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Privacy Policy

The Conference Board of Canada ("we", "our", or "us") is an independent, not-for-profit research organization. The Conference Board of Canada conducts economic and business management research, publishes several widely tracked economic indicators, and convenes conferences and peer-learning groups.

This Privacy Policy describes how The Conference Board of Canada collects, uses, discloses and otherwise handles personal information and other information related to individuals, including existing and prospective customers, and visitors to our website.

By providing your personal information to us, you agree and consent to our collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information according to the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these terms of this Privacy Policy, you should not provide your personal information to us. Although providing personal information is optional, certain services can only be offered to you by The Conference Board of Canada if you provide personal information to us. We may be unable to offer you certain services if you choose not to provide us with any required personal information.

You may provide your consent in different ways such as: a) expressly, by signing a document, agreeing through electronic means or verbally; or b) implicitly, by voluntarily providing the personal information.

There may be circumstances where you have provided personal information for one purpose and The Conference Board of Canada wishes to use that information for a different purpose. In such circumstances, we will seek your consent to use the information for the new purpose unless the law permits or requires us to use the information for that new purpose.

Collection and Use of Personal Information

The personal information collected by The Conference Board of Canada consists primarily of contact and account-related information, including such things as name, address, email address, phone number, roles and interests, order history, and account password. We collect this information from you on a web form, through email, over the phone, or in person (e.g., at an event).

This information may be used to:

  • process payments and deliver products and services;
  • provide and manage your account;
  • inform you about The Conference Board of Canada products and services that we believe may be of interest to you;
  • better understand your interests in our products and services;
  • develop, enhance or improve products and services;
  • facilitate communication among participants in our conferences, networks, and executive councils; and
  • display relevant digital advertising including developing custom or look-a-like audiences on third party media platforms.

We may use personal information for other purposes only with your consent or where otherwise authorized or required by law.

Your personal information may be accessed or used by the marketing, information technology, financial, and business development personnel within The Conference Board of Canada for the above-mentioned purposes.

Analytics and Interest-Based Advertising

We use Google Analytics to analyze web traffic and behaviour to improve the performance of our website at www.conferenceboard.ca. To do this, we automatically collect information relating to your interactions on our website, including browser type, Internet Protocol (IP) address, pages visited, device type, and time and date of visit.

We may also automatically collect information about the devices you use to interact with our site. This may include IP addresses, device identifiers, web browsers, and browsing information collected through cookies, pixels, and other similar technologies on our site. We may also automatically collect information about how you use the site, such as what you have searched for and viewed. The information automatically collected may be associated with a unique identifier as well as with any other personal data you have provided.

The Conference Board of Canada engages in online advertising that is targeted to your interests. For example, we collect and use information about your web browsing behaviour, such as the pages you have visited, the searches you have made, and your shopping cart activity. This information is used to select which advertisement about our products and services should be shown to you on social media sites and other third-party websites.

We use cookies and similar technologies, such as web beacons, to facilitate analytics and interest-based advertising. A cookie is a text file that is used to store information in your web browser; for example, cookies store information about your web browsing activity, and allow you to remain signed-in as you move around our website. A web beacon is an invisible tag that is used to determine when content on a website has been accessed.

The information collected and used for analytics and advertising purposes is generally not personal information but may include your email address.

For more information about how Google Analytics collects and uses data when you use our website, visit www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners, and to opt out of Google Analytics, visit tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

You can opt out of interest-based advertising. For more information on how to control the use of cookies and the types of advertisements you see refer to .

Lookalike or Custom Audience Targeting

The Conference Board of Canada engages in online advertising using lookalike and custom audiences. We do this on platforms including LinkedIn, Meta and Twitter.

A lookalike audience targets people who may be similar to people who have already demonstrated an interest in our products.

A custom audience targets a unique group of people who have already demonstrated an interest in our products.

We build lookalike or custom audiences in a few ways including:

  • uploading a list of emails from contacts who have consented to this policy to the social platform. The platform can then match users on the list with users in the platform who may become a part of the ad campaign audience. The information shared is the email address.
  • adding the social media platform’s pixels to our website. These tools allow us to send information about people’s interactions with our website back to the platform and build advertising audiences based on that activity.

You can opt out of having your information included in a custom or lookalike audience by emailing us at contactprivacy@conferenceboard.ca

You can also manage your ad preferences by social platform:

Automated Decision-making

We may use automated decision-making, including segmenting and A/B Testing to provide you with more personalized experiences and to improve our services. Automated-decision making refers to decisions made with little or no human involvement. You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated processing. You can opt out of automated-decision making at any time by emailing us at contactprivacy@conferenceboard.ca. Please note that this may affect our ability to provide certain communications to you.

Disclosure of Personal Information

We may disclose personal information only with your consent or for a lawful purpose, including the following:

  • if you participate in a conference, network or executive council, we may share your contact information with event sponsors and other participants to facilitate ongoing communication; and
  • pursuant to a court order, governmental inquiry, or other legal process or as otherwise required by law, to protect our rights or the rights of third parties, or to protect the safety or security of any person or entity.

We may share information that has been anonymized without limitation.

We will never sell your personal information to any third party.

Use of Service Providers

The Conference Board of Canada uses external tools and service providers for various purposes, for example, to assist in communicating with individuals (e.g., contact management, surveys, email, advertising) or for support with non-core business functions (e.g., information technology support). Personal information is shared with external service providers only to the extent required for the provision of services, and our external suppliers are contractually obligated to keep the information confidential, to use the information only for the purpose requested, and to destroy the information when it is no longer required.

The personal information we collect may be transferred to and maintained on servers or databases located outside Canada. Personal information may therefore be accessed by law enforcement and national security authorities in those jurisdictions.

Children Under the Age of 18

The Conference Board of Canada’s services are directed to the general public. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 18 years of age or have any reasonable grounds for believing that children under the age of 18 are accessing The Conference Board of Canada’s services. In the event that The Conference Board of Canada learns that it has inadvertently collected personal information from a child under the age of 18, it will delete that information promptly.

Safeguarding Sensitive Personal Information

The Conference Board of Canada employs safeguards to limit the risk that sensitive personal information is subject to loss, theft, and unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification. This includes safeguards such as the following:

  • organizational measures such as limiting access to sensitive personal information on a "need-to-know" basis;
  • technological measures such as the use of passwords and encryption; and
  • procedural measures such as securely destroying records containing personal information.

Your Rights Over Your Personal Information

Most of your personal information The Conference Board of Canada has in its possession is accessible to you through your account on www.conferenceboard.ca.

Right to a copy. You may request a copy of your personal information held by The Conference Board of Canada.

Right to correct. If you feel the information we have about you is inaccurate, you may request that it be reviewed and, if inaccurate, revised.

Right to withdraw consent or to deletion. At any time, you may withdraw your consent regarding your personal information. You may also request that The Conference Board of Canada delete your personal information in its records.

Complaints or questions regarding our personal information handling practices and requests for access, correction, consent withdrawals, and deletion should be addressed to the Chief Privacy Officer using the following contact information. Acceptable proof of identification is required before such steps are taken by The Conference Board of Canada.

Chief Privacy Officer
The Conference Board of Canada
135 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, ON K1P 5J2
contactprivacy@conferenceboard.ca