Navigator Privacy Notice

The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) ("us", "we" or "our") operates the Research Facilities Navigator website (the "Site"). This page informs you of our procedures regarding the collection, use and disclosure of personal information we receive from Users (“you”, “your”) of our Site.

All personal information created, held, or collected by the CFI is protected under the federal Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. The personal information you provide to us by accessing and using our Site will be managed in accordance with the Privacy Act. By using our Site, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this notice.

Information collection and use

While using our Site, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to your name, email address and phone number.

We will only disclose your personal information for purposes identified in this Privacy Notice, or if required by law. To the best of our ability, the information will be stored, handled and distributed in a secure manner at all times. The information that we collect and store is primarily used for the following purposes:

  • To respond to your questions, comments and suggestions;
  • To provide you with information relating to our services;
  • To perform quality assurance activities (e.g., client satisfaction surveys);
  • To develop promotional materials related to User experience of the Site and its services, using information in aggregate or anonymous form (promotional use of information with attribution will be used only with the specific consent of the User); and
  • To monitor our website analytics, using data in aggregate form.

In addition, we may share email that is sent through our system to a research facility with the facility’s parent institution (university, college, hospital, or government department with which they are affiliated) so they can support our service-level expectations and track outcomes associated with their Navigator-listed facilities. These email messages may contain your personal information. We may also share your personal information with third party service providers who help us with specialized services, including but not limited to website hosting, analytics, mail and email distribution, surveys and archival services. We provide these companies only with the information they need to perform their services.

Standard Internet information automatically collected from all visitors

The CFI employs software programs to monitor network traffic and identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. When you visit our website, these software programs automatically receive, and temporarily store in our web server logs, information that is supplied by your browser (e.g. Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox). Information automatically collected by our server when you browse our websites includes the following:

  • Network location and the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer you are using to contact our websites;
  • Name of the domain you are using to access the Internet (e.g. .com, .org, .net, and .ca);
  • Type of browser you are using;
  • Type of operating system you are using (e.g. Windows and Mac OS);
  • Date and time you accessed the site;
  • Pages you have accessed and the documents you have downloaded; and,
  • Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site, if applicable.

In most circumstances, this is anonymous statistical data, and we make no attempt to link this data, or the IP addresses of the computers that have contacted our websites, with the identity of individuals visiting our site unless an attempt to damage the site has been detected or it is required by law. The programs are never used to gather specific personal information such as your name, your telephone number or your email address.

Cookies and log data

Cookies are small files that may be placed on your hard drive by a website without your knowledge to monitor your use of the site. We use “persistent” and “session” cookies to monitor usage of its websites. The cookies we use do not allow us to identify individuals. They are compiled into statistical information on traffic patterns and are used to assess and improve the efficiency of the site.

Session cookies are cookies that are used on some portions of the CFI’s website to store information within a session. During your visit to our site, your browser exchanges information with our web server. Session cookies facilitate this exchange by reminding the server which computer is making the request. No personal information is kept in session cookies and they are stored only in your browser’s temporary (i.e. cache) memory. When you log out of your session, the cookie is no longer valid; it is discarded when you close your browser.

Persistent cookies are more permanent cookies that can be reread when you return to the site. The information in them is written onto your hard drive and remains there until the expiry date of the cookie or until you delete the file. They are used for tracking traffic patterns to and from our websites and can also be used on some portions to find out how visitors access, navigate and use the site. More information on tracking can be found in the next section.

Google Analytics

The CFI uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. to help measure traffic patterns to, from, and within its public websites. This analytics measurement tool uses “session” and “persistent” cookies to collect standard Internet log information and to track visitor behaviour information in an anonymous form. The information generated by the cookies about your use of the website (including your truncated IP address) will be transmitted to Google. No personally identifying information is recorded or provided to Google. This anonymous information is then used to evaluate visitors' use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity for the CFI. The aggregate data and statistical reports are only used to help us make our site more useful to visitors and are only made available to web managers and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties.

We DO NOT use this Google Analytics measurement tool on any secure sites.

For further information, consult Google Analytics and its privacy policy.

If you wish, you may opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics by disabling or refusing the cookies, by disabling JavaScript within your browser or by using the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-On. Disabling Google Analytics or JavaScript will still permit you to access comparable information or services from our websites. However, if you change the settings on your browser so that cookies will be denied or so that you will be warned before a cookie is saved on your computer, moving around on the websites may be a much slower process. To disable cookies or JavaScript, please refer to your vendor’s browser instruction guide.

Anti-spam software

The CFI employs a fully automated anti-spam filter to protect its employees and networks from spam. Incoming email messages that are flagged by the software as spam are deleted automatically by the technology without notification. The program is set to block emails that are considered obvious spam because of their content (e.g. pornographic, racist, get-rich-quick schemes and junk commercial solicitations) as determined by general industry best practice.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, please contact atip-aiprp@innovation.ca.