Privacy policy

Last Updated: June 8, 2023

Building the trust of our members is a core value of The Insurance Institute of Canada. With this commitment in mind, the Institute has designed the following policy to tell you what Personal Information we collect, and how we use and disclose this information.

The Insurance Institute of Canada consists of a national body, The Insurance Institute of Canada and the following local and regional chapters and institutes: The Insurance Institute of British Columbia, Victoria Island Chapter, The Insurance Institute of Northern Alberta, The Insurance Institute of Southern Alberta, The Insurance Institute of Saskatchewan, The Insurance Institute of Manitoba, The Insurance Institute of Ontario, Greater Toronto Area Chapter, Cambrian Shield Chapter, Conestoga Chapter, Southwestern Ontario Chapter, Hamilton-Niagara Chapter, Kawartha-Durham Chapter, Ottawa Chapter, L'Institut d'assurance de dommages du Québec, The Insurance Institute of Newfoundland & Labrador Inc., The Insurance Institute of New Brunswick, The Insurance Institute of Prince Edward Island, The Insurance Institute of Nova Scotia, Collectively, we refer to these entities as the “Institute” in this Privacy Policy. The personal information provided under this Privacy Policy is controlled by the Insurance Institute of Canada and the local/regional chapter in the region in which you reside (for example if you are in Nova Scotia, this is The Insurance Institute of Nova Scotia and if you are in British Columbia, this is The Insurance Institute of British Columbia).

When you apply for membership with the Institute, visit one of our websites, install one of our applications, register as a student, or purchase any products and services from us, you consent to our collection and retention of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy.

Personal Information is data about an identifiable individual, such as your name, address, telephone number, email address, or payment information. Personal information may also include your image, voice and chat history collected while attending a videoconferencing event. (“Personal Information”)

The Institute collects Personal Information about our members, information about students, and information about visitors to our websites and individuals who choose to make a purchase from us or otherwise provide Personal Information to us. The following sections explain what information we collect about our members, students, and non-members who visit our websites, choose to hear from us or make a purchase from us, as well as how we use this information.

For information about how we collect data automatically on our websites, please see “How does the Institute collect information on its websites?” below.

When you become a member of the Institute, we collect information to establish and maintain your membership, as well as information that members provide to the Institute through various methods of communication such as email or telephone. This information is stored and managed for the Institute’s internal use, including providing you with information that we think may be of interest to you based on what you have told us about your profession or interests. This data may include, but is not limited to, name, home and/or business address, employer, phone number, fax number, e-mail address, level of education, job function, income level, other educational degrees or designations, licences held, highest level of education attained and areas of interest and the payment information you provide to establish your membership.

The Institute collects, uses and retains this information for the following purposes:

To establish and maintain your membership, including processing your payment for your membership;

To understand member needs;

To analyze the suitability of our products or services for members;

To determine members’ eligibility for our products and services;

To set up, manage and offer products and services that meet members’ needs;

To provide you with information about our operations, including notice of our annual general meeting;

To provide members with on-going service.

We may collect information about our students during the registration and academic process – including, but not limited to, name, home and/or business address, phone number, fax number, e-mail address, employer, courses taken and grades attained.

The Institute collects and retains student Personal Information to enrol you in and administer its programs and also to be able to confirm an individual’s graduation status and courses completed within its programs. It also does so to provide counseling to students as to what courses and/or steps remain to complete its program(s). Lastly, the collection and retention of this information allows the Institute to determine students’ eligibility for prizes and awards.

We may also use this student information for purposes of communicating with you, maintaining your academic history in our various programs, confirming information provided by you, offering and providing products and services to meet your needs.

We also use Personal Information, including member and student information to:

Operate our websites in accordance with our terms and conditions;

Facilitate, complete or confirm a purchase you choose to make with us, including facilitating payment for your purchase, and delivering products or providing services;

Respond to your questions or inquiries;

Conduct research and surveys;

Conduct promotional activities, including contests;

Send you informational or promotional communications that you have agreed to receive;

Carry out other purposes that are disclosed to you and to which you consent;

Carry out any other purpose permitted or required by law.

If you have provided us with your Personal Information, but later decide you no longer want us to send you any information from us, you may unsubscribe by using the unsubscribe message in our commercial communications.

If you are participating in or attending a videoconferencing event, your profile information, image, voice, and chat history will be shared with other attendees during the event. Events may be recorded (video, audio and/or transcription) and recordings may be shared with other attendees, invitees, or other parties.

We will not record any event without a valid reason and recordings will be used only for the stated purpose. Examples of valid reasons include:
to allow the facilitator or notetaker to verify that meeting notes are complete and accurate.
to allow invitees who could not attend to fully experience the meeting.
if a recording is required for legal or regulatory purposes.
if the recording is intended to be a resource for internal or external audiences.

We will make reasonable efforts to prevent the release of any recording that includes accidentally shared personal or confidential information, images of non-participants, and inappropriate images or materials. As a participant, you are responsible for notifying the meeting host immediately if you become aware that a recording may include such information.

You are also responsible for ensuring that non-participants cannot overhear or view meeting participant information and content.

We may transfer your Personal Information to third party service providers that assist us with carrying out the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, or which we describe to you and you agree to. For example, we may use a data processing contractor to host our website, and we may use a payment processor to process payments.

We reserve the right to transfer any Personal Information we have about you in the event that we merge with or are acquired by a third party or should any such transaction be proposed. We may also use, or disclose your Personal Information to third parties, if we have reason to believe that using or disclosing such information is necessary to: (i) conduct investigations of possible breaches of law; (ii) identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be violating an agreement they have with us; (iii) investigate security breaches or cooperate with government authorities pursuant to a legal matter; or (iv) to protect our rights, safety or property or those of our members or students.

Lastly, we may disclose your Personal Information for any other purpose to which you consent.

The Institute takes pride in the accuracy of our database of information. On our website please check your profile. If you believe that personal factual information in your records is inaccurate, we make it easy for you to access, verify and update it on-line or you may choose to contact member services at 416-362-8586 or toll-free 1-866-362-8585.

You may also write to us to request access to your Personal Information and to request a correction to it if you believe it is inaccurate. If you would like to access Personal Information the Institute holds about you, or if you would like to have it corrected, please contact us using the contact information provided below. We will use reasonable efforts to comply with your request; however, in some cases we may not be able to allow you to access certain Personal Information in certain circumstances, for example if it contains Personal Information of other persons, or for legal reasons. We may require you to verify your identity before allowing you to access your Personal Information.

The Institute is committed to helping safeguard the Personal Information that we maintain on members and customers. We follow strict security procedures in the storage and disclosure of Personal Information you have given to us, including physical, technological, and organizational safeguards. We may, on occasion, request proof of identity before we disclose any Personal Information to you. The Personal Information we hold may be accessed by persons within our organization, or our third party service providers, who require such access to carry out the purposes indicated in this Privacy Policy, or such other purposes as may be permitted or required by the applicable law. Personal Information we collect is managed from our office in Toronto, Canada.

Although we have taken measures to help protect our websites, computer systems and any Personal Information that we have collected from unauthorized use, access, disclosure, misuse, alteration or destruction, no security measures can provide absolute protection. We cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you provide to us.

Some or all of the Personal Information we collect may be stored or processed on servers located outside your jurisdiction of residence, including the United States, whose data protection laws may differ from the jurisdiction in which you live. As a result, this information may be subject to access requests from governments, courts, or law enforcement in those jurisdictions according to laws in those jurisdictions.

The Institute does not knowingly collect Personal Information from children. If a child has already provided us with Personal Information, his or her parent or guardian may contact us for the purpose of deleting this information.

What information do we gather or track via our website? Since websites are quite organic in their evolution, the best way to keep them current and vital to members is to find out what parts of a site are most used. We use a variety of tools to determine how users interact with our websites, and the emails we send. We use this information to monitor use of our websites, improve performance, better understand how visitors use and interact with us to improve our websites and the content they display, including customizing them to your perceived interests and preferences. This information includes:

Google Analytics to track traffic patterns, including where users go on the site. Google Analytics collects standard internet log information and tracks visitor information in an anonymous form, and compiles statistical reports on site activity. For example, we can list how many users came to the site from another domain and what they did, but we do not know exactly who they are unless they use their member ID and password to login to our secure member site. This service uses cookies and similar technologies to collect and analyze this information, and may also collect information regarding the use of other websites, apps, and online resources. You can learn about Google’s practices by visiting google.com/policies/privacy/partners, and opt out of them by downloading the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, available at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. For further information about Google Analytics, please refer to the Google Analytics Privacy Policy.

Sitecore XDB to collect information regarding the interaction of visitors with our website including their general geographical location as determined via IP address.

Our email marketing system can determine whether you open the email we send you, and whether you click any links such email contains.

We may use a feature on your browser called a "cookie" and/or other similar devices such as tracking pixels. Cookies are small files that your web browser places on your computer's or device’s hard drive. They are used for a variety of reasons, such as tracking click streams, for load balancing, determining what portions of our site and mobile app are the most popular with visitors and to display advertising to you, both on our site, and on third party websites. Information tracked through these mechanisms may include, but is not limited to: (i) your IP address; (ii) the type of web browser and operating system being used; (iii) the pages of the website you visit and what parts of it you view; (iv) what you search for on our website; (v) how long you spend on our website; (vi) the number of visitors to our website (vii) where our visitors come from, and (viii) the files you request.

We use both session cookies (which are deleted when you close your browser) and persistent cookies, which remain on your device between browsing sessions. We use session cookies to help facilitate authentication on our websites, and ensure you remain logged in as you navigate the website. We use persistent cookies to remember you across browser sessions, for example, if you use a “remember me” function to remember your user name and password so that you will not have to re-enter them the next time you visit.

In addition, third parties, including Facebook and Google, may use cookies, web beacons, tracking pixels, and other storage technologies to help us display advertising to you on other websites and social media sites, and help us determine the effectiveness of our ads, for example, by determining if you visit our website by clicking one.

To learn more about the practices of Facebook, or to opt-out.

To learn more about the practices of Google, or to opt-out.

You may also opt-out of the online targeted practices of certain third parties by using the opt-out tool of the Network Advertising Initiative available here.

Your browser gives you the option to reject cookies. However, setting your browser to reject cookies generally hinders the browser's performance and will adversely affect your experience while using our websites. If you erase your cookies you may also need to reset your opt-out preferences using the above links.

We would like to know what members are interested in, so we can provide more of it. We want to know areas that they are not using, so we can improve the website. We also use some of the more interesting statistics in newsletters, to share popular areas with members, and help increase the efficiency of the site. As explained above, this information may also be used to display advertising to you both on our website, and on third party websites and social media. To opt-out of this please see our “Cookies” section above.

The information is used internally, to review the effectiveness of our communications. Some statistics and trends are shared with various institutes, committees, councils and members through newsletters or other means.

If a member chooses to give us Personal Information via our website, in order for us to correspond with them, or process an order, for example, it is our intent to share with you just how we intend to use the information. The Institute accepts, acknowledges and maintains any customer’s or member's request to opt-out of future non-essential communications from the Institute regarding the promotion of its seminars and special events.

The Institute’s websites may contain links to other third party websites, or may incorporate advertising or content hosted and served by third parties over which we have no control and which are governed by the privacy policies and business practices of those third parties. These other websites and this content may have their own privacy policies and terms and conditions that are not governed by this Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of any third parties. Other websites may collect and treat information collected differently, so we encourage you to carefully read and review the privacy policy for each website you visit.  Any links from our websites to other websites, or references to products, services or publications other than those of the Institute, do not imply the endorsement or approval of such websites, products, services or publications by the Institute.

The Institute reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. We will reflect any changes to this Privacy Policy on our websites and will indicate the date this Privacy Policy was last amended. If you access and/or use of the websites, membership, registration as a student, or other provision of Personal Information to us after any such changes, you agree to this Privacy Policy as revised.

Please periodically review this Privacy Policy so that you know what Personal Information we collect, how we use it, and with whom we may share it. 

If you have any questions or concerns about your personal information retained by The Institute, please contact our Privacy Officer at 416-362-8586, or by mail at 18 King Street East, 6th Floor Toronto, ON M5C 1C4.