Privacy Statement

I. General

The Dairy Farmers of Canada (“DFC”, “we”, “our” or “us”) takes steps intended to meet privacy principles and requirements with respect to Personal Information (as defined below) under applicable privacy laws. This Privacy Policy applies to the services made available on our website dairyfarmersofcanada.ca, including all subdomains, as well as mobile websites or mobile applications (collectively, the “Site”). This Privacy Policy describes the Personal Information we may collect and how we may use it. By using the Site, you signify your consent to the terms of our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with any terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use this Site or submit any Personal Information to us, or use the preference tools we provide to adjust your settings. This Privacy Policy also describes certain choices you have on how we use your Personal Information. 

For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” means information which can be used to directly or indirectly identify you (such as your name, address, telephone number, date of birth, email address or payment information, for example, credit card number).

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. We will reflect any modifications to this Privacy Policy on our Site. We suggest that you periodically consult this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the Site after any such changes constitutes your acceptance of this Privacy Policy, as revised.

II. Collection and Use of Personal Information

DFC will only collect Personal Information from you if you provide it to us voluntarily or as permitted by applicable laws. You may choose not to provide us with your Personal Information although this may sometimes affect your ability to access the services available on the Site. When DFC requests Personal Information, DFC will outline the purposes for its collection and use (either orally or in writing).   For example:

• If you use the contact feature on our Site, we may collect your name, email address, phone number, job title, and other information about your company. This information may also be collected if we interact with you in other circumstances, for example, via networking events, forums, and trade conferences. We use this information to respond to your requests or comments. If you send us emails or letters, we may collect such information and store it in a file specific to you.
• When you visit our Site, we may collect information about your visit through cookies and similar technology (see our section on Cookies and other tracking technologies below for more information).

DFC may collect and use your Personal Information to help us better understand your needs and how we may improve the products and services that we offer you, respond to your inquiries, send you informational or promotional communications, contact you, carry out other purposes that are disclosed to you and to which you consent, and carry out any other purpose permitted or required by law. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, we may use your Personal Information as we deem useful to further promote Canadian dairy products overseas.

DFC does not knowingly collect the Personal Information of minors (persons under the age of 14 or under  an older age if permitted by the laws of their province of residence). We encourage parents and guardians to be aware of their children’s online activities. If you are aware that a minor has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us at [email protected]. If it comes to our attention that we have collected Personal Information from a minor, we may delete this information without notice.

III. Processing and Disclosure of Personal Information

DFC operates in Canada and abroad, using servers and infrastructure located in Canada. We may do business with third-party service providers who may themselves be located outside Canada, or, regarding Québec residents, in other Canadian provinces. As such, any processing of Personal Information by such service providers may, for example, take place in the United States, for the purposes detailed in this Privacy Policy. Please note that privacy laws in other jurisdictions may differ from Canadian and provincial privacy laws. Reasonable measures, such as contractual or otherwise, that DFC may take to protect your Personal Information while it is being processed or handled by service providers are subject to applicable foreign legal requirements, including lawful requirements to disclose personal information to government and law enforcement authorities in certain circumstances. By providing your Personal Information in connection with the services offered by DFC, you consent to such transfer and hosting.

Your Personal Information may be shared with agents or contractors of DFC in connection with services that these individuals or entities perform for DFC, including for marketing, information technology, data hosting and processing, and consulting services. In this case, we take reasonable contractual measures to make sure our service providers acknowledge and understand their responsibilities in protecting your Personal Information, and to ensure that your Personal Information benefits from similar levels of protection as it does when processed by us.

By providing your Personal Information in connection with the services offered on our Site, you consent to such transfer and hosting. If you would like to obtain more information about our policies and practices with respect to the transfer and processing of Personal Information, please contact us using the email address provided in the “Contact Information” section of this Privacy Policy.

Unless required or authorized to do so by law, DFC will not disclose your Personal Information to others without your consent. There are circumstances where the use of Personal Information may be justified or permitted, or where DFC is obliged to disclose such information, including where DFC is required by law, order or requirement of a court, administrative agency or other government tribunal; to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of others; to meet other legal, regulatory, insurance, security and processing requirements; or where the information is public. Furthermore, we do not sell your information to third parties.

