Privacy Policy

Last Updated: May 2024

1. The COC

The Canadian Olympic Committee (“COC”) is a national, private, not-for-profit organization committed to transforming Canada through the power of sport. Its mission is to lead the achievement of the Canadian Olympic Team’s (“COT”) podium success and to advance the Olympic values in Canada. It is responsible for all aspects of Canada’s involvement in the Olympic Movement, including multi-sport and cultural events including the Olympic Games, Pan Am Games and the youth versions of each of the foregoing, Beach Games and any other games that includes a team of athletes from multi-sport disciplines chosen by the COC to represent Canada (“Games”), and a wide variety of programs that promote the Olympic Movement in Canada.

2. The Canadian Olympic Foundation

The Canadian Olympic Foundation (“Foundation”) is a national registered charity whose mission is to generate support to meet the technical, scientific, medical, and coaching needs of Canada’s high performance sport system and assist Canada’s athletes in becoming ambassadors for sport, healthy living, and the pursuit of excellence across the nation.

3. Objectives of this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how the COC and the Foundation (“we” or “us”) collect, use, and disclose your Personal Data – including when you:
• Use our websites or our mobile applications (collectively, the “Online Platforms”)
• Sign up to join our marketing lists, newsletters or the Canadian Olympic Club (the “Olympic Club”)
• Apply for an opportunity including a job, board, committee or volunteer or Games related opportunity
• Participate in COC activities, initiatives, games, contests, polls, forms or surveys
• Purchase any product or make a donation
• Use our social media channels or other engagement applications
• Communicate with us
(together, the “Purposes”).

The Privacy Policy aims to assist you in understanding how we collect, use, and safeguard the Personal Data that you provide to us and to assist you in making informed decisions when communicating with us and receiving news or related content from us.

The practices described in this Policy reflect requirements imposed by federal and/or provincial laws in force in Canada and, Europe.

4. What’s in this Privacy Policy?

This Privacy Policy covers the following topics:

• Privacy Statement Updates
• Meaning of Personal Data
• Personal Data We Collect
• How We Use Your Personal Data
• How We Share Your Personal Data
• International Transfer and Storage of Information
• Opting Out of Communications
• Children’s Information
• How We Use Certain Technologies
• Links to External Services
• Retention of Personal Data
• Protecting Your Personal Data
• Your Rights
• Withdrawing Your Consent
• How to Contact Us

5. Privacy Statement Updates

This Privacy Policy may be updated or modified from time to time by the COC and the Foundation to account for the introduction of new technologies, business practices, stakeholder needs or applicable laws and regulations. We recommend that you review it each time you visit our website to stay informed about how we Process Personal Data.

6. DEFINITION OF TERMS

By “Personal Data” we mean any information relating to an identifiable natural person or that, individually or in combination with other data, allows an individual to be identified.

By “Data Subject” we mean an identifiable natural person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.

By “Processing” or “Process” we mean all operations relating to Personal Data, including but not limited to collection, use, disclosure, sharing, deletion, etc.

By “Purpose of processing” we mean the main purpose of the processing of Personal Data. The data is collected for a well-defined and legitimate purpose and is not further processed in a way that is incompatible with this initial purpose.

By “Controller” we mean the natural or legal person that which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of Personal Data.

By “Processor” we mean the natural or legal person that processes Personal Data on behalf of the controller, e.g., while providing a service or performance.

7. Consent

Generally, we obtain your consent to Process Personal Data. Consent can be provided electronically, or it can be implied where the purpose for collecting, using or disclosing your Personal Data would be considered obvious.

Consent may also be implied where we give you notice and a reasonable opportunity to opt-out of having your Personal Data being used, and you do not opt-out. Subject to certain exceptions, you can withhold your consent for the COC and/or the Foundation to use your Personal Data in certain ways – and you can do so by contacting us. Your decision to withhold your consent to certain uses of Personal Data may restrict our ability to provide purposes, services or functionality.

