The Halifax Regional Municipality is committed to protecting the privacy of any personal information you may provide when visiting our Web site. Our practices have been designed to ensure compliance with the privacy provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIPOP) provisions of the Municipal Government Act (MGA) of Nova Scotia. Part of our commitment is to explain what information may be collected and why, how it will be used and who may have access to it.

This privacy statement applies to interactions with the Halifax Regional Municipality Web Server, which includes all internal pages on www.halifax.ca and all sub-domains, as well as www.region.halifax.ns.ca, www.businessparks.com, www.hrwc.ns.ca. It does not apply to any other Web site. Following is an overview of our Web site practices.

Web Site Experience Survey

The information provided by Survey Respondents will be compiled and aggregated to create generic profiles of the users of the web sites being studied. Open-ended responses are compiled and reported as is. The study process does not require us to know nor to report the identity of any individual respondent.

In accordance with Section 485 of the Municipal Government Act, if any personal information is collected in this survey via the open-ended responses, it will only be used for purposes relating to the development of the Web Content and Governance Strategy. If you have any questions about the collection and use of this information, please contact HRM’s Access and Privacy Officer at 490-4390 or accessandprivacy@halifax.ca

Personal information

When you visit Halifax Regional Municipality Web sites, you do so anonymously - there is no need to tell us who you are. If you direct an enquiry to a Municipal department, we will ask you to provide your name and mailing address, phone number or e-mail address for the purpose of responding to your enquiry. This information is not disclosed to anyone except employees of Halifax Regional Municipality who need the information, eg., to respond to the enquiry.

Encryption technology protects personal information during transmission. Halifax Regional Municipality uses 128-bit encryption technology to protect the transmission of sensitive information (i.e. Credit Card Numbers, etc.). A security icon will also appear in the status bar on your browser when information is being encrypted.
The Municipal Web server does not collect or retain your e-mail address unless you specifically provide it in a form, although some Internet Service Providers may
automatically include your e-mail address with your IP address (Internet Protocol).

Any Municipal site where personal information is requested will contain a notice outlining our legal authority to collect it and include the following information:

(1) the purpose for collecting the personal information;
(2) how it will be used and who will have access to it;
(3) who to contact if you have any questions about these practices.

Personal information is only disposed of according to a records retention schedule. To ensure personal information is unrecoverable, a utility program is used to remove the electronic data and any paper records generated are shredded.

Logging practices

The HRM logs HTTP requests to the Municipal Web server. These logs record the IP address of site visitors. An IP address is the number automatically assigned to the computer or to the ISP (Internet Service Provider) requesting a URL.

Our logging is passive and we don't use technologies such as "cookies" or "Web bugs" to maintain any information on site visitors. We do offer in certain instances the ability to choose to set a cookie to remember user settings to enhance the user experience on the web sites.

Logged information, also known as clickstream data, is recorded in non-identifiable form and is used by Municipal staff or those under contract for Web site system administration. Log files are archived and used for systems analysis, maintenance and site evaluation.

The Halifax Regional Municipality uses Google products and follows their privacy policy. Please view Google's website policy for further information.

Comments?

For additional information about the administration of FOIPOP, please visit our website at http://www.halifax.ca/irm .We welcome any comments and suggestions about this site or if you have any questions about the HRM Web site collection, use and disclosure practices, please contact the Webmaster at