will apply to the personal information collected in connection with that particular contest, otherwise this privacy policy shall apply to all contests.
Automatically collected information
The NRC automatically collects general information concerning the use of its website. This includes the Internet Protocol (IP) address of your computer, the IP address of your Internet service provider, the web browser used to access the website, the Internet address of the website from which you linked to the NRC Virtual Store, the date and time of access to the NRC Virtual Store, the operations undertaken during use of the NRC Virtual Store, the sections of the NRC Virtual Store that you visit, the parameters relating to particular pages of the NRC Virtual Store visited and the time spent on each page and the content downloaded from the NRC Virtual Store. We do not link this information with any personal information provided by you. Where authentication is required or used, your user name is recorded in the web server logs.
The general information that is automatically collected is used to improve the website, for marketing, website and system administration and other administration purposes. The NRC may use the general information that is automatically collected to create aggregate reports concerning website use, user patterns, user demographics and user purchases.
The NRC uses "cookies" which are small data files sent to your browser and stored on your computer's hard-drive to track your use of the NRC Virtual Store. The information derived from cookies is used to determine if a user has previously visited the NRC Virtual Store and to help store items in the "shopping cart" when users are visiting and using the Virtual Store portion of the website. Most browsers permit users to disable cookies placed in the user's hard drive. You may still access and use all features of the NRC Virtual Store if you disable cookies placed on your hard-drive.
Disclosing your personal information
Despite the measures the NRC has implemented, as described below, data transmitted over the Internet is not guaranteed to be secure. The NRC does not guarantee, warrant or represent that the personal information you provide will be transmitted securely, or protected completely against interception, loss, misuse or alteration. The NRC accepts no responsibility or liability for any damages that may result where personal information submitted by you, has not been securely transmitted, and has been intercepted, lost, misused or altered.
The NRC has adopted and implemented physical and technological processes and procedures in an effort to keep your personal information safe and secure. The NRC uses an Internet firewall to prevent unauthorized access to the NRC's computer systems from external sources. To establish an online account with the NRC or to submit a purchase order or purchase an NRC product online requires the use of Secure Socket Layers encryption technology (SSL). SSL is used to reduce the chances of your personal and other information from being intercepted and read as it is being transmitted over the Internet to our servers. Your information is only decrypted once it reaches the NRC servers and is subject to restricted access. The information you provide is backed up and stored at restricted access sites.
Disclosing your personal information
The NRC does not disclose your personal information except as stipulated or authorized by the Privacy Act.
Other websites
The NRC Virtual Store may contain links to other websites. When you click on one of those links, a new window will open, and you will enter the other website. The NRC has no control over those other websites and is not responsible for the collection of your personal information that is gathered on these other websites or their use of cookies or other tracking devices. It is important that you review their privacy policies before providing them with your personal information.
Modifications to this privacy policy
The NRC reserves the right to change this privacy policy at any time, without notice or liability to you or any other person, by posting a new privacy policy on the NRC website. The NRC's collection, use and disclosure of your personal information will be governed by the version of the privacy policy that is posted and in effect at the time.
Copy of this privacy policy
You are permitted to make a copy of this privacy policy for your personal records.
Contacting us
To obtain access to any personal information that the NRC has collected about you through this website, please write to us at:
Access to Information and Privacy Office
1200 Montreal Road
Building M-58, Room W-324
Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6
Canada
To correct or update your personal information or to request that your personal information be removed from our mailing or contact lists, please contact our Call Centre toll free (Canada) 1-800-672-7990 or Outside Canada and Ottawa-Gatineau Region 613-993-2463.
Secure shopping
Our site uses technology that ensures your personal and payment information is kept confidential and secure. Please refer to our Privacy Policy for further details on how your personal information is used and protected.
When you provide the NRC Virtual Store with any personal information-such as your name, address, e-mail or credit card number-it is processed by a data encryption system called Secure Socket Layer (SSL). The moment you visit a secure page, your browser will post a message indicating that the document you have requested is secure, and informing you that the information you transmit through that page will be encrypted to guarantee its confidentiality. The page address will begin with "https". During transactions, information such as your credit card number and its expiry date will be transmitted through SSL for approval purposes only.