How we handle your data.

1. Who we are

The Indigenous Housing Growth Platform is operated by Open Housing Canada, working in partnership with Turtle Island Connection, Turtle Island Housing Corporation, DIGITAL (through the Housing Growth Innovation Program), and partner Indigenous Nations.

For the purposes of GDPR, the data controller for the public website and workshop registration data is Open Housing Canada. Day-to-day contact is Mike Kennedy, PhD, Director, at mike.kennedy@openhousingcanada.ca.

2. What we collect

We try to keep this list short. The platform is primarily a public information site. Personal data only enters our systems through specific actions you take.

We do not use analytics tracking (no Google Analytics, no Mixpanel, no Hotjar, no Facebook Pixel). We do not sell or rent personal data. We do not profile you for advertising.

3. Why we collect it

• Workshop registration data — to coordinate your attendance, send confirmation, share the agenda, and follow up on your interest.
• Email correspondence — to respond to your enquiry.
• Server logs — to keep the site running, defend against abuse, and diagnose problems.
• Embedded map — to provide spatial context on First Nations across Canada through Felt's hosted mapping platform.
• Web fonts — to render the site's typography. We may move to self-hosted fonts in a future update to remove this dependency.

4. Lawful bases

Under Article 6 of the GDPR, we rely on the following lawful bases:

• Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — for workshop registration form submissions and for loading the embedded Felt map. You can withdraw consent at any time; see Section 8.
• Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — for server logs and basic operational data, where our interest is keeping the service running and secure, balanced against your privacy rights.
• Contract / pre-contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) — where applicable, for processing your workshop attendance.

We do not process special category data (Article 9) on the public site.

5. Who we share it with

We rely on a small number of third-party processors. Each processes data on our behalf under their own privacy commitments.

We do not share workshop registration data with anyone outside the Indigenous Housing Growth Platform delivery team without your prior knowledge.

6. International transfers

Some of our processors are located in the United States, which the European Commission has not currently designated as providing an adequate level of data protection in all cases. Where personal data is transferred to processors outside the European Economic Area / United Kingdom / Canada, we rely on:

• Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and supplementary technical measures, where required;
• Adequacy decisions (e.g., the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework where applicable to the processor); and
• Your explicit consent for transfers tied to specific actions (e.g., submitting the workshop form).

7. Retention

• Workshop registration data — retained for the duration of the 2026 Workshop Series and up to 12 months afterwards for follow-up and reporting, then deleted unless you have asked to stay on a contact list.
• Email correspondence — retained as long as needed to respond and meet our record-keeping obligations.
• Server logs — retained for up to 30 days under normal operations.
• Templates drafts — stored only in your browser. Clearing browser storage deletes them.

8. Your rights

Under the GDPR (and similar rights under UK GDPR and PIPEDA), you have the following rights:

• Right of access — ask us what personal data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification — ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to erasure ("right to be forgotten") — ask us to delete your data, subject to legal exceptions.
• Right to restrict processing — ask us to pause processing in certain circumstances.
• Right to data portability — ask us to provide your data in a portable format.
• Right to object — object to processing based on legitimate interests.
• Right to withdraw consent — at any time, where we rely on consent.
• Right to lodge a complaint — with your local supervisory authority. In Canada, this is the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. In the EU, it is your country's data protection authority. In the UK, it is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

To exercise any of these rights, email mike.kennedy@openhousingcanada.ca with the subject line "Data Subject Request — <your name>." We aim to respond within 30 days.

9. Indigenous data sovereignty

OCAP®-related governance is a stronger standard than GDPR in many respects, particularly in how it allocates ownership and control. Where the two frameworks overlap, we follow whichever is more protective. For the full picture, see our Data Governance (OCAP® & PIPEDA) page.

10. Cookies & tracking

The site itself does not set any tracking cookies. We use only:

• localStorage — to remember your privacy banner choice and to store your in-progress template drafts. This data stays on your device.
• Third-party content — when you choose to load the Felt map, or when your browser fetches Google Fonts, those services may set their own cookies. Felt only loads after explicit click-to-load consent on the Data tab.

You can re-open your privacy choices at any time:

11. Security

We use TLS for all traffic to and from the site. Passwords for the internal admin features (used by the development team) are hashed with bcrypt. We follow standard practices around least-privilege access, dependency updates, and security headers (Content Security Policy, HSTS, etc.). No system is perfectly secure; if you become aware of a vulnerability, please report it directly to mike.kennedy@openhousingcanada.ca.

12. Children

The site and the workshop programme are aimed at adults working in housing, planning, governance, and related professional contexts. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16. If you believe a child has submitted personal data to us, please contact us and we will delete it.

13. Changes to this notice

We may update this notice as the platform evolves or as our processors change. The "Last updated" date at the top of the page reflects the most recent revision. For substantive changes that affect your rights, we will note the change clearly at the top of the notice for at least 30 days.

14. Contact

Open Housing Canada
Attn: Mike Kennedy, PhD — Director
Email: mike.kennedy@openhousingcanada.ca