KFN 75 Years Logo

Data Privacy and Cookies Policy

Who we are

The Kingston Field Naturalists (KFN) is a nature club located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Website address: https://kingstonfieldnaturalists.org.

Mailing address: Box 831, Kingston ON K7L 4X6

Email address: info@kingstonfieldnaturalists.org

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

The Kingston Field Naturalists collect personal information for various purposes both on paper and electronically. KFN does not share or sell personal information to third parties unless it is required for a transaction or other purpose noted below.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the KFN website, we collect the data shown in the comments form and the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string. We do this to detect spam comments and secure the site.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. Gravatar allows you to display an avatar you have associated with your email address to personalize your comments. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Forms

The KFN website uses forms for the convenience of our visitors and to collect information from members and others for various purposes. We collect as little personally identifiable information as we feel is necessary; in many cases, this means that we collect only your name and email address for communication purposes. If you are uncomfortable with using any form on the website, there is usually an option to submit the same information through other means, such as through the use of a paper form.

Any information you submit using a form on the KFN website will be retained on the server for a period of time and may be sent to relevant email addresses such as those of our treasurer or membership secretary (see below).

Our forms make use of Google’s reCAPTCHA service that uses your browsing and usage information to determine if you are a human.

If you upload one or more images to the website using a form, metadata such as your name, location data, and camera settings, might be embedded in the image. If you do not want this information included, you can remove it from the image(s) before uploading.

Membership and Donation Form

KFN allows members to initiate or renew memberships and to make donations using a form on the website. This form asks for personally identifiable information and is sent from the website to relevant email addresses as outlined in this section.

Why we collect your information and how it is used: KFN collects email addresses, mailing addresses and phone numbers for the purposes of communicating to its members and recording evidence of membership to meet regulatory requirements as a non-profit organization. Additionally, KFN collects personally identifiable information to create compliant income tax receipts for donations and to report on such donations to the Canada Revenue Agency. This information is collected using a form on the website to automate the creation of membership certificates and income tax receipts.

How your data is stored: Your email address, name, name of a secondary adult and their email address, your mailing address and phone number, your responses to the items on the membership and donation form, and an itemized list of your paid items, are stored in a database on the server for a period of time. Some or all of this information is sent via SMTP from the KFN server using Amazon SES, to your email address and to the email addresses of the membership secretary, the treasurer, and the administrator of the website. This information is then stored on those individual’s personal computers and may be used to create additional documents, such as a spreadsheet with a list of members or a summary of donors, on those personal computers. The email messages with your information are stored on the KFN email server or on other email servers depending on how the membership secretary, treasurer and administrator access their email messages. KFN officers are aware of security issues and endeavour to secure any personal data for which they are responsible.

How long your data is retained: In the cases of the data stored on the website server and in email servers, the KFN endeavours to permanently delete these copies in a timely manner. Once downloaded to the membership secretary’s and the treasurer’s personal computer, the copies that reside on the server and on email servers are no longer needed and are deleted. Any messages sent to the administrator are deleted if not needed for website administration needs. Membership and donor lists are retained for at least seven years and might be retained longer for historical purposes.

Regarding your payment details: Your financial information, such as bank account details and credit card details, are never seen nor retained by KFN or the website. KFN sends information about your payment to PayPal and they process the payment, let us know if it was successful, and forward the funds to us. For full details on how your privacy is handled, please see the PayPal Privacy Statement.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

Additionally, cookies may be set if you choose to fill out and submit any form on the website.

If you have an account and you log in to the KFN website, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Pages, posts, events and other content on the KFN website may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

In order to evaluate the KFN website statistically, we use the program AWStats. The statistics we obtain allow us to evaluate the use of the website. AWStats evaluates log files that our web server creates on the basis of visitor requests. The program does not use any cookie files for the evaluation. The statistical analysis is carried out via the log files, which also contain IP addresses. As a rule, these data cannot be assigned to specific persons. This data is not merged with other data sources. The data will not be passed on to third parties. The data will also be overwritten after a statistical evaluation and deleted after a short period of time. In contrast to other statistical programs, AWStats does not transmit data to an external server. The program is installed on the server which is located in Toronto.

The AWStats program is an open source project. Information from the third party provider on data protection can be found at https://www.awstats.org.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on the KFN website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on the KFN website, have left comments on the website, or filled out a form on the website, you can request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.