Privacy Policy

P.I.P.E.D.A. Compliance

Both the Canadian Association of Orthodontists and its management company, TouchPoint AMC, respect your privacy. We also strive to protect the confidentiality of any personal information you may give us. We’d like you to know (a) the circumstances under which we collect information, (b) the kind of information we collect, and (c) how we may use that information.

Collection: The CAO collects personal information about the member. Depending on the category of membership, the CAO may collect some or all of the following information:

• Name, address, telephone and fax numbers, email address, university and graduation year, postgraduate education and graduation year, category of membership, licensure, orthodontic techniques. This allows the CAO to send out membership renewal information and process payments.
• Volunteer and work history, and any other information you may voluntarily provide on your CV for purposes of press releases and the CAO Awards Program.

You may provide us with information on-line, in a telephone conversation, or through a completed printed form. The information you provide will be securely stored either on a computer or as part of a hard-copy filing system.

1. ON THE INTERNET

Currently, we don’t collect anything from you on-line with the exception of conference registration and contact you submit on our Contact Us form.

In the case of conference registration, we will collect only such information as is required to (a) ensure that your confirmation is sent to you at the address of your choosing and (b) that your payment is processed correctly. Credit card information provided on-line would be processed over a secure link with our credit card provider.

As part of the conference registration process, we will ask you if you want your information to be in the on-site conference program. You would be free to opt in or out. If you opted in, we would maintain your contact information in a database solely used for that purpose. This database would not be shared, given, sold or rented to any other party under any circumstances. It may only be accessed by a TouchPoint AMC employee who has (a) been authorized to do so and (b) has a password issued by our IT department.

Upon annual renewal, we will ask you if you wish your contact information to be in the CAO bi-annual Membership Directory. Again, you would be free to opt in or out.

2. BY PHONE, MAIL OR IN PERSON

Personal data is collected only by our membership or special events department, and is maintained on a secure server not connected to the Internet. This information would be used only to facilitate event registration and administration. No data collected would be sold, rented, or given to third parties.

All payments would be processed either through our credit/debit card machine (our accounting department would retain copies only for bank verification/reconciliation) or (for cheques/money orders/cash) deposited directly to bank. Once again, they would be processed securely, and the account information would only be entered into a secure computer or manual database.

How We Use Non-Personal Information

Our website may automatically record some general information about your visit, such as:

• The Internet domain for your Internet service provider, such as “company.com” or “service.ca” and the IP address of the computer accessing the website, such as “ppp-55” or “123.123.123.123”;
• The type of browser (such as “Netscape version x” or “Internet Explorer version x”) you are using;
• The type of operating system you are using (such as Macintosh, Unix, or Windows);
• The date and time you visit our site and the web pages that you visit on our site, along with the address of the previous website you were visiting, if you linked to us from another website.

We use this information for statistical analysis, to help us make our site more useful to visitors. We may disclose this non-personal information to third parties such as sponsors or clients and/or use it for auditing purposes. This tracking system does not record personal information about individuals or link this information to any personal data collected.

We may use “cookies” that identify you as a return visitor. A cookie is a piece of data that a website can send to your browser, which may then store the cookie on your hard drive. So, when you come back to visit us again, we can tailor information to suit your individual preferences. The goal is to save you time and provide you with a more meaningful visit and to measure website activity. Cookies do not contain any personally identifying information. Browsers such as Netscape allow you to disable cookie collection if you wish, or inform you when a cookie is being stored on your hard drive.

Currency of data collected

The Canadian Association of Orthodontists, or its management company, TouchPoint AMC, may contact you requesting updates of data. This will normally be by regular mail or an e-mail directing you to the appropriate website. We do not use third parties to collect this data on our behalf, and you will never be directed to a third-party website for this purpose. If you receive any communication the authenticity of which is doubtful, please contact the CAO Office immediately.

Privacy Officer

The Canadian Association of Orthodontists has a privacy officer who may be contacted for any concerns, clarifications or possible abuse of the privacy policy. Please direct your communications to:

Chief Privacy Officer,
Canadian Association of Orthodontists
800-200 Consumbers Rd.
Toronto, ON
M2J 4R4
Local: (416) 491-3186
Toll-free: 1-877-226-8800
Fax: (647) 499-8167