Privacy Policy
 Toronto

Our Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes the privacy practices of the Goethe-Institut Canada Inc., a federal not-for-profit corporation incorporated under the Canada Not For Profit Corporations Act, doing business as Goethe-Institut Toronto ("GI Toronto", "we", "us" or "our").

GI Toronto takes data privacy seriously. We recognize and value the trust that individuals place in us when providing us with personal data and we are committed to safeguarding the privacy and security of personal data we may collect from our langauge course participants, event attendees, employees, cultural programming partners and contractors. 

By providing your personal data to us, whether by email or other written correspondence, in person, over the phone, or via the website www.goethe.de ("Site"), you agree to the processing set out in this Privacy Policy. Further notices highlighting certain uses we wish to make of your personal data together with the ability to opt in or out of selected uses may also be provided to you when we collect personal data from you. 

This Privacy Policy explains our personal information collection, use and disclosure policies and practices to help you understand how we handle personal information you provide to us when you enrol in a language course or examination, register for an event, apply for a job position or to be a cultural programming partner, or communicate with us by email or phone. 

If you register for a language course or examination via the Site or use the Site's online tools, you wiill also be subject to the terms of the Site's Data Privacy policy, which governs the collection, processing, and use of personal data collected when visiting or using the Site, including website usage and other technical data such as details of your visits to our Site or information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies. We encourage you to review the Site's Data Privacy policy when you visit the Site to stay informed of how we are using personal data submitted or obtained online. To the extent of any discrepancy between this Privacy Policy and the Site's Data Privacy policy shall prevail. 
 

1. What Personal Data We Collect About You

We may collect and process different types of personal data while operating our language course and other programs and providing our services. These include:
  • basic personal details such as your name, birth date and place, and nationality;
  • contact data such as your telephone number and postal or email address; 
  • financial data such as payment related information or bank account details;
  • demographic data such as your address, preferences or interests; 
  • personal data provided to us by or on behalf of our cultural programming partners and contractors or generated by us in the course of providing our programs or services, which may, where relevant, include special categories of personal data;
  • recruitment related data such as your curriculum vitae, your education and employment history, details of professional memberships, and other information relevant to potential recruitment to GI Toronto;
  • data that you may provide to us in course of registering for and attending events or using our library; and
  • any other personal data relating to you that you may provide. 
 

2. How We Obtain the Personal Data About You

We may collect or receive your personal data in a number of different ways: 
  • where you provide it to us directly, for example by corresponding with us by email, or via other direct interactions with us such as over the telephone or in‐person attendance;
  • third  party  sources,  for  example,  where  we  receive  information  about  you  from recruitment agencies for recruitment purposes or from a cultural organization who has referred you to us as a potential cultural programming partner; or
  • publicly available sources ‐ we may, for example, use such sources to help us keep the contact details we already hold for you accurate and up to date or for professional networking purposes (eg. LinkedIn). 
 

3. How We Use Your Personal Data

We will only use your personal data where we are permitted to do so by applicable law. We may use your personal data in the following ways.  
  • to enrol you in a language course or examination;
  • to register you for an event or to use our library;
  • for cultural programming purposes – to enable us to process applications and proposals from artists and other cultural programming partners and promote any partnership or other contractual agreement made with you;
  • with your consent, for marketing and business development purposes – to provide you with details of new courses and invitations to events where you have chosen to receive these. We will provide an option to unsubscribe or opt‐out of further communication on any electronic marketing communication sent to you or you may opt out by contacting us as set out in Section 9 below;
  • for research and development purposes to better understand who uses or may be interested in our course offerings and events and to develop our course offerings, cultural programming, and other activities;
  • for recruitment purposes – to enable us to process applications for employment and to assess your suitability for any position for which you may apply;
  • to fulfil our legal, regulatory, or risk management obligations – to comply with our legal obligations; for the prevention of fraud as may be required by applicable law and regulation and best practice at any given time (if false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified or suspected, details may be passed to fraud prevention agencies and may be recorded by us or by them); to enforce our legal rights; to comply with our legal or regulatory reporting obligations and/or to protect the rights of third parties;
  • to notify you about changes to our course offerings, cultural programming and other activities or to this Privacy Policy.
 