8. What Personal Data Do We Collect?

The COC and the Foundation processes Personal Data which may be collected in two ways:

• Directly from you, via forms, e-mails, activities, etc.
• Indirectly from you, through the use of technological tools or third parties

9. Categories of Personal Data that We Collect

As a Controller:

• Electronic and Geolocation Data: When you visit our Online Platforms, we collect information such as your IP address, device type, time zone, and geolocation (if this function is enabled). This information is collected automatically through cookies and similar tools to enable our Online Platforms to function effectively, to fix bugs, or to ensure the security of our Online Platforms. Please refer to section 16 for more information about cookies.
• Usage and Analytics Data: We collect information such as time spent on the Online Platforms, pages visited, links clicked, language preferences, and pages that led or referred you to the Online Platforms. We collect this information to understand Online Platform usage, whether there are bugs, and to generally improve our Online Platforms. Please refer to section 11 for more information about cookies.
• Canadian Olympic Club Data: If you join the Canadian Olympic Club, we collect your first and last names, date of birth, e-mail, as well as country of residence, and ask that you create a password. You can also join the Olympic Club using your Facebook or Google login; if you do, please refer to our section on social media data below. As a member of the Canadian Olympic Club, you can create a personalised profile by providing some information about yourself and selecting your favourite athletes. We also collect information about the points that you earn by playing games in order to recognize your points earnings.
• Contest & Interactive Experience Data: If you enter a contest or participate in an interactive experience (including through the Canadian Olympic Club, our Online Platforms, or via a third-party partner or contest co-sponsor) we may collect your name, contact information, and other information requested as part of the contest to administer the contest and for other purposes that may be identified in the contest rules.
• Communication Data: The Online Platforms may allow you to provide us with your e-mail address, location, and language of preference, so we may send you information and updates about the COC, the Foundation, the Games, and the COT. For individuals who otherwise interact with us, whether in person, by phone or e-mail, through social media or otherwise (including individuals who might be interested in acquiring our products or services, who sign-up to receive newsletters or other communications, or who respond to surveys and questionnaires), we may collect information that you provide to us during these interactions.
• Newsletter and Marketing Data: If you subscribe to receive news from us on our Online Platforms, we collect your first and last names, e-mail, and organization. We also collect information through cookies to conduct targeted advertising on social media.
• Donation Data: When you make a donation to the Foundation, you are asked to provide your first and last names, full address, phone number, and payment information (either credit card or PayPal account information), as well as any dedication information. If you donate, we may include your name on the donor list on our website, unless you express that you do not wish to be included on it.
• Employment and Volunteering Application: If you apply for a volunteer or employment position, we collect information to evaluate your application, including your name, resume, and cover letter.
• Social Media Data: The COC and the Foundation may use social media as an extension of its presence on the web. Social media accounts of the COC and the Foundation are public and are not hosted on COC/Foundation servers. Before engaging with us on social media platforms, we recommend that you read the privacy policies of these third-party service providers and those of any applications that you use to access them. Additionally, by signing up to, or logging in to, our Online Platforms using third-party platforms (e.g. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram), you may give the COC and/or the Foundation permission to access your information in such other services. By linking your account on such third-party platforms to your COC account (e.g. Olympic Club), this will allow the COC and the Foundation to obtain certain information from those accounts. For example, the following information may be received and used by the COC and the Foundation in accordance with this Privacy Policy, if you choose to link your third-party account to your Olympic Club account on our Online Platforms:
  • Facebook: public profile, friend list, e-mail address, birthday, interests, current city, personal description, and likes.
  • Twitter: read tweets from your Twitter timeline, see who you follow, update your profile, and post tweets for you.
  • LinkedIn: full profile, e-mail address, and your connections (note: this could include work product information).
  • Google: basic profile and e-mail address.

• Instagram: access to basic information including your photos, friend lists, and profile introduction.

