Important Notices

Privacy Notice

The Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections (the “Commissioner of Canada Elections”), is committed to providing visitors with a website that respects their privacy. This Privacy Notice summarizes the privacy policy and practices related to the Commissioner of Canada Elections website.

All personal information created, held or collected by the Commissioner of Canada Elections on this website is protected under the Privacy Act. This means that you will be informed of the purposes for which personal information is being collected and how to exercise your right of access to that information. You will be asked for your consent where appropriate.

Public Communications

The personal information you include in an e-mail or in an electronic form sent through this website may be used to prepare a reply, to investigate potential violations of the Canada Elections Act, the Referendum Act and other related laws, or for compliance agreements, caution letters and recommendations for prosecution. It may also be used for investigative purposes by the Commissioner of Canada Elections, by law enforcement agencies when requested by the Commissioner, and by the courts in enforcement proceedings. As such, it may be shared with the subject of the complaint and also with their legal counsel. Some of this information may be shared with the RCMP for criminal investigations related to electoral matters or for the RCMP to assist the Commissioner's Office investigators. In addition, some personal information may be shared with the Chief Electoral Officer to further an investigation or enquiry. Further, it may also be used for statistical, evaluation and reporting purposes. This personal information is collected under the authority of the Canada Elections Act and is included in personal information bank PPSC PPU 008 – Public Communications.

Unless otherwise specified, e-mail inquiries and the electronic forms are not sent through a secure channel. You should not include sensitive personal information, such as your social insurance number or date of birth, in your message or in the form. Sending an e-mail to us or submitting the form electronically will make your personal information accessible to Bell Canada, which provides Web hosting services to the Commissioner of Canada Elections.

Network Security

The Commissioner of Canada Elections uses software programs to monitor network traffic to identify and investigate unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage to this website. This software receives and records the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer that has contacted this website, the type of browser used, the date and time of the visit and the pages visited. The Commissioner of Canada Elections makes no attempt to link these addresses to the identity of individuals visiting this website, unless any of the circumstances specified in paragraph 184(2)(e) of the Criminal Code arise. In such case, personal information is collected under the authority of section 161 of the Financial Administration Act.

This personal information may be shared with appropriate law enforcement authorities if suspected criminal activities are detected. Personal information will be accessible to Bell Canada, which provides Web hosting services to the Commissioner of Canada Elections. Such information may be used for network security related statistical purposes, auditing, evaluation, research, planning and reporting. This personal information is included in the personal information bank PSU-905 – Electronic Network Monitoring Logs.

Cookies

This website uses Web analytics tools that place sessional and persistent digital markers (cookies) on the device you use to visit this website. A cookie is a very small text file placed on the hard drive of your computer by a web page server. It is a unique identifying code for your computer and can only be read by the server that gave it to you. It allows the server to access information on your system so that you can better browse the Web pages. The cookies used do not allow the Commissioner of Canada Elections to identify you personally.

The cookies collect the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer that has contacted this website, the type of browser used, the date and time of the visit and the pages visited. The information collected is compiled into aggregated statistical reports used to analyze traffic patterns to, from and within this website (e.g. the most visited pages) and to assess the Commissioner of Canada Elections' website's efficiency (e.g. analysis of broken links). The information may be shared with WebTrends, a web analytics supplier, subcontracted by Bell Canada, which provides Web hosting services to the Commissioner of Canada Elections.

Notice: Retention periods and how personal information is safeguarded by third parties are currently under development, and will be posted at a later date.

You may delete the cookies used by the Commissioner of Canada Elections Web analytics tools from your device through the settings of your Web browser. This will not affect the website's performance or restrict your ability to access information from this website.

Privacy Inquiries

Any questions, comments, concerns or complaints you may have regarding the administration of the Privacy Act and privacy policies for this website may be directed to the Access to Information and Privacy Coordinator by email at atip-aiprp@ppsc-sppc.gc.ca, by calling 613-946-7953, or by writing to: Public Prosecution Service of Canada, 284 Wellington Street (Place Bell, 12th Floor), Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0H8. If you are not satisfied with our response to your privacy concern, you may wish to contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner by e-mail at info@priv.gc.ca or by telephone at 1-800-282-1376.

