HOUSING REGISTRY NETWORK
Privacy Statement and Policy

This Privacy Statement and Policy is posted by Housing Registry Network (hereinafter referred to as “HRN”), operating as lowcostrent.org. This Policy describes how we obtain and retain information concerning identifiable individuals. HRN reserves the right to amend this Policy from time to time. In this policy, the “Web Site” means www.lowcostrent.org and its contents and “personal information” means information that relates to a discernible individual.

We operate under the following principles with respect to collecting, using and disclosing personal information:

Any concerns, problems or questions should be directed to us at: lowcostrent@shaw.ca. We will respond to your inquiries as soon as reasonably possible.

We do not request personal information from visitors to the Web Site. We do not request personal information from Tenants (a member of the public seeking to locate available, or potentially available, housing in the Calgary area, and shall include any person entering into, or considering entering into, a contract or agreement for rental of accommodation or real property with a Landlord, or anyone on behalf of a Landlord). In the event that we are provided with personal information relating to visitors to the Web Site, or to Tenants, we do not distribute or disclose such information to third parties except as stated in this policy. We do request and obtain personal information from Landlords (persons or entities interested in making available information with respect to housing or space they own, have or control to users of this Web Site and Tenants). We obtain such information for the following reasons:

• To post such information on the Web Site in order to allow Tenants to contact Landlords;
• To disclose such information to Tenants and members of the public seeking rental accommodation;
• To assist us in providing better products and services to the Landlords, Tenants and the public;
• To retain such information in order to have it available should disputes between Landlords and Tenants arise, in which case we may be asked to provide such information to the courts or other legal authorities, and in which case such provision will be pursuant to this policy; and,
• To retain such information for statistical and analytical purposes in order to develop, maintain and improve our programs and services.

All personal information we collect is with the consent of the donor and in most cases will be voluntarily submitted to use without specific request by us. Our online polls do not require that you provide us with your name or any other personal information. In the case of submitting a listing as a Landlord, you will elect to provide the information. However, all parties should know that web browser software will usually “tell” almost any web server and therefore any web site, not just ours, some information about you, including your IP address, what site you visited before you came to our site and what site you go to after you leave our site, your operating system and other technical information which does not make you personally identifiable to us.

We log and archive IP addresses for use as evidence in case of abuse of the Web Site, or for provision to legal authorities should we be required to do so.

We also use cookies which are basically small text files sent to your computer where they remain on your hard drive until they expire or you remove them. This widely used technology allows our server to recognize you the next time you visit our site. The reason we do this is primarily to personalize and enhance your experience with our site and to provide you with the information and promotions you have granted your permission to receive.

In addition, we use session variables to hold information during the user’s visit. Session variables do not retain any personal information. They only keep information for the browser session and are lost at the end of the browser session.

Landlords using the Web Site will have the option of uploading and posting content related to the space you have, or may have, available for rent. In doing so, it will be the responsibility of the Landlord to ensure that it does not disclose any personal information concerning the Landlord or any other person without consent. In the event that such information is disclosed concerning a Landlord or any other party providing such information, such Landlord or other party will be deemed to have provided consent. In the event that such information is disclosed concerning another individual, the Landlord or other party will be warranting that such individual provides consent.

We collect no more information that we need for the purposes we state (see above).

We will not use personal information for any purpose beyond what we state. We will not sell or disclose personal information to third parties other than as stated, or if we are otherwise required to disclose information by law. We do reserve the right to disclose general and statistical information which is not personally identifiable as part of our business and marketing activities.

We strive to keep personal information accurate, complete and fully up to date. Any changes provided to us will be incorporated into our systems as soon as we reasonably can do so.

Landlord information is made available to the public, including Tenants. We take reasonable precautions to maintain security of our systems, but we do advise that no system is completely invulnerable to hackers and illegal human actions.

This policy is prominently posted on our Web site. We do reserve the right to make changes to this policy from time to time without notice, but this will not affect our commitment to follow the policy in place at the time we receive personal information.

In order to keep personal information safe, we do not allow access to the information we have concerning identifiable individuals, other than Landlord information which is intended to be public, unless and until we are certain that we are responding to an authorized individual and not some other person. Therefore, for security purposes, any response to inquiries from individuals for information concerning themselves will be sent only to the email address or other address such individuals gave to us when they provided us with any personal information, except in particular circumstances where we are in receipt of a valid consent and direction to us to disclose such information to an authorized third party, or as otherwise required by law.

If at any time you have concerns with respect to this Privacy Policy, click on the email lowcostrent@shaw.ca to send us an email with your concerns. We will respond to you as soon as possible. We reserve the right to ignore vexatious or harassing email, bulk or repetitious email, email which does not reasonably require a response and email where the source cannot be reasonably identified.