• Other Personal Data Related to Participation in Games: If you are identified as a potential participant in Games you will be asked to provide COC with additional Personal
  Data such as copies of travel documents (e.g. Passports, Visas), your first and last names, gender, date of birth, e-mail, country of residence and other information to allow for your effective Games participation. For outfitting purposes, we may ask you for information related to your clothing size, gender and sizing preferences. We may also ask you for basic biographical information for inclusion in our online athlete profiles.  We will however notify you of the kinds of Personal Data we are requesting and ask for additional consent before asking you for this kind of information.

• Personal Data Related to Participation in other Activities:

From time-to-time COC may organize other activities, we may require various classes of Personal Data to facilitate your participation in these activities. In these cases, we may ask you for Personal Data such as your first and last names, gender, date of birth, email, country of residence and other information to allow for your effective participation in these activities. We will however notify you of the kinds of Personal Data we are requesting and ask you for additional consent before asking you for this kind of information.

As a Processor:

Information obtained from those third-party services depends on your settings and privacy policies for such third-party platforms and accounts, which are not controlled by the COC or the Foundation and are not subject to the present Privacy Policy. We strongly recommend that you check your privacy settings on such third-party platforms and understand the terms of applicable third-party privacy policies before linking your accounts to our Online Platforms.

From time to time, the COC and/or the Foundation may run co-sponsored promotional contests, content, programs, and initiatives. If you provide a completed registration form or otherwise engage with any of our co-sponsored content, programs, or initiatives, we may disclose the information that you disclosed to us, including your name, address, and e-mail address to the applicable co-sponsor. Additionally, activities of participants may be photographed, distributed, and used by the COC and the Foundation for promotional purposes in any medium or form and without any compensation.

10. How Do We Use Your Personal Data?

Some of the purposes for which the COC and the Foundation may collect, use, and disclose your Personal Data are:

• To facilitate communication with you
• To grant you/enable you to access certain special features, services or areas of our Online Platforms
• To process any of your requests for information
• To administer participation in contests, content, programs, initiatives, games, surveys, forms, and polling
• To administer the “Share” function of our Online Platforms to e-mail an item to a friend.
• To announce special events
• To advise you of changes to our Online Platforms
• To allow you to post comments on our Online Platforms
• To administer research on our audience in order to improve our operations and offerings.
• To provide an enhanced user experience
• For Games planning and operations

By signing up to take part in programs or initiatives that we may initiate, or to receive online and/or e-mail communications, we may use the information that you provide to operate and facilitate such programs, initiatives, and communications.

11. Who Do We Share Your Personal Data With?

To administer services and operations, certain Personal Data may be shared with, or accessed by, authorized third-party service providers, such as e-commerce providers, payment card processers, telephone and technical support providers, data storage and processing service providers, and research and analytics providers. For Games purposes we may share your Personal Data with our travel, logistics, outfitting, security and other service providers as well as the organizing committee and governing body of each Games. Your Personal Data will be provided to such third-party service providers only to enable the proper administration of such services and operations.

Additionally, we may use and disclose your information when we believe such use or disclosure is permitted, necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public and government authorities, including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (d) to enforce the terms of the agreements for our products and services; (e) to protect our rights, operations or property; and (f) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain. In addition, we may transfer your Personal Data and other information to a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, brands, affiliates, subsidiaries or other assets.

12. How Do We Handle Transfer and Storage of Information?

12.1 Transfer Outside of Quebec

COC has offices located in multiple locations in Canada, the main offices being in Montreal and Toronto. The Personal Data we collect from you may be transferred between these offices in the normal course of business. This means that information collected from you may be transferred to and from Quebec regularly.

12.2 International Transfer and Storage

The Personal Data that we collect from you may be collected from, transferred to, and/or stored at, a destination outside of Canada for processing by third-party service providers contracted by us or for international competitions. In such cases, it will then be subject to the laws of that foreign jurisdiction, which may permit disclosure of Personal Data to authorities in that jurisdiction. We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

13. How Can You Opt-Out of Our Marketing Communications?

The COC and the Foundation are committed to meet the requirements of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation and international resolutions, including through any commercial electronic messages sent by the COC to you and/or your friend. You may “Unsubscribe” from receiving any such applicable communications from the COC and/or the Foundation at any time and your electronic address will be removed from our databases.

14. Personal Data of Children

The COC and the Foundation are strongly committed to protecting the online privacy of children under the age of 18. Parents and legal guardians are strongly recommended to monitor the use of the internet by their children.

15. How Do We Use Certain Technologies in Our Services?

15.1 What technologies do we use?

Our website uses cookie technology to make your use of our website more convenient. A cookie is a text file that enables our website to store information about your activities on the website, such as the date and time of visits, pages viewed, time spent, and websites visited just before and just after our website. Personal Data about your visits to, and use of, the website is used on an aggregate basis, which means that it is used for statistical purposes to assist us in enhancing your online experience, or to evaluate the materials that we may carry on the website. Notably, we use Google Analytics, which is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google uses the collected data to track and monitor the use of our services. This data is shared with other Google services. Cookies may also be used to monitor polling results. The cookies will monitor results to discourage voting twice in one poll. This will give us the ability to properly count activity reports and polling results. In addition, the cookie will store your e-mail address, which is your unique identifier, so that, on return visits, the website will be able to match you to your identity in the database. This is an opt-in feature that will only be made operational if you choose to do so. Web beacons (also called “clear GIFs” or “pixel tags”), which are small strings of code that are placed in a web page or in an e-mail message, may be used in conjunction with cookies to track activity on our website. Since they are used in combination with cookies, if you disable cookies, the web beacons will only detect an anonymous website visit.

15.2 Do we use cookies for targeted advertising?

Our Online Platforms may also use services to advertise on third-party websites to previous visitors to our Online Platforms (e.g. Google AdWords, Facebook Conversion Pixel, and Twitter remarketing). Third-party vendors use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to our Online Platforms. For example, after browsing our website, you may receive related ads on your Facebook. This is known as interest-based advertising. In such a case, any data collected by the COC/Foundation will be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy and, for those other platforms, through their respective privacy policies.

15.3 How you can manage your cookie preferences

If you choose to disable cookies associated with our Online Platforms, this may affect your use of those platforms and your ability to access certain features. If you are looking for more information on cookies, you can refer to websites such as http://www.cookiecentral.com and https://www.allaboutcookies.org.

You can also use WebChoices, which is a browser-based tool for opting out of interest-based advertising. AdChoices provides additional solutions and explanations to block and control cookies, as well as plug-ins to retain opt-out cookie preferences, even if you delete your cookies.

Depending on the browser that you are using, different instructions are applicable. In the list below, click on the browser that you use to find out more information:

• Google Chrome
• Firefox
• Safari
• Internet Explorer

You can opt out of making your activity on the website available to Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The add-on prevents the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, and dc.js) from sharing information with Google Analytics about visits activity. For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy & Terms web page: https://policies.google.com/privacy.

15.4 Links to Other Sites

Our website may contain links to other websites, applications or digital products that are not operated by the COC or the Foundation. The COC and the Foundation have no responsibility for, control over, or liability for those websites or internet resources, or their collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Data. We recommend that you refer to the privacy policy and terms of use contained in any linked site that you choose to go to and that you familiarize yourself with that website’s terms and conditions of use.

16. How Long Do We Retain Your Personal Data?

The COC and the Foundation will retain your Personal Data only for as long as it is necessary to fulfill the identified purposes, or a legal or business purpose in accordance with this Privacy Policy or in accordance with any more specific agreement we make with you for the handling of that particular set of information.           

17. How Do We Protect Your Personal Data?

The COC and the Foundation endeavour to maintain appropriate procedural and technological measures as well as storage facilities to prevent any unauthorized use or disclosure of your Personal Data. The COC and the Foundation are taking commercially reasonable efforts to protect any Personal Data that is provided to it. We cannot, however, guarantee the security of any Personal Data that is provided to us in an e-mail or in online form while it is being transmitted to us, because the internet is a potentially non-secure method of information transfer. Any such transmission is at your own risk.

