Privacy Policy

Innovative Medicines Canada Policy on Privacy of Personal Information

Innovative Medicines Canada are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information obtained by reason of your relationship with Innovative Medicines Canada and your use of this website. This policy applies to all personal information collected, used, and disclosed by Innovative Medicines Canada, including personal information collected online on our website www.innovativemedicines.ca (referred to herein as “our website”), explains the types of personal information we collect, how it is used, and the steps we take to ensure your personal information is handled appropriately.

Our policies and practices have been designed to comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada) and corresponding provincial privacy acts.

Who is Innovative Medicines Canada?

Innovative Medicines Canada is a national association representing 50 research-based pharmaceutical companies, who are each responsible for adopting their own privacy policies with respect to any personal information they may collect.

This policy does not apply to the websites you may link to from www.innovativemedicines.ca. Please review the privacy policies of each website that you may link to from our website.

What is personal information?

Personal information is information that refers to an individual specifically and is recorded in any form. Personal information includes such things as age, income, date of birth, ethnic origin and credit records. Information about individuals contained in the following documents is not considered personal information:

• public telephone directories, where the subscriber can refuse to be listed;
• professional and business directories available to the public;
• public registries and court records; and/or
• other publicly available printed and electronic publications.

We are accountable to you

Innovative Medicines Canada is responsible for all personal information under its control, including any personal information that is transferred to third parties for processing, storage or other purposes.

We let you know why we collect and use your personal information and get your consent

Innovative Medicines Canada identifies the purpose for which your personal information is collected and will be used or disclosed. If that purpose is not listed below we will do this before or at the time the information is actually being collected. You will be deemed to consent to our use of your personal information for the purpose of:

• recommending products and services that Innovative Medicines Canada believes will be of interest and provide value to you;
• performing statistical analyses of user behaviour and characteristics, in order to measure interest in and use of the various sections of our website so as to improve design and navigation and to gather marketing information. Only aggregated data from these analyses, not individual data, will be used for this purpose complying with legal and governmental requirements; and/or
• fulfilling any other purpose that would be reasonably apparent to the average person at the time we collect it from you (for example, to share information with you after you have requested to be on a mailing list).
• Otherwise, Innovative Medicines Canada will obtain your express consent (by verbal, written or electronic agreement) to collect, use or disclose your personal information. You can change your consent preferences at any time by contacting Innovative Medicines Canada General Inquires line or sending an email to info@imc-mnc.ca where our employees can help direct your call to the appropriate department within Innovative Medicines Canada. To change your preferences, refer to the “How to contact us” section below.

We limit collection of your personal information

Innovative Medicines Canada collects only the information required to maintain memberships, and to provide products and services (including information) to you. Innovative Medicines Canada will collect personal information only by clear, fair and lawful means.

We receive and store any information you enter on our website or give us in any other way. You can choose not to provide certain information, but then you might not be able to take advantage of many of our features and services, or the benefits of membership.

We also receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. For example, like many websites, we use “cookies,” and we obtain certain types of information when your web browser accesses www.innovativemedicines.ca.

Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser, to enable our systems to recognize your browser and to provide features such as personalized greetings.

The “help” portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. Additionally, you can disable or delete similar data used by browser add-ons, such as Flash cookies by changing the add-on’s settings or visiting the website of its manufacturer. Because cookies allow you to take advantage of some of www.innovativemedicines.ca’s essential features, we recommend you leave them turned on. For instance, if you block or otherwise reject our cookies, you will not be able to use any www.innovativemedicines.ca services that require you to sign in.

Examples of the information we collect and analyze include the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet; login; e-mail address; password; computer and connection information, such as browser type, version and timezone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system, and platform; purchase history, which we sometimes aggregate with similar information from others to create features such as “most popular” or “best selling” lists; the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through, and from our website, including date and time; cookie numbers; services or locations on our website you viewed or searched for; and the telephone number used to call our service number. We may also use browser data such as cookies, Flash cookies (also known as Flash Local Shared Objects), or similar data on certain parts of our website for fraud prevention and other purposes. During some visits we may use software tools such as JavaScript to measure and collect session information, including page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page.

