Privacy Policy
We are committed to ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of personal information.
Your privacy is important.
The privacy statement below describes how YSSN through it’s Community Crisis Response Service, 1-855-310-COPE (2673), collects and uses personal information in connection with the texting and live chat services, and the circumstances under which we may share this information. YSSN is responsible for ensuring that we follow the relevant privacy legislation.
This Privacy statement applies only to the Crisis Text and Live Chat programs. To learn more about YSSN’s privacy practices for other services, please visit yssn.ca.
In this statement, when we say you or your, we are talking to people who are seeking or using our services and their guardians or caregivers.
When we say we, it means York Support Services Network (YSSN).
We only collect information that we need to provide service such as:
•name, phone number and date of birth,
•assessment information,
•health information including medical conditions,
•information about your family, and/or
•information about the supports and services you use or have used in the past.
We use the information to:
•confirm eligibility,
•provide linkages to supports and services,
•understand your needs and urgency for service,
•identify programs that may interest you, and
•comply with laws and regulations.
If you change your mind about the decision to share information with us, you can:
•give, withhold, withdraw, or place limits on the consent you provided, and
•change what information is shared.
There are two kinds of consent:
1.Implied consent; this is only used when absolutely needed and the action taken is in your best interest. This is used for situations where it is reasonable for us to assume you would give your permission, if asked, but you are not able to right now, such as in the event of an emergency, if it is necessary to share your personal information with emergency services.
2.Express consent; This is the most commonly used type of consent for situations where you are asked to provide your permission for specific purposes or actions.
Who can make the decision to give or refuse consent?
Some people make their own decisions about consent. The law presumes that any individual over the age of 16 is capable of making decisions about their personal care. If you are under the age of 16, we may need consent from your parent or guardian on your behalf for the use, collection, and disclosure of your personal information.
An arrangement can be made for someone to help you make decisions or make them for you as a substitute decision maker. This can happen when it is too hard for you to understand and make decisions for yourself.
If the arrangement with the substitute decision maker doesn’t work, we can ask the Consent and Capacity Board or Public Guardian and Trustee to talk to you about your situation.
With your consent, your personal information may be shared with:
•professionals such as medical specialists, family practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, school staff,
•agencies who could respond to your needs with services and supports,
•people you tell us are contacts, such as family members or friends, and
•we are required to share information with both parents when parents live apart and have equal access to their child.
When consent is not required we keep your records safe and secure by:
•storing our paper records in a locked room,
•using secure passwords for electronic information,
•training staff regularly about privacy security policies,
•following laws about how long we must keep personal health information, and
•staff must sign privacy and confidentiality agreements with us each year.
Breach in security
YSSN will contact you to let you know what is being done to address the situation if your personal information is stolen, lost, or available to people you did not intend to see it.
Access to your YSSN record
You have the right to look at the information in your YSSN record and to ask us to make corrections if the information is wrong.
Please contact us if you would like to view your information.
Collection and use of personal information
Text service and Live Chat Service
When you call, live chat or text us for support services, we collect your telephone number and any other personal information that you include in your text messages or that you tell us during the call. We use this information to communicate with you and to provide you with support services. We may retain this information to provide support services and enforce our texting terms, including to manage excessive and inappropriate use of the texting services. This information is kept confidential by our support team.
Quality assurance and training
We are committed to providing you with the best possible service at all times. One of the ways that we help to ensure this is by creating transcripts of our texts with users. We use these transcripts for training and quality assurance purposes. We may also use texting data for internal analysis purposes in order to better understand usage and improve the texting service. Transcripts will be deleted thirty (30) days after you used the Service, but your conversation will remain documented in the case notes unless you request otherwise.
Research
We may de-identify personal information and use this de-identified and aggregated data for research purposes, such as understanding use of the texting service and its impact. We may also share de-identified and aggregated data with third parties such as social and health service organizations, universities and academics, our funders and donors, and others who share our desire to address health and social issues, prevent harm and protect youth.
Data retention
While transcripts of your conversations with us will be retained for thirty (30) days, your case file will be retained by YSSN for 10 years. If you have any questions about how your information is used, please email us at privacy@yssn.ca.
Please keep in mind that a record of the texting transcript will remain on the phone that you used to communicate with us unless you delete it on the device. You must also clear your cache on your computer to delete any saved data from your Live Chat session.
You have the right to ask questions or make complaints related to privacy or use of information.
Please contact our privacy officers:
Marilyn Graham
York Support Services Network
240 Edward Street, Unit 3 Aurora, ON L4G 3S9
Ph: 905-898-6455 or 1-866-257-9776 ext 2240
Scott Belisle
York Support Services Network
240 Edward Street, Unit 3 Aurora, ON L4G 3S9
Ph: 905-898-6455 or 1-866-257-9776 ext 2371
You can also contact the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
Information & Privacy Commissioner Ontario
80 Bloor Street West, Suite 1700
Toronto, ON M5S 2V1
YSSN is a non‐profit organization that receives funding from the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services and the Ministry of Health.