Privacy Policy

 

Privacy of personal information is an important principal of the The Singing Bowl Holistic Sanctuary & Spa. We are committed to collecting, using and disclosing personal information responsibly and only to the extent necessary for the services we provide. We also try to be open and transparent as how we handle personal information. This document describes our privacy policies.

 

WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION

 

Personal information is information about an identifiable individual. Personal information includes information that relates to personal characteristics (e.g., gender, income, home address or phone number, ethnic background, family status), health (e.g., health history, health conditions, health services received) or activities and views (e.g., religion, politics, opinions expressed by an individual, an opinion or evaluation of an individual). Personal information is to be contrasted with business information (e.g., an individual’s business address and telephone number), which is not protected by privacy legislation.

 

WHO WE ARE

 

Our organization, The Singing Bowl Sanctuary and Spa, includes at the time of writing Meghan Ivany, Sound Healer and Wood Therapy practitioner and owner, and a great team of healers, practitioners and support staff.

 

WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION: PRIMARY PURPOSES

 

Like all holistic practitioners we collect, use and disclose personal information in order to serve our clients. For our clients, the primary purpose for collecting personal information is to provide non invasive holistic treatments. For example, we collect information about a client’s health history, including their family history, physical condition and function and social situation in order to help us assess what their needs are and to advise them of their options and then to provide the services they choose to have. A second primary purpose is to obtain a baseline of health and social information so that in providing ongoing services we can identify changes that are occurring over time. It would be rare for us to collect such information without the client’s express consent, but this might occur in an emergency (e.g., the client is unconscious) or where we believe the client would consent if asked and it is impractical to obtain consent (e.g., a family member passing a message on from our client and we have no reason to believe that the message is not genuine).

 

WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION: SECONDARY PURPOSES

 

Like most organizations, we also collect, use and disclose information for purposes related to or secondary to our primary purposes. The most common examples of our related and secondary purposes are as follows: • To send email reminders and birthday wishes to our valued clients in order to give them the best service possible • To clients for services that were not paid at the time, to process credit card payments or sent unpaid invoice to their insurance. • Our clinic reviews client and other files for the purpose of ensuring that we provide high quality services, including assessing the performance of our staff. In addition, external consultants (e.g., auditors, lawyers) may on our behalf do audits and continuing quality improvement reviews of our Clinic, including reviewing client files and interviewing our staff. • To send medical reports to the clients Doctors, Insurances and Lawyer for Motor Vehicle Accident. • As professionals, we will report serious misconduct, incompetence or incapacity of other practitioners, whether they belong to other organizations or our own. Also, our organization believes that it should report information suggesting serious illegal behaviour to the authorities. External regulators have their own strict privacy obligations. Sometimes these reports include personal information about our clients, or other individuals, to support the concern (e.g., improper services). Also, like all organizations, various government agencies (e.g., Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, Information and Privacy Commissioner, Human Rights Commission, etc.) have the authority to review our files and interview our staff as part of their mandates. In these circumstances, we may consult with professionals (e.g., lawyers, accountants) who will investigate the matter and report back to us. • Clients or other individuals we deal with may have questions about our goods after they have been received. We also provide ongoing services for many of our clients over a period of months or years for which our previous records are helpful. We retain our client information for a minimum of ten years after the last contact to enable us to respond to those questions and provide these services. • If The Singing Bowl Sanctuary and Spa or its assets were to be sold, the purchaser would want to conduct a “due diligence” review of the Clinic’s records to ensure that it is a viable business that has been honestly portrayed to the purchaser. This due diligence may involve some review of our accounting and service files. The purchaser would not be able to remove or record personal information confidential. Only reputable purchasers who have already agreed to buy the organization’s business or its assets would be provided access to personal information, and only for the purpose of completing their due diligence search prior to closing the purchase.

 

PROTECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION

 

We understand the importance of protecting personal information. For that reason, we have taken the following steps: • Paper information is either under supervision or secured in a locked or restricted area. • Electronic hardware is either under supervision or secured in a locked or restricted area at all times. In addition, passwords are used on computers. • Paper information is transmitted through sealed, addressed envelopes or boxes by reputable companies. • Electronic information is transmitted either through a direct line or is anonymized or encrypted. • Our staff is trained to collect, use and disclose personal information only as necessary to fulfill their duties and in accordance with our privacy policy. • External consultants and agencies with access to personal information must enter into privacy agreements with us.

 

RETENTION AND DESTRUCTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

 

We need to retain personal information for some time to ensure that we can answer any questions you might have about the services provided and for our own accountability to external regulatory bodies. However, we do not want to keep personal information too long in order to protect your privacy. We keep our clients files for ten years. Our clients and contact directories are much more difficult to systematically destroy, so we remove such information when we can if it does not appear that we will be contacting you again. However, if you ask, we will remove such contact information right away. We destroy paper files containing personal information by shredding. We destroy electronic information by deleting it and, when the hardware is discarded, we ensure that the hard drive is physically destroyed. Alternatively, we may send some or the entire client file to our client.

 

YOU CAN LOOK AT YOUR INFORMATION

 

With only a few exceptions, you have the right to see what personal information we hold about you. Often all you have to do is ask. We can help you identify what records we might have about you. We will also try to help you understand any information you do not understand (e.g., short forms, technical language, etc.). We will need to confirm your identity, if we do not know you, before providing you with this access. If there is a problem we may ask you to put your request in writing. If we cannot give you access, we will tell you within 30 days if at all possible and tell you the reason, as to why we cannot give you access. If you believe there is a mistake in the information, you have the right to ask for it to be corrected. This applies to factual information and not to any professional opinions we may have formed. We may ask you to provide documentation that our files are wrong. Where we agree that we made a mistake, we will make the correction and notify anyone to whom we sent this information. If we do not agree that we have made a mistake, we will still agree to include in our file a brief statement from you on the point and we will forward that to anyone else who received the earlier information.

 

DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION?

 

Submit a form at www.singingbowl.ca and someone will attempt to answer any of your questions and concerns. If you wish to make a formal complaint about our privacy practices, you may make it in writing to Maggie. She will acknowledge receipt of your complaint and ensure that it is investigated promptly and that you are provided with a formal decision and reasons in writing. If you have a concern about the professionalism or competence of our services or the mental or physical capacity of any of any of our professional staff we would ask you to discuss those concerns with us. This policy is made under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. That is a complex act and provides some additional exceptions to the privacy principles that are too detailed to set out here. There are some rare exceptions to the commitments set out above. For more general inquires, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Canada oversees the administration of the privacy legislation in the private sector. The Commissioner also acts as a kind of ombudsman for privacy disputes. The Information and Privacy Commissioner can be reached at: 112 Kent Street Ottawa, ON K1A 1H3 Tel: (613) 995-8210 Toll-Free: 1-800-282-1376 Fax: (613) 947-6850 TTY: (613) 992-9190 Website: www.privcom.gc.ca