What is personal information?

"Personal Information" is defined in FIPPA as recorded information about an identifiable individual. An individual's personal information includes information regarding his or her race, gender, home address, medical history, education history, identifying numbers (e.g. SIN, employee number, student number, etc.), financial or employment information, personal opinions, completed assignments and exams, and grades, comments and evaluations provided by an instructor.

If you have a concern about the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information at the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society, please contact the ASUS President at president@asus.queensu.ca.

Why collect information?

The most common purpose for collecting information is to administer ASUS elections. Essential to the effective organization and legitimacy of these elections is an Arts and Science master list that includes the name, student number, email address and academic program of all students in the Faculty. These lists are cross-referenced to ensure that students who sign nomination packages and vote in elections are eligible to do so. Other information may be infrequently requested on an ad hoc basis from time to time. The standard mode by which we collect information from the Office of the University Registrar (OUR) is via encrypted data files sent by email.

Who has access?

Collected information is limited to the access of four people within the Society: the President, Vice-President, Governance Officer and Academics Commissioner. The Governance Officer is responsible for the oversight of all ASUS elections and referenda, while the Academics Commissioner organizes and regulates the 28 Department Student Council elections. The President and Vice-President both play an advisory and support role throughout the entirety of the elections process, hence the need for them to have access to data.

How is it stored?

To ensure the information is secured effectively, it will always be downloaded directly from the email account of the recipient to be stored on the ASUS-owned Mac desktop that is chained, and located in the ASUS Offices at 183 University Avenue. A separate, password protected partition that is encrypted through FileVault will be utilized to store the personal information that is received. By only distributing the password of the drive to the four authorized position holders, access will be consistently maintained and not shared with anyone else. Moreover, the password for the drive will be changed every three months to prevent unauthorized access.

How long will you keep it?

Information received from the OUR will only be retained so long as the data remains necessary for the purpose that it was originally requested for, up to a maximum of one academic year. Once that purpose has elapsed, the information will be securely destroyed by deleting it from the email account, computer and any backups (if applicable). Notification of completion of secure deletion will be sent from the ASUS President to the OUR.