4. Who We Share Your Personal Data With

We may share your personal data with a variety of the following categories of third parties: 
  • our professional advisors (eg. legal, financial, business, risk management or other advisors), bankers, and auditors; 
  • our insurers and insurance brokers; 
  • the Goethe‐Institut e.V. in Germany; 
  • other Goethe‐Institutes or third party service providers to whom we outsource certain functions such as information and document management, office support, technology and IT services, word processing services, payroll services; 
  • other third‐party external advisors or experts engaged in the course of the services we provide and with their prior consent. 
We may also process your personal data to comply with our regulatory requirements or during dialogue with our regulators as applicable, which may include disclosing your personal data to government, regulatory, or law enforcement agencies in connection with enquiries, proceedings, or investigations by such parties anywhere in the world or where compelled to do so. Where permitted, or unless to do so would prejudice the prevention or detection of a crime, we will direct any such request to you or notify you before responding.
 

5. Which Countries We Transfer Your Personal Data To 

While providing our programs and services, we may need to transfer personal data to locations outside the jurisdiction in which you provide it. This will mean that your personal data may be transferred to, accessible from, and/or stored at, a destination outside Canada. In particular, from time to time we may receive support from other Goethe‐Institutes, such as the Goethe‐Institute in Mexico, with respect to enrolment, accounting and related administrative services which may involve the transfer of your personal data to such Goethe‐Institute for processing. We may also transfer your personal data to the Goethe‐Institut e.V. in Germany. 

Regardless of the location of our processing, we will impose the same data protection safeguards that we deploy inside Canada and implement appropriate measures to ensure that your personal data is protected in accordance with applicable data protection laws. Where another Goethe‐Institute or a third‐party service provider processes the personal data of Canadian residents on our behalf, we will ensure that appropriate measures are in place to ensure an adequate level of protection for your personal data, usually by including standard contractual clauses in our agreements with such Goethe‐Institutes or third‐party service providers (alongside other supplementary technical or contractual measures where necessary). Personal data sent to another jurisdiction may be subject to access by the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of that jurisdiction.
 

6. How Long We Keep Your Personal Data

We will retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which this data was collected and any other permitted linked purpose (for example certain transaction details and correspondence related to any programs or services we provide may be retained until the time limit for claims in respect of the transaction has expired or to comply with regulatory requirements regarding the retention of such data). Our retention periods are also based on our organizational needs and good practice.
 

7. How We Protect Your Personal Data

We  recognise  that  information  security  is an  integral element  of  data  privacy. While no data transmission (including over the Internet or any website) can be guaranteed to be secure from intrusion, we implement a range of commercially reasonable physical, technical, and procedural measures to help protect personal data from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, alteration, or destruction in accordance with data protection law requirements. 

Any other Goethe‐Institute or third‐party service providers we may engage that process personal data on our behalf (for the purposes listed above) are also contractually obligated to respect the confidentiality of personal data.
 

8. What Rights You Have in Relation to Your Personal Data

If you have any questions about our use of your personal data, you should first contact us via the details provided in Section 9 below. Under certain circumstances and in accordance with applicable data protection laws, you may have the right to require us to: 
  • provide you with further details on the use we make of your information; 
  • provide you with a copy of information that we hold about you; 
  • update any inaccuracies in the personal data we hold; 
  • delete any personal data that we no longer have a lawful ground to use; 
  • where processing is based on consent, to withdraw your consent so that we stop that particular processing; 
  • object to any processing based on the legitimate interests ground unless our reasons for undertaking that processing outweigh any prejudice to your data protection rights; and 
  • restrict how we use your information while a complaint is being investigated.
 
You may also ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will inform you if we intend to disclose your information to any third‐party service provider for this purpose. As indicated in Section 3 above, you can exercise your right to prevent such processing at any time by using an unsubscribe facility or contacting us via the details provided in Section 9 below. 

We are also required to take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal data remains accurate. To assist us with this, please let us know of any changes to the personal data that you have provided to us by contacting us via the details provided in Section 9 below. 

While it is our policy to respect the rights of individuals, please be aware that your exercise of these rights is subject to certain exemptions to safeguard the public interest (eg. the prevention or detection of crime) or our interests and some of these rights may be limited (for example the right to withdraw consent) where we are required or permitted by law to continue processing your personal data to defend our legal rights or meet our legal and regulatory obligations. 

If you contact us to exercise any of these rights, we will check your entitlement and respond in most cases within a month. 

If you are not satisfied with our use of your personal data or our response to any exercise of these rights, you have the right to complain to the relevant data protection regulator. 
 

9. How You Can Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we process your personal data, please contact us by sending an email to: Bernadett.lukacs@goethe.de or by writing to:
 
Attn. Privacy Officer 
Goethe‐Institut Canada Inc. 
100 University Ave, Suite 201, mailbox 136 
Toronto, ON M5J 1V6 
Canada

10. How We May Update this Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time in the future. 



This Privacy Policy was last updated in March 2023.