Online Privacy Policy

The BC NDP values the support and trust of our supporters and recognizes that maintaining this requires that we be open and accountable for how we treat personal information.

In our continuing quest to build a better British Columbia, raise funds and build a strong base of support, we gather and use personal information. We comply with – and try to exceed - the requirements of applicable law.

Below we explain why and how we collect and use personal information from you online, on the phone and on the doorstep. Personal information means information about an identifiable individual, such as an individual’s name, address, personal email or phone number, political affiliation and volunteer and donor history.

For more information about why and how we collect and use personal information, please see our full privacy policy, which covers all of our obligations under BC’s Personal Information Protection Act (“PIPA”): PIPA Privacy Policy

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Why do we collect and use personal information?

The BC NDP collects and uses personal information for use in our political campaigns and associated activities. We do this so that we can communicate with you effectively and so that we can mobilize our supporters and promote and fund our campaigns, all in order to build a better BC. We also use personal information to administer our internal governance and membership systems and our fundraising program.

We will always tell you why we are collecting personal information when we are collecting it if it is not obvious from the circumstances. We collect and use personal information only for the purposes identified at the time the information is collected or for a purpose reasonably related to the purposes identified in our privacy policy: PIPA Privacy Policy

How do we collect personal information?

We mostly collect personal information directly from you when you voluntarily provide this information, such as when you:

  • “Join the movement” via our website;
  • contact us with inquiries;
  • sign up to receive our newsletters, including emails;
  • take action online (including responding to one of our surveys; signing an online petition, letter, birthday card; entering a contest, etc);
  • sign up to take a lawn sign or volunteer;
  • apply to work with us;
  • RSVP for an event;
  • make a donation; or
  • interact with our canvassers via your phone or in-person.

We also collect and analyze other information about voters and the areas in which they live, including the Elections BC voters list and voter turnout data, and publicly available information such as census data, demographic data based on postal code, and telephone books.

How do we use personal information?

We analyze and use the personal information we collect in a variety or ways (including by combining this information) in order to:

  • canvass your political support and voting intentions;
  • communicate with you about our policies, campaigns, events and opportunities to get involved;
  • understand what issues are most likely to be relevant to each voter and each electoral area;
  • inform the timing, content and audience for our campaign efforts, including in relation to canvassing, campaign materials and messaging;
  • inform the messages and content we send to you or show you on social media;
  • inform our policies, platforms and messaging for the future;
  • estimate how you might vote in elections and referendums, including how likely you are to vote at all;
  • estimate how you might respond to requests for support or to campaign messaging;
  • ensure that your donations comply with the BC Elections Act; and
  • manage our governance and internal affairs and membership database.

BC NDP website

While visiting www.bcndp.ca, you do not have to identify yourself or provide personal information, except when you provide such information on a voluntary basis. When you contact us through our website, including when you subscribe to our email newsletters, RSVP to an event or sign up to volunteer, we may ask you for your contact information and about your interests so that we can better communicate with you. This includes communicating with you about campaigns, nearby events and other ways to get involved with the BC NDP.

Our web site and our servers have technological and operational security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, alteration or unintentional destruction of the information under our control.

During the course of your use of the Internet, you will learn of the common use of "cookies". These are files or pieces of information that may be stored in your computer's hard drive when you visit a web site. Cookies are primarily used to enhance your online experience and are not used to track the navigational habits of identified visitors beyond this site. Most internet browsers are initially set to accept cookies. If you do not wish to accept cookies, you can set your browser to refuse cookies or to alert you when cookies are being set. However, please be aware that this may impair or limit your ability to use our website.

We may also use 3rd party analytics services to provide reports on website traffic so that we can better serve your online needs. These services may include the use of data from Google's 3rd-party audience data (such as age, gender, location, and interests) with Google Analytics. No personal information is shared by the BC NDP with Google or any 3rd party providers. We may also use embedded images in emails to track open rates and other ways in which you interact with our emails so that we can tell which email campaigns appeal more to our supporters.

You may opt-out of Google Analytics cookies by visiting Google’s opt-out page:
https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Sometimes we use third party providers to host petitions or to conduct surveys. We ensure that these third party providers are compliant with all applicable privacy laws and that personal information you provide is used only by and for the BC NDP.

Donations

When you make donations, we ask you for information to confirm that you are an eligible contributor in accordance with our obligations under the BC Elections Act. We are required by law to disclose your name and address to Elections BC if you contribute more than $250. We also use this information to issue tax receipts and may have to disclose related information to the Canada Revenue Agency. We do not share information related to your donations with any other third party.

When you contribute online, the BC NDP engages reputable and reliable firms using state-of-the-art security protocols to protect sensitive data, such as personal information and credit card numbers. The privacy of this data is ensured with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) 128-bit encryption. Security features are constantly being enhanced to stay ahead of any potential issues.

When you contribute by telephone, by mail, or by filling out our donation envelopes or forms in-person, your personal information is entered into our secure database and then any related paper records are securely shredded. Your credit card information is transported via securely encrypted channels to a third party payment processor. The BC NDP does not retain credit card information after the completion of a transaction, unless you have signed up for a monthly pre-authorized contribution, in which case only the last four digits of your credit card are retained for future payment verification purposes.

We store other information related to your donations in secure databases with technological and operational security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, alteration or unintentional destruction of the information under our control.

Membership

We invite British Columbians to join the BC NDP so that together we can build a better BC. When you apply to become a member, we collect personal information for the purposes of contacting individuals about their membership, internal party affairs and governance and for support, including volunteering and fundraising.

Volunteers

The BC NDP invites individuals to show their interest in volunteering by filling out online forms. Contact information will be retained for the purposes of contacting you regarding current as well as future opportunities to support BC NDP campaigns unless you specifically ask us not to contact you about these. Individuals filling out the volunteer form may also be contacted about events, announcements and other ways to get involved with and support the BC NDP.

