Privacy Policy

Updated December 2024

OCAS (providers of ontariocolleges.ca) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy sets out, in general terms, how OCAS collects, uses, discloses and retains personal information.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By providing OCAS with your personal information, you consent to the collection, use, disclosure of that information by OCAS in accordance with this Privacy Policy and as otherwise permitted by applicable law.

Personal Information
Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information – Application Services
Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information – Other Products and Services
Other Disclosures of Personal Information
Your Right to Withdraw Consent
Information Collected by Technological Means
Service Providers
Location of Personal Information
Protection of Personal Information
Accuracy of Personal Information
Non-Personal Information
Other Websites and Businesses
Social Media
Children and Personal Information
Changes to this Privacy Policy
More Information and Contacting OCAS

1. Personal Information

In this Privacy Policy, “personal information” means information about an identifiable individual, such as an individual’s name and email address, but does not include (to the extent permitted by law) information that is publicly available in a telephone directory or that is business contact information that enables an individual to be contacted at a place of business.

2. Collection, Use, and Disclosure of Personal Information – Application Services

a. General

OCAS provides application and related services for and on behalf of Ontario's public colleges and certain universities and other post-secondary institutions, each of whom are authorized to collect personal information by law (including by their enabling statutes). When you apply to one of those institutions using OCAS, OCAS relies on the lawful authority of the institution to collect, use, disclose and retain your personal information for and on behalf of the institution. By submitting an application to OCAS, you consent to the collection, use, disclosure of that information by OCAS in accordance with this Privacy Policy and as otherwise permitted by applicable law.

b. How OCAS Collects Personal Information

OCAS collects information about you in connection with the application you submit to OCAS. For example, OCAS may collect:

Your contact information (including your name, email address, mailing address, and phone number).
Your Ontario Education Number (OEN) and government-issued identification
Your education history (including your transcripts and the schools you have attended), curriculum vitae, reference letters and any writing samples you submit.
Information about your application and enrollment choices.
If you are an international applicant, OCAS may also collect proof of citizenship (such as your birth certificate, citizenship papers, convention refugee document, passport, or permanent resident card).

In most cases, OCAS collects application information directly from you. In some cases, OCAS may collect information about you from your school, applicable school boards and the institutions to which you have applied. OCAS may also collect information about you from third party organizations at your specific request, such as transcript and related information from post-secondary educational institutions that you have attended, credential granting agencies from whom you have sought a credential evaluation and testing centres that administer language proficiency tests.

OCAS also links data generated by Web Analytics tools (subject to individuals' browser settings) to individual accounts in order to provide better customer service. This data may include information relating to your browser, device used to access OCAS, and IP address. If you choose to use your social media login, any data collected through this integration will be used only for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

c. How OCAS Uses Personal Information

OCAS uses your personal information to provide application services to you on behalf of institutions, and to provide application and related services to institutions. For example, OCAS uses your personal information:

To identify you and contact and correspond with you regarding applications you submit through OCAS.
To process your application on behalf of the institutions to which you have applied.
To allow the institutions to which you have applied to make admission decisions about you and contact and correspond with you regarding those admission decisions and other matters.
To assist institutions in providing services to you and to assist institutions in maintaining, protecting and improving their services.
To create non-personal information that institutions use for statistical and analytic purposes.
To conduct research and analysis that supports the Ministry of Education and institutions, including by combining personal information held by OCAS with information provided to OCAS by the colleges for research and analysis purposes.
OCAS stores such information securely and only discloses it after removing any information that identifies individuals or for which it is reasonably foreseeable in the circumstances that it could be utilized, either alone or with other information, to identify individuals.
To protect and enforce the legal rights, interests and remedies of OCAS and institutions and to protect the business and operations of OCAS and institutions.

OCAS may share your personal information with its suppliers and service providers to assist OCAS to use your personal information for any of the purposes set out above.

OCAS may combine your personal information collected through various sources, including information you provide directly to OCAS and information that OCAS obtains from other sources about you (such as high schools, school boards, post-secondary education institutions, credential granting agencies and language proficiency testing centres) to create a confidential profile about you for the purpose of providing application services to you and for related purposes.

d. How OCAS Discloses Personal Information

In general, OCAS will disclose your personal information only for purposes related to your application. For example, OCAS may disclose your personal information:

To Ontario school boards to retrieve your high school transcripts, to support application administration and to provide school boards with information about their former students' application and enrollment choices for school board planning and related purposes.
To the Ontario Ministry of Education and Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities to validate your Ontario Education Number and for planning and other purposes as set out in section 15 of the Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities Act.
If you have applied to the Ontario Universities' Application Centre (the “OUAC”), to OUAC to facilitate your OUAC application.
If you have applied for the Ontario Student Assistance Program (“OSAP”), to OSAP to facilitate your OSAP application.
If you are an international student, to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Canada Border Services Agency to confirm that international applicants have been accepted into a program.

OCAS may also disclose your personal information to law enforcement, as required by law, in connection with a business transaction in which OCAS is involved or in accordance with specific consents you may provide to OCAS.

3. Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information – Other Products and Services

a. General

OCAS may provide other products and services to you from time to time, including advisory services relating to post-secondary education programs that might be of interest to you.

b. How OCAS Collects Personal Information

You may be asked to voluntarily give your personal information to OCAS when you interact with OCAS, including when you subscribe to a newsletter, request information or use a product or service provided by OCAS. In those circumstances, you can choose not to provide certain requested personal information, but then you might not be able to proceed with your intended interaction or transaction with OCAS or otherwise receive the full benefit of the desired service.

For example, OCAS may collect:

contact information (such as name, email address, postal address and phone number) when you make an inquiry or contact us, including when you visit a OCAS store;
contact information and payment card information when you purchase product or service from us;
contact information, employment information and government-issued identification information when you apply for an employment opportunity with OCAS;
contact information, communications preferences and correspondence you send to us.
OCAS may also collect personal information from various publicly available sources.

c. How OCAS Uses Personal Information

When providing OCAS’ other products and services to you, OCAS may use your personal information for various purposes in connection with its relationship and transactions with you and as otherwise set out in this Privacy Policy or permitted by applicable law, including: (i) to contact and correspond with you regarding your transactions and your use of OCAS’ products and services and to provide you with customer care services; (ii) to facilitate your interactions and transactions with OCAS; (iii) to provide products and services to you; (iv) to process and respond to your inquiries, requests and other communications; (v) to provide you with information (including by email and other electronic messages) regarding OCAS and its products and services and the products and services offered by other businesses, to the extent permitted by applicable law; (vi) to maintain, protect and improve OCAS’ products and services and to develop new products and services; (vii) to develop, deliver and improve OCAS’ advertising and marketing; and (viii) to protect and enforce OCAS’ legal rights, interests and remedies and to protect the business, operations and customers of OCAS or other persons.

OCAS may use your personal information to create non-personal information, and OCAS may then use, disclose, transfer and retain the non-personal information as set out below in this Privacy Policy.

d. How OCAS Discloses Personal Information

When providing OCAS’ other products and services to you, OCAS may disclose your personal information for purposes relating to or arising from your relationship and transactions with OCAS and as otherwise set out in this Privacy Policy or permitted by applicable law. OCAS may also disclose your personal information in accordance with express or implied consents that you give during your interactions and transactions with OCAS.

4. Other Disclosures

OCAS may also disclosure your information:

To business partners and other third parties. In some circumstances, OCAS may share your personal information with its business partners, such as strategic business partners who provide products and services that enhance your experience with OCAS or that may be of interest to you, and other third parties. OCAS will only disclose your personal information to a third party if OCAS has your consent to do so, if you have provided your consent to the third party, or if OCAS is legally required or permitted to do so.

To law enforcement and as required by law. OCAS may disclose your personal information as required or authorized by applicable law, including to comply with a subpoena, warrant or court or arbitral order or litigation disclosure obligation. OCAS may disclose your personal information to law enforcement agencies or other independent organizations if OCAS reasonably believes the disclosure is necessary or appropriate in connection with national security, law enforcement or other issues of public importance, or if OCAS reasonably believes the disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect and enforce OCAS’ legal rights, interests and remedies or to protect the rights, interests, business, operations or customers of OCAS or other persons (including to detect and prevent fraud and other illegal activities, to enforce any of the terms of use, terms of service or other agreements that govern access to or use of any of OCAS’ products and services). OCAS has no control over, or responsibility or liability for, the use, disclosure or retention of your personal information by the agencies, independent organizations or other persons to whom OCAS discloses the information in the foregoing circumstances, and the use, disclosure and retention of the disclosed information by those agencies, independent organizations or other persons is not subject to this Privacy Policy.

In connection with a business transaction. OCAS may disclose your personal information in connection with a proposed or actual business transaction in which OCAS is involved (e.g., a corporate amalgamation, reorganization, merger or acquisition, or the sale or transfer of some or all of OCAS’ business or assets), but OCAS will require the information recipient to agree to protect the privacy of your personal information in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Policy and applicable law.

5. Your Right to Withdraw Consent

You may withdraw your consent to OCAS’ collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information as set out in this Privacy Policy, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. To withdraw your consent, you may contact us at the contact information set out at the end of this Privacy Policy.

If you withdraw your consent to the collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information for purposes that are integral to the provision of OCAS’ products and services, then you might not be able to proceed with your intended interactions or transactions with OCAS or otherwise receive the full benefit of OCAS’ products and services. Please note that if you withdraw your consent to OCAS’ handling of your personal information in your application after you have submitted your application to OCAS’ application service, OCAS may not be able to implement your withdrawal of consent until after the applicable application cycle has concluded.

If you withdraw your consent to the collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information for additional purposes that are not integral to the provision of OCAS’ products and services (e.g., to send advertising and marketing messages to you) then withdrawing your consent for those purposes will not affect the provision of OCAS’ products and services to you.

OCAS cannot control the handling of your personal information by the colleges and universities to whom OCAS has provided your application. If you wish to withdraw your consent to a college or university’s handling of your personal information, please contact the college or university directly.

