We’re committed to your privacy

This website is owned by SeedChange. SeedChange is a non-profit and registered Canadian charity with headquarters in Ottawa, Canada, that works with farmers around the world, including Canada, to shift the way we grow our food. By harnessing the power of good seeds, farmer leadership and global solidarity, we help communities thrive.

To carry out our mission, we need to communicate with you. In doing so, we collect various forms of personal information. We are committed to respecting and protecting your privacy.

This page contains SeedChange’s Privacy Policy, which details our practices to gather, safeguard and use your personal information, as well as your rights.

If you have any questions or concerns about your privacy with SeedChange, or if you wish to exercise any of the rights described in this Policy, please contact us:

SeedChange – Privacy Officer
56 Sparks Street, Suite 600
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5B1
Canada
1-800-565-6872
privacy@weseedchange.org

SeedChange’s Privacy Policy

Agreement

SeedChange’s Privacy Policy is a legally binding agreement between you and SeedChange.

If you do not agree to the terms of SeedChange’s Privacy Policy, you may not access or use SeedChange’s website or any of its services.

By accessing and using SeedChange’s website, by engaging with SeedChange, or by providing your personal information to SeedChange or any of the projects we sponsor, including Farmers for Climate Solutions and Sovereign Seeds, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by the terms of SeedChange’s Privacy Policy.

Though our websites or digital communications may contain links to other websites or social media features. These websites and social media features are owned and operated by other organizations that have their own privacy policies and terms and conditions and are not governed by this policy. We encourage you to carefully review the privacy policy and terms of use of each website you visit.

Future changes and amendments

We reserve the right to modify SeedChange’s Privacy Policy or its terms related to the Website and Services at any time at our discretion. When we do, we will revise the date on this page. Updates are effective immediately and your continued use of our website or services after this date constitutes your consent to those changes.

How we collect your personal information

During the course of our work and activities, we might gather personal information if you:

Make a donation to SeedChange or to a project we sponsor.
Register for one of our events or webinar
Provide personal information on a form to participate in an online campaign
Sign up for our email updates or newsletters.
Interact with one of our employees, Board members or third-party associates in the course of a business relationship.
Visit our website
Engage with us on social media.

Types of personal information we collect

We may collect personal information tied to your personal identity, including the following:

Basic personal information (such as name, country of residence, etc)
Contact information (such as email address, phone number, etc)
Donor or subscriber interests and preferences (such as how much mail you wish to receive, email products you signed up for, links you clicked in an eblast, or requests you made of us)
Payment information (such as credit card details, bank details, etc)
Information about other individuals you are connected with (family members, friends, etc)
Any other materials you willingly submit to us (such as correspondence, survey responses, images, feedback, relevant information you shared in an exchange, etc)

Through various digital tools, including cookies, we also collect other types of personal information that we do not associate with your identity. We do not require any users of our website to disclose more information than is reasonably necessary to use our website or services. The non-identifying information we collect might include:

Your IP address and internet service provider.
The type of web browser and operating system you used.
Which of our website pages you visited.
How long you stayed on our website.

How we use your personal information

When you provide contact information to us for one purpose, we may contact you using that information for other parts of our work. For example, if you sign-up to our e-newsletter or events, we may later contact you by mail, email or phone about opportunities to donate in support of our work.

We use your personal information to:

Provide you with the services or information you expect to receive from us.
Send you updates about SeedChange or let you know when your support is needed.
Steward our relationships with you, whether you are a donor, volunteer, supporter, participant, partner, funder, stakeholder, or employee.
Monitor and improve the effectiveness of our communications, website, and campaigns.

You have the right to be removed from our contact list for sollicitations at any time. You can request this by responding directly to any of our outreach initiatives, or by contacting SeedChange’s Privacy Officer at privacy@weseedchange.org

How we safeguard your personal information

SeedChange keeps all personal information in strict confidence. Only employees who need to perform a specific job that requires the use of personal information are granted access to your personal information. We have detailed procedures n place to protect your privacy, and take measures to ensure its integrity is maintained and to prevent it from being lost or destroyed.

Conditions under which we share your personal information with others

If we need to work with third parties (e.g. partners, service providers, etc) to help deliver on our mission, we migh share your personal information with them if (1) they have privacy standards that match our own, and (2) this information is essential for them to deliver the services we require. This includes third party payment processors that we use in order to process your donations made by credit card or direct deposit. We prohibit any third party provider from using your personal information for any other purpose than the one for which we shared it.

In the course of our fundraising activities, we very occasionally trade donors’ names and addresses with another like-minded organization in an exchange that gives both parties access to potential new donors. This is a common fundraising practice that helps us raise funds for our work with farmers. You can refuse to have your personal information traded in this way by writing to our Privacy Officer at privacy@weseedchange.org or checking the box to that effect that appears on all of the reply coupons we include in our fundraising letters to you.

Retention of information

We will retain and use your personal information for the period necessary to comply with our legal obligations, enforce our agreements, resolve disputes, keep records of past donations, employment, contracts or collaborations, and continue delivering on your ongoing engagement with us (for example, as a donor or email supporter).

If you have voluntarily subscribed to our electronic newsletters or email list, we maintain your email address and any personal information you provide in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. In compliance with Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL) , all e-mails sent from us will clearly state who the email is from and provide clear information on how to contact the sender.