DFC endeavours to ensure that any Personal Information provided to us is kept accurate, current and complete for the purposes for which the information is used. DFC keeps such information only as long as it is required to meet the purposes for which it is collected and destroys, deletes or converts such information into an anonymous form when it is no longer required, in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

IV. Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

We may collect information about you that is not personally identifiable such as the type of Internet browser or computer operating system you are using and the domain name of the website from which you linked to our Site. In addition, when you view our Site, we may store some information on your computer in the form of a “cookie” or similar file. Cookies allow us to tailor our Site to better match your interests or preferences. The cookies placed by our server are readable only by us, and they cannot access, read or modify any other data on a computer. We use cookies for the following purposes:

• To remember you and your preferences. This information is not disclosed to third parties.
• To analyze Site traffic and improve our Site’s performance.
• To personalize your experience.
• To provide relevant advertisements and measure their effectiveness.
• To ensure the security and integrity of our Site.

We may also allow third-party service providers to place cookies on our Site to assist us in analyzing usage data, providing advertisements, and improving the functionality of our Site. These third-party cookies are subject to the respective privacy policies of their providers.

If you prefer not to allow the use of cookies, you can adjust your browser settings to block or delete cookies. However, please note that disabling cookies may impact the functionality and usability of our Site.

We are also using the Google Analytics Advertising feature “Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting” in order to use non-personally identifiable demographic and interests data about our users collected through Google advertising products. We use this feature and this non-personally identifiable information to better tailor the content of our Site to our users. At no time will this non-personally identifiable information collected through the Google Analytics Advertising feature “Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting” be merged by us with Personal Information unless you have expressly provided your consent in this respect.

You can opt out of the Google Analytics Advertising feature “Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting” by visiting Google’s Ads Settings. Most Internet browsers also enable you to erase cookies from your computer hard drive, block all cookies, or receive a warning before a cookie is stored. You may also set preferences regarding collection of cookies and/or tracking directly on your device. Please refer to your browser, device instructions or help screen to learn more about these functions.

V. Security

The security of your Personal Information is important to us. We help protect it by maintaining physical, organizational and technological safeguards. Personal Information may be accessed by persons within our organization who require such access to carry out the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, or other purposes permitted or required by law. Agents or contractors of DFC who have access to your Personal Information in connection with providing services for DFC are required to keep the information confidential and are not permitted to use such information for any other purpose.

It is important to understand that no security measures are absolute. We cannot guarantee the safety of any information you provide to us.

VI. Links to other sites

From time to time, this Site may also include links to other websites, mobile applications or other channels. These links are offered for your convenience to provide further information. We are not responsible for, nor do we accept any liability for how such other entities collect, use, and disclose personal information. You should consult the privacy policies of these other websites before providing any personal information.

VII. Accessing and Correcting Your Personal Information

You have a right to access your Personal Information and to request a correction if you believe it is inaccurate. If you have submitted Personal Information and would like to have access to it, or if you would like to have it corrected, please contact us using the contact information provided below. We may require you to verify your identity before allowing you to access your Personal Information. Furthermore, we may not accept a request to change information if we believe that the change would violate a law or legal requirement or result in incorrect information.

In some cases, applicable law requires us to refuse to provide you with access to some or all of the Personal Information we hold about you, or that we may have destroyed, erased or made anonymous in accordance with our legal record-keeping obligations and privacy best practices.

Please note that if you request deletion of certain information, we may not be able to provide you with certain services. We will explain the consequences of deletion at that time to assist you in your decision.

If we are unable to provide you with access to your Personal Information, we will inform you of the reasons why, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions. Such restrictions may include, for example, information about another individual that would reveal their Personal Information, confidential business information, or would be prohibitively costly to provide.

VIII. Contact Information

Please contact us at  [email protected] (addressing your communication in the subject line to our “Chief Privacy Officer”) if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or any Personal Information we may have concerning you, or if you would like us to delete such Personal Information.