Privacy Policy

Town of Cochrane Privacy Statement

The Town of Cochrane (the Town) is committed to providing a website that respects your privacy. This statement summarizes the privacy policy and practices on The Town website and all associated systems, processes, and applications under the direct control of The Town. The Town of Cochrane is subject to Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. http://www.servicealberta.ca/foip/

Privacy Overview

Personal information may include, but is not limited to, your name, email address, age, gender, address, telephone number and other Personally Identifiable Information (PII). The Town does not automatically gather any personal information from you. This information is only obtained if you supply it voluntarily through contacting The Town via email or online forms or by setting up a user account.

Any personal information that we ask you to provide via our website is collected in compliance with section 33(c) of the Alberta Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) Act. We collect only what is necessary for the operation of the website and the provision of requested materials to you. The information is used only for the purpose it was collected or for a consistent purpose. We keep the information for the length of time necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected and within the parameters set in The Town’s Retention Schedule.

When you visit cochrane.ca, The Town’s web server automatically collects a limited amount of standard information essential to the operation and evaluation of The Town’s website. This information includes:

  • the pages you visit on The Town’s website
  • the date and time of your page request
  • the Internet Protocol (IP) address your computer is using to receive information (we make no attempt to link these addresses with the identity of individuals visiting our site)
  • the type and version of your browser
  • the name and size of the file you requested

Some of this information (e.g., browser type) does not identify who you are and is not used to identify individuals who come to The Town’s website. Other information, such as your Internet Protocol address or IP address, may identify you depending, in large part, on the naming standards followed by your Internet Service Provider. You may wish to ask them about their policies and practices in this regard.

Information Collected through Feedback Forms or Service Requests

If you choose to provide your personal information through The Town’s Contact Forms – including email address and contact information, it will be used by the relevant Department/Section and Communications teams for the purpose of responding to your information or service request.

This information is not disclosed except to authorized personnel for the purpose of addressing your feedback. Email messages are subject to the FOIP Act. The personal information you share with The Town is provided to areas that are required to carry out the business that relates to you. All email messages sent or received are the property of The Town and may be accessed by staff without further consent of the author. Email messages that are required to be retained will be maintained through The Town’s records management process.

Any personal information you submit to The Town is secured once it reaches The Town’s servers which are in Alberta. The Town, however, cannot guarantee the security of your information before it reaches The Town’s server.

Cookies

To help make our website more responsive to the needs of our visitors, we use a standard feature of browser software, called a cookie, to assign each user a unique, random number that resides on your computer. The cookie does not identify the visitor, just the computer that a visitor uses to access our website. Unless you voluntarily identify yourself, we do not know who you are, even if we assign a cookie to your computer as the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply. A cookie cannot read unrelated data from your computer. We use cookies to help us deliver a better, more personalized service. For example, we use cookies to track the pages and services on our website visited by our users. We can build a better website if we know which pages and features our users are visiting and how often.

Security and IP Addresses

Our web server automatically collects limited information about your computer configuration when you visit our website, including the type of browser you use, the operating system you are running, the resolution of your computer monitor, the website that referred you, and your IP address. Your IP address is a number that is used by computers connected to the Internet to identify your computer so that data such as the web pages you want to view can be transmitted to you. We use IP address information for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes.

Privacy and External Links

This website contains links to other websites. We are not responsible for the content and the privacy practices of other websites and encourage you to examine each site’s privacy policy and make your own decisions regarding the accuracy, reliability and correctness of material and information found.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to change or modify this Privacy Policy at any time without notice to the users of our site, except that we will post the changed or modified Privacy Policy on our site as soon as practicable as such changes or modifications are implemented.

More Information

For general inquiries regarding The Town's customer feedback forms and associated Privacy Statement, contact webmaster@cochrane.ca.

Please contact The Town of Cochrane’s FOIP Coordinator at FOIP@Cochrane.ca or call 403-932-2674 regarding access to information or privacy issues under FOIP, and for assistance in updating, deleting, or adding your personal information to The Town of Cochrane’s databases.