Official Languages Notice

The Commissioner of Canada Elections is bound by the Official Languages Act and relevant Treasury Board policies and is committed to ensuring that information that originates from the Commissioner of Canada Elections will be posted on this website simultaneously in both official languages. However, users should be aware that information provided by entities not subject to the Official Languages Act will only be available in the language in which it was provided.

Hyperlinking Notice

Links to websites not under the control of the Commissioner of Canada Elections are provided solely for the convenience of our website visitors. The Commissioner of Canada Elections is not responsible for the accuracy, reliability or currency of the information contained on external websites. The Commissioner of Canada Elections does not offer any guarantee in that regard and is not responsible for the information found through these links, nor does it endorse the sites or their content.

Should you follow any link to a page outside of this website, you should refer to that website's own privacy policy.

Copyright/Permission to Reproduce Notices

Materials on this website were produced and/or compiled by the Commissioner for Canada Elections for the purpose of providing Canadians with direct access to information about the programs and services offered by the Commissioner of Canada Elections. You may use and reproduce the materials as follows:

Non-commercial Reproduction

Unless otherwise specified, you may reproduce the materials in whole or in part for non-commercial purposes, and in any format, without charge or further permission from the Commissioner of Canada Elections, provided you do the following:

  • Exercise due diligence in ensuring the accuracy of the materials reproduced;
  • Indicate both the complete title of the materials reproduced, as well as the author (where available);
  • Indicate that the reproduction is a copy of the version available at [URL where original document is available];
  • Indicate that the reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor as having been made, in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Commissioner of Canada Elections; and
  • Not use a method of downloading information that would place the Commissioner of Canada Election's network at risk. The Commissioner of Canada Elections will take all necessary steps to protect its information technology assets from those who extract content from this website in a manner that affects its performance or places it at risk.

Third-party Materials

Some of the materials and graphical elements found on this website are subject to copyrights held by other organizations. In such cases, some restrictions on the reproduction of materials or graphical elements may apply and it may be necessary to seek permission from the rights holder prior to reproducing the material.

Commercial Reproduction

To obtain permission to reproduce materials on this website for commercial purposes, or to obtain information concerning copyright ownership and restrictions on reproduction from this website, please contact the Commissioner of Canada Elections at:

Telephone: 1-855-759-6740
Fax: 819-939-1801
Email: info@cef-cce.ca

Accessibility

The Commissioner of Canada Elections website is compliant with the Standard on Web Accessibility, and is designed to facilitate accessibility and to ensure that all users can take advantage of its features. Despite every effort to ensure the material can be viewed by all types of devices or software, some difficulties may persist. Please contact us if you experience any difficulty with our web site.

External Service Providers

In order to effectively operate its website, the Commissioner of Canada Elections occasionally uses external service providers. Such service providers are bound by a contract with the Commissioner of Canada Elections to treat any personal information they receive in a manner consistent with the provisions of the Privacy Act.

Information Archived on the Web

Information identified as archived is provided for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. It is not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards and has not been altered or updated since it was archived. Please contact us to request a format other than those available.

Social Media

The Commissioner of Canada Elections' use of social media tools serves as an extension of our web presence and as an alternative method of sharing information. Social media accounts are public and are not hosted on our servers. Users who choose to interact with us via social media should review carefully the terms of service and privacy policies of these service providers and those of any applications used to access them. The Commissioner of Canada Elections uses Twitter and Facebook.

Social Media Accounts

The Commissioner of Canada Elections has the following social media accounts:

Please note that the Commissioner of Canada Elections' social media accounts are not Government of Canada websites. Twitter and Facebook are third party service providers. This means that when you use our social media accounts, you are also subject to the terms of use of the respective third party.

We encourage you to carefully review the terms of use of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Content

The Commissioner of Canada Elections' social media accounts are alternative methods of sharing information. The Commissioner of Canada Elections will read comments and participate in discussions when appropriate. We ask that comments be relevant and respectful. The Commissioner of Canada Elections reserves the right to delete comments that violate this notice, and the user may be blocked and reported to prevent further inappropriate or irrelevant comments.

The Commissioner of Canada Elections does not endorse any content that users post to our social media accounts. While the Commissioner of Canada Elections tries to ensure the accuracy of the content posted to its social media accounts, we are not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, efficacy, timeliness or reliability of the content posted by other users.

The Commissioner of Canada Elections cannot engage in issues or answer questions that break the rules of this notice. We cannot and will not comment in the case of ongoing investigations, complaints, ongoing legal proceedings or matters before Parliament. The Commissioner of Canada Elections will take seriously and report to the proper authorities any threats on its social media accounts to the organization or its employees.

Complaints

The Commissioner of Canada Elections' social media accounts are not channels for filing or responding to formal complaints. If you wish to submit a formal complaint, you may fill out our online complaint form or use one of the other means outlined in the “Contact Us” section of our website. Complaints posted on the Commissioner of Canada Elections' social media accounts will be removed.

Availability

Posts and comments are welcome on social media accounts at any time. The Commissioner of Canada Elections will exercise discretion regarding whether or not we will respond.

Social media accounts will be monitored and updated during regular business hours between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Eastern Time, Monday to Friday. Any monitoring or updating outside of these hours would likely be restricted to an emergency or to extended hours during an election period. The Commissioner of Canada Elections will monitor social media accounts on Election Day. However, in the event of a high volume of questions or comments the Commissioner of Canada Elections may not reply to all enquiries.

Because the servers of social media platforms used by the Commissioner of Canada Elections are managed by a third parties, our social media accounts may be subject to periods of inaccessibility that is outside our control. As such, the Commissioner accepts no responsibility for platforms becoming unresponsive or unavailable.

Following, “Favouriting” and Subscribing

The Commissioner of Canada Elections' decision to “follow”, “favourite” or “subscribe” to another social media account does not imply an endorsement of that account, channel, page or site. Likewise, sharing (re-tweeting, reposting or linking to) content from another user does not imply an endorsement of that content.

Unacceptable content

In all aspects of their work, the Commissioner and his staff are guided by the principles of independence, impartiality and fairness. To preserve this impartiality, posts on social media accounts must not contain content that is politically partisan. Content that suggests a political affiliation, bias or designation, or that favours one political party over another may be deemed unacceptable content. The Commissioner of Canada Elections will not respond to comments or questions that are partisan in nature and reserves the right to remove content that it deems unacceptable.

The term “post” includes questions, comments, “likes”, “retweets”, videos, articles, links to websites and other messages that provide feedback or content related to the social media accounts.

The Commissioner of Canada Elections reserves the right to block users and remove any content from our social media accounts that either violates the terms of use of Twitter or is deemed unacceptable content as described in this notice.

Examples of unacceptable content may include, but are not limited to, content that:

  • is politically partisan, such as content that suggests a political affiliation, bias or designation, or that favours one political party over another
  • is racist, hateful, sexist, homophobic,  defamatory, insulting or threatening
  • puts forward serious, unproven or inaccurate accusations against individuals or organizations or is otherwise defamatory
  • is offensive, aggressive, vulgar, indecent, rude, abusive, coarse, violent, obscene or pornographic
  • is posted by someone other than its author or is posted anonymously by a robot account
  • is posted as a solicitation, advertisement or endorsement of any financial, commercial or non-governmental organization or any political party
  • is posted for advertising, phishing or spamming purposes
  • gives the impression that it originates from the Commissioner of Canada Elections
  • impersonates any person or misrepresents its author's identity or affiliations
  • contains personally identifiable information about others
  • infringes a third party's copyright or trademark rights
  • is unintelligible or irrelevant to the mandate of the Commissioner of Canada Elections
  • encourages or suggests illegal activity
  • is written in a language other than English or French

Use of Official Languages on Social Media

Many social media platforms have multiple language options and provide instructions on how the user can set their own preferences. In the event that the Commissioner of Canada Elections provides a response to comments, it will be in the official language in which they were posted. If we believe the response is a question of general public interest, we may respond in both official languages.

The Commissioner of Canada Elections may share links that direct users to sites of organizations or other entities that are not subject to the Official Languages Act and available only in the language in which they are written. When content is available in only one language, the Commissioner of Canada Elections will make an effort to provide similar content in the other official language.  

Media Inquiries

Reporters are asked to refrain from submitting questions to the Commissioner of Canada Elections’ social media accounts as comments. Reporters are asked to send questions to:

Media Relations
Email: communication@cef-cce.ca

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