6. Information Collected by Technological Means

OCAS may use information collected by technological means to recognize you as a user of OCAS’ website, to facilitate and improve your use of OCAS’ website and online services, to confirm that messages have been delivered to and opened by you and to provide you with targeted advertisements. OCAS may use web beacons, pixels or gif tags and action tags to confirm that email messages have been delivered and opened.

Information provided by cookies may be collected and processed by OCAS or by its third party service providers, including Google, Hotjar, and Facebook.

You may choose to decline or disable cookies if your web browser or device permits, but doing so may affect your ability to access or use certain features of a website.

Please consult OCAS' Cookie Notice for more information about our use of cookies, including how you can disable, block, delete, and manage cookies.

7. Service Providers

OCAS retains service providers authorized to process or store your personal information. For example, OCAS uses cloud service providers to store personal information, for credit card processing, data entry services of hardcopy transcripts, among others. In doing so, OCAS employs due diligence in selecting service providers, contracting with service providers, and administering OCAS’ relationship with service providers. This includes requiring service providers to limit their access to and/or use of personal information to what is required to provide their services and requiring service providers to adhere to confidentiality and security requirements.

8. Location of Personal Information

Your personal information will be retained at OCAS offices and / or secure offsite facilities in Canada. In providing services to you, OCAS may transfer your personal information to other jurisdictions that will be accessible by law enforcement and national security authorities of those other jurisdictions.

9. Protection of Personal Information

OCAS uses reasonable safeguards – including administrative, physical and technical security and safeguarding measures – appropriate to the sensitivity of the personal information in OCAS’ possession or under OCAS’ control to help protect the information from unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, deletion or similar risks. Nevertheless, security risks cannot be eliminated and OCAS cannot guarantee that your personal information will not be accessed, used, disclosed or deleted in ways not otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.

10. Accuracy of Personal Information

OCAS will rely on you to ensure that the personal information you provide to OCAS is as accurate, complete and up to date as necessary for the purposes for which OCAS uses the personal information. You will promptly notify OCAS of any changes to the personal information you provide to OCAS using the procedures made available for that purpose by OCAS or by contacting OCAS’ Privacy Officer using the contact information noted below.

11. Non-Personal Information

OCAS may use your personal information to create and collect non-personal information (information that is not about an identifiable individual), including personal information that has been aggregated or otherwise depersonalized so that the information no longer relates to an identifiable individual. OCAS may use, disclose, transfer and retain non-personal information for any purpose and in any manner whatsoever. If non-personal information is combined with personal information, then OCAS will treat the combined non-personal information as personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy for as long as the non-personal information is combined with the personal information.

12. Other Websites and Businesses

The OCAS website and correspondence (including emails and messages) may include advertisements for products and services offered by independent businesses or links to websites operated by independent businesses. OCAS has no responsibility or liability for, or control over, those other independent businesses, their websites, products or services, or their collection, use, disclosure or retention of your personal information. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information by independent businesses or through independent websites or online services. If you have questions about how those independent businesses or their websites or online services collect, use, disclose or retain personal information, please contact the owner or operator of the independent businesses, websites and services.

When you use certain aspects of the OCAS website or other services to post information to social media sites (e.g., there may be links to OCAS’ Facebook or Instagram pages), the personal information that you post or share in connection with the social media sites is visible to other persons and can be read, collected, used and disclosed by other persons, including to send unsolicited messages. In those cases, you will be leaving the OCAS website and going to the third party's website. Any information provided to social media sites and other sites is governed by their own privacy policies. You are solely responsible for the personal information that you choose to post or share in those situations. OCAS has no control over, or responsibility or liability for, the use, disclosure, and retention of the personal information that you disclose in those situations, and the use, disclosure, and retention of the disclosed information is not subject to this Privacy Policy.

14. Children and Personal Information

OCAS does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 years of age without the consent of a legal guardian. If OCAS learns that OCAS has collected or received personal information from a child where parental or guardian consent was required, OCAS may delete that information unless the parent or guardian provides the required consent. If you believe OCAS might have any information from or about a child where parental or guardian consent was required, please contact OCAS’ Privacy Officer using the contact information set out at the end of this Privacy Policy.

15. Changes to this Privacy Policy

OCAS may change this Privacy Policy from time to time by posting a new version of this Privacy Policy on the OCAS website. OCAS’ collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information will be governed by the version of this Privacy Policy in effect at that time. Your continued dealings with OCAS after any change to this Privacy Policy will signify your consent to the collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information by OCAS as set out in the changed Privacy Policy. Accordingly, you should check the “Last Updated” date of this Privacy Policy (at the top of this Privacy Policy) and review any changes since the last version.

16. More Information and Contacting OCAS

If you would like to learn more about OCAS’ personal information handling practices, please read our Privacy Code, a document that sets out the principles and guidelines that OCAS follows in meeting its commitment to privacy protection.

If you are located in the European Union, please read Information for EU Data Subjects.

If you have any comments or questions about this Privacy Policy or how OCAS handles your personal information, please contact OCAS’ Privacy Officer by phone at 519-763-2363 or email privacyofficer@ocas.ca.

OCAS does not keep student records for colleges. If you have been accepted and have enrolled at a college, your best source of information is your college's freedom of information and privacy office.