Privacy policy

Our Privacy Officer is responsible for how personal information is handled at Kinship.

If you have a question, a request, or a complaint about privacy, contact us first. We take these seriously and will respond.

When you visit this website. This website does not have contact forms and does not ask you to create an account. We do not collect your name, phone number, or email address simply because you visited. Our hosting provider records standard technical information such as IP address, browser type, and pages requested, which is used to keep the site running securely. If we use website analytics, it is configured to report visits in aggregate rather than to identify you personally.

When you contact us by phone or email. We collect what you choose to tell us. Typically this includes your name, phone number, email address, the city you are in, and a description of the support you or your family member are looking for.

When you become a client. To arrange and deliver care, we collect information such as the client's name, address, phone number, emergency contacts, the names of family members involved in arranging care, scheduling preferences, language and personality preferences used for caregiver matching, dietary needs and preferences, mobility and safety information relevant to visits, and notes about how visits went.

Some of this information is sensitive. We collect only what we need to provide non-medical companionship and home support safely, and no more. Kinship does not provide nursing, personal care, or medical services, and we do not create or hold medical records.

When you apply to work with us. If you apply to be a caregiver, we collect your resume and the information in it, along with your availability, references, and the results of a Criminal Record Review Program check conducted under British Columbia's Criminal Records Review Act.

We use personal information to:

• respond to your enquiry and arrange a free family consultation
• match a client with a suitable caregiver and schedule visits
• deliver care safely, including knowing about allergies, dietary needs, and mobility
• keep a family member informed about visits, where the client has agreed to that
• invoice for services and keep the business records we are required to keep
• screen, hire, and schedule caregivers
• meet our legal and insurance obligations

We do not sell personal information. We do not share it with advertisers. We do not use it to build marketing profiles.

Some families want photo and written updates after visits. We provide these only with consent.

• We ask for written consent from the client before taking or sharing any photograph of them, and before sharing details of their visits with a family member.
• Where a client is not able to give consent themselves, we require consent from the person who is legally authorized to act for them, such as a representative under a Representation Agreement or a committee.
• Consent can be limited. A client can agree to written updates but not photographs, or agree to updates going to one family member and not another.
• Consent can be withdrawn at any time, in writing or by telling us. There is no penalty for withdrawing it, and it does not affect the care provided.

We do not publish photographs of clients or caregivers on our website, on social media, or in marketing materials without separate, specific written permission for that use.

In most cases we collect personal information with your knowledge and consent. Sometimes consent is implied — for example, when you email us to ask about our services, you are consenting to us using your email address to reply.

Where the information is sensitive, we ask for express consent.

You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. If withdrawing consent means we can no longer provide a service safely, we will tell you before it takes effect.

We share personal information only where it is necessary:

• With our caregivers, who receive only what they need to carry out a visit safely.
• With family members or representatives, where the client has agreed to that.
• With service providers who help us operate, including our scheduling and care management software, our email provider, our website host, and our accountant or bookkeeper. These providers are permitted to use the information only to provide their service to us.
• Where required or permitted by law, including responding to a valid legal order, or where there is a risk of serious harm to an individual's health or safety.

Storage outside Canada. Some of our service providers store or process information on servers located outside British Columbia, including in the United States and other countries. Information stored in another country may be accessible to the courts, law enforcement, and national security authorities of that country. If you would like to know more about which providers we use and where information is stored, contact our Privacy Officer.

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes described above, or as long as we are required to keep it by law, by our insurer, or for tax and accounting purposes.

Enquiries that do not become clients are deleted within a reasonable period. Client records are retained after care ends for the period required by law and our insurance obligations, and are then securely destroyed. Unsuccessful caregiver applications are deleted within twelve months unless you ask us to keep your resume on file.

We use security measures appropriate to how sensitive the information is, including password protection and access controls, limiting access to those who need it, staff confidentiality agreements, and secure destruction of records we no longer need.

No method of storage or transmission is perfectly secure, but we take our responsibility here seriously and review our practices as the business grows.

Under PIPA, you have the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, how we have used it, and who we have disclosed it to. You also have the right to ask us to correct information that is wrong or incomplete.

Write to our Privacy Officer at info@kinshiphomecare.ca. We will respond within 30 business days, or explain why we need more time. In limited circumstances the law requires or permits us to refuse access, and if that happens we will tell you why.

There is no charge for a routine request.

If you have raised a privacy concern with us and are not satisfied with how it was handled, you can contact:

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We may update this policy as our services change. The date at the top shows when it was last updated. If we make a significant change affecting how we handle client information, we will tell affected clients directly.