Interacting With Us on Social Media

This notice has been written to explain how the Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson interacts with the public on social media platforms.

Your engagement with the Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson via social media is in part governed by the Terms of Service/Use of the relevant third-party social media platform providers, as well as the following Terms and Conditions. The Government of Canada has no control over the social media platform providers’ Terms of Service/Use, but you are strongly encouraged to read them in addition to those that follow.

Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson uses social media accounts as an alternative method of interacting with Canadians and of sharing the content posted on its website, facilitating access to Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson information and services, and providing stakeholders with an opportunity to interact in an informative and respectful environment.

Because social media platforms and their computer servers are managed by a third party, social media accounts are subject to downtime that may be out of the Government of Canada’s control. The government accepts no responsibility for platforms becoming unresponsive or unavailable.

Social media accounts may post or display links or ads for websites that are not under the control of the government of Canada. These links are provided solely for the convenience of users. The government is not responsible for the information found through these links or ads; neither does it endorse the sites or their content.

Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson’s decision to follow, “like” or subscribe to another social media account does not imply an endorsement of that account, channel, page or site, and neither does sharing (re-tweeting, reposting or linking to) content from another user.

Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson will read comments and participate in discussions when appropriate. Your comments and contributions must be relevant and respectful.

Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson will not engage in partisan or political issues or respond to questions that violate these Terms and Conditions.

Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson reserves the right to remove comments and contributions, and to block users based on the following criteria:

The comments or contributions:

• include personal information
• include protected or classified information of the Government of Canada
• infringe upon intellectual property or proprietary rights
• are contrary to the principles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Constitution Act, 1982
• are racist, hateful, sexist, homophobic or defamatory, or contain or refer to any obscenity or pornography
• are threatening, violent, intimidating or harassing
• are contrary to any federal, provincial or territorial laws of Canada
• constitute impersonation, advertising or spam
• encourage or incite any criminal activity
• are written in a language other than English or French
• otherwise violate this notice

Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson reserves the right to report users and/or their comments and contributions to third-party social media service providers to prevent or remove the posting of content that is contrary to these Terms and Conditions, or to the Terms of Service/Use of the third-party social media platform.

Social media platforms are third-party service providers and are not bound by Government of Canada standards for Web accessibility.

Information that we post is subject to the Copyright Act.

Social media accounts are not Government of Canada websites and represent only their presence on third-party service providers.

The Government of Canada uses various social media platforms to tell you about and get your input on government services, programs and initiatives. At times, the government may need to collect personal information from you.

This page tells you:

