Who we are
South Vancouver Veteran’s Council Society is a registered non-profit under the BC Societies Act (Registration Number: S0083527). Our principal mailing address is 727 E. 49th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V5W 2H3. This website, https://southvanremembers.org is operated by the organisation in compliance with Provincial privacy laws.
We operate this website and care about your privacy. While we collect very little personal data, we think it’s important you know what we do collect, why it’s needed, and how you can contact us with questions.
What this policy covers
This policy applies to personal information we handle through our website and direct communications (email or forms you send to us). It doesn’t cover third-party sites we link to.
Who to contact
Questions, access/correction requests, or complaints:
• Email: privacy@southvanremembers.org
• Mailing address: 727 E. 49th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V5W 2H3
You can ask what personal information we hold about you, request a correction, or ask us to delete/anonymize it where applicable. We aim to respond within 30 days.
What we collect right now (and why)
Visit analytics. (Burst Statistics)
We use privacy-friendly analytics only to understand how many people visit and which pages are popular. Burst Statistics shows us counts and trends – never personal profiles, cross-site tracking, or detailed browsing histories.
- Cookies: The analytics set basic cookies to help count visits, but do not track users across other sites and you can still control cookies via your browser.
- Data Storage: All analytics data is stored in Canada.
We do not use analytics to identify individual visitors or combine this data with other information about you. You can disable cookies in your browser settings; the site will still function, but our traffic statistics will be less accurate.
Things you choose to send us.
Contact forms (Ninja Forms) and email addresses
When you send us a message through our website form or any of our published email addresses, we collect only what you provide (like your name and email). Contact form messages are typically deleted within 10 days unless we need them for follow-up, volunteer coordination, or legal record-keeping. Archival materials (photos, event records) are retained indefinitely for historical purposes; contact us if you wish to be removed from online materials where feasible.
Managing your messages (Make)
To help us manage your message, we securely send it (in encrypted form) to an automated workflow using Make.com’s EU servers, whether it arrived through the contact form or by email forwarded to our system. Only our team can access this data, and it is never shared with third-party services or used for any other purpose; after processing, your information is deleted or anonymized within the same short retention periods described above.
South Vancouver Veteran’s Council Society (the “data controller”) decides what personal information is collected and why, and Make only processes that information on our instructions to provide the automation service (the “data processor”).
Spam and email reliability checks
To protect our volunteers and systems from spam and malicious traffic, we apply technical checks to messages sent through our contact form or by email. These checks include automatic screening to reduce obvious spam and to flag email addresses that are unlikely to receive replies reliably, using a specialist email verification service (Bouncer) that checks whether an address is likely to accept mail without sending a message to it.
When we use Bouncer, only the email address is sent for verification; message content and other form details are not shared with Bouncer.
If an email address appears invalid or unsafe, your message may still be stored for our internal review (for example, to improve our information or identify common questions), but we may not be able to send a reply to that address. These messages follow the same short retention period described above and are normally deleted from our website within a few days, and in any case within 10 days. We only use it to manage enquiries, maintain the security of our website, and support our society’s work.
We use some automated workflows, including limited AI, to help us process form submissions. This AI is not used to make decisions that affect users, and it does not access or store personal information except for basic automation within our secure workflow.
When we send email replies, we use Lettermint to deliver messages and see basic delivery status (for example, whether a message bounced), which helps us avoid repeated failures and improve how we follow up on enquiries.
We do not use cloud-based add-ons with Ninja Forms or Make, and your data remains protected under Canadian and International privacy laws.
That’s it. We don’t run ads, sell lists, or track you around the internet.
Data location (Canada-first)
We host our website and store our society records in Canada (primarily British Columbia). Our default is to keep personal information in Canada. If any tool ever needs to process data outside Canada, we’ll list it below and explain why before we switch it on.
When we use EU-based services (Make, Bouncer, Lettermint), your data remains protected under European data protection laws and is not accessible to non-Canadian/non-EU authorities.
Plain English: your info stays in Canada by default, unless we say otherwise below.
Keeping information safe
We use industry-standard security measures (HTTPS, reputable Canadian hosting, read-only access for analytics) and email encryption (where supported) to protect information you share with us.
How long we keep things
Once we have your information, we keep it for as long as needed to run the site, respond to you, or meet basic record-keeping needs. Then we delete or anonymize.
Contact form messages are typically deleted within 10 days unless we need them for follow-up, volunteer coordination, or legal record-keeping. Archival materials (photos, event records) are retained indefinitely for historical purposes; contact us if you wish to be removed from online materials where feasible.
Your rights (BC PIPA)
You can ask to see or correct your personal information, or withdraw consent for optional uses at any time. Contact privacy@southvanremembers.org and we’ll respond within the timelines required by law.
Photography, audio/video & archives
We may capture photos or recordings at events to document our work and history. We’ll provide notice at events and options to opt out where practicable. If you prefer not to appear in images, please tell us in advance or at the event; we’ll make reasonable efforts to accommodate. Photos on this site may include images provided by our photographer and are used with permission under agreed licensing terms; please contact us if you wish to request permission to reuse an image.
Historical Family & Veteran Information
This section covers how we handle biographical information, personal stories, and memorabilia shared with us about Veterans as part of our community heritage documentation.
How this works
Our online form is simply an introduction — it tells us you’d like to have a conversation about a Veteran’s history. No biographical information, documents, or media are collected through the form itself. Any information shared with us happens directly, through a separate process, and is governed by a signed waiver.
The waiver
Before we accept any stories, images, or memorabilia, contributors sign a waiver that sets out clearly what we may do with the information provided. That waiver explicitly asks contributors not to share anything they would not want published or otherwise captured — for example, through a data breach or web scraping. We take reasonable precautions to protect what we hold, but we cannot guarantee absolute security of any information once it is in our care, and the waiver makes this clear.
What we hold and why
Most biographical information about Veterans — service records, dates, ranks, units — is already available through public archives and military records. Where we go further is in preserving personal stories, photographs, and community memories that might not exist elsewhere. We hold this material solely for community heritage and memorial purposes.
Responsibility
Contributors are responsible for ensuring they have the right to share what they provide us. We ask that nothing be shared with us that the contributor would not want to see published or preserved in our archive. We will not knowingly accept private or sensitive information that a contributor has not explicitly authorized for our use.
Your say in what gets published
Providing information or memorabilia does not guarantee publication. If you have concerns about something already submitted, contact privacy@southvanremembers.org and we’ll respond within 30 days and work with you wherever we reasonably can.
Independent research
In some cases we may conduct our own research using publicly available or specialist resources to help build a more complete picture of a Veteran’s history. We do not share raw research findings publicly — where we find something a family member may value, we’ll point them to the source directly so they can explore it themselves. Any insights gained through research that contribute to a Veteran’s story are handled under the same terms as directly contributed information.
Plain English
The form just starts a conversation. Everything else happens in person, under a signed agreement. Don’t share with us what you wouldn’t want the world to eventually see — we’ll be honest with you about that from the start.
Complaints
Please contact us first so we can help. If you’re not satisfied, you may contact the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC (OIPC) at oipc.bc.ca.
Changes to this policy
If we make material changes (for example, adding a newsletter or donations), we’ll update this page and the date above.
Future cookie notice:
If we add services that set non-essential cookies (such as embedded videos with tracking), we will provide clear notice and choice before they load.
Service providers (summary)
We use a short list of tools to run this site and handle messages, all configured with a Canada-first approach wherever possible.