Privacy Statement
British Columbia Lottery Corporation ("BCLC") takes your right to privacy seriously. You have a right to know what we do with your personal information so that you can make informed choices while visiting BCLC websites (“Sites”).
BCLC is subject to B.C.'s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act ("FIPPA"). FIPPA sets out the terms under which a public body can collect, use and disclose an individual’s personal information.
Surveys or Contests
From time to time we may provide you the opportunity to participate in contests or surveys on our site. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and you therefore have a choice whether or not to disclose any personal information. The requested information typically includes contact information (such as name, email address, and phone number), and demographic information (such as postal code and age group).
We use this information to track and target the interests of our users so that we can enhance the experience of users on our site. In the case of contests, this information is used to contact the winners to award their prize.
We use a third-party service provider to conduct these surveys or contests and that company is prohibited from using our players' personal information for any other purpose.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
Aggregate Information (non-personal information)
We share aggregated demographic information, such as age, gender and location, about our user base with third-party companies that provide marketing services to BCLC. This information does not identify individual users and is only used for the purpose of selecting target audiences for marketing campaigns.
We do not link aggregate user data with personal information.
Personal information
We will share your personal information with third parties only in the ways that are described in this privacy statement.
We may provide your personal information to companies that provide services to help us with our business activities, such as email services providers. These companies are authorized to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these services to us.
We may also disclose your personal information:
- as required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena or similar legal process
- when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government request,
- to any other third party with your prior consent to do so.
Agents/Service Providers
We use third parties, such as an email service provider, to send emails on our behalf and a credit card processing company to bill you for services. We will share your name, email address, and financial information as necessary for the third party to provide that service. Please refer to the PlayNow.com Player Privacy Policy.
Choice/Opt-out
If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by:
- following the "unsubscribe" link included in each communication
- calling Customer Support at 1-866-815-0222
You will be notified when your personal information is collected by any third party that is not our agent/service provider, so you can make an informed choice as to whether or not to share your information with that party.
Log Files
As is true of most websites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data.
We use this information, which does not identify individual users, to analyze trends, to administer the Sites, to track users' movements around the Sites and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole.
In the case of PlayNow.com, we tie an IP address to every transaction to monitor system activity and to comply with applicable laws. An IP address is also used to make certain that players are logging in to their account from within British Columbia, which is due to our legal obligations.
We use a third-party tracking service that uses tracking technologies (cookies and web beacons) to track non-personal information about visitors to our site in the aggregate to track usage and volume statistics to improve our services and our website.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user's computer for record-keeping purposes. We do not link the information we store in cookies to any personal information you submit while on our Sites.
We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser whereas a persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time.
We utilize cookies to help manage player logins, to protect against security issues and to remember player preferences. We do not set a persistent cookie to store your passwords, as we do not want anyone to be able to access your account other than you.
We regularly use Google Website Optimizer (GWO) to perform variation testing. GWO cookies are placed within site pages to determine page effectiveness in conversion. The results from this testing are used to create an improved product experience for our players.
GWO does not collect personal information, only information related to the session. In the event that personal information is collected, Google requests your consent before sharing it. Further details can be found in the Google Privacy Policy.
Behavioural Targeting
We partner with third party marketing and advertising organizations, including Facebook, to either display advertising on our site or to manage our advertising on other websites. Our third party partners may use technologies such as cookies and eTags to gather information about your activities on our site and other websites in order to provide you with advertising based upon your browsing activities and interests. If you do not wish to have this information used for the purpose of serving you interest-based ads, you may opt-out by clicking here.
Mouseflow
We use Mouseflow web analytics service to help us research website issues and improve our visitors’ experiences. When enabled, Mouseflow records mouse clicks, mouse movements, scrolling activity and may record text you type, excluding text input in password fields. For more information, see Mouseflow’s Privacy Policy, or you can choose to disable the Mouseflow service.
Clear Gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs)
We use a third-party tracking utility company to employ a software technology called clear gifs (a.k.a. web beacons, web bugs, tracking tags), that help us better manage content on our site by informing us what content is effective. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of Web users. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on a user's computer hard drive, clear gifs are embedded invisibly on web pages and are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. We do not tie the information gathered by clear gifs to our customers' personal information.
We use clear gifs in our HTML-based emails to let us know which emails have been opened by recipients. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of certain communications and the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. If you would like to opt-out of these emails, please see "Choice and Opt-out."
Links to Other Sites
Our Sites may contain links to other sites that are not owned or controlled by BCLC. Please be aware that we, BCLC, are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites.
We encourage you to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personal information.
Social Media Features
Our Sites may include social media features, such as the Facebook Like button and Twitter Tweet button. These features may collect your IP address and which page you are visiting, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features are hosted by a third party. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.
Winner Stories
We post winner stories that may contain personal information, such as name and city of residence. Player consent is governed by the Rules and Regulations Respecting Lotteries and Gaming and the PlayNow.com Player Agreement that is acknowledged upon registration for an account.
Access to Personal information
Security
We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. However, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee absolute security.
When you enter sensitive information (such as a credit card number), we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL).
Contacting Us
If you would like more information about our privacy practices, please contact BCLC Customer Support.
The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia provides independent oversight and enforcement of B.C.’s privacy laws, including FIPPA.
From time to time, we may update this privacy statement to reflect changes to our information practices.
Last updated: March 25, 2020