This Privacy Policy is designed to comply with applicable privacy legislation in Canada. IFSE does not offer services to users outside of Canada. It is also designed to help individuals understand how their personal information is managed at the IFSE Institute. We urge you to read it carefully.
By registering on this site, by submitting any information through this site, or by otherwise accessing this site, you are agreeing to the terms of this policy and consenting to the policies and practices for the collection, use or disclosure of personal information.
WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?
We collect information from you when you register on our site or fill out a registration form.
When registering on our site you will be asked to fill out a profile which contains your contact information including name, phone number, email address and mailing address. We may also collect your social insurance number and professional credential or regulatory body identification number (if you are taking a course for professional certification, licensing, or registration) during enrolment.
We may collect the personal and demographic information you choose to provide us. We also collect information about how you use our sites (for example, your IP address, time, date, browser used, and actions taken by you while on the site) and the areas of our site that you visit.
If you are taking a computer-based test, which can be delivered in a test centre or remotely with online remote proctoring, we may collect, in addition to the personal information noted above:
- photographs you provide of your government issued photo identification and of yourself prior to beginning your proctored test;
- your digital or wet signature;
- biometric information, by way of artificial intelligence facial scanning of the photo you uploaded of yourself or a scan of your palm vein; and
- sensory data (including audio, electronic, visual or similar information) recording while you are completing your test through recording devices at the test centre or your computer via your webcam and microphone.
From time-to-time we may ask you to complete an online survey.
WHAT DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION FOR?
IFSE limits the collection of information to what is necessary for the identified purposes.
Registration Information: Registration Information is collected primarily for the purpose of identifying you as a user of IFSE services which includes online services provided by IFSE and servicing partners. Registration information is also shared with our third-party service providers who may deliver services to you on our behalf.
Social Insurance Number: Your Social Insurance Number is collected in order to facilitate your tax credit.
Professional Credential/Regulatory Body Identification Number: Your professional credential or regulatory body identification number is collected to facilitate your obtaining or maintaining of a designation, certification, licence, or registration from the respective regulatory body or accreditation authority of which you are a member.
Test Taker Information: When you take an examination, we will use the personal information provided in the following ways:
- Photos provided of your government-issued identification and of you prior to beginning your test will be used for the purpose of verifying your identity through the use of ID authentication protocols. This information is deleted after your identity has been verified. If an incident is suspected, this information may be kept in archive until such time as the incident has been resolved and any statutory limitation periods relating to litigation have expired.
- Biometric information will be used to authenticate your identity through ID authentication protocols. For online remote proctored exams, artificial intelligence facial comparison technology is used to validate the photos you provide of your government-issued identification and of yourself prior to beginning your test. We may also use the facial comparison technology for the purpose of verifying your identity during the testing session by comparing your facial image with the photos you provided. For in-person exams, digital or wet signature or a scan of your palm vein will be used to authenticate your identity prior to beginning your test.
- The video and audio recording of you we collect through a test centre recording device or your webcam and microphone will be used for the purpose of identity verification, remote observation, test security and incident resolution. We may keep a copy of the recorded video and audio for up to 40 days after the test for review purposes in the event of a claim or concern about a suspected incident. If an incident is suspected, the video and audio recording may be kept in archive until such time as the incident has been resolved and any statutory limitation periods relating to litigation have expired.
User Information: User Information, which generally includes the Registration Information, is used primarily to update you on the site and by email regarding new site developments and information about our services or those of our affiliates, to answer your questions and to provide you with services that you have requested.
User Information may also be used to determine appropriate new features, content or services for this site, to provide advertisers and business partners with aggregate but not personally identifiable information about our customers and their preferences, including statistical information about the source of visitors, sales, traffic patterns and use of services. User information is also shared with our third-party service providers who may deliver services to you on our behalf. For computer-based testing services, user information is transferred to the third-party service provider’s data centre located in the United States.
If you are a registered user of this site and have provided us with Registration Information, we may use your Registration Information and User Information to provide tailored job opportunities or other information to you.
Anonymous Information: Anonymous Information is used primarily by us and our business partners to measure the number of visits, average time spent, page views, and other statistics about visitors to this site. We may also use this data to monitor site performance for systems administration purposes, to make this site easier and more convenient to use, for law enforcement purposes, and to report information, in aggregate and not in a personally identifiable form, to our advertisers (e.g. how many visitors log in to this site).
If cookies are enabled on your Internet browser, then they are used to help us measure the number of visits, average time spent, page views, and other statistics relating to your use of this site. If you are performing a search on our site, then a cookie is used to carry the search request data from the request page to the results page. This cookie, by itself, does not tell us your email address or who you are. See the “DO WE USE COOKIES?” section below for more information.
If we use your Registration Information and User Information to provide tailored job opportunities or other information to you, we use cookies to recognize you on subsequent visits to our site and to make your online experience more convenient.
Anonymous Information may be used to serve you with targeted advertising on this site. Targeted advertisements are likely to be more interesting for you and are more productive for our advertisers.
Surveys: Unless you choose to receive the results of an online or email survey we may do or to redeem a prize that we are offering, we do not request any personally identifiable information during such surveys and all collected information is used on an aggregated basis only.
Communication with us: If you contact us, we may keep a record of the correspondence but we do not make any use of the email address or other contact information, other than to respond to the communication.
Improper use of personal information
Although we use all reasonable means to ensure that the information you provide to us is not used by third parties for purposes other than those described in this Privacy Policy, we are not responsible for any improper use of your personal information that may occur due to reasons beyond our control. Any information we collect from you may also be used in one of the following ways:
- To personalize your experience (your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs).
- To improve our website (we continually strive to improve our website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you).
- To improve customer service (your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service request and support needs).
- To process transactions.
- Your information, whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, transferred, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of delivering the purchased product or service.
- To send periodic emails.
- The email address you provide for order processing may be used to send you information and updates pertaining to your course, in addition if you have consented to receiving such materials from us, you may receive occasional company news, updates, promotions and related product or service information or other site features.
HOW DO WE PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION?
Although we implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information, information you post in public areas of the site may be accessed, used, and stored by others. We strive to provide a safe, secure environment by limiting access to our database to legitimate users, but we cannot guarantee that unauthorized parties will not gain access. We also cannot control how authorized users store or transfer information downloaded from the database. As such, you should not post sensitive information on IFSE.ca.
DO WE USE COOKIES?
We use cookies to prevent unauthorized access to our internal systems, to help us measure usage of the website and to recognize you on subsequent visits to make your online experience more convenient. We also use cookies to store courses and/or products you add to your Shopping Cart in order for you to complete the purchase after Logging into our System.
A cookie is a small file containing certain pieces of information that a website creates when you visit the site. It can track how and when you use a site, which site you visited immediately before, and it can store that information about you.
There are two common types of cookies, “session cookies” and “persistent cookies”. Session cookies store information only for the length of time that you are connected to a website – they are not written onto your hard drive. Once you leave the website, the originator of the cookie no longer has the information that was contained on it. Persistent cookies store information on your hard drive, keeping it there until the expiry date of the cookie.
We only use session cookies as an additional security feature for our online services. For example, when you login to IFSE’s secure web site and are authenticated through your login ID and password, a cookie will store the identification number of your browser. Throughout your session, the cookie acts as a type of digital signature to identify your current session to the web server. IFSE’s server will monitor the number of your browser to ensure that, at all times during your session, we are dealing with you.
Currently, most browsers do not distinguish between session cookies and persistent cookies. In order to use IFSE’s system, your browser must be set to accept cookies.
DO WE DISCLOSE ANY INFORMATION TO OUTSIDE PARTIES?
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. We may share this information with trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or serving you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe doing so is appropriate or necessary to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect our rights or others’ rights, property, or safety. However, no personally identifiable user information will be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.
Your personal information may be collected by our computer-based testing service providers (“CBP Partners”) when you take in-person or online remote proctored computer-based tests. Our CBP Partners invigilates and proctors our computer-based tests and uses and collects the information for the purpose of providing the computer-based testing services to you.
Your personal information may be collected by payment gateways and transaction processors (“Payment Partners”) when conducting transactions on our website. Payment Partners operate in accordance with their own privacy policies which can be found on their website or by contacting the provider directly.
Your personal information may also be shared with financial institutions dealing with Payment Partners. Such disclosure is limited to the information that is directly related to and necessary for the proper application of the Rules of Payments Canada.
CBP Partners and Payment Partners may be located in or have facilities that are located outside of Canada, and will be subject to the laws where they are located. Payment Partners will also be subject to applicable foreign legal requirements including lawful requirements to disclose personal information to governmental authorities in certain circumstances.
Payment Partners may share personal information with third party loyalty program providers as may be permitted by user’s agreement with program providers, applicable law, or Payment Partners privacy policy. Payment Partners may prepare, use, and/or share with third parties, aggregated, non-personally identifiable information derived from Transaction Data of all of Payment Partners’ customers or specific segments of Payment Partners’ customers.
THIRD-PARTY LINK
Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our website. These third-party suppliers have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these third-party sites.
PERMISSION TO DISCLOSE INFORMATION TO YOUR EMPLOYER OR SPONSORING COMPANY
When you register for one of our courses through an organization or sponsoring company, we expressly reserve the right to report to your employer or sponsoring company, upon their request, your performance results in relation to courses that you have taken or completed. If required, we may also report to regulators the results of courses that you have taken or completed. If you choose not to give us your permission to report course results to your employer or sponsoring company you may communicate this to us in writing at ifse@ifse.ca and we will inform your employer or sponsoring company of your choice.
CONSENT
By providing us with your personal information, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information for the purposes identified in this Policy. Our Sites are not intended for children under 13 years of age.
CONTACT US
Please direct any questions about our privacy policies, procedures and any other privacy related concerns or complaints to privacy@ifse.ca. Alternatively, you can contact us by phone, email, or mail.
Last revised: 3/27/2023