Privacy Statement

The words “Elections Ontario”, “we”, “us” or “our”, mean His Majesty the King in right of Ontario, as represented by the Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario (CEO).

Elections Ontario is a non-partisan office of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario responsible for administering provincial elections in Ontario, led by the CEO. We are governed by the Election Act and the Election Finances Act.

We are committed to making voting easy and accessible for all electors, and maintaining the integrity, security and transparency of the electoral process. We are also committed to protecting your privacy, whether you are browsing for information on our website or any other websites owned by Elections Ontario (collectively known as “sites”), participating in the electoral process, or using services and applications provided through our sites.

Elections Ontario is committed to respecting your privacy and protecting your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy. The following Privacy Statement describes our key privacy practices, including how we collect, use and disclose your personal information. Please refer to our Privacy Policy for a more detailed description of our privacy commitments to you.

Personal information is collected under the authority of the Election Act, Election Finances Act, Employment Standards Act, 2000 and/or other legislation. This information will be used for electoral purposes and may be used to conduct election research. Your personal information may be shared internally at Elections Ontario for the purposes outlined below and will be securely destroyed one year after its last use or later, where legislatively required. Questions about the collection of personal information can be directed to: priv@elections.on.ca.

At Elections Ontario, we are committed to protecting the privacy and security of personal information in ways that:

• respect the privacy of individuals whose information is collected, used and disclosed by Elections Ontario; and
• integrate privacy best practices into business practices and the design of programs, services, systems and processes at Elections Ontario.

Elections Ontario recognizes the definition of personal information set out in Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. We manage and protect personal information in accordance with the 10 Canadian Standards Association (CSA) model code principles. These principles are reflected in Canadian and Ontario privacy laws, and in the privacy laws of other jurisdictions.

We adhere to the privacy best practices set out by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC), the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and other authoritative sources for guidance.

Personal information is collected under the authority of the Election Act, Election Finances Act, Employment Standards Act, 2000 and/or other legislation.

Elections Ontario is required by law to maintain three registers for voting in Ontario: the Permanent Register of Electors for Ontario (the “Register”), the Register of Absentee Voters and the Ontario Register of Future Voters. Updates are made to the Register on an ongoing basis using information from federal, provincial and municipal data sources, such as the National Register of Electors maintained by Elections Canada, and/or other sources, and through direct updates from electors. including updates through Voter Registration.

As a security measure, we may capture the IP addresses of computers used to access our sites or services, such as Voter Registration.

Elections Ontario also collects the personal information of its employees, workers and independent contractors, including social insurance numbers, for purposes related to the employment relationship.

Elections Ontario may also collect and use personal information for administrative and/or operational purposes, such as completing Vote by Mail application requests.

Pursuant to section 17.4 of the Election Act, electors’ personal information is used for election purposes only and cannot be used for commercial purposes. We do not sell or rent your personal information to third parties. Personal information collected by Elections Ontario may be used:

• to maintain the Permanent Register of Electors for Ontario (the “Register”), the Register of Absentee Voters and the Ontario Register of Future Voters
• to administer provincial elections and by-elections under the Election Act
• to administer provincial electoral finance rules under the Election Finances Act
• by Members of the Legislative Assembly, registered political parties, registered constituency associations and candidates for provincial elections to communicate with voters
• by municipal, provincial or federal bodies to administer elections
• as otherwise disclosed in our Privacy Policy

The Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario is permitted under the Election Act and the Election Finances Act to provide information from the Register to:

• the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada
• any municipality in Ontario and its local boards
• the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation
• Members of Provincial Parliament
• registered political parties
• candidates

Beginning January 1, 2024, the Municipal Elections Act, 1996, requires the CEO to provide preliminary lists of electors derived from the Register to municipal clerks for the purpose of conducting local electoral events. Pursuant to the Election Act, the CEO may also provide information from the Register to District Social Services Administration Boards and some school boards to run their board elections in Territories Without Municipal Organization.

Elections Ontario also discloses the names of persons who have made a financial contribution over $200 (after 2020), or over $100 (in 2020 or earlier), to a registered political party, constituency association, candidate, leadership contestant, nomination contestant or third-party advertiser. Contributor names and contribution amounts are published on the Elections Ontario site.

For purposes related to the employment relationship, Elections Ontario also discloses the personal information of its employees, workers, and independent contractors with authorized bodies, such as Service Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency.

Pursuant to the Election Act, any registered political party, Member of Provincial Parliament or registered candidate who wants a copy or a portion of the Register or the Register of Absentee Electors, must develop, implement and submit to Elections Ontario for approval a privacy policy that complies with the Guidelines for the Use of Electoral Products (the “Guidelines”). The privacy policy must also explicitly state that electors’ personal information can only be used for electoral purposes and not for commercial purposes.

The Guidelines stipulate what voter information Elections Ontario can share with registered political entities and candidates, how recipients are authorized to use the information and their responsibilities for safeguarding it.

We do not share phone numbers or email addresses with political entities or candidates.

If you have questions about the privacy policies of political entities or candidates, or how they collect and use your personal information, please contact them directly.

The personal information of electors contained in the Register, Register of Absentee Voters and the Ontario Register of Future Voters is stored on servers located in Canada and is protected by network firewalls.

We strive to ensure that all personal information is stored in Canada. On occasion, to provide and process the digital services you request or subscribe to, Elections Ontario may share limited personal information that you provide to us (such as email addresses and phone numbers) with service providers that perform specified services or functions on our behalf. Such service providers are bound by service agreements with Elections Ontario that require them to use technological, organizational and physical measures to protect any personal information that they receive from us. We have placed limitations on all service providers on the use, disclosure, storage and retention of your personal information, and require its destruction by such service providers.

We endeavour to use service providers located in Canada whenever possible. On occasion, and on a limited basis, we may use service providers that store, process and transfer some personal information on servers located outside of Canada in jurisdictions whose data protection laws may differ from those of Canada. Subject to the applicable laws in such other jurisdictions, we use best efforts to ensure that appropriate privacy protections are in place that require our service providers to maintain protections on personal information that are equivalent to those that apply in Canada.

The Voter Registration application is for personal use only and is used to maintain your information for provincial and local electoral purposes. It is illegal under the Election Act to make false statements about voter registration. Those convicted face penalties.

You can use the application to confirm, update or add your information on the:

• Register - for individuals eligible to vote in provincial and/or local elections
• Register of Absentee Voters - for voters temporarily living outside Ontario who intend to return to the province; or
• Ontario Register of Future Voters - for eligible individuals who are 16 or 17 years of age who will be automatically added to the Register when they attain age 18.

You can also use the Voter Registration application to remove your information, request the removal of information of a deceased person or register as an absentee voter.

To request changes to your personal information in the Voter Registration application or to complete a Vote by Mail application, we may ask you to provide us with copies of your personal identification to verify your identity. Once verified and the request is complete, the copies are destroyed and not retained.

The Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario may, on the written request of a voter and subject to approval, redact from any record made available to political entities, data partners and to the public, any information that the Chief Electoral Officer reasonably believes would, if made available, endanger the life, health or security of the elector. 

To request a redaction of your information, please email priv@elections.on.ca or write to us at:  

Elections Ontario
Attn: Chief Privacy Officer
26 Prince Andrew Place
Toronto Ontario
M3C 2H4

To serve you better, when you browse or download information from our sites, our servers automatically collect limited amounts of non-personal information for traffic monitoring and statistical purposes.

The information is analyzed by data analytics services, including Google Analytics, to help analyze the use of our sites.  These tools use cookies to collect and generate information about your visits to our sites (including your IP address) that is transmitted to these analytics service providers in an anonymous form for data analysis and processing. We study patterns of site activity so we can improve the visitor experience 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 changing your browser settings to notify you when a cookie is sent or to block analytics cookies, if desired. Please consult your browser’s Help Menu for instructions. Visiting our sites with analytics cookies disabled will have no significant impact on your browsing experience. Google currently offers a free Google Analytics opt-out tool for most Internet browsers. For a complete list and further information, please visit the link.  

Elections Ontario takes precautions to ensure that personal information is kept secure and is used for authorized purposes only. Our security practices are continually evolving to ensure that the integrity and confidentiality of our information and systems are maintained. We use reasonable security safeguards to protect our networks and sites from the following, including, but not limited to misuse, alteration, copying, disclosure, destruction, monitoring or unauthorized sharing of information and damage. Our safeguards include, but are not limited to, the use of security software and encryption protocols and involve physical, technical and procedural controls to protect information behind the Elections Ontario firewall. We also restrict access to personal information on a need-to-know basis to employees, workers, independent contractors and authorized service providers who require access to fulfil their job and/or contractual requirements.

Any personal information that you provide to us is exchanged on a secured server. Data transmission over the Internet cannot be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we are committed to protecting your personal information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you provide to us. We are not responsible for your failure to secure your own devices and your access to the internet, or your use of public, unsecured networks, or for your failure to eliminate malware.

If you choose to use one of our applications, we take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you access to your account on our sites or applications; however, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your username, password and any other account information.

We have record retention processes designed to retain personal information for no longer than necessary, as set out in our Privacy Policy, to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, or as otherwise required to comply with our legal or other requirements. Generally, personal information will be securely destroyed one year after its last use or later, where legislatively required. 

We will update this Privacy Statement and our Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes to our privacy practices. We encourage you to periodically review this page to ensure you are familiar with those changes. We will indicate at the top of this Privacy Statement when it was most recently updated.

We welcome your feedback. If you have any questions or concerns regarding our privacy or security practices, please contact us:

by email: priv@elections.on.ca

or by mail:

Elections Ontario
Chief Privacy Officer
26 Prince Andrew Place
Toronto Ontario
M3C 2H4