Latest revision: November 14, 2023

The Sheep Breeders of Quebec (“ LEOQ ", " We ", " OUR " Or " our ), formerly known as the Federation of Lamb and Sheep Producers of Quebec (FPAMQ), are committed to protecting the personal information entrusted to them in the context of carrying out their mandates. As such, it is important for us to be transparent and provide you with information regarding the types of personal information we collect, how we use that information, to whom we disclose it, and the purposes and purposes. the reasons for this collection, use and communication. We also want you to be informed of your rights regarding your privacy and its protection.

1. Object

This Personal Information Protection Policy (“ Policy ") aims to inform the public as well as sheep producers (depending on the case, " producers ", " YOU " Or " your ") of the types of personal information that are collected by LÉOQ in the context of carrying out its mandates, when you contact us by email, by telephone, by mail or otherwise or when you browse the site www.ovinquebec.com And www.agneau-info.ca (THE " Web sites ").

This Policy also aims to describe the type of data used by LÉOQ in the context of the development and operation of the Lamb-Info Platform, how this data is collected, the purposes for which it is collected, how it is used and protected as well as the people to whom it may be communicated. The Agneau-Info Platform is the result of an innovative research partnership between LÉOQ, Laval University, the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (“ MAPAQ ") and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to develop an intelligent platform for information and prediction of supply and demand for Canadian lamb products through the analysis of data from the sheep industry using artificial intelligence.

LÉOQ also wishes to inform producers of their rights with regard to personal information about them that LÉOQ holds as part of its current operations, including the development and operation of the Agneau-Info Platform.

By using the websites and/or the Agneau-Info Platform, you consent to the collection, use and communication of your personal information by LÉOQ in accordance with this Policy and in compliance with applicable laws.

2. What is “personal information”?

THE " personal information » means any information that identifies, relates to, describes or can reasonably be associated with a person. This includes information such as your name, contact details, date of birth. It can also be more technical information such as the unique number associated with a breeding site when this information can be associated with other information that allows a person to be identified (e.g. name of the producer, address of the farm , etc.). Information that is anonymized or aggregated (e.g. statistics) is not considered personal information when it is at any time reasonable to foresee in the circumstances that this information no longer allows, irreversibly, to directly identify a person or indirectly.

3. What types of personal information is collected by LÉOQ and how do we collect it?

LÉOQ only collects the personal information that is necessary to carry out its mandates, to respond to any other request from you and for the other purposes set out in the section For what purposes does LÉOQ collect personal information?. As such, we may collect the following information in particular:

• Your name, company name, contact information and other identifiers, which may include your email address, your residential address, your telephone number, your producer number (known to any traceability organization), etc. We may collect this information in various situations, including when you complete one of the LEOQ registration forms or when you contact us directly.
• Information relating to your producer status, which may include your main production, inventory, sales, etc. We may collect this information in various situations, including when you complete one of the LEOQ registration forms.
• Information relating to your production, which can include the animal identification number, the sex of the animals, the status of the animals and their date of birth and death. We may collect this information in various situations, including when you complete one of the LEOQ registration forms. We may also obtain this information from third parties, notably MAPAQ as part of the partnership mentioned below.

• Information related to online activity, including IP addresses and sections visited on our websites. We generally collect this information when you visit our websites using cookies or similar technologies as described in the section Cookies and similar technologies (Cookies). We treat this information as personal information when it can be used to identify you.

We may also obtain certain information from third parties, including MAPAQ, as part of research and development partnerships. When the objective of its partnerships can be accomplished by access to anonymized or depersonalized information, within the meaning of applicable law, LÉOQ will favor this option. LÉOQ also undertakes to enter into agreements with third parties involved in these research partnerships in order to ensure the protection of personal information.

4. For what purposes does LÉOQ collect personal information?

LÉOQ only collects the personal information necessary to carry out its mandates and conduct its day-to-day operations, which may include the following purposes:

• Administration and application of the Joint Plan of Quebec Sheep Producers and any other program resulting from it. For example, we may use your personal information to analyze the needs of the sheep industry in Quebec.

• Management of our day-to-day operations. For example, we may use your personal information to produce our annual activity report
• Participate in study, research or statistics production projects. For example, we may use your personal information in the context of the development and operation of the Agneau-Info Platform.
• Communicate with you. For example, we may contact you to answer a question or send you our newsletter.
• To comply with the law. For example, we may use your personal information to ensure the safety of sheep producers.

LÉOQ will not use your information for purposes other than those provided for above unless we obtain your consent.

5.When do we share your personal information?

We may share your personal information with the following people or with other people when permitted or required by law. We may also disclose your personal information to other third parties, in which case we will ask for your prior consent.

