Foundry Virtual BC – Privacy, Collection & Consent
As a provincial organization that supports you on your mental health & wellness journey, we are committed to maintaining confidentiality and privacy.
The Foundry, a part of Providence Healthcare collects Personal Information from patients and clients under the authority of s. 26 (c) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. For privacy questions, please contact privacy@providencehealth.bc.ca. For all other questions, please contact info@foundry.bc.ca.
Curious about privacy and confidentiality? You’ve come to the right place! This page will take you through our privacy policy and how we adhere to these guidelines. We acknowledge that much of the language used on this page may be hard to understand. To learn more and understand each section better, click the “+” button.
As a provincial organization that supports you on your mental health & wellness journey, we are committed to maintaining confidentiality and privacy. In order to best support you, we have to collect certain information that lets us know who you are so that we can separate you from others who access our services. This page will help explain why we collect your information, how long we hold onto it, how we are keeping it safe and confidential, how you can request access to it, and more. Keep reading!
Privacy Statement, Collection Notice & Service Consent
Foundry (which we may refer to as “we”) is a program within the Providence Health Care Society that provides young people ages 12-24 with access to mental health care, substance use services, primary care, social services and youth and family peer supports. Foundry provides these services through a province-wide network of integrated health and social service centres, and through Foundry BC app.
This Privacy Statement, Collection Notice & Service Consent (which we will call the “Privacy Statement” throughout the rest of this document) tells you about the types of personal information we collect, use and disclose when we provide services to you on the Foundry BC App.
This Privacy Statement will also explain:
- For how long we keep your personal information and why,
- How we make sure your personal information stays secure and confidential while we have it in our records,
- How you can access or correct your personal information in our records,
- How we will destroy your personal information from our records once we no longer need to keep it, and
- How you can ask questions or make a complaint about anything Foundry does with your personal information.
When we talk about your “personal information”, what we mean is information that identifies you as an individual that we collect from you, and sometimes from other sources, when you access our services using the Foundry BC App
Certain laws, including British Columbia’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) and Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), set out the rules for the collection, use, disclosure, security, retention and destruction of your personal information. We strive to follow all of these rules. This Privacy Statement tells you how we do that. So please read this entire Privacy Statement carefully and ask questions if there is anything you don’t understand. You can ask your Foundry Service Provider, or you can contact us using the contact information we have provided at the end of this Privacy Statement.
From time to time, we might make changes to this Privacy Statement. If we do that, we will provide you with a copy of the updated Privacy Statement through the Foundry BC App. We will also describe the changes we have made to the old version of the Privacy Statement in a way that is easy for you to understand. We will also ask you to consent to the new version of the Privacy Statement before you can access our services again using the Foundry BC App. If you don’t want to give us your consent to the new version, that’s okay, but it does mean that you won’t be able to use the Foundry BC App anymore. This is because the Privacy Statement is part of the Terms of Use for the Foundry BC App.
Security and Confidentiality
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted standards to protect the personal information you submit to us. We use strict internal procedures and technical security features to try to prevent unauthorized access, use or disclosure of your personal information. If you have any questions about the security of your personal information, you can contact us using the contact information at the end of this Privacy Statement.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted using the Foundry BC App and any such transmission is at your own risk.
In addition, ensuring the security and confidentiality of your personal information is a responsibility that we share with you. Your use of the Foundry BC App should take place in an appropriately private space to ensure that you cannot be overseen or overheard.
Please also note the following:
- You are responsible for the security of your own computer/tablet/mobile/device, email service and WiFi.
- Although security measures, such as encryption, may be used to safeguard communications, PHC cannot guarantee the security of the information you share over the internet.
- Like other mobile applications, the Foundry BC App will require permissions to access content on your phone or computer to function. For example, permission to access the camera and microphone enables users to have the video appointment. These applications may also collect personal information such as your first name, last name, email address as well as your device and internet connection (e.g., IP address) in order to provide their services.
Accuracy of and Access to Your Personal Information
We make reasonable efforts to ensure that your personal information that we collect, use and disclose in accordance with this Privacy Statement is accurate and complete. We need your help to accomplish this. Given that in the vast majority of cases we will collect your personal information directly from you, we rely on you to provide us with accurate information, and to update that information as and when needed.
Whether or not we have collected your personal information directly from you, you have the right to request access to that information and to request that we correct any errors in or omissions from that information. If your request for correction is reasonable, and subject to any legal obligations we might have that require us not to correct the information (e.g., we cannot correct a healthcare professional’s clinical opinions), we will correct the information. If your request for correction is not reasonable, or cannot be granted for any other reason, we will in any event include a note in the file where the information is held to show that a request for correction was made, but not implemented.
Email
Information sent to our email address over the Internet is not secure. This means that if the visitor uses the e-mail address published on the app, to send an email, the information provided may be intercepted as it travels to us. We will not be responsible for any damages suffered by individuals as a result of the transmission and information that is sent to us or for any errors or changes made to transmitted information.
Contact us
For questions, or to make a complaint, about our collection, use or disclosure or your personal information, or the content of this policy, or to request access to or correction of your personal information in our records, please contact online@foundrybc.ca
Contact the OIPC
If you feel that we have not answered your questions, or dealt with your complaint, in an appropriate manner, you may contact the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (“OIPC”) for further assistance. The OIPC is responsible for ensuring that we comply with FIPPA and PIPA.
Address:PO Box 9038 Stn. Prov. Govt. Victoria, BC V8W 9A4
Telephone:250-387-5629 (or call Enquiry BC at 604-660-2421 or 1-800-663-7867 and request a transfer to the OIPC)
Fax: 250-387-1696
Email: info@oipc.bc.ca
Definitions
- Personal Information: This will be a link on click of which the following should populate: personal information would include, but is not limited to, things such as an individual’s name, address, birth date, e-mail address, phone number and care card number
- Analytic Tool: the app uses an analytics tool called Elk stack that collects information around what features of the tool you have accessed and how long you have spent using a feature, etc.
- What actions you have performed on each page
- This helps us understand what features young people are finding useful and how that may be changing with time. This allows us to continue to change/improve our services to meet the changing needs of our young people. Elk Stack would also collect your IP address as this would help us understand locations from where the app is being accessed. This information becomes important for us to be able to measure app reach as one of the goals of this app is to meet the needs of rural and remote communities.
- Contact us at online@foundrybc.ca
- healthnetBC: The healthnetBC is an interface enables access to the Ministry’s databases that contains some of your personal information such as PHN, DOB, legal name, etc. by external agencies, either via the Internet or an integrated software system.
- De-identified: which means the removal from a record of any information that identifies you, such as your name, address, phone number, PHN, etc., so that you cannot be identified from the record, either alone or when linked with other records or information.