Privacy Notice

Indian Boarding Homes Program Class Action Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice was last updated on February 1, 2024.

We are committed to protecting your privacy and safeguarding the information we receive. If you provide information in relation to your opt out or claim in the Class Action, this Privacy Notice applies. This is to inform you about the types of personal information, as defined below, that we will collect, use, disclose and share through your use of the website, call center or forms (the “Claims Settlement Process”), how your information will be used, and to provide information about your legal rights in relation to your personal information. We will treat personal information in a manner consistent with this Privacy Notice under which it was collected, unless we have your consent to treat it differently. This Privacy Notice applies to any information we collect or receive about you during the Claims Settlement Process and to any information we collect or receive about you through your use of the application.

This Privacy Notice relates only to the Indian Boarding Home Program Class Action Claims Settlement Process. This Privacy notice does not relate to other technologies, products, services or sites by PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP or PriceWaterhouseCoopers Inc (“PwC”), the parties to the Class Action, or to any other organization.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice at any time by publishing an updated version here. When we make changes, we will amend the last revision date at the top of this page. The new modified Privacy Notice will apply from that revision date. Therefore, we encourage you to review this Privacy Notice periodically to be informed about how we are protecting your information.

Your acknowledgement/consent

By using this website, call center or forms and providing personal information to us either through this website, by phone, in paper form, by fax or by email, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Notice, and, to the extent your consent is necessary and valid under applicable law, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of such personal information by us and any third party recipients in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

You acknowledge that any third party links made available through your use of the application are not governed by this Privacy Notice. We encourage visitors/claimants to review the Privacy Notices on each of these other websites before disclosing any personal information.

The purpose of the Claims Website and Claim Forms

The claims website and claim forms are used to receive, assess and process claims related to the Indian Boarding Home Program Class Action Settlement.

We do not pass or use personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

Personal information we collect

Providing personal information is not a statutory or contractual requirement, but failure to provide certain personal information may affect our ability to assess your claim.

Personal information provided directly by you

We ask you to provide us with personal information so we can assess your claim. We do not collect personal information from third party sources. The personal information we will collect directly from you may include:

• Name(s) and Date of Birth
• Contact information (email, phone, address)
• Copy of Government-Issued Photo ID
• Social Insurance Number
• Depending on how you identify:
  • Indian Status Card and Band Number, Band Name (First Nations)
  • Disc Number, Beneficiary Number (Inuk)
• Bank account information (for processing payments)
• Claim information:
  • History of placement in Indian Boarding Homes Program
  • School information

Where Category 2 compensation is being claimed, information relating to:

• Sexual comments, provocation, interference, or assaults
• Abuse, violence, or intimidation
• Physical assaults
• Pregnancies
• Personal injuries arising from any of the items listed above

Representative Information: If a claim is being made through a representative, then the following information will be required:

• Name, address, contact information
• Law Society/Bar Number
• Bank account information (for processing payments)

Estate information, if a claim is being made on behalf of a deceased claimant:

• Proof of death
• Estate and probate information
• Nature of relationship with deceased person, including supporting documents such as marriage license, birth certificate

Personal information captured, created, inferred or derived from your use of the claims website

• IP Address

Our web servers will log your IP address and other information (e.g., browser information, operating system, request date/time, user agent string, referral and exiting URL) in order to maintain an audit log of activities performed. We use this information pursuant to our legitimate interests in tracking Site and Platform usage, fraud detection, combating DDOS or other attacks, and removing or defending against malicious visitors on the Site and Platform.

• Log files

To properly manage the application process, we may anonymously log information on our operational systems, and identify categories of visitors by items such as domains and browser types. These statistics are reported in the aggregate to our webmasters and are generally non-identifiable.

