Privacy Policy

The UN Refugee Agency has created this privacy notice to demonstrate our firm commitment to internet privacy. The following describes our policy concerning the gathering and sharing of information through this web site. In brief, our policy is:

• we monitor general trends in the use of our web site but do not ever track individual visitors;
• we do not collect information concerning individual visitors unless that information is voluntarily disclosed, for example by filling out our online donation form;
• we do not sell or rent personal information voluntarily disclosed to us, nor do we share it with any third parties except for completing a donation transaction that you initiate;
• individuals who join the UN Refugee Agency online or who sign up for specific services will only be contacted by UNHCR for purposes related to the work of the Organization;
• at any time, visitors who have signed up for a specific service can have their names removed from the relevant mailing list;
• at any time, visitors can opt out of all usage tracking through the means of their choice.

For further information, please see below.

Your Online Transaction is Secure

To ensure your payment information is secure we use the Paypaq™ Payment Solutions Gateway. The Paypaq™ Payment Solutions Gateway processes your credit card information securely in real time using the latest available encryption technology. This means your payment information cannot be read as it travels over the Internet to your credit issuing institution. Paypaq™ Payment Solutions is compliant under Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI). Look for the unbroken key or locked lock on your browser’s status bar (typically on the bottom right hand side) to ensure you are submitting your payment information on a secure form. To ensure the security of your personal information you have been taken to a secure form on a secure server hosted by our payment provider.

Normal Website Usage

You can visit all portions of the UN Refugee Agency’s web site without telling us who you are and without revealing any personal information. The only information we collect from a normal website visit is the name of your Internet service provider, the browser and type of machine you are using, the website that referred you to us, the pages you request and the date and time of those requests. This information is collected on an aggregate basis only. For example, UNHCR tracks which pages are most popular among visitors as a whole, but we do not track information on which pages an individual visitor might look at during a visit to our site.

We do not collect any other information—such as the name, mailing address, email address or phone number of the visitor—without the visitor’s knowledge and permission. All information that we collect is used for internal use only and is not shared with outside parties.

We most often use this information to generate statistics and measure site activity to improve the usefulness of the site to our visitors. This website also uses Google to collect aggregate behavioral data to advertise to previous visitors to our site. It could mean that we advertise to previous visitors who haven’t completed a task on our site, for example using the contact form to make an enquiry. Of course, any data collected will be used in accordance with our own privacy policy as well as our vendors’ privacy policies, which preclude the use of personally identifiable information.

Collection of Personally Identifiable Information

There are instances where the UN Refugee Agency requests personally identifiable information, such as name, mailing address, email address, and possibly additional information, to provide you with specific services or correspondence. Personally identifiable information that you provide in this way will not be given to any third parties except for the use of completing a donation transaction that you initiate. The UN Refugee Agency website will not post personal contact information for volunteers, including their email address, street address and phone numbers, without that individual’s consent.

Opting Out

Persons who provide an email address and/or donate via the website may receive UNHCR Enews, an electronic newsletter, sent out monthly from the UN Refugee Agency. Each Enews includes an option to remove your address from the mailing list and you may also opt out by sending an e-mail to donorcare@unhcr.ca.

You can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Preferences page, and if you want to you can opt out of interest-based advertising entirely by cookie settings or permanently using a browser plugin.

Disclaimer

This site contains hypertext links to other sites. The UN Refugee Agency assumes no responsibility for those sites including the privacy practices or the content of such web sites. The on-line donation site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. The UN Refugee Agency makes every effort to insure the secure collection and transmission of sensitive user information, including credit card information, using industry accepted data collection and encryption methodologies. The confidential use of this site cannot be guaranteed by UNHCR. The UN Refugee Agency shall not be responsible for any harm that the visitors or any person may suffer as a result of a breach of confidentiality in respect to the use of this site or any information transmitted to this site. While UNHCR makes every effort to ensure that any software available to be downloaded from UNHCR’s website is free of any software virus, it cannot guarantee that the material is free from any or all software viruses. The UN Refugee Agency is not responsible for any loss or damage howsoever caused by the software and related codes, including viruses and worms. Nothing in or relating to this notice or the UN Refugee Agency website shall be deemed a waiver of any of the privileges and immunities of UNHCR in conformity with the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 13 February 1946 and with the provisions of the agreement between the Swiss Federal Council and the Secretary-General of the United Nations of 19 April 1946.