When we deem we no longer need or have the right to retain your personal information, we will delete it.

To modify or retract your consent

You can retract your consent for us to keep and use your personal information at any time.

You can opt to stop receiving email newsletters or promotions from us by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of our emails, or by replying to our email using “unsubscribe” as the subject line. However, you will continue to receive essential transactional emails, such as emails related to a donation you make, unless you contact us specifically to instruct us otherwise.
You can stop receiving mail solicitations from us by emailing fundraising@weseedchange.org, calling us at 1-800-565-6872 extension 1, or sending us a request in the mail at SeedChange, 56 Sparks Street, Suite 600, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5B1.

You can opt out of providing us with anonymous information about you as a website user by installing the “Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on” (to prevent information about your visits to our website being sent to Google Analytics.)

You can opt out of using cookies on our website by adjusting your web browser’s “cookie”, “cache” and JavaScript settings. (Please note that doing so may affect the performance of our web properties, and in some cases may completely prevent you from using some of our pages and forms, like our donation forms and our sign-up forms.)
You can retract your consent for us to store and use any personal information that identifies you in any way by contacting our Privacy Officer at privacy@weseedchange.org

You also have the right to review and make corrections to the personal information we hold about you. To request this, contact SeedChange’s Privacy Officer at privacy@weseedchange.org or by phone at 1-800-565-6872.

Privacy of children

SeedChange does not target children specifically for any of its programs, including outreach campaigns. We do not require our website visitors, online supporters or donors to disclose their age, so we are unable to identify children unless they proactively disclose their age. As such, we afford the same basic protections to the personal information children might share with us as we do to all other individuals.

In the instances where we do engage with an individual whom we know to be a child under the age of 13, we take special precautions to protect their privacy. The child’s personal information will not be used or disclosed for any purpose other than that for which it was collected.

If a SeedChange staff member or partner photographs a child under age 18 during a program activity or field visit, we obtain express consent from the child and their parents/guardian if we would like to later use the child’s photo in any external communication product. Though our policy is to always provide the full name of our program participants in photos we share (in order to convey our respect for them and their work), we will only identify children by their first names and region/country.

We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s Internet usage and to help enforce SeedChange’s Privacy Policy by instructing their children never to provide information when online without their explicit permission. We encourage parents and legal guardians to be involved in the online activities of their children and do their best to provide their children with a safe and friendly online environment.

Data breach

In the event we become aware that the security of our website or services has been compromised, or that your personal information has been put at risk by an external activity such as security attacks or fraud, we reserve the right to take reasonably appropriate measures, such as notification of law enforcement authorities and cooperation in any investigation.

We will make every reasonable effort to notify affected individuals if we believe that there is a reasonable risk of harm to them as a result of the breach. If this is the case, we will post a notice on the website, send you an email, or mail you a letter.

For European website users: Data protection rights under the GDPR

If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (“EEA”), you have certain data protection rights and we aim to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete, or limit the use of your personal information. If you wish to be informed what personal information we hold about you and if you want it to be removed from our systems, please contact us. In certain circumstances, you have the following data protection rights:

You have the right to withdraw consent where you have previously given your consent to the processing of your personal information. To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal information is consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.
You have the right to learn if your personal information is being processed by us, obtain disclosure regarding certain aspects of the processing, and obtain a copy of your personal information undergoing processing.
You have the right to verify the accuracy of your information a;nd ask for it to be updated or corrected. You also have the right to request us to complete the personal information
You have the right to object to the processing of your information if the processing is carried out on a legal basis other than consent. Where personal information is processed for the public interest, in the exercise of an official authority vested in us, or for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us, you may object to such processing by providing a ground related to your particular situation to justify the objection. You must know that, however, should your personal information be processed for direct marketing purposes, you can object to that processing at any time without providing any justification. To learn whether we are processing personal information for direct marketing purposes, you may refer to the relevant sections of this Policy.
You have the right, under certain circumstances, to restrict the processing of your personal information. These circumstances include: the accuracy of your personal information is contested by you and we must verify its accuracy; the processing is unlawful, but you oppose the erasure of your personal information and request the restriction of its use instead; we no longer need your personal information for the purposes of processing, but you require it to establish, exercise or defend your legal claims; you have objected to processing pending the verification of whether our legitimate grounds override your legitimate grounds. Where processing has been restricted, such personal information will be marked accordingly and, with the exception of storage, will be processed only with your consent or for the establishment, to exercise or defense of legal claims, for the protection of the rights of another natural, or legal person or for reasons of important public interest.
You have the right, under certain circumstances, to obtain the erasure of your personal information from us. These circumstances include: the personal information is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which it was collected or otherwise processed; you withdraw consent to consent-based processing; you object to the processing under certain rules of applicable data protection law; the processing is for direct marketing purposes; and the personal data have been unlawfully processed. However, there are exclusions of the right to erasure such as where processing is necessary: for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information; for compliance with a legal obligation; or for the establishment, to exercise or defense of legal claims.
You have the right to receive your personal information that you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and, if technically feasible, to have it transmitted to another controller without any hindrance from us, provided that such transmission does not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.
You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint directly with us, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority in the EEA. This provision is applicable provided that your personal information is processed by automated means and that the processing is based on your consent, on a contract which you are part of, or on pre-contractual obligations thereof.

This document was last updated on May 6, 2022