• Web beacons

To gather visitor statistics and manage cookies, we use electronic images called a “single-pixel GIF” or “web beacon”. Web beacons allow our third-party tracking tools, Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics and Oracle Marketing Cloud to gather information such as the IP address of your computer, the time the material was viewed and the type of Internet browser used to access the page. This information is tracked on the third party tracking tools’ servers and reported in aggregate to our webmasters. If you are concerned about the use of Web beacons you can turn off your browsers’ cookies. This action will prevent Web beacons from tracking your specific activity; however, the Web beacon may still record a visit from your IP address.

• Session and persistent cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by the websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. You can manage and control them through your browser, including removing cookies by deleting them from your browser history (or cache) when you leave the site.

Session cookies are not saved to the browser’s cookie cache and instead are deleted whenever the browser is closed. Persistent cookies are required for some features and are saved to the browser’s cache and will persist even if the browser is closed or the computer is restarted.

The use of cookies is now standard operating procedure for most websites. However, if you are uncomfortable with the use of cookies, most browsers permit users to opt out of receiving them. This can be done via the tools menu of your internet browser. If you do opt out, please note that you may be unable to use the ​claims website.

Use of Personal Information

We use personal information for the following purposes:

• To process your Category 1/Category 2 claim, including:
  • Adjudication of your claim
  • Processing payments
  • Addressing and resolving your requests for review, or reviews by the Independent Reviewer or Exception Committee pursuant to the Settlement Agreement
• To acknowledge and record your ‘Opt Out’ of the Class Action
• Authenticating the identity of claimants and for other security-related purposes, including system monitoring
• To operate, administer, manage and improve the claims website
• Administering the claims website, troubleshooting issues and identifying areas of improvement
• To maintain the security of the claims website

Our legal grounds for processing personal information

Applicable laws may require us to set out in this Privacy Notice the legal grounds on which we rely in order to process your personal information.

In such cases, we rely on one or more of the following processing conditions:

• The principal reason for processing your information is pursuant to the agreement and the Settlement Agreement under which PwC has been retained to administrate the claims process that the parties to the litigation have agreed to as part of that Settlement Agreement
• Our legitimate interests in the effective delivery of information and services to you and in the effective and lawful operation of our businesses and the legitimate interests of our clients (in this case, the parties to the Settlement Agreement) in receiving professional services from us as part of running their organizations (provided these do not interfere with your rights);
• Our legitimate interests in maintaining, improving and managing the Claims Settlement Process (provided these do not interfere with your rights);
• To satisfy any requirement of law, regulation or professional body of which we are a member (for example, for some of our services, we have a legal obligation to provide the service in a certain way); or
• Where no other processing condition is available, if you have agreed to us processing your personal information for the relevant purpose (please note we do not generally process personal information based on consent as we can usually rely on another legal basis).

Who we disclose your personal information to

Third Party Service Providers

We may transfer or disclose the personal information we collect to third party contractors, subcontractors, and/or their subsidiaries and affiliates (collectively, “Third Parties”). Examples of Third Parties we use include providers of identity management, website hosting and management, data analysis, data backup, security and cloud storage services. The servers powering and facilitating our IT infrastructure are located in secure data centers in Canada, and personal information may be stored in any one of them.

The third party service providers may use their own third party subcontractors that have access to personal information (sub-processors). It is our policy to use only third party service providers that are bound to maintain appropriate levels of security and confidentiality, to process personal information only as instructed by us, and to flow those same obligations down to their sub-processors.

Please be advised that we, as well as some of the recipients of your personal information referenced in this Privacy Notice, may process your personal information in any province within Canada. In some cases, data processing activities may take place where local laws may not provide the same level of data protection that exist in your local jurisdiction. In the event that such a transfer occurs, we will ensure that there are adequate safeguards in place to protect your personal information that comply with our legal obligations.

When transferring your personal data, to our agents, service providers, or controllers (such as our customers) in other countries, we ensure that these recipients commit to upholding the Principles of the Canadian Privacy requirements. We may also rely on appropriate standard contractual clauses with such recipients to ensure adequate protection for your personal data.