• Our employees, when access to information is necessary to carry out their tasks.
• Our service providers, when this communication is necessary for the performance of a mandate or contract entrusted to them by us or on our behalf. We engage service providers, among other things, to plan our business operations, to conduct market research, and for data hosting and other similar purposes. We ensure that we obtain a written commitment from our service providers that they will only use your personal information to fulfill their mandate and that they will take reasonable security measures to protect your personal information. .
• To partner organizations, as part of research projects. We ensure that we obtain a written commitment from our partners that they will only use your personal information for the purposes of the research project and that they will take reasonable security measures to protect your personal information.
• To other people, when the law requires or authorizes the communication of personal information in specific circumstances including to comply with legal proceedings, to respond to a request from a law enforcement authority or in situations involving a threat to the safety of individuals (for example, producers or consumers).

6. How do we protect the personal information entrusted to us?

We take appropriate measures and controls to protect your personal information. These measures include restricting physical access to our offices and records, restricting unauthorized access, disclosure, use and mishandling of your personal information in our custody and control, storage of archival materials with trusted third parties, off-site, in secure premises, use of firewalls, passwords and file encryption for online activities.

Our goal is to prevent unauthorized access, loss, misuse, sharing or modification of personal information in our possession. We also use these safeguards when we delete or destroy your personal information.

As part of the development and operation of the Agneau-Info Platform, LÉOQ and its partners have implemented various security measures to protect the confidential nature of the data collected by the platform, in particular:

• The depersonalization of data allowing the identification of an animal, a producer or a buyer;
• Aggregating spatial data by postal code or region based on the number of producers in a postal code;
• Secure hosting of data on servers located in Quebec; And
• Restrictions on access, use, retention and analysis of data.

7. How long do we keep personal information?

We retain your personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, or as permitted or required by law. Once it is no longer required, your personal information will be securely destroyed or anonymized in accordance with applicable laws.

The data collected by the Agneau-Info Platform is kept for a period of six (6) months following the end of the project. LÉOQ could, however, retain the data for a longer period in the event of a subsequent agreement with its project partners, in which case you will be informed.

Secure methods will be used to ensure permanent deletion of data.

8. Where is your personal information stored?

We try to ensure the conservation of your personal information in Quebec or, when this is not possible, in Canada. However, information stored on the servers of our service providers may be located outside of Canada (particularly in Europe and the United States) and may therefore be subject to the laws of these countries, including any laws allowing government authorities to access it. Subject to these foreign laws, we will use contractual measures to the best of our ability to maintain protections that provide your personal information with protections at least equivalent to those that apply in Quebec.

9. Governance rules and other measures to protect personal information

We implement internal policies and practices that ensure the protection of your personal information, which includes:

• Policies and procedures that define the roles and responsibilities of our employees throughout the life cycle of personal information, limit access to this information on a “need to know” basis and govern the retention and destruction of personal information ;

• If information is collected or stored in electronic form, technical security measures such as encryption, firewalls, anti-virus software and other similar measures;

• The designation of a person responsible for the protection of personal information responsible for ensuring compliance with applicable privacy laws;

• An offer of training for employees in the protection of personal information and information security;

• A process for handling complaints and inquiries relating to the protection of personal information, including with respect to any confidentiality incident involving personal information; And

• Contractual protections and other measures to ensure that service providers with whom we share personal information maintain adequate security protections and standards. For example, we generally require our service providers to limit their use and retention of personal information to what is necessary to provide their services and to notify us in the event of an actual or suspected privacy incident. We also try to monitor and verify their compliance with these requirements in various ways (e.g. on-site inspections (where possible), surveys and interviews, evidence of certification, etc.).

10. Cookies and Similar Technologies (Cookies)

We use cookies (Cookies) to collect certain technical information when you visit our websites. We inform you of the types of cookies used and the means to activate them during your first visit to the Websites.

11. Access, rectification and other requests relating to your personal information

You have the right to access your personal information and request its correction if it is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, subject to any applicable legal restrictions.

You also have the right to obtain more information on the processing of your personal information by LÉOQ, in particular with regard to the categories of people who have access to your personal information within our company as well as the applicable retention period. to your information.

A producer can also ask LÉOQ to obtain a list of information that has been collected about him or his sheep production as part of the development of the Lamb-Info Platform. LÉOQ will take the necessary steps with its partners to check whether it is possible to re-identify the data of a specific producer. If applicable, LÉOQ will inform the producer of the processing time for such a request.

To make a request regarding access to information collected by LÉOQ, including as part of the Agneau-Info Platform, or to request its rectification, please contact us in writing using the relevant contact details indicated in the section Contact us below.

12. Changes to this Policy

We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes we make will take effect when we post a modified version of the policy on our websites. If we make material changes to this Policy, we will post a notice on our websites or notify you more formally if required by law. The “Effective Date” at the beginning of the Policy indicates the date it was last updated.

If you do not agree to changes to our Policy, please contact us in writing using the relevant contact details set out in the section Contact us below.

13. Contact us

If you have questions or complaints regarding the way in which we process your personal information or regarding the Agneau-Info Platform, please contact the LÉOQ Personal Information Protection Manager at the contact details indicated below:

The General Director, Les Eleveurs d’vins du Québec
Olga Chernievsky
otchernievski@upa.qc.ca

In all, a dozen partners contributed to the project.