Privacy & Disclaimer

The City of Fort St. John website is an essential communication and service tool designed for citizen engagement, information sharing and convenient access to municipal services. The City is committed to the protection of your personal information collected via website interactions in accordance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA), through the City's Privacy Management Policy [PDF - 239 KB].

The purpose of this policy is to make visitors aware of how the City of Fort St. John protects the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information and the circumstances under which we use your personal information. 

Our privacy policy also applies to the use of social media by the City. For more details, see the privacy statements on our various social media channels.

Personal Information

Personal information is defined as recorded information about an identifiable individual.  Personal information includes a person’s name, address, email address, phone number, date of birth, and financial information.

Collection

Specific personal information, such as your name, phone number or email address, is obtained only if you supply it voluntarily. The City of Fort St. John collects your personal information for the purpose of providing local services and managing City operations that pertain to you. The City of Fort St. John is authorized to collect personal information via this website under section 26 (c) of FOIPPA, for the purposes described above. 

When you send us electronic mail or you enter your information in an online form we may collect your personal information in order to respond to you, to provide the service you requested, to facilitate sales and credit transactions, to process payments, to register you or your family in City programs, to apply for a job opportunity, or to improve our website services. 

Use and Disclosure

The City of Fort St. John will only use your personal information for the same purpose it was collected.  The information will not be used for another purpose without your consent.   The City of Fort St. John may only disclose your personal information for the purpose that it was collected.  We will not share your personal information for another purpose unless you provide your consent to do so. 

Protection of Personal Information

We protect your personal information by making reasonable security arrangements against such risks as unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure or disposal.  These security measures are integrated into the design, implementation and day-to-day operations of the website and are continually evolving to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of information and systems are maintained.  

For your protection, we recommend that you do not share your account information, username or password with anyone.

Access to and Correction of Personal Information

You may request access to your personal information and/or correction of that information by contacting the Director of Legislative and Administrative Services at the address below.

Storage of Personal Information

Fort St. John stores personal information collected via the website on servers that are part of a secure network.  No personal information is stored outside of Canada.

Social Media Moderation

Welcome to our social media channels. We encourage your comments and questions and look forward to an active exchange of ideas. We endeavour to make our channels a source of factual information and a space for respectful discourse. Our small team of moderators do their best to answer questions, clarify confusion and point people to resources.

We believe people should feel respected and safe on our channels. That’s why we enforce this moderation procedure. The City of Fort St. John’s social media moderators will not tolerate comments that are offensive (to an individual or organization) or are harassing in tone. Because ours is a channel people turn to for facts, we hide third-party links that point people to anything other than credible news or research sources. Similarly, we remove comments that contain claims that cannot be easily verified by trustworthy sources. We welcome fair comments about policies, but not disparaging remarks about individuals.

We reserve the right to edit our posts for clarification or remove comments that abuse the following conditions:

  • are racist, hateful, sexist, homophobic, slanderous, insulting, or threatening
  • contain abusive, obscene, indecent or offensive language (this includes emojis)
  • include defamatory, abusive, harassing or hateful remarks
  • make unproven or unsupported accusations against individuals or organizations
  • make unproven, unsupported or factually inaccurate claims (e.g., conspiracy theories)
  • constitute spam, promote services or products
  • constitute spam through repetition (the same comment posted more than two times in a post)
  • invade anyone’s privacy or include identifying or personal information about someone other than yourself (please don’t post about people you know)
  • impersonate or plagiarize (comments where the sender is not the author)
  • are far off-topic or deviate from the flow of polite debate and discussion
  • are posted without the necessary rights, licenses and consents
  • encourage conduct that may or would constitute a criminal offence or give rise to civil liability, or that otherwise violates any local, provincial, national or international law or regulation anywhere in the world
  • contain excessive links or contain code
  • contain links to partisan website(s)
  • identify any publicly-elected representative or candidate regardless of their political affiliation, whether those comments are supportive or critical (we discuss policies, not people)
  • are contrary to the principles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Please note that while we try to respond to comments, we are not able to reply to or moderate every inquiry. As such, people should not take comments posted on our site as true or supported by the City of Fort St. John.

Users who repeatedly or purposefully post comments that violate the above policies in any way may be prevented from accessing this page at the discretion of the City of Fort St. John.

Links to other Websites

The City of Fort St. John includes links to other sites.  When you click on a link, we encourage you to examine the site’s privacy policy and make your own decision regarding the information provided.  You are encouraged to safeguard your user identifications, passwords or any other special identifiers used to access our website. 

Video Streaming

Council and Committee of the Whole meetings that are open to the public and take place in Council Chambers at 10631 100 Street, Fort St. John, are webcast using live streaming video technology and recorded for video-on-demand access for subsequent viewing.

By speaking at these meetings you are consenting to disclosure of any personal information made evident through your speech or presentation materials. Personal information may include your image, name, address and personal opinions. 

Individuals presenting to Council are requested to respect third-party information by not disclosing others personal information without their consent.

E-Newsletters

When you subscribe to an email newsletter, your email address will only be collected and used to send you the newsletters you have selected from our site. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link.  

Analytics

We use Google Analytics website tracking to gather user demographic and interest data from website visitors. This data cannot be used to personally identify an individual visitor, but is used to understand how different segments of the population use the website in order to improve our visitors’ experience. Find out more about how Google uses data from Google Analytics and how you can opt out.

Contact us

If you have questions about this privacy policy, about the City of Fort St. John's management of personal information or about electronic communications you receive from us, please contact the City’s Corporate Officer at 250-787-8150. You can also email us at legislativeservices@fortstjohn.ca or write to us at:

City of Fort St. John
10631 – 100 Street
Fort St. John, BC  V1J 3Z5

Disclaimer

The information on this website is provided in good faith for the interest and convenience of the general public. The City of Fort St. John makes no representations as to, and does not warrant, the accuracy or completeness of any electronic data; you should confirm all information before making any decisions based on it. While we do our best to keep our website up to date, Fort St. John disclaims all responsibility for accuracy and completeness, or errors and omissions of the information contained on our site.

Reference on the City of Fort St. John website (fortstjohn.ca) to any specific commercial product, process or service by trade name, trademark, service mark, and manufacturer or otherwise does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation or favouring by the City.

As a visitor to our site, we respect your right to privacy and the protection of your personal information in accordance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA)’s privacy provisions.

This website is copyright ©2022 by the Corporation of the City of Fort St. John.