Privacy Policy
Welcome!
Welcome to the Lord Reading Law Society website at http://lordreading.org (the “Website”). We are delighted that you have chosen to visit us and use the Website. This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) covers personal information collected from you or about you when you are visiting or using the Website.
The Lord Reading Law Society (the non-profit that owns and operates the Website) takes your privacy and security of personal information very seriously. We have provided and will continue to provide a secure environment and this strict Policy that describes the limited ways your information is used and the limited access to such information. We ask that you read it carefully.
Key Elements of this Policy
Here are the key elements of this Policy so you can know the important parts right away to make an informed decision about your consent for our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information. By submitting any personal information to us via any means, you consent to such collection, use and disclosure. You can find the details in the rest of the Policy.
| Personal information we collect from you but only with your consent | What we do with it | Third parties we share it with |
|---|---|---|
| Newsletter Information (your email address) | Send you our newsletter and information about our events | Companies that provide communications services such as MailChimp |
| Membership Information (your name and email address) | Register you as a member and communicate with you | Companies that provide the infrastructure and software for the Website |
| Event information (your name and email address) | Register you for the event and communicate with you about the event, including sending you a CLE certificate | Companies that provide the infrastructure and software for the Website |
| Billing Information (credit card information) | Process the payments for your membership and events | Payment processors such as Stripe |
Some Terms
Before we get started with the details, here are a few terms we think you should know as you read this Policy.
“Data Protection Laws” refers to the laws that are designed to protect your personal information and privacy in the place where you live. The Data Protection Laws include: (1) “PIPEDA” (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act), which is the Canadian Data Protection Law that applies to our activities in Canada; and (2) Quebec’s Act Respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the Private Sector (the “Quebec Private Sector Act”) as amended by Law 25, that applies to our activities in Quebec. The Lord Reading Law Society is committed to adhering to these and any other applicable Data Protection laws.
“Personal information” – this is information we collect from you or about you and which is defined in PIPEDA as “information about an identifiable individual” and under the Quebec Private Sector Act as “any information which relates to a natural person and allows that person to be identified either directly or indirectly.” It can be as simple as your name or your email, or something more complicated like an online identifier (usually a string of letters and / or numbers) that gets attached to you.
Other terms and definitions used in this Policy may be found in our Terms of Use and will have the same meaning in this Policy as they do there. There are also other definitions throughout this Policy, but they are easy to spot as they are bolded and in quotation marks.
About Us and Contacting Us
The Lord Reading Law Society is a Canadian non-profit registered in Quebec and located in Montreal, Canada at the address listed below. Where this Policy refers to the “Lord Reading Law Society”, it may refer to the Lord Reading Law Society and / or its officers, directors, employees, agents, partners, principals, representatives, successors and assigns (collectively “Representatives”), depending on the context. Any reference to “we”, “our”, or “us” in this Policy shall also refer to the Lord Reading Law Society. In this Policy a Website visitor or user or any other individual for whom we hold personal information may be referred to as “you”.
Under PIPEDA, the Lord Reading Law Society is an “organization” and under the Quebec Private Sector Act it is an “enterprise”.
If you want to ask us anything about what’s in this Policy, or anything else privacy- or data- related, or exercise any of your available privacy rights, you can contact our Privacy Officer tasked with overseeing privacy matters for Lord Reading Law Society at the following address:
Lord Reading Law Society Privacy Officer
Allen Mendelsohn
privacy@lordreading.org
or:
Lord Reading Law Society Privacy Officer
Allen Mendelsohn
500 Place d’Armes, suite 2350
Montreal, QC H2Y 2W2
Your Rights
You have the following rights regarding your personal information held by Lord Reading Law Society, and other privacy rights. Please note that not necessarily all of these rights may be available to you; this depends on the Data Protection Laws where you are located that apply to you. Please note that exercising certain of these rights may affect your ability to use some or all of the Website.
- The right to withdraw at any time your consent for the Lord Reading Law Society to process your personal information;
- The right to have your personal information erased from the Lord Reading Law Society’s records, and to have your name de-indexed if we link to any information about you (which we currently do not);
- The right to access your personal information and any relevant information around its processing and use;
- The right to have a copy of your personal information given to you in an easy-to-read format;
- The right to have your personal information corrected or updated if you believe it is inaccurate or out of date;
- The right to opt out of marketing communications we send you, at any time;
- The right to know whether the Lord Reading Law Society sells or shares your personal information (and if so, who gets it). Please refer to that information elsewhere in this Policy, though you can contact our Privacy Officer if you need additional information or clarifications;
- The right to restrict the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information if it is inaccurate or if our processing or use of it is against the law; and
- The right to refuse any marketing or advertising targeted at you by the Lord Reading Law Society. Please note we do not do any targeted advertising, and our only marketing is via email.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact our Privacy Officer at the contact information above, or refer to certain relevant sections further in this Policy.
Limited Personal information Collected from You and What We Use It For
Lord Reading Law Society limits the amount of personal information we collect to what is necessary and appropriate for the identified purposes. We will not use or disclose your personal information for purposes other than those for which it was collected, except with your consent or as permitted or required by applicable law.
In the table below, please find all the personal information we may collect from you directly and what we use it for. Under PIPEDA the Quebec Private Sector Act, we collect and use this personal information with your informed consent, and by submitting this personal information to us you acknowledge having granted this consent to the Lord Reading Law Society. You can withdraw this consent at any time.
| Personal information category | Personal information specifics | What we use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Newsletter Information | Your email address | Send you our newsletter and information about our events |
| Membership Information | Your name and email address | Register you as a member and communicate with you |
| Event information | Your name and email address | Register you for the event and communicate with you about the event, including sending you a CLE certificate |
| Billing Information* | Credit card number, credit card expiry date, card security code (CVV), and possibly billing address | Process the payments for your membership and events |
*Please note that your Billing Information is collected via the Website, but is only ever stored on servers controlled by Third-Party Payment Processor; we do not have access to your Billing Information.
Personal information Collected About You from Third Parties and What We Use It For
We generally do not get personal information about you from third parties. Exceptionally, to the extent that analytics identifiers are generated from third parties, these may be considered personal information collected from third parties, and you can find details about that further below in this Policy.
Sensitive Personal information
We do not collect any of what the Data Protection Laws consider sensitive personal information from you when you use the Website, unless you voluntarily submit it to us, which we encourage you not to do.
Who We Transfer Your Personal information To
We routinely share some of your limited personal information with certain types of third parties who are identified in the table further below in this section along with what they do with it.
We will also share personal information with law enforcement or other public authorities if: (1) we are required by applicable law in response to lawful requests, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements; (2) if we believe it is necessary in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, fraud, or situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person, or any violation of the Lord Reading Law Society Terms of Use; (3) if we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding situations that involve abuse of the Website infrastructure or the Internet in general (such as voluminous spamming or denial of service attacks); (4) if we are required to do so under any applicable law.
We may also share personal information: (1) to a parent company, subsidiaries, joint ventures, or other companies under common control with Lord Reading Law Society (in which case we will require such entities to honour this Policy); or (2) if Lord Reading Law Society merges with another entity, is subject to a reorganization, sells or transfers all or part of its business (in which case we will require such entity to assume our obligations under this Policy, or inform you that you are covered by a new privacy policy).
We will never share your personal information with other third parties except under these circumstances. We do not sell or rent your personal information to any third party for direct marketing purposes or any other purpose.
| Personal Information category | Who we transfer it to | What they do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Newsletter information | Companies that provide email services, specifically MailChimp | Store it and send you the newsletter and other emails |
| Membership Information | Companies that provide infrastructure for the Website, and MailChimp | Store it and communicate with you |
| Billing Information | Payment processing companies, such as Stripe | Process the payments for membership fees and events |
| Analytics identifiers and IP address | Companies that provide data analytics for the Website, such as Google Analytics | Provide us with analytics as to how the Website is used |
Email Communications and Compliance with Anti-Spam Laws
The Lord Reading law Society uses Intuit’s MailChimp (the “Email Service Provider”) to manage our mailing list and send out our newsletter, and to send out emails related to various Events and membership functions. Personal data is transferred to the Email Service Provider in order to manage the mailing list and for the emails to be sent out properly. Your Newsletter Information and Membership Information is only used to send out emails; the Email Service Provider does not use this personal data for any other purpose and will not transfer or sell your personal data to any other third party. For more information, please refer to Intuit/MailChimp Privacy Policy.
You may unsubscribe from The Lord Reading law Society’s newsletter mailing list at any time, by following the link at the bottom of those emails. Other types of emails, such as transactional, relational, and other emails related to Events and Memberships will not have an opt-out option as they are necessary for the use of the Website and being a member.
The Lord Reading law Society’s practices in regards to its email are designed to be compliant with anti-spam laws, specifically the law unofficially called “CASL”, or Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (S.C. 2010, c. 23), and the American CAN-SPAM Act. If you believe you have received email in violation of these laws, please contact us using the contact information further up in this Policy.
Limited Gathering of Information for Statistical, Analytical and Security Purposes
The Lord Reading Law Society automatically collects certain information using the “Third-Party Analytics Program” Google Analytics, to help us understand more about our Website visitors and users and how they use the Website, but none of this information identifies you personally, except via an alphanumeric string. For example, each time you visit the Website, we automatically collect (as applicable) your IP address, browser and computer or device type, access times, the web page from which you came, the web page(s) or content you access, and other related information. We use information collected in this manner only to better understand your needs and the needs of Website visitors and Website users in the aggregate. Lord Reading Law Society also makes use of information gathered for statistical purposes to keep track of the number of visits to the Website, the specific pages on the Website, and users with a view to introducing improvements to the Website and our marketing activities.
Your IP address and other relevant information we collect using the Third-Party Analytics Program may be used in order to trace any fraudulent or criminal activity, or any activity in violation of the Lord Reading Law Society Terms of Use.
Tracking Technology (“Cookies”) and Related Technologies on the Website and in Email Communications
The Lord Reading Law Society uses tracking technology (“cookies” and related technology such as tags, pixels and web beacons) on the Website and in our newsletters and other emails. Cookies are small text files placed on your computer or device when you visit a website or use an internet-connected service, in order to track use of the site or service and to improve the user experience by storing certain data on your computer or device. By visiting or using the Website or being on our mailing list you agree to their use.
Specifically, we use cookies and related technologies for the following functions:
- to facilitate payment processing;
- to provide general internal and user analytics and to conduct research to improve the content of the Website using the Third-Party Analytics Program as described above in this Policy; and
- to assist in identifying possible fraudulent activities.
Your browser can be set to refuse cookies or delete them after they have been stored. You can refer to your browser’s help section for instructions, but here are instructions for the most commonly-used browsers and operating systems:
Please note that deleting these cookies may reduce your user experience on the Website. Furthermore, deleting cookies may prevent certain functions from working at all.
Furthermore, when we send you email communications using the Email Service Provider mentioned further above in this Policy, we use unique URLs and other tracking technologies embedded in the emails to track if you have opened the email or clicked on any links in the email.
How We Protect Your Personal information
We have implemented very strict technical and organisational procedures for ensuring that, by default, only personal information which are necessary for each specific purpose we collect it for is used by us. These procedures prevent your personal information from being lost; or used or accessed in any unauthorised way. Examples of such procedures include restricted access, training of personnel, using passwords and well-defined internal policies and information technology practices.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable supervisory authority of a suspected data security breach where the Data Protection Laws requires us to do so, and within the time frame required by the applicable Data Protection Law.
Lord Reading Law Society uses only industry best practices (physical, electronic and procedural) in keeping any data collected (including personal information) secure. In addition, we use third-party vendors and hosting partners (specifically The Biz Services, located in Toronto, Canada) to provide the necessary hardware, software, networking, storage, and related technology required to operate the Website, and these third parties have been selected for their high standards of security, both electronic and physical.
All information, including personal information, when transferred via the Website is done with encryption using Secure Sockets Layer (“SSL”) or Transport Layer Security (“TLS”), robust security standards for Internet data transfer. You can use your browser to check Lord Reading Law Society’s valid SSL security certificate on the Website.
The Lord Reading Law Society uses Stripe for processing of secured credit card payments for payments made through the Services. Stripe is certified as a PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) Service Provider Level 1, the most stringent level of certification available in the payments industry.
Supervisory Authorities and Making Complaints
If you are in Canada and you are not satisfied with the response received or the actions taken by our Privacy Officer, you can make a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Instructions on how to do so can be found on their website. In Québec you can make a complaint to the Commission d’accès à l’information, with the instructions for contacting them on their website.
Data Retention
Your personal information will only be kept for as long as it is necessary for the purpose needed for that processing.
Automated Processing
Lord Reading Law Society does not use any automated processing or decision-making processes in providing the Website.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
The date at the top of this page indicates when this Policy was last updated. Because Data Protection Laws are constantly evolving, every now and then we will have to update this Policy, which we will do no less than once per year. You can always find the most updated version at this URL. If we make significant changes to the Policy, we will always post a notice on the Website, and if we have your email address, we will also email you to tell you the Policy has been updated, and what the important changes are.
© Lord Reading Law Society 2026