Privacy Policy

Effective 5 September 2026

The Tekeyan Armenian Cultural Association of Vancouver (“TCA Vancouver”, “we”, “us”) is a registered Canadian charity, business number 842776700RR0001. We are committed to protecting the personal information our members, donors, volunteers and guests entrust to us.

This policy explains what we collect, why, how we use and protect it, and how to reach us about it. It is written to meet our obligations under British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), which applies to non-profit organizations and charities in this province.

What we collect

• Membership and volunteer records: your name, email address, telephone number, mailing address, and the membership or volunteer role you hold.
• Event registrations: the name and contact details you give us when you reserve a place at an event, along with dietary or accessibility needs where you choose to share them.
• Donation records: your name and mailing address where these are needed to issue an official donation receipt, and the amount and date of the donation.
• Correspondence: emails, letters and messages you send us, and our replies.
• Photographs and video taken at our events. See Photographs at our events below.

We do not ask for and do not want sensitive information such as government identification numbers, banking details or health information. Please do not send these to us by email.

Why we collect it

We collect personal information only for purposes a reasonable person would consider appropriate for a community cultural association: administering memberships, organising and running events, issuing tax receipts, keeping our community informed about our activities, and meeting our reporting obligations as a registered charity.

We do not sell, rent or trade personal information. Ever. We do not use it for commercial marketing.

Your consent

In most cases we collect personal information directly from you, and giving it to us for a purpose we have explained is your consent to use it for that purpose. If we ever want to use your information for something new, we will ask you first.

You can withdraw your consent at any time by writing to us at the address below. We will explain what that means in practice, for example that we can no longer send you notice of events. Some information we must keep regardless, such as donation records the Canada Revenue Agency requires us to retain.

Photographs at our events

We take photographs at our events and publish a selection of them on this website and on our Facebook page, so that our community can see what we do. We use them to show the life of the association, never in a way intended to embarrass anyone.

If you would rather not be photographed, tell whoever is taking pictures on the day and we will respect it. If a photograph of you is already published and you want it taken down, email us and we will remove it. You do not need to give a reason.

This website

Our site is hosted by WordPress.com. Like almost every website, the hosting platform records standard technical information when a page is loaded, such as the IP address of the visitor, the browser used and the pages viewed, and it sets cookies for basic site statistics. We use this only to understand in aggregate how the site is being used. We do not run advertising trackers.

The site has no contact form and no mailing list sign-up, so it does not collect personal information from you directly. Links from our pages to other organisations, such as the Canada Revenue Agency or our Facebook page, take you to sites governed by their own privacy policies rather than this one.

Who else sees it

Personal information is seen only by the board members and volunteers who need it to do their job for the association. Beyond that, it may be handled by:

• service providers who host our website or email, who process information on our behalf;
• the Canada Revenue Agency, where charity law requires it;
• anyone else, only with your consent or where the law requires or permits disclosure.

Some of these providers store information on servers outside Canada, which means it may be subject to the laws of the country where it is held.

How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as it is needed for the purpose it was collected, or as long as the law requires. Membership and volunteer records are kept while you are involved with us and for a reasonable period afterwards. Donation and receipt records are kept for the period the Canada Revenue Agency requires of registered charities. When information is no longer needed, we destroy it or make it anonymous.

How we protect it

We limit access to the volunteers who need it, keep paper records secure, use password protection on the accounts that hold member and donor information, and review these arrangements as the association changes. No safeguard is perfect, but we take this seriously and we will tell you promptly if information about you is lost or exposed in a way that could cause you harm.

Seeing or correcting your information

You have the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, how we have used it and who we have given it to. You also have the right to have it corrected if it is wrong. Write to our Privacy Officer at the address below. We will respond within 30 business days, or tell you if we need more time and why. There is normally no charge.

In rare cases the law allows us to withhold information, for example where releasing it would reveal personal information about somebody else. If that happens we will tell you why.

Questions and complaints

Please come to us first. We would rather hear about a problem and fix it. If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your concern, you may ask the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia to review it:

Changes to this policy

We will update this policy as our activities change. The effective date at the top tells you which version you are reading. Material changes will be noted on this page.