Investing Academy

Privacy Policy

The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) and its agents and representatives (sometimes referred to as “we”, “us” or “our”) respect your privacy and apply recognized principles to our dealings with personal information. Personal information is information about an identifiable individual. This privacy policy applies to our collection, use and disclosure of personal information in Canada, but does not apply to information about our employees or to information that is not personal information. 

Personal Information We Collect. The OSC may collect personal information about you, including:

• information that you provide when you contact us about one of our products or services or enroll in one of our activities, contests or courses, including age, school and teacher’s name and contact particulars when students enter our competitions;
• name, address, telephone number, email addresses and other contact information;
• demographic data such as age and investment experience;
• preferences such as how individuals use the OSC’s GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca and InvestingQuestions.ca websites (individually Website, or collectively Websites) and what they would like to see on the Websites or the OSC’s social media sites, including but not limited to its blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube pages (Social Media Sites) and what they would like to see on said sites; and
• other information that we collect with your consent or as permitted or required by law.

Use of Personal Information. The OSC may use your personal information for the following purposes:

• to contact you to send information you have requested;
• to send you newsletters and other electronic communications that you have subscribed to;
• to respond to your questions and requests;
• to conduct and administer surveys, promotions, competitions, games and contests; and
• otherwise with your consent or as permitted or required by law.

Disclosure of Your Personal Information. The OSC may disclose your personal information in the following circumstances:

• to enforce or apply our Terms of Use, Accessibility at the Ontario Securities Commission and other agreements;
• as necessary to meet legal, regulatory, insurance, audit, processing and security requirements; and
• otherwise with your consent or as permitted or required by law.

Service Providers. We may also transfer personal information to third party agents or service providers which provide services such as data processing, mailing, administrative, website or other online analytics or other services on our behalf. We take reasonable measures to ensure that your personal information that is processed by these service providers is protected and not used or disclosed for purposes other than as directed by us. Some of our service providers may be located in foreign jurisdictions and will be subject to the laws of such jurisdictions, which may permit foreign government and national security authorities access to your personal information in certain circumstances. 

Our Website and Social Media Sites. Certain browsing information may be collected to help the OSC evaluate the Websites or any of its Social Media Sites and determine how they are used. For example, we may collect your IP address, browser type, operating system, domain name, access times and referring website addresses. This information may be combined with that of other visitors to the Websites or any of the OSC’s Social Media Sites and used for the management and improvement of same; for example, we may use such information to assess which areas of the Websites are most commonly accessed. The OSC may use service providers to help us collect and analyze this information, and we may share this information and other information of this type with service providers retained by the OSC to assist in the development and administration of the Websites or the Social Media Sites. 

Cookies. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that are transferred to your computer's hard drive through your web browser, to enable systems to recognize your browser and to provide features, such as personalized ads. The Websites uses cookies to store information about visitors’ preferences, such as language and text size settings, and to record user-specific information when accessing content (for example, we may use an identifying flag in a cookie to control the offering of the Websites’ “Outcomes” survey, so as to avoid offering the survey to users who have declined or completed it already). We use this information to understand your preferences and to provide a more personalized experience when you visit our Websites. The “Help” section of the toolbar of most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies. Because cookies allow you to take advantage of some of our Websites’ features, if you block or otherwise reject our cookies, you may not be able to access or use such features. Some of our advertising and analytic partners, such as Google, may use cookies and web beacons to track additional information. For more information on Googles’ policies, including details on how to opt out of any tracking, please visit http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/ads/#toc-optout. Some advertising partners may participate in industry programs that include web pages that can be visited in order to opt out , such as the program offered by The Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada at http://youradchoices.ca/. 

Links. If you link to other websites from this Website, the OSC is not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites and you should review the terms applying to any website that you link to. 

Your Consent. Your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information may be given in various ways. Generally, by providing us with personal information, we will assume that you consent to our collection, use and disclosure of such information for the purposes identified or described in this privacy policy, if applicable, or otherwise at the time of collection. You may withdraw your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of personal information at any time, subject to contractual and legal restrictions and reasonable notice, by contacting us as explained below. Note, however, that if you withdraw your consent to certain uses of your personal information, we may no longer be able to provide related products or services to you. 

Security. We protect your personal information in our custody or control using physical, electronic or procedural security measures appropriate to the sensitivity of the information, which may include safeguards to protect against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification.

Need more information?

The file containing your personal information will be kept at our offices or on our servers or those of our service providers. Employees and service providers who require it for the purposes of their duties will have access to your file. If you have any questions or complaints about this privacy policy or the OSC’s Terms of Use, or if you have comments about the Websites or the OSC’s Social Media Sites, please send an email to [email protected]. If you wish to request access to, or correction of, your personal information in our custody or control, or to opt out of certain uses of your information as provided in this privacy policy, you may write to: Ontario Securities Commission 20 Queen Street West 22nd Floor Toronto, Ontario M5H 3S8 Reception: 20th floor, Attention: Investor Office Access or correction of your personal information is subject to applicable legal restrictions.

Privacy Policy Changes

This privacy policy may be revised from time to time. If we intend to use or disclose personal information for purposes materially different than those described in this privacy policy, we will make reasonable efforts to notify affected individuals, if necessary, including by revising this policy. We recommend visiting this Website frequently to view the current version of this policy. Your continued provision of personal information, or use of our services following any changes to this policy, constitutes your acceptance of any such changes. This policy is effective as of August 15, 2014.