Privacy Policy

CASFAA’s Online Privacy and Legal Statement

CASFAA is committed to protecting the privacy of both personal and institutional information of its members, subject matter experts and all users of its services. This Privacy Policy has been prepared to affirm CASFAA’s commitment to maintaining high standards of confidentiality, to provide information on CASFAA’s practices concerning the collection, use and disclosure of personal and institutional information and to comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and other applicable statutes.

1. Defining personal information

Personal information is any information about an "identifiable individual" that can be used to distinguish, identify or contact a specific individual. Business contact information such as information on your business card and certain publicly available information, such as names, addresses and telephone numbers as published in telephone directories are not considered personal information under federal legislation (PIPEDA). Information about corporations is not considered personal information.

Where an individual provides his or her home address to CASFAA as their business contact information, CASFAA considers it to be business contact information, and is therefore not subject to protection as personal information.

2. Collection of personal information

If you request information, products or services from CASFAA, we will collect name and contact details including address(es), telephone and fax numbers, email address, and language preference.

We collect no personal information about you unless you choose to provide that information to us. We do not use techniques that collect personal information about anyone without their knowledge. We only collect personal information about individuals when they specifically and knowingly provide it to us, for example when they apply for membership, register for a program or complete a registration form. You may also provide us with your credit card information in order to pay for items purchased. We collect this information only to set up your account, process the order, and provide you with the services you are purchasing. We do not store credit card information for later use.

CASFAA collects and retains information about your transaction history when you use CASFAA services and various programs.

CASFAA also provides individuals with an opportunity to specify certain preferences in service delivery; if an individual chooses to provide such information, CASFAA will collect and maintain language preference in order to send individuals the information they need in the language they prefer, as well as other special needs requested for a specific event (i.e., meal preference).

3. CASFAA’s Website

A visitor to the CASFAA website is not required to reveal any individually identifiable information, nor is such information collected passively by electronic means. Personal information is only collected when an individual voluntarily submits his or her information such as in an online membership application form, meeting registration form or an online survey. The personal information collected in this manner is subject in full to the Privacy Policy contained in this document.

If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website, read pages, or download information, we will neither gather nor store any personal information about you. Our web server collects statistical data about visitor information used only in aggregate. This tracking system does not record personal information about individuals or link this information to any personal data collected.

4. Consent by individuals

The information you provide to CASFAA — such as your name, address, email, etc. — allows CASFAA to inform you about events and activities and to notify you of issues, events or special offers which may be of interest to you. By becoming a member or by requesting information or registering for events or courses offered by CASFAA, you are giving CASFAA permission to contact you by way of the information you provide. Members may choose not to be contacted by CASFAA by submitting a written request to the CASFAA Secretary.

5. Use of information & Email Privacy

CASFAA uses email to communicate with its members. You may receive personally-targeted emails from us for the following reasons: confirmations of sign-up or registration, receipts, invoices, reminders of events you registered for, membership renewal reminders, or notifications regarding website activity that pertains to your account.

Members can opt-in to receive regular e-mail digests of website updates. Members can control whether or not they receive these digests through a setting in their profiles.

As a registered not-for-profit corporation, CASFAA may send group emails to promote its programs and initiatives. These may take the form of announcements, newsletters, or other materials targeted to a general audience. These group emails conform to Canada’s Anti-Spam (CASL) Regulations, so you will only receive these if you are a recent member of CASFAA and have not opted out (unsubscribed) from such notices, or if you are not a recent member and you have opted in (subscribed) to such notices. In either case, you may block (unsubscribe) these notices using a link in those emails.

6. Disclosure of personal information

CASFAA may share aggregate information about its members and customers — not individual data — with sponsors, potential sponsors and other parties to help them better understand CASFAA members and their interests.

Such aggregate information is used to give CASFAA demographic data about its members in order to improve the organization and the programs and services we provide.

7. Security of information

CASFAA endeavours to maintain appropriate safeguards and adequate physical, procedural and technical security with respect to our offices and information storage facilities so as to prevent any unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use, or modification of personal information. Safeguards include securing physical documents and technological measures by way of secure access and encryption. The CASFAA Board is authorized to access personal information based only on their need to deal with the information for the reason(s) for which it was obtained. Safeguards are in place to ensure that the information is not disclosed or shared more widely than is necessary to achieve the purpose for which it was gathered. We also take measures to ensure the integrity of this information is maintained and to prevent its being lost or destroyed.

To ensure the integrity and privacy of your credit card information, on-line payments to CASFAA are in compliance with Payment Card Industry Standards (PCI DSS). The payment transaction is managed by Beanstream secure online payment service. CASFAA does not see or retain any data pertaining to your credit cards or other methods of electronic payment. The only information we collect about the payment transaction is whether or not it was successful.

8. Institutional Information collected in the context of the National Data Benchmarking Survey

This additional Privacy Statement affirms CASFAA’s commitment to maintaining its high standards of confidentiality with regards to the collection of institutional data.

CASFAA has contracted Academica Group to conduct the National Data Benchmarking Survey (NDBS). With regard to data privacy and security, all survey responses collected through Academica’s survey software are stored in Canada on secure servers.  All survey data, analysis, reporting and other related materials will be stored on Academica’s secured in-house server, which utilizes a multilayered approach to help ensure a safe, secure and accurate storage of data, as well as preventing unauthorized access modification or disclosure.

While CASFAA maintains sole ownership and control of this survey data, Academica has been contractually obligated to only provide CASFAA and its Board of Directors with anonymized data.  Academica will retain sole access to the original and identifying data for an indefinite time, or until such time that CASFAA provides a written request to destroy the data or transfer de-identified data, along with a separate code key to translate the data to a third party.

Academica shall only use the survey data for the purposes of the NDBS project.  Academica will not publish or share any of the survey data or analysis results in any way without prior permission from the CASAFA Board.  For more information on Academica Group’s privacy policy, please refer here: https://www.academica.ca/privacy-policy.

The goal of CASFAA’s data collection is to advance the student financial aid and awards profession across the country, including policy advocacy.  CASFAA commits that no institution-specific information will be published nor used for any purpose outside the scope of this project.  This information will not be used for ranking.  Published results will only contain aggregate information such that no single institution can be identified.   Institution-specific results shall only be collated and distributed directly back to the respondent by Academica, for purposes of study and comparison with aggregate results.

9. Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or about CASFAA information handling practices, please contact us at .