This is Toronto Crime Stoppers’ privacy policy. It sets out how we use and look after your personal information. 

Who are we?

In this policy, the term “Toronto Crime Stoppers” refers to Toronto Crime Stoppers Inc., a non-profit corporation, having its registered office at 40 College Street, 6th Floor, Toronto, ON M5G 2J3. We also refer to ourselves on this page as “TCS”.

If you have any questions about this policy please contact us at crime@222tips.com

When do we process your personal information?

If you submit a tip through our Toronto Crime Stoppers website or call us through our tip line at 1-800-222-TIPS, this process is intended to be anonymous, and we don’t want to know your name for this purpose. We also take other steps to ensure that, where possible, we do not collect or retain personal information about you when you are filling in these forms or contacting us on this number. 

However, there are other circumstances in which we will obtain personal information from you when you use our services or website, or interact with us. For example, when you:

We may also receive information about you from third parties.

In using our services, you might also provide us with information about an offender, potential offender, victim or other person.

You may communicate with us via an anonymous and unique identification code which will also allow you to collect your reward if applicable.

What information do we collect?

We take steps to ensure that we do not collect your personal information if you submit a tip to report suspected criminal activity, unless you choose to disclose your information to us.

When you engage with us in other ways, the types of information collected might include names, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number and credit/debit card details, and anything else that you tell us. We will also keep records of how you wish to communicate with us.

We may collect additional information for specific purposes, such as health data (e.g. about allergies if you attend a catered event).

We also collect cookies that enable our site to recognize your web browser and capture basic browser-based information.

We do not collect information from anyone under 13 years of age in accordance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

How do we use it?

There are different reasons why we may use your personal information. In particular:

(i) Campaigning and fundraising 

We may use your personal details to update you on upcoming campaigns, fundraising initiatives, events and challenges, and also the results of surveys or polls in which you participated. We will only send individuals promotional emails with their consent.

If you sign up to attend an event or to take an action such as volunteering with us, we will process your details to assist you to attend and get involved. We might collect information about your health (for example, information about allergies). We may also share your personal details with the companies organising the events.

Volunteering and engagement

If you volunteer with us, we will process your personal information in connection with that voluntary role and to support you. If you apply for a job with us, we will process your details for the purpose of managing that job application (including contacting you and, with your permission, contacting your referees). If you take on a job with us, you will be subject to a different privacy notice in that capacity.

(ii) Donations 

If you donate to us, we will use your details for administrative purposes, such as to process the donation, and to process a gift aid claim (if appropriate) and shall disclose your payment to third party payment gateway processor.

If you leave us a legacy we will contact you in relation to this, and may get in touch from time to time to ensure that we have the correct details for you.

(iii) Prevention and detection of crime 

We process and share personal data for the purpose of the prevention and detection of crime. The information may be use within any law enforcement or judicial system to facilitate investigation, arrest and prosecute. You as the source will never be called to testify, nor will your identity be exposed as the originating author. Your identity is protected by the 1997 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, R. v. Leipert.

(iv) Sharing with partners

We share information that we collect with our clients (including banks, regulators, retailers, and charities) (“Clients”) in order to prevent and detect crime.

(v) Other processing 

We will process your personal details when we are under a legal or regulatory obligation to do so. If we restructure or merge with another organisation, we may transfer your personal data in connection with that restructuring or merger.

We may process your personal data for other purposes, such as to ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective way for you and your computer, or to notify you of changes to our policies.

To comply with the law we are required to confirm whether our processing of your personal information forms part of a legal or contractual requirement or obligation, and the possible consequences of failing to provide that information. You are not generally under any legal or contractual obligation to provide your information to us.

Data sharing

We use organisations (“processors”) that process your personal information on our behalf, such as IT consultants, payment gateway providers, telephone system support, database support and telephone providers.

As set out above, we share data with our clients and law enforecement in order to prevent and detect crime. We may also share it with event organisers in the context of events.

As stated above, we process information about offenders, potential offenders, victims or other persons for the purposes of the prevention or detection of crime. Information is sent to the relevant authority with the legal responsibility to investigate crimes, make arrests and/or charge people in order to bring them to justice.

We may also disclose your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to do so in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use for this site or other agreements; or to protect the rights, property or safety of us, our donors or others.  This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection. 

Security

We use a secure server when you make a donation via our website. We also take appropriate technical and organisational security measures to ensure that the information disclosed to us is kept secure. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk.

Updates to your details or this policy

If your personal details change, please help us to keep your information up to date by notifying us. 

We will update this policy from time to time and will show the latest policy on our website. Please continue to revisit this page from time to time.