18. What Are Your Rights Regarding Your Personal Data?

The law provides you with some rights over your Personal Data, notably the right to access and rectify the Personal Data that we have on you if it is incorrect, incomplete, invalid or ambiguous.

18.1 Request to Access

If you have any questions about the collection, use, or disclosure of your Personal Data by the COC or the Foundation, if you simply want to know whether we have any of your Personal Data on file, or if you want to access information that we have collected about you, you may reach us at the information contact provided in section 20  and we will respond to your requests for access in accordance with applicable privacy legislation,      this Privacy Policy or any more specific agreement we may have with you related to your Personal Data. In the event that we refuse access to you, reasons for our refusal will be provided upon your request. For example, your request could be refused because it may include information about other individuals, information that cannot be disclosed for legal, security, or commercial proprietary reasons, and information that is subject to solicitor-client or litigation privilege.

18.2 Request to Correct

We will make reasonable efforts to ensure that your Personal Data is accurate and complete. You may request correction to your Personal Data in order to ensure its accuracy and completeness. A request to correct Personal Data can be sent to at the information contact provided in section 20 and must provide sufficient detail to identify the Personal Data and the correction being sought. If such Personal Data is demonstrated to be inaccurate or incomplete, we will correct the information as required and send the corrected information to any third party to which we may have disclosed the Personal Data previously in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

18.3 Request to Data Portability

You have the right to receive the Personal Data you have provided to the COC and the Foundation, to transmit those data to another controller without us impeding it. In case of any questions or requests about the data that will be transferred, please refer to section 20 of this policy.

18.4 Request to Delete

You may have a right to request that we delete the Personal Data we hold about you. In that case:

• If you wish to exercise such a right, you must do so by emailing the COC’s person in charge of protecting Personal Data at the information contact provided in section 20  and providing sufficient detail to identify the Personal Data to be deleted.
• In response to such a request, we will take reasonable steps to delete such information from our current records as required by applicable law.

• You should note that deletion of your Personal Data may affect your use of certain features and functionalities of our Online Platforms or other services or opportunities offered by COC, including where applicable participation in Games or other Purposes.

18.5 How to Withdraw Your Consent to the Use /or Dissemination of Your Personal Data?

You may withdraw at any time your consent to our use and disclosure of certain Personal Data by notifying the COC’s person in charge of protecting Personal Data by writing at the information contact provided in section 20. Please note that your withdrawal request may take up to 30 days to implement. Also note that withdrawing your consent may preclude us from providing you with certain information or may prevent your use of certain features and functionalities of our Online Platforms, your participation in other services or opportunities offered by COC, including where applicable participation in Games, or other Purposes. You may also contact us requesting us to cease any dissemination of your Personal Data if you have reasonable grounds to be believe that such dissemination may contravene the law or a court order, or that it may cause serious harm to the reputation or privacy of an individual.

19. Roles and Responsibilities:

19.1 Your Role

We expect that you will provide us with accurate and up to date Personal Data as may be required for your participation in one of the Purposes. We also expect that you will otherwise follow the expectations set out in this Policy, or to notify us of your questions or concerns as soon as possible as indicated within this Policy. We also expect that you will provide us with accurate and up-to-date information related to any concerns that you may have regarding our data management practices as well as information that will help us determine issues of privacy compliance.

19.2 Our Role

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that we comply with our obligations under this Policy. We will also take reasonable steps to ensure that we notify you should this Policy be updated or the circumstances for which we are using your Personal Data are expected to change. 

20. Questions or Concerns

Questions or concerns regarding our collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Data or about this Privacy Policy, can be directed to the following e-mail address: privacy@olympic.ca or at the following postal address:

Toronto (Corporate Office)
250 Yonge St, Suite 3000
PO Box #19
Toronto, ON Canada M5B 2L7
Telephone: 416-962-0262
Fax: 416-967-4902
Business Hours – Monday to Friday: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm EST