Privacy Policy

Privacy Commitment 

Saddle Hills County recognizes that the privacy and confidentiality of personal information is important. This statement summaries the privacy policy and practices on the Saddle Hills County website and all associated systems, processes and applications under direct control of Saddle Hills County. All personal information collected by Saddle Hills County is managed according to the Alberta Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) Act.

1. You will be informed, at the point of collection, that your personal information is being collected and the purpose for which it is being collected;
2. You have a right of access to your information; 
3. You have control over how the County obtains, uses, and discloses your personal information;
4. All uses of information are subject to you not having refused or withdrawn consent, unless disclosure is made for legal purposes.

Information Collected and Stored Automatically

Even if you do nothing more during your visit than browse through the website, read pages, or download information, please be aware that the County automatically gathers and stores certain information about your visit. This information does not identify you personally. The County collects and stores only the following information about your visit:

1. The Internet domain and Internet Protocol (IP) address from which you access the County's website;
2. The type of browser and operating system used to access the County's site;
3. The date and time you access the County's site;
4. The pages you visit on the County's site; and
5. If you are linked to the County's website from another website, the address of that website.

The County uses this information to help us make our site more useful to visitors, to learn about the number of visitors to our site, and the types of technology our visitors use. The information is collected in compliance with Section 33 (c) of Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) Act. The County does not track or record information about individuals and their visits.

Links to Other Sites

The Saddle Hills County website and social media pages may contain links to other sites. The County is not responsible for the content and privacy practices of other websites, and the County encourages you to examine the privacy policy and disclaimer of each site and make your own decisions regarding the disclosure of your personal information to that site. Once you link to another site, you are subject to the privacy policy of the new site. Comments on posts shared from other sites should be made on those sites and not on Saddle Hills County's sites. Saddle Hills County reserves the right to delete or hide any comments on posts from other sites.

Cookies

Saddle Hills County uses electronic "cookies" in order to provide you with better service. A cookie is a small amount of data that is transferred to your browser by a web server. It cannot be executed as code or deliver viruses. A session ID, along with time and date and other information may be placed in the cookie. This information is used to provide the user with an enriched experience while using the County's website. Once the user leaves the County's website, the session is considered done and the cookie expires. The County does not build profiles of users through the use of cookies and does not attempt to track individual users through the use of cookies. In order for a cookie to be written to your computer, cookies must be enabled by your browser, giving you the chance to decide whether to accept it. If you decide to refuse a cookie, you may find that the website does not behave as designed.

Personal Information

If you choose to provide Saddle Hills County with personal information in an email or by filling out an electronic form and submitting it to the County through our website, the County will use that information to respond to your message and to assist us to provide you the requested information or service.

Information collected in Emails and Web Forms

Emails and Public Service Requests are subject to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The personal information you share with Saddle Hills County is provided only to those areas that are required to carry out the business that relates to you. All emails sent or received are the property of the County and may be accessed by department heads or their delegates without further consent of the author. Emails are required to be retained by law and maintained through a records management process.

Security

Security measures are implemented in order that web services remain available to all users. Saddle Hills County employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify attempts to tamper with information, or to otherwise cause damage. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits.

Accuracy

Saddle Hills County has made reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy of all materials posted on its website. However, it should be understood that despite these efforts, these materials could contain errors.   Materials posted on the website are current only as of the date that such materials are posted. With the passage of time, these materials may become incomplete, obsolete, or outdated. Saddle Hills County makes reasonable efforts to update these materials in as timely a fashion as possible, but all materials are posted on the websites on an “AS IS” basis without any express warranty.

Privacy Statement Updates

Saddle Hills County may need to change this Privacy Statement. The updates will be posted online. If the changes are substantive, the County will announce the update through this website. Your continued use of the website after the effective date of such changes constitutes your acceptance of the changes. To make your review more convenient, the County will post an effective date at the top of the Policy Statement page.

This policy is effective as of October 19, 2018.

For any other questions about our information and privacy policies, please Contact Us.

Social Media Terms of Use

What you can expect from Saddle Hills County social media?

Saddle Hills County social media accounts vary in terms of frequency and content, but usually publish daily. We publish helpful information and link you to more detailed information and resources when available. Some accounts do not respond to public replies.

• Accounts will be monitored during normal business hours, unless otherwise specified, and during this time we will try to respond to your questions as efficiently as possible.
• Comments which do not follow our Terms of Use or one or more of the following rules may be removed, and users that ignore these comment policies may be banned.  
• For any matter that is confidential, or too complicated to post for the public, please Contact Us or Report an Issue.
• Depending on the volume of direct messages and comments received, we cannot commit to responding to everyone.
• Don’t forget that the social media service providers (such as Facebook) also have additional, or differing terms of use. You should carefully review the terms and conditions that apply to you before obtaining the particular service.
• Although we will work hard to help you, we can’t guarantee that we will understand your question completely or answer it accurately. By contacting us through a social media channel, you acknowledge that any response we provide to you:
• is intended to provide helpful information or resources
• is not considered to be definitive advice or guaranteed to solve your issue

• Stay on topic. We encourage focused, thoughtful comments and discussion which respond or relate to a particular topic, new initiative, or upcoming event. Comments which are not related to our content or attempt to derail the conversation may be removed.
• Be respectful. If you choose to post content, please keep in mind that you must not:

1. Mislead us or anyone else as to your identity or the origin of the posted content, or falsely claim to represent a person, organization, or entity
2. Post or transmit any message, content or link to content that:
   1. you either do not own or do not have the necessary rights to post or transmit;
   2. is in violation of any law, rule or regulation or any third party right, or promotes illegal activity or conduct that would contravene any law, rule or regulation, or third party right;
   3. is abusive, hateful, homophobic, discriminatory, malicious, aggressive, threatening, violent, sexist, harassing, racist, inflammatory, indecent, tortious, defamatory, knowingly false, misleading, deceptive, vulgar, obscene, offensive, scandalous, sexually explicit, profane;
   4. incites hatred, racism, bigotry, discrimination or physical harm of any kind against any individual or class of individuals based on a protected ground in the Ontario Human Rights Code, including: ancestry, colour, race, citizenship, ethnic origin, place of origin, creed, disability, family status, marital status, gender identity, gender expression, sex (including pregnancy and breastfeeding), or sexual orientation.
   5. is unsolicited or unauthorized, such as unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional material, "junk mail," "spam," "chain letter," "pyramid scheme," or any other form of solicitation (commercial or otherwise);
   6. is in breach of any confidence;
   7. includes personal data or information about others; or
   8. can result in us being liable to anyone else under any intellectual property rights law.

We may not respond to posts that violate any of these rules and we may notify the social media service provider of your violation. If we suffer costs or damages as a result of your violating these rules, we expect you to cover those costs and damages.

Comments on posts shared from other sites should be made on those sites and not on Saddle Hills County's pages. Saddle Hills County reserves the right to delete or hide any comments on posts from other sites.

While we may moderate posts, we are not required to, nor should you expect that we will, take action in response to any content posted on our page or feed. The views expressed by others represent their own views and are not endorsed or approved by us, nor do we endorse or approve any events or other activities posted by a user.

Saddle Hills County supports an inclusive, diverse, equitable, and respectful work environment, free of discrimination and harassment. County employees moderate our social media sites and their contents. Any conduct that is discriminatory or harassing will be removed and the user may be banned from future use of County channels.

We reserve the right not to keep any content that you post on our page or feed, and to remove, edit or move, at any time, any content posted which does not comply with these Terms of Use or which is otherwise objectionable in light of prevailing community standards.

We will cooperate with law enforcement officials and comply with any court order with respect to any claim or investigation due to any content posted and will provide such content and provide information regarding your identity as well as other relevant information.

• Avoid posting personal or confidential information. Our social media accounts are publicly accessible and posts are visible to the public. Therefore, please don’t post any personal information about you or anyone else!

Do not solicit personal information from other users. All or part of any posts containing personal or confidential information (e.g. a person’s home address, health card number) may be removed.

To the extent that we collect any personal information through a social media website, we will handle it according to what we say in our Privacy Policy.

If you choose to communicate with Saddle Hills County through a social media channel, please note that we don’t have any control over the social media channel and therefore we have no responsibility or liability for the manner in which those organizations collect, use, disclose, secure or otherwise treat your personal information. You should review the privacy policies of any social media platform before providing any personal or other information. Others may not comply with the same privacy laws, policies and practices that we do! Please be careful.

• Use informative links. If you provide external links for citations or advancing discussion through additional information, do not post links to advertising or solicitation content, spam/malware or other irrelevant material.

We may display links to other websites because they may be of interest to you. Just to be clear, providing a link to them doesn’t mean that we endorse or recommend them to you.

Also, since these other websites are controlled and maintained by other people, we can’t be sure that the link will still work when you click on it or that the service or content is useful, appropriate, virus-free or reliable. Therefore, you need to decide for yourself whether you want to follow any link or to agree to receive or rely on any service or content that is made available to you. 

In the interest of encouraging community participation and supporting County community organizations we allow third party individuals and organizations to post and share information and events on our social media platforms. This in no way constitutes nor implies endo4rese3ment, recommendation or favouring by the County, its employees or elected officials.

Use of our social media sites and their contents is at your own risk. They and all of their content are provided "as Is". You must not rely on any content published on or linked from our social media sites without first making your own enquiries to verify it is accurate, current and complete. We do not make, and expressly disclaim, any representations, warranties, covenants and conditions, express or implied, arising out of operation of law, course of performance, course of dealing, usage of trade or otherwise, including any express or implied warranties and conditions of: merchantability; merchantable quality; fitness for a particular purpose; non-infringement; safety; quality; freedom from defects or that defects will be corrected; uninterrupted, virus-free or error-free use of our social media site; or accuracy, currency, reliability, completeness or appropriateness relating to the content of them.

Under no circumstances will Saddle Hills County and their employees, agents and independent contractors have any responsibility or liability for any loss or damage whatsoever (including without limitation direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, punitive, exemplary or other damages, and including without limitation to any loss of profit, costs, expenses, harm to business, business interruption, reputation, loss of information or programs or data, loss of savings, loss of revenue, loss of goodwill, loss of tangible or intangible property, legal fees or legal costs, wasted management or office time or damages of any kind whatsoever), whether based in contract, tort, negligence or any other legal basis, arising out of or in connection with our social media sites, any linked website or linked social media platform (including without limitation any damages suffered as a result of the use, inability to use or failure of, or any omissions or inaccuracies on, our social media sites, any linked websites or linked social media platforms, or any of the services or content of the foregoing), even if the Government of Ontario has been specifically advised of the possibility of such damage or loss, or if such damage or loss was foreseeable.

Saddle Hills County reserves the right to supplement, remove or modify these Terms of Use at any time and from time to time without notice. Please check this website regularly for any changes. If you continue to access our social media sites following a change to these Terms of Use, you will be deemed to have accepted the changes.

If any term or condition set out in these Terms of Use is held to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal for any reason, the remaining terms and conditions will continue in full force.

These Terms of Use are governed by the laws of Saddle Hills County and deemed to be entered into by you in the Province of Alberta.

Thank you for helping us foster a respectful exchange of ideas!