The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association is responsible for personal information under its control and the Association’s Executive Director is accountable for the organization's compliance with the following principles.

The purposes for which personal information is collected shall be identified by the organization at or before the time the information is collected. Some of the purposes are listed below.

The knowledge and consent of the individual are required for the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information.

The collection of personal information shall be limited to that which is necessary for the purposes identified by the organization. Information shall be collected by fair and lawful means.

Except as noted below, personal information shall not be used or disclosed for purposes other than those for which it was collected, except with the consent of the individual or as required by law or the Association’s bylaws.Any information in the Association’s possession when this policy was adopted shall be deemed to have been collected in accordance with this policy.

Personal information shall be as accurate, complete, and up-to-date as is necessary for the purposes for which it is to be used.

Personal information shall be protected by security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information. The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association shall take reasonable precautions against theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying or use. The Association shall also use care in the destruction of personal information.

The Association shall make readily available to individuals specific information about its policies and practices relating to the management of personal information.

Upon request, an individual shall be informed of the existence, use, and disclosure of his or her personal information and shall be given access to that information. An individual shall be able to challenge the accuracy and completeness of the information and have it amended as appropriate.

An individual shall be able to address a challenge concerning compliance with the above principles to the Association’s Executive Director or, on appeal, to Council.

The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association shall make a Register available to the membership and the public in accordance with section 19 of the Land Surveyors Act. For individuals, the Register shall include member names, registration numbers, date of commission, business or home address, phone number, fax number and email. For corporations, the Register shall include corporation name, permit number, date of registration, address, phone number, fax number, email and website. Individuals may request that personal address information not be published.Individuals and corporations will have the opportunity to confirm all information prior to the publication of the Register. The Register shall be available in a hard copy format and an electronic format. All material related to a discipline decision shall be destroyed five years after the publication of the decision. Complaints, formal or otherwise, which do not result in a discipline hearing, shall be destroyed after five years.No one, except the Practice Review Board, Systematic Practice Review staff and the practitioner shall have access to a practitioner’s practice review. The Practice Review Board shall not be made aware of the practitioner’s identity unless first authorized by the practitioner or the practitioner is required to attend a hearing of the Board.The Association may collect personal information for the purposes of the registration process. This information may later be used to publish a short biography in ALS News.

All employees, contract staff and consultants shall be required to sign a confidentiality agreement as part of their terms of working for and/or providing services to the Association.

The Association shall publish an annual report. The report may include a list of all members in attendance at the annual general meeting, photographs of anyone in attendance, and a report of anything said during the meeting. Attendees shall be advised that the meeting is being recorded.

Council meetings are open to the public.

Council may remove the public from parts of a Council meeting when Council is discussing staffing matters, legal matters (when having the Association’s position made public would have an adverse effect on the outcome of the legal proceeding), matters that a statute requires to be deliberated in camera and other issues where deliberations in a public forum would not be in the public interest.

A summary of Council deliberations and decisions – known as Council Report – shall be published after each meeting and available to the public. Minutes of Council meetings may be made available upon request.

The Association shall publish the names of committee members within the annual report and wherever else it is deemed by the Association to be appropriate. The Association shall encourage all correspondence to be directed through the Association.The Association shall mark all committee agendas and minutes as “private and confidential.” The Association shall direct its committee members to destroy privileged personal material received as a committee member at least once each year.

The Association shall confirm to anyone who asks that an individual or a corporation carries professional liability insurance. The Association may not release any information about the insurance policy, including the name of the insurer, but may provide information about the Association’s bylaws concerning insurance coverage.

At the discretion of the Executive Director, the Association may provide information about a member, without the member’s consent, when that person is receiving a surprise award from the Association. The information shall be limited to member name, registration number, date of commission, committees served on, principals, articled students, types of survey experience, past employment, and hobbies and interests (as provided).

Credit card numbers and expiry dates shall be provided to the Association for each transaction. The Association shall not retain anyone’s credit card information on file for subsequent transactions.

The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association shall ask each new member to complete a biographical information form. The information shall be used to prepare a profile of the new member to be published in ALS News. The information may also be used for demographic research.

The Association shall keep a record of the location of individual and corporate survey records. This information shall be made available electronically to the membership and the general public.

The Association shall not provide mailing labels of its members to anyone except government agencies and educational institutions with geomatics programs who are making public service announcements. Mailing labels may also be made available to ALSA members on a cost recovery basis.The Association shall provide one copy of the annual Register to each active, honorary life, retired, articling, associate, affiliate member, one free copy to each regular ALS News advertiser, one free copy to each provincial cabinet minister. The Register shall also be made available, upon request, to the general public.The Register is not available in a digital format except as provided on the Association’s web site.The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association, at its discretion, may make information contained in the personal files of deceased or believed-to-be-deceased Alberta Land Surveyors available to consultants employed by the Association conducting research into the history of land surveyors and land surveying.Information contained in the personal files of living Alberta Land Surveyors shall not be made available to anyone outside the Association staff and the individual Alberta Land Surveyor without first receiving permission of the individual.

In the case of conflict between an Act or the Association’s bylaws and this policy, the Act or the bylaws shall take precedence.

The Association’s privacy policy shall be published on the Association’s website and accessible to all. The Association shall provide the policy to anyone who requests it.