Other recipients of personal information

We may also disclose personal information under the following circumstances:

• To the Government of Canada, in order to validate your claim against boarding home records;
• To the Independent Reviewer, if you file for reconsideration;
• To the Exceptions Committee, if referred by the Independent Reviewer;
• With professional advisers, for example, auditors and law firms, as necessary to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights and obtain advice in connection with the running of our businesses – personal information may be shared with these advisers as necessary in connection with the services they have been engaged to provide;
• When explicitly requested by you;
• When required to deliver publications or reference materials requested by you; and
• With law enforcement or other government and regulatory agencies or with other third parties as required by, and in accordance with, applicable law and regulation.

Occasionally, we may receive requests from third parties with authority to obtain disclosure of personal information, such as to check that we are complying with applicable law and regulation, to investigate an alleged crime or to establish, exercise or defend legal rights. We will only comply with requests for personal information where we are permitted to do so in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

Security

We adhere to internationally recognised standards of technology and operational security in order to protect personal information from loss, misuse, alteration and destruction. Only authorized persons are provided access to personal information. These individuals have agreed to maintain the confidentiality of this information. We have a framework of policies and procedures in place covering data protection, confidentiality and security and regularly review the appropriateness of the measures we have in place to keep the data we hold secure.

Although we use appropriate security measures once we have received your personal information, the transmission of data over the Internet (including by email) is never completely secure. We endeavor to protect personal information, but we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted electronically over the Internet.

Retention

We will retain your personal information only for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice unless we are required by the Settlement Agreement, or by law, regulation or our professional obligations to retain it for a longer period.

Children

Our applications are not intentionally designed for or directed at children, and the requirements for the Settlement Agreement require all users to be above the age of majority or act through a legal representative.

Your legal rights in relation to your personal information

You may have certain rights under your local law in relation to the personal information we hold about you. Such legal rights may include the following:

• Obtain confirmation as to whether we process personal information in the Claims Settlement Process about you, access a copy of your personal information and obtain certain other information, including why we process it and recipients of personal information.
• Request rectification of personal information if it is inaccurate (for example, if you change your address) and to have incomplete personal information completed.
• Delete/erase your personal information in the following cases:
  • The personal information is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which it was collected and processed;
  • Where the legal ground for processing is based upon your consent, and you withdraw consent, and we have no other lawful basis for the processing;
  • Our legal ground for processing is that the processing is necessary for legitimate interests pursued by us or a third party, and you object to the processing and we do not have overriding legitimate grounds;
  • Your personal information has been unlawfully processed; or
  • Your personal information must be erased to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject.
• Restrict personal information processing in the following cases:
  • For a period enabling us to verify the accuracy of personal information where you have contested the accuracy of the personal information;
  • Your personal information has been unlawfully processed and you request restriction of processing instead of deletion;
  • Your personal information is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which it was collected and processed but the personal information is required by you to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
  • For a period enabling us to verify whether the legitimate grounds relied on by us override your interests where you have objected to processing based on it being necessary for the pursuit of a legitimate interest identified by us.
• Object to the processing of your personal information in the following cases:
  • Our legal ground for processing is that the processing is necessary for a legitimate interest pursued by us or a third party.

Data portability

You may request that your personal information be communicated or transferred to you or a third-party organization in a structured and commonly used format. Please note that this right only applies to computerized personal information collected from you. This right does not cover information created or derived from collected personal information and does not extend to instances that raise serious practical difficulties.

Withdraw your consent

Where we process personal information based on consent, you have the right to withdraw consent at any time. We do not generally process personal information based on consent (as we can usually rely on another legal basis). Please note that withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing done before the withdrawal. Please also note that if you withdraw your consent this may affect our ability to provide the services you have requested.

If you believe the processing of your personal information violates applicable laws, you may have the right to lodge a complaint with the data protection supervisory authority in the location where you normally reside or normally work, or the location where the alleged infringement occurred.

Contact Us

Please submit a request to exercise a legal right in relation to your personal information, or an enquiry if you have a question or complaint about handling of your personal information. You can contact us in the following ways: