Privacy statement

Our Commitment

Ontario is committed to respecting your privacy and protecting your personal information. This Privacy Statement explains the current information management practices on our websites.

We are committed to protecting your privacy whether you are browsing for information or conducting business with the government through electronic channels. The handling of all personal information by Government of Ontario organizations is governed by theFreedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

The Ministry of Health and Long-term Care also ensures that your personal health information is private, confidential and secure through the Personal Health Information Protection Act.

When you visit our websites, we will not collect your personal information unless you choose to use and receive online products and services that require it. For transactions with government organizations involving credit cards, government systems use up-to-date security protocols to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of information and systems.

You Have A Choice

If you choose not to use the Internet to provide personal information to a government ministry or agency, you can contact the ministry or agency telephone, fax, mail, kiosk or in person. (Not all options may be available in every situation.)

Cookies

Some Government of Ontario websites use cookies. Cookies are generally used to make it more convenient for users to move around our websites. If you choose, they may be used to 'remember' your password and make it easier and faster to log-in to certain sites. These types of cookies need to be stored on your computer's hard drive. Cookies used by the government are encrypted to make the information in cookies unreadable to anyone except the government organization with which you are dealing.

Web Analytics

In order to serve you better, we use web analytics services including Google Analytics and Webtrends to help analyse the use of our websites. These tools use cookies to collect and generate information about your visits to our sites (including your IP address) that is transmitted to their servers in an anonymous form for processing. We study patterns of website activity so we can improve the experience of visitors to our sites.

The use of these tools does not allow us or our analytics service providers to identify individuals.

You can opt-out of analytics activity by setting your browser to notify you when a cookie is sent and block analytics cookies if desired. Please consult your browser's Help Menu for instructions. Visiting our website with analytics cookies disabled will have no significant impact on your browsing experience.

Google currently offers a free Google Analytics opt-out tool for Internet Explorer (versions 7 and 8), Google Chrome (4.x and higher), and Mozilla Firefox (3.5 and higher): http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

For more information

Learn more about our current online information practices.

Important Notices: Some of our websites link to other sites created and maintained by other public and/or private sector organizations. We provide these links solely for your information and convenience. When you link to an outside website, you are leaving a Government of Ontario website and our information management policies no longer apply.