The Panama Heritage Association of Toronto (“we”, “the Association”) is a non-profit cultural organization based in Toronto, Canada. This policy explains what personal information we collect through panamaheritage.org, why we collect it, and what we do with it.
1. Information we collect
- Contact form: name, email address, subject, and the message you write.
- Volunteer sign-up: name, email, phone number, areas of interest, availability, and any experience you choose to share.
- Membership application: name, email, phone, date of birth, home address, city, postal code, country of birth, heritage, membership type, interests, skills, and availability.
- Donations: email address, amount, and currency.
- Payment information: handled entirely by Stripe. We never see or store your card number — we only keep a payment reference, the status, and the amount.
- Usage data: pages visited, traffic source, device type, and approximate location (city or country, never your exact address).
2. About date of birth and heritage
Membership asks for your date of birth and your Panamanian heritage or country of birth. We ask because our purpose as an association is cultural: eligibility for certain membership categories and the programming we organize depend on it. This information is used for nothing else — it is never sold, never shared for marketing, and never used to make decisions about you beyond your membership.
3. How we use your information
- Process and manage your membership, donation, or volunteer offer.
- Reply to your messages and keep you posted about events.
- Issue receipts and meet our accounting obligations as a non-profit.
- Understand, in aggregate, how the website is used.
4. Who we share it with
- Stripe, Inc. — payment processing for memberships and donations. Their policy: stripe.com/privacy
- Our email provider — only to deliver the messages and confirmations you request.
- Google (Google Analytics) — receives browsing data to produce the site’s statistics. It never receives your name, email, address, or date of birth. Their policy: policies.google.com/privacy
- We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to anyone.
5. Cookies and analytics
We measure the site with two tools:
- Umami Analytics — self-hosted on our own server, uses no cookies, and only counts aggregate visits.
- Google Analytics — stores cookies in your browser to recognize repeat visits. Google truncates your IP address before storing it. Our administration area is excluded from this tracking.
Neither tool is used for advertising. If you prefer not to be measured by Google Analytics, you can install the official opt-out add-on: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
6. How long we keep it
Membership and donation records are kept for as long as required by Canadian accounting and charitable-reporting obligations (a minimum of six years). Contact and volunteer messages are kept while they remain useful to the Association, and are deleted on request.
7. Your rights
Under Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), you may ask us what personal information we hold about you, request that we correct it, or ask us to delete it. Write to our contact address and we will respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
8. Security
The site is served over an encrypted connection (HTTPS) and the database is not publicly reachable. Access to member information is limited to the Association volunteers who need it to do their work.
9. Children
We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13 without the involvement of a parent or guardian. Family memberships are submitted by an adult.
10. Changes and contact
We may update this policy; the date at the top will always reflect the latest version. For any privacy question, write to our contact address.