At Trans Canada Trail, (“Trans Canada Trail” or “our”, “us” or “we”) protecting your privacy is very important to us. We value the trust of those we deal with (“users” or “you” or “individuals”) and have created this Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) to inform you of our policies and procedures regarding the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information.
This Policy applies to Trans Canada Trail, including our websites tctrail.ca and sentier.ca, any associated sub-domains and websites optimized for mobile services, our Trans Canada Trail mobile applications for mobile devices (the “Trail Apps”), our peer-to-peer fundraising initiatives such as the Great Canadian Hike (including the website GreatCanadianHike.ca) (collectively, the “Site”), as well as our social media platforms and offline activities, for example if you are participating in any of our in-person activities.
This Policy forms part of our Terms and Conditions. Unless otherwise defined in this Policy, terms used in this Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions.
By accepting the Policy, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information in accordance with this Policy. If you provide Personal Information about another individual, you agree that you have obtained their consent to our collection, use and disclosure of their Personal Information as described in this Policy.
Object of the Policy
This Policy describes the Personal Information that we collect from you when you interact with us, for example when you use the Site, when you interact with our social media platforms and email advertisement campaigns, or when you attend any of our events across the country, and what may happen to that information. Generally, you can browse and/or use the Site without revealing your identity. However, for certain functions or services you will be required to provide Personal Information to us and will no longer be anonymous to us. You can still opt not to provide the requested information by simply not accessing a function or service offered on the Site.
Personal Information Collection and Use
We collect, use and disclose Personal Information via our Site, the Trail Apps, social media, from GreatCanadianHike.ca and through any of our in-person activities. We may collect Personal Information by asking you to complete webforms, when you participate in contests or fundraising efforts, when you fill out surveys to help us improve our services and find out more about what you are interested in, or when you voluntarily share information with us. We also collect Personal Information from you when you participate at in-person events across the country.
- Donations: If you decide to make a Donation to us, we will collect your name, email address, phone number and postal address. Any credit card information you provide to make a donation is collected and processed directly by third-party payment processors, and we do not have access to, nor do we store, such payment information. We use this information to record and process your donation in our systems, and to provide you with a tax receipt of your donation, and for related tax purposes as may be required by law.
- Fundraising: If you participate in peer-to-peer fundraising initiatives, including without limitation the Great Canadian Hike, we will collect your name, email, contact details, location, any relevant fundraising activity details such as amounts raised, teams joined, and the information in any messages posted, for the purposes of the initiative. We may also collect certain fitness information, but only if you choose to enable that by syncing your fitness apps such as Strava or Garmin. If you choose to share your fundraising pages on social media, we will collect your social media details for fundraising purposes. We will use this information to administer and promote the Great Canadian Hike or other relevant fundraising initiative, including to enable peer-to-peer fundraising and communication among participants, and recognizing participants and teams publicly.
- From time to time we may use third party service providers to assist us with maintaining a donation webpage, or a peer-to-peer fundraising platform, and to process your donation and the associated information on our behalf. Your Personal Information may be shared with such service providers as necessary for those purposes.
- From time to time we may also obtain Personal Information from partner organizations who adhere to and respect the Canadian Marketing Association Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, but it is only used to reach out to you about possible donations, in accordance with the law. When we contact you, you can withdraw your consent to your Personal Information being collected, used and disclosed by us for this purpose, in accordance with applicable laws.
- If you submit an application with respect to an employment opportunity posted on our Site or any other platform, we will collect your name, email address, and any other information you provide, including employment history. We use this information to review and respond to your application.If you participate in a contest via the Site, we may collect your name, email address, and phone number, and may collect other types of personal information, such as photographs or stories, depending on the exact nature of a given contest. We use and disclose such Personal Information as necessary for the contest, including to administer the contest, contact contest winners, award prizes and as required by law.
- If you use the Contact Us feature on the Site, we may collect your name, email address or other contact information, and the reason for your communication. We use this information to respond to you and do any related follow up as necessary. If you send us emails or letters, we may collect such information in a file specific to you.
- If you subscribe to our Newsletter, we will collect your name and email address to send you emails about various news, promotions and you may also choose to provide us with your postal address. Even after subscribing to one or more newsletters and/or opting into one or more offers to receive marketing and/or promotional communications from us, you may elect to modify their preferences by following the “Unsubscribe” link provided in an email or communication received.
- When you visit the Site, we collect and use your Personal Information directly and through cookies and similar technologies to provide you with services and functions that meet your needs, to personalize our service to make your experience more secure and friendlier and to help us understand and improve our website, Trail Apps, fundraising platforms and online resources. For more information about how we use cookies, see the “Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies” section below.
