The Ecology Action Centre (EAC) is a member-based environmental charity based in Nova Scotia taking leadership on critical issues from biodiversity to climate change to environmental justice.
EAC is an independent organization that strives to work with partners to provide up-to-date environmental information; pursue researched solutions; and act as a watchdog for the environment.
To carry out our mission, it’s important to communicate with you. And we’re committed to respecting our relationship with you, whether close or distant.
This privacy policy reflects our best efforts to maintain this respect, while ensuring we can communicate broadly, personally and accurately in the most cost-effective way possible. It explains how we collect, use and safeguard your personal information.
Information we collect and how we use it
Personal information
“Personal information” is any information that can be used to identify, or infer the identity of, a specific person, including, for example, your name, address, birth date, gender, etc. In some cases, your computer’s IP address can be considered personal information, as it may give some indication of your geographic location.
We may ask you for personal information in a variety of ways, including website forms, surveys, mail-in forms, over the phone and in person.
There are a range of reasons why we may ask you for this information, including: to process a donation or registration; to fulfil your subscription to an e-newsletter; to allow you to send letters or sign a petition via our online action platforms; to invite you to events; or to provide other information about us which might interest you. We may also contact you by mail, email or phone about opportunities to donate in support of our work.
Your choice to provide us with your personal information is at your discretion. You may always elect to withhold information. In some cases, we will require your personal information in order to fulfil something you’ve asked of us. For example, when you make a donation, we’re required by law to take your full name and mailing address in order to send you a tax-deductible receipt.
Cookies and data technology
We use cookies and other technology on our websites to make them easier to use and so that we can learn about how you use them. Information collected this way may include, but is not limited to, your IP address and internet service provider, the type of web browser and operating system you used and which of our website pages you visited. We use links in our emails to track open and click-through rates to help us learn what emails appeal to you most.
In some cases, interacting with our websites, social media accounts or emails provides us with “anonymous” data, such as IP address, link clicks, page visits, the time spent on a page, etc. We use Google Analytics on our website to learn where you are in Canada, when you’re using our site and what content you find most interesting. This helps us stay relevant.
We may also use third-party cookies, beacons and other storage technologies to understand what website content is most important to you so that we can measure our performance and target sponsored and unsponsored content to you on those third-party party platforms. For example, we use Facebook’s tracking pixel to learn about what content you are interested in on our website so that we can serve only our most relevant advertising to you on Facebook. You can opt out from such Facebook advertising by clicking “Why am I seeing this?” on our Facebook ads, clicking “Options” and then selecting “Hide all ads from this advertiser.”
It’s possible for us to put anonymous data together with personal information you give us to find out more about you. This helps us respect what we know about you. For example, when we have petitions that are meaningful locally, we try our best to send them to the affected communities and avoid sending irrelevant or too many emails.
Aggregate data
In some cases, we may aggregate your information with other peoples’ in order to report on campaigns. For example, we may count the number of people who donate or sign a petition based on their postal code. That way, we can show where people in Canada are taking action — with the number (e.g., “516 people from Halifax have donated to this campaign”) or by indicating the total on a map. We do not display your actual postal code.
Use of third parties
In many cases, we don’t actually collect and store personal information in our systems, but instead use a third party. For example, we may use Survey Monkey to send out a survey.
Such services have resources dedicated to maintaining security and confidentiality, and we ensure that any third-party partner has written policies about never sharing your information with anyone other than the Ecology Action Centre.
Donation & credit card information
In order to donate to us, you may need to provide your credit card information.
In the case of donations made online, we do not store your credit card information. Instead, this information is collected by CiviCRM and immediately transferred to iATS Payments, where it is encrypted, processed, and stored.
We collect donations made by credit card in person, through the mail or by phone and process them using iATS Payments. Payment information recorded on paper is kept in a locked location.
A word on fundraising
As a registered Canadian charity, we simply cannot do our work without the financial support of our many generous members and supporters. We do our best to reach out to as many possible individual supporters as we can. Donors like you allow us to maintain an independent voice for our environment. Thank you!
We may use information you provide to find more complete contact information from other sources so we can reach out to you, and we may use third-party providers to help. You may opt out of these communications at any time by contacting claire.parsons@ecologyaction.ca
Links to other websites
Our websites contain links to websites owned and operated by other organizations. They may have their own privacy policies and terms and conditions and are not governed by this policy. We encourage you to carefully review the privacy policy and terms of use of each website you visit.
What you need to know about consent
By providing personal information to us, you allow “deemed” consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your information in accordance with this policy.
We respect your right to control your personal information — please contact us immediately if you want us to stop using it in any particular way. We will fulfil your request in the timeliest way possible.
Please note: In order to adhere to Canada Revenue Agency rules, we are required to maintain donation records and are not allowed to remove this information from our internal records, even at your request.
Please also note: We may be unable to provide you with certain information or services if you do not give us specific personal information. For example, we cannot issue you a charitable tax receipt if you don’t provide your address or send you an e-newsletter if you don’t share your email address.
Updating your consent
If you would like to stop receiving email from us at any time, click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of our emails.
If you would like to stop receiving mail solicitations or our paper newsletter from us, please email rowan@ecologyaction.ca.
Ways to prevent us from collecting "anonymous" data
Our websites use cookies and JavaScript-based tracking scripts to collect the anonymous data referred to above. To stop this from happening, adjust your web browser’s “cookie,” “cache” and JavaScript settings. Please note that doing so may affect the performance of our web properties, and in some cases may completely prevent you from using some of our pages and forms.
Information we share
General
In order to communicate with you, we sometimes work with external organizations and have them contact you on our behalf. We require them to take measures to properly safeguard your information and only use it for the purpose specified by us, in a manner consistent with this policy.
We sometimes send personal information to outside organizations who help us better communicate with you, for things like surveys. We only work with organizations that have comprehensive security and confidentiality policies, including written policies that do not allow them to use or share your information with anyone other than the Ecology Action Centre.
Email addresses
We do not sell or exchange email addresses with other organizations.
In some instances, we may promote actions or petitions on our websites in partnership with other non-profit organizations.
How we keep your information secure
We endeavour to maintain appropriate physical, procedural and technical safeguards for your personal information. Some information we collect may be stored and processed on servers located outside your jurisdiction of residence, including outside your country. As a result, this information may be subject to disclosure to governments, courts or law enforcement agencies in those areas, according to their laws, without notice to us or you.
Policy updates and changes
We may change this policy from time to time without notice. Changes will be reflected on this page.
Need more information?
For further information, please contact our communications team by email at claire.parsons@ecologyaction.ca or by mail at 2705 Fern Ln, Halifax, NS B3K 4L3.
This document is available to the public and explains how we collect, use and disclose information, in accordance with this policy, the Personal Information and Electronic Documents Act, the Personal Information Protection Act and other relevant legislation.