We limit disclosure and retention of your personal information

Innovative Medicines Canada does not sell or trade personal information, and does not disclose personal information to any organization or person for any reason except the following:

• We may employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include sending e-mail, removing repetitive information from lists, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, and providing service. They have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes.
• We may use service providers located outside of Canada, and, if applicable, your personal information may be processed and stored in other countries and therefore may be subject to disclosure under the laws of those countries.

You are deemed to consent to disclosure of your personal information for these purposes. If your personal information is shared with third parties, those third parties are bound by appropriate agreements with Innovative Medicines Canada to secure and protect the confidentiality of your personal information.

Innovative Medicines Canada retains your personal information only as long as it is required for our business relationship or as required by federal and provincial laws. When it is no longer required, Innovative Medicines Canada will destroy your personal information.

We keep your personal information up to date and accurate

Innovative Medicines Canada makes every reasonable effort to keep your personal information up to date, accurate and relevant for its intended use.

You may request access to the personal information we have on record in order to review, amend or update the information, as appropriate. In circumstances where your personal information has been provided by a third party, we will refer you to that party. To access your personal information, please refer to the “How to contact us” section below.

What About Third-Party Advertisers and Links to Other Websites?

Our website may include third-party advertising and links to other websites. We do not provide any personally identifiable information to these advertisers or third-party websites.

These third-party websites and advertisers, or Internet advertising companies working on their behalf, sometimes use technology to send (or “serve”) the advertisements that appear on our website directly to your browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens. They may also use cookies, JavaScript, web beacons (also known as action tags or single-pixel gifs), and other technologies to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. We do not have access to or control over cookies or other features that they may use, and the information practices of these advertisers and third-party websites are not covered by this Privacy Notice. Please contact them directly for more information about their privacy practices. In addition, the Network Advertising Initiative offers useful information about Internet advertising companies (also called “ad networks” or “network advertisers”), including information about how to opt-out of their information collection. You can access the Network Advertising Initiative at http://www.networkadvertising.org.

We are open about our privacy and security policy

We are committed to providing you with understandable and easily available information about our policy and practices related to management of your personal information. This policy and any related information is available at all times on our website, www.innovativemedicines.ca under Privacy or on request. To contact us, refer to the “How to contact us” section below.

We provide access to your personal information stored by Innovative Medicines Canada.

You can request access to your personal information stored by Innovative Medicines Canada. To contact us, refer to the “How to contact us” section below. Upon receiving such a request, Innovative Medicines Canada will:

• inform you about what type of personal information we have on record or in our control, how it is used and to whom it may have been disclosed;
• provide you with access to your information so you can review and verify the accuracy and completeness and request changes to the information; and
• make any necessary updates to your personal information.

We respond to your questions, concerns and complaints about privacy

Innovative Medicines Canada responds in a timely manner to your questions, concerns and complaints about the privacy of your personal information and our privacy policies and procedures.

How to contact us

• By calling our General Inquires line at (613) 236-0455;
• By email to our general inquires at info@imc-mnc.ca
• By mail to Innovative Medicines Canada, 55 Metcalfe Street, Suite 1220, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6L5; and
• If your questions, concerns and complaints have not been resolved to your satisfaction or if you have further questions, you can contact Innovative Medicines Canada’s Chief Privacy Officer by mail at Chief Privacy Officer c/o Innovative Medicines Canada, 55 Metcalfe Street, Suite 1220, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6L5.

Our business changes constantly and this privacy notice will change also. We may e-mail periodic reminders of our notices and conditions, unless you have instructed us not to, but you should check our website frequently to see recent changes. We are, however, committed to protecting your information and will never materially change our policies and practices to make them less protective of information collected in the past without the consent of the affected parties.