Privacy Policy

The Toronto Bonsai Society (“TBS”) needs to collect and may inadvertently through third party software allow other parties to collect certain private information from our members in order to properly run the TBS. Although there is not a legal requirement for the TBS to establish a Privacy Policy, we believe it is good  practice to do so.

The TBS is committed to protecting, as reasonably as possible, our members’ privacy and the confidentiality of their personal information in our possession. This Privacy Policy explains the measures we take to fulfill these commitments.

We ask our members for no more personal information than necessary.

In the membership application form we ask prospective members to provide only the information we need to maintain a database to reach out to members and to improve our programming and such information tends to include the following: name, home address, phone numbers, email addresses along with certain information regarding a member’s experience practising bonsai. We strive to not disclose any non-public personal information to any third party except as required by law or as outlined in this Privacy Policy.

We limit access to members’ personal information.

We record members’ personal information electronically on computers to which only authorized persons within the executive of the TBS have access. We authorize executive members to have access to members’ personal information only on a “need to know” basis. This data is password protected.

We prevent unauthorized disclosure of members’ personal information.

We keep members’ personal information strictly private and confidential. We require all members of our executive committee to acknowledge adherence to this Privacy Policy that obliges them to respect and protect members’ personal information. We ensure that departing executive members understand they remain contractually obliged to respect the privacy of members’ personal information. 

We expect similar safeguards from our service providers but recognize there are limits.

We may use service providers including third party software to provide the TBS with various services such as, but not limited to, technology, administration, printing, emailing and marketing. We endeavour to use providers and software that have a similar privacy policy to the TBS but also recognize that certain software may capture information regarding our members which we aren’t able to control. 

We take privacy seriously.

The President is responsible for ensuring that members of the TBS executive committee adhere to this Privacy Policy. The President is responsible for training our executives in our Privacy Policy and for monitoring the fulfillment of our privacy commitments. We invite any member or prospective member to contact us for any additional clarification desired. A member wishing to review his or her personal information in our possession should send a written request to this effect to the President at TBS at tbs@torontobonsai.org.