- When you voluntarily share information across platforms or apps about how you use the Trail, or about your trips or other engagement with Trans Canada Trail, we may post or link to it on the Site or publish it in our reports and other publications, to support and advance our Mission. Any Personal Information submitted via GreatCanadianHike.ca will be used by Trans Canada Trail to promote the Hike, subject to moderation and with appropriate credit, unless the user opts out of such use and disclosure.
- When you participate in any of our in-person events, we may collect Personal Information including your name, email address, mailing address, phone number and birthday. This information will be used by us to organize the event, ensure you are properly registered for the event and provide you with information and materials relating to it, for promotion on our various platforms, and to reach out to you regarding any future events we think you would be interested in.
We also use and disclose your Personal Information with your consent, for activities we undertake to advance our Mission including:
- To provide you with information about our work or our activities;
- To fundraise in accordance with our internal policies and procedures;
- To create and provide our newsletters and publications;
- To respond to your questions and provide related services;
- To publicize how Canadians use the Trail; and
- To generally better understand how individuals use our resources and can benefit from the Trans Canada Trail.
Finally, we may also use your Personal Information to personalize and improve our services, content and advertisements; to prevent, detect and, eventually, investigate fraud and security breaches, activities that may prove to be prohibited or illegal, enforce our Terms and Conditions, and meet legal, regulatory, insurance and processing requirements, and otherwise with your consent, or as permitted or required by law.
Personal Information Sharing and Disclosure
We will only disclose your Personal Information with your consent or if we have legal authority to do so, whether as a result of the law or otherwise, such as in the following contexts:
- Service Providers: We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate, perform or provide services related to the Site (including, maintenance services, database management, data processing and hosting, payment processing, marketing, web analytics and improvement of the Site’s features) or to assist us in analyzing how the Site is used. We may also use such third parties to assist us with organizing our in-person activities, or for other purposes, independently from the Site. These third parties only have access to the Personal Information needed to perform the tasks on our behalf and are contractually required not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.
- Legal: We may be asked to disclose your Personal Information to meet certain legal, regulatory, insurance and audit requirements, enforce our Terms and Conditions, respond to claims to the effect that some Content breaches the law or the rights of a third person, including intellectual property rights or ensure everyone’s safety and security, and as otherwise with your consent, or as permitted or required by law (including as required by Canadian and foreign laws applicable to us or our service providers). In particular, without the need for a subpoena, we are entitled to disclose your Personal Information, including your family name, first name, postal code, email address, telephone number (if available), your browsing history of our Site or usage history of our Trail Apps, your IP address, and any other information that might seem relevant, in response to a formal request from a regulatory body in connection with a criminal investigation or allegedly illegal activities or any other activity that might expose us to legal liability.
- Philanthropic: With your consent or as otherwise permitted by applicable laws, we may also share your name, phone number and email address with partner philanthropic organizations who adhere to and respect the Canadian Marketing Association Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, so that they can then contact you about other projects and/or causes you may be interested in donating to.
Security
Trans Canada Trail employs reasonable physical, technological, and administrative security measures and makes reasonably attempts to ensure they are applicable under the circumstances. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
We will make any legally required notifications to you of any breach of the security, confidentiality, or integrity of your unencrypted electronically stored Personal Information, via email or conspicuous posting on the Site or via the Application, in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay, insofar as consistent with (i) the legitimate needs of law enforcement or (ii) any measures necessary to determine the scope of the breach and restore the reasonable integrity of the data system.
International Storing and Transfer of Personal Information
In order for us to offer our products and services, we may collect, use, disclose, store or process Personal Information on servers located in other jurisdictions, including the United States, for the purposes described within this Policy. Please note that the privacy laws in such jurisdictions may differ from the province where you reside. Reasonable measures we may take to protect your Personal Information while processed or handled by these service providers, contractual or otherwise, are subject to applicable foreign legal requirements, including lawful requirements to disclose Personal Information to government authorities and law enforcement in certain circumstances. By submitting your Personal Information or engaging with Trans Canada Trail either through the Site or otherwise, you consent to such transfer and storage of your Personal Information outside your jurisdiction of residence.
Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies
When you browse the Site, including using our Trail Apps, sharing information from our site via social media or otherwise use or benefit from our services, we automatically collect information that is sent to us via your computer, your mobile device or, more generally, whatever device you use. The information thus collected may, in particular, include your IP address, as well as anonymous information collected as a result of our cookies and our web trackers such as the date and time of your visit, the pages you visit, the features you use, the referring URL you came from and which one you go to after, clickstream behaviour (i.e., the pages you view, the links you click, and other actions you take in connection with the Site), your browser type and selected language.
We may use “cookies” to collect information on the Site or any part of it, which can be placed either by us or by our service providers. A cookie is a small data file that we transfer to your computer’s hard disk for record- keeping purposes. Cookies are used to enable certain features of the Site, to better understand how you interact with the Site and to monitor aggregate usage by users and web traffic routing on the Site. The cookies placed by our server are readable only by us and/or our service providers, as the case may be, and cookies cannot access, read or modify any other data on a computer. You can instruct your browser, by changing its options, to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites you visit. If you do not accept cookies, however, you may not be able to use all portions of the Site or all functionality of any part of it.
We also use Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to better understand who is using our Site, and how people are using it. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect information such as pages visited, places where users click, time spent on each page, Internet Protocol address, type of operating system used, and location. Please see http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/ for information about how Google Analytics uses this information. Google may track your activity over time and across websites. Once again, such information is used to target advertisements and content that may be of interest to you, and also to provide statistical insight through features such as Google Analytics and Google Ads. We can also use these services to track how you interact between our Site or any part of it, and external websites hosted by partners. This information is used to review and analyze user tendencies to improve our services and offering.
In some instances, tracking tools used by third-party service providers may be disabled. For example, Google allows you to deactivate cookies designed to target ads by accessing the Opt-Out page of its main website. Google Analytics may also be deactivated once you download the browser add-on available for that purpose. You may also decline the use of cookies by other third-party vendors by logging on to the Network Advertising Initiative consumer deactivation page.
Finally, when you download or use our Trail Apps , or you access one of our mobile-optimized sites, we might receive data on your location and on your mobile device, including a unique identifier of your device. We can then use this information to provide you with services, such as advertisement, research results and other personalized content, taking your location into account. You can use the adjustment menus on most mobile devices to activate or deactivate the location services at your convenience.
Links to Other Sites or Applications
The Site may contain links to other websites or applications. If you click on a third party link, you will be directed to that third party’s website or application. The fact that we link to a website or application is not an endorsement, authorization or representation of our affiliation with that third party, nor is it an endorsement of their privacy or information security policies or practices. We do not exercise control over third-party websites or applications. These other websites or applications may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit Personal Information from you. Other websites follow different rules regarding the use or disclosure of the Personal Information you submit to them. We encourage you to read the privacy policies or statements of the other websites you visit, and will not be responsible for any processing of your Personal Information that may happen on third-party websites.
Data Retention and Anonymization
Except as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law or regulation, we will retain your Personal Information for only as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements. Under some circumstances we may anonymize your Personal Information so that it can no longer be associated with you.
We use the anonymized information to improve and enhance our resources, and for research, analysis and financial reporting purposes, and otherwise to support our Mission.
Accessing, Correcting, Withdrawing Consent and Deleting Personal Information
We take reasonable steps to ensure the Personal Information we hold is as accurate as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected. We rely on you to ensure the Personal Information we have about you is up to date. Please keep us informed if your Personal Information changes.
By law, you have the right to request access to and/or correction of the Personal Information we hold about you. If you wish to review, verify, or withdraw your consent to the use or disclosure of your Personal Information, or request that a correction be made to your Personal Information, you may send us an email at privacy@tctrail.ca.
Before providing you with access to your information, we may ask you for specific information to help us confirm your identity and right to access the Personal Information we hold about you, or to make the requested changes. Your right to access or correct your Personal Information is subject to applicable legal limits. We may not accept a request to change information if we believe that the change would violate a law or legal requirement or result in incorrect information. We cannot provide access to Personal Information that we no longer hold as a result of having destroyed, erased or made it anonymous in accordance with our legal record-keeping obligations and privacy best practices.
Please note that if you request deletion of certain information or withdrawal of your consent, we may not be able to provide you with certain services. We will explain the consequences of deletion or withdrawal at that time to assist you in your decision.
If we are unable to provide you with access to your Personal Information, we will inform you of the reasons why, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions. Such restrictions may include, for example, information about another individual that would reveal their Personal Information or confidential business information, or would be prohibitively costly to provide.
Changes to this Policy
This Policy applies to any Personal Information collected by Trans Canada Trail. If we intend to use or disclose Personal Information for purposes materially different than those described in this Policy, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you of this, unless otherwise permitted or required by law. This Policy is effective as of the last updated date above and may be updated from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the new Policy on the Site or via the Trail Apps, or using any other method we deem appropriate. You are advised to consult this Policy regularly for any changes. Your continued provision of Personal Information or use of the Site following any changes to this Policy constitutes your acceptance of any such changes.
Contacting Us
We welcome your questions and comments about security and privacy. Please send any questions, comments or complaints to our Privacy Officer via email to privacy@tctrail.ca.
Last updated July 9, 2025
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