Yasodhara Ashram is committed to protecting the privacy and security of personal information held about its long-term and short-term residents (including teachers, guests, students and volunteers) and employees. We value the trust of those with whom we interact and endeavour to always be accountable in how we treat personal information that is shared with us.

This policy is developed in compliance with BC’s Personal Information Protection Act (“PIPA”) which sets out the rules for how organizations, such as Yasodhara Ashram, may collect, use and disclose your personal information. In our policy we also strive to comply in spirit with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation.

What is Personal Information

Personal information means information about an identifiable person. Some examples of types of personal information that we collect from guests and use are:

  • Your name
  • Your contact information (including your name, email address, your home address, phone number, and may include third party contact information)
  • Your birthdate and gender identity
  • If you have told us that you have a health condition or injury that affects your stay we may have noted it in your account profile so that we can adjust your work assignments.
  • Any dietary restrictions for menu planning for our kitchen staff
  • Financial information including your purchase history, account information, and billing information.
  • Records of your attendance in onsite/online classes, workshops, series, and retreats at Yasodhara Ashram
  • Records of the classes you have scheduled
  • Your contact information and signature on waivers and credit card transactions
  • A record of any waivers and/or photo consents (for Communications activities) that you have signed
  • Information in any email you have sent us
  • Application and related registration information, including information about minors.
  • Your reflections/assignments which may contain personal, sensitive information.
  • Location data (with your permission, geolocation data sent with a mobile device)
How and Why We Collect and Use your Personal Information

We only collect and use personal information that is necessary to fulfil the purposes set out below, or purposes that would be reasonably understood when you provided us with the information. For example, we collect and use your personal information to:

  • Verify your identity
  • Process purchases, sales and donations through your account with cash, credit card or cheque
  • Email you receipts for your purchases and donations
  • Communicate with you (including through our newsletter, if you have elected to receive it)
  • Provide services to you, such as yoga classes and workshops, and advance registration for those services. This may include personal information of a sensitive nature such as addictions, mental health issues, allergies and injuries.
  • Provide a registration service so that you can register in our classes and programs online or through our registrations team.

If you have elected to receive our emails, we will provide you with information about news or events at the Ashram, or operational information
Yasodhara Ashram shares some of your personal information with the teachers who live at the Ashram, and visiting teachers, on a need to know basis. Teachers also collect your oral and written personal information directly from you in classes and related communications.

We only collect and use personal information that is necessary to fulfil the purposes identified above and directly related purposes, and will not collect, use or disclose beyond this, unless we have provided notification or received your further consent, or as otherwise permitted by PIPA. We only collect, use, and disclose personal information in accordance with PIPA.

Disclosure

We may disclose some of your personal information to a third-party supplier or consultants who are assisting us to provide you with services and if they need to access your personal information to carry out work for us. In exceptional circumstances such as a health crisis, we may disclose some of your personal information as required to external health professionals. Information about those third-party suppliers is below.

We do not sell or rent your personal information.

Consent

Most of the personal information that we have about you is provided by you. Generally, it is about you, or in the case of minors, it is provided by a parent or guardian about the minor. As required by PIPA, the personal information that we collect, use and disclose about you has been obtained by your consent (unless we are legally authorized or required by law to do so without consent). You may have consented orally, in writing, or electronically, and your consent may be implied or express, depending on the nature and sensitivity of the personal information. For example, individuals are considered to have given implied consent when our purpose for collecting, using or disclosing personal information for that purpose is obvious (such as when you provide us with your name and contact information in order to register in our classes).

You may withdraw your consent at any time by giving us reasonable notice, unless withdrawing consent would frustrate the performance of a legal obligation, such as a contract between you and the Ashram. As required by PIPA, you will be told the likely consequences of withdrawing consent, such as Yasodhara Ashram being unable to provide you with services or goods that require the collection of your personal information. Yasodhara Ashram will keep certain information, for example, your signed waiver of liability form.

Retention

As required by PIPA, Yasodhara Ashram will keep your personal information that we used to make a decision that directly affects you for at least one year after we make that decision. Examples of decisions: whether you get a job, whether you are accepted as a karma yogi or participant in some program. Subject to this one-year retention, we will only retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the identified purposes, or as long as required for a legal or business purpose. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements.

Security of your Personal Information

We keep your personal information secure and we have security arrangements to prevent risks such as unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification, or disposal of your personal information.

The main methods we use to protect your personal information meet industry standards and are:

  • Password protection of your personal information
  • Secure internal applications which collect and store personal information
  • Secure website

Whenever we destroy your personal information, we will use reasonably secure methods to do so (for example, hard copies of documents that contain your personal information are shredded or burned once they are no longer needed for legal or business uses).

Third-Party Suppliers

All of our interactions with the third-party suppliers below are through a password protected account. These suppliers are authorized to use your personal information only to the extent that it allows us to provide you with better services.

We use Gmail to communicate by email with our guests. In those emails, we collect and use the information you provide to us, including your email address in order to respond to your inquiry. We also use Google Drive for our cloud storage. Google (which provides both Gmail and Google Drive) is an American company, and its privacy policy is here
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We use Constant Contact for our newsletter communications. Constant Contact is an American company and their security policy is here. Constant Contact tracks clicks and access to our website to provide us with better information regarding what is useful to our guests.

We use Eventbrite for our online registration and their privacy policy is here.

We use social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Linkedin. Through Facebook, we collect names and emails from lead ads. See Facebook’s terms of service.

We use Stripe as our payment provider. Stripe is an American company and their privacy policy is here.

We use other third-party contractors for our financial transactions (that includes your personal credit card information) and for our website hosting and domain registry. If you would like information about those third-parties’ privacy policies, please contact us at the contact information below.

Our website contains links to other websites and social media links. This privacy policy does not apply to linked sites and we are not responsible for the content or privacy and security practices of those sites. Any personal information you provide to a linked site is provided directly to a third party and is subject to the third party’s privacy policy. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policies of any website you visit before providing any personal information.

From time to time, we may engage additional third-party suppliers as required.

We follow reasonable, generally accepted standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you have any questions about security on our website, you can contact us (see below).

Accuracy of your Personal Information

Yasodhara Ashram is committed to ensuring your personal information is accurate and we will make reasonable efforts to ensure that the personal information we collect, use and disclose about you is accurate and complete.

You may write to us to ask us to correct any errors or omissions in your personal information that is under our custody or control and if we are satisfied your request is reasonable, we will correct your personal information as soon as reasonably possible. We will also send your corrected personal information to each organization to which it was disclosed (if at all) during the year before we corrected it. In practice, it rarely or never happens that Yasodhara Ashram discloses personal information to another organization. If we do not correct your personal information, we will note the requested correction on copies of the personal information under our custody or control.

Access to your Personal Information under the Control or Custody of Yasodhara Ashram

You have a right to access your personal information under our custody or control and you may make a request in writing to info@yasodhara.org. We may require you to prove your identity before giving you access to your personal information. Once we are sure of your identity, we can give you information about the ways in which your personal information is or has been used, and the names of individuals and organizations to which your personal information has been disclosed, if at all.

In some cases, we may not give an individual access to certain personal information, where authorized or required by PIPA to refuse access. If we refuse access, we will tell you in writing, stating the reasons for the refusal, and outlining further steps that are available to you.

Revisions to this Policy

We may periodically revise this policy and when we do so, there will be a date at the bottom of the revision. We encourage you to check back and review this policy from time to time.

Who to Contact with a Question or a Concern

If you would like to access your own personal information, or ask questions about it, you can contact the Welcome Centre Coordinator. We will be happy to assist you.

If you are not satisfied with the response from Yasodhara Ashram, you can complain to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia here.

Additional information on PIPA (Personal Information Protection Act) can be found here.