Job applications

If you submit a job application to the BC NDP online or in-person, your contact information as well as your resume may be retained to contact you about the position you applied for as well as future opportunities with the Party unless you specifically ask us not to contact you about these.

Request an election sign

Individuals can request election signs online. Contact information is retained for the purposes of delivering your sign, and individuals using this feature may be contacted about future opportunities, events and announcements.

Contests

The BC NDP encourages individuals to provide contact information and share specific content as part of occasional contests. Contact information of participants will be retained for the purposes of contacting you regarding the contest and may be used to inform you of future contests and opportunities. This information will not be shared or exchanged. Specific content sent to the BC NDP as part of the contest will be retained and used by the BC NDP as it sees fit, as submission of content is deemed to constitute permission for use.

Social media

Through our website, you can choose to access certain social media sites and services that are owned and controlled by third parties (e.g. Facebook and Twitter). When you choose to access and use these social media sites, you will be sharing your information with those sites. As with other third party sites, any personal information you share with social media sites will be governed by the privacy policies of those sites, rather than ours.

While the BC NDP tracks metrics related to how often a social media post is liked or shared, at no time do we collect the personal information of individuals who are liking or sharing our posts.

Online advertising

We may use your email address to participate in Facebook’s Custom Audience and Lookalike Audience programs, which enable us to display campaign messages to both existing and prospective supporters on Facebook.

To do this, we first send a digital “fingerprint” of your contact information to Facebook — we don’t send your actual contact information, but instead a cryptographic piece of data that Facebook can use to find matches to contact information in their database. If you are not a Facebook user, or if the contact information you have given to us for the purpose of communicating with you is different than the information you use on Facebook, then there will be no match, and Facebook will not receive any information that they could use to identify you or target you in any way. If you are a Facebook user and the contact information you have given us is the same as the Facebook contact information, then our campaign messages may then appear when you access Facebook.

Facebook deletes this information (a) if it does not match with a Facebook account or (b) after they confirm you are a registered account holder. For more detailed information about how Facebook uses digital fingerprints — also known as a cryptographic hash — please see:

https://www.facebook.com/business/help/112061095610075

Facebook’s full data policy is here:

https://en-gb.facebook.com/policy.php

Mobile numbers

The BC NDP may ask for your mobile number when you sign up to receive communications from us. This information is always optional, and is collected so that the BC NDP may contact you in the future using text messages. To unsubscribe, reply "STOP" to any text message you receive.

Canvassing

We canvass voters over the phone, via text message and on the doorstep as part of our campaigns. Our canvassers may ask you questions about your political support, your voting intentions, your interests and your thoughts about our policies, platform and other campaign issues. You do not have to identify yourself or provide personal information in response.

However, if you voluntarily provide information, we may use this to communicate with you about our campaigns, including future opportunities to show your support by taking a lawn sign, volunteering or donating. We may also use this information to manage our communications with you in the future and to estimate your likelihood of supporting our campaigns.

The personal information that you voluntarily provide is entered into our secure databases. Any related paper records, such as canvass sheets, are carefully tracked and securely shredded once entered into the database. We secure our databases with technological and operational security measures to protect against the loss, misuse, alteration or unintentional destruction of the information under our control.

Internal research and profiling

We may carry out research and analysis on information provided by www.bcndp.ca visitors and other supporters to gauge the effectiveness of our approach and campaigns and to help us provide you with a better experience (for example so that you receive communications about the campaigns that you are mostly likely to be interested in). We may evaluate, categorize and profile your personal information in order to tailor communications to your preferences and/or needs and to help us to understand our base of supporters. For example, we may keep track of the amount, frequency and value of your donations, and may use automated systems to target and send emails. This information helps us to ensure our communications are relevant, timely and effective.

Aggregated personal data

In our continuing quest to build a better British Columbia, raise funds and build a strong base of support, we strive to understand www.bcndp.ca visitors and other supporters better and to gauge the effectiveness of our campaigns. In order to do so, we may conduct research on visitor/supporter demographics and interests based on personal information and other information provided to us. This research may be compiled and analyzed on an aggregate basis. Aggregated data may be derived from your personal information but is not considered personal information as this data does not directly or indirectly identify you. For example, we may aggregate data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific www.bcndp.ca feature. However, if we combine or connect aggregated data with your personal information so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal information which will be used in accordance with our privacy policies.

How can I unsubscribe?

You can unsubscribe from our emails at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link included in the bottom of every email we send. You can also contact us at contact@bcndp.ca or 604-430-8600.

You can unsubscribe from our text messages at any time by replying "STOP" to any text you receive. You can also contact us at contact@bcndp.ca or 604-430-8600.

You can unsubscribe from our telephone calls by telling the caller that you do not want to be contacted by telephone anymore. You can also contact us at contact@bcndp.ca or 604-430-8600.

How can I get more information?

You can find our full privacy policy here: PIPA Privacy Policy

This policy contains information about why and how we collect, use and disclose personal information, limits on this collection, use and disclosure, how we keep personal information secure, how long we retain personal information, how we ensure that personal information is accurate, and how you can make a complaint, ask for access to your personal information or ask questions. In particular, you have the right to withdraw your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of personal information as well as the right to ask for access to your personal information and information about how we have used this personal information.

The BC NDP Chief Privacy Officer is Provincial Director Heather Stoutenburg. The BC NDP privacy team can be contacted at:

Mailing address: #320 - 34 West 7th Ave, Vancouver, BC V5Y 1L6
Email: privacy@bcndp.ca
Phone: 604-430-8600

This policy may be amended by the BC NDP at any time without notice other than the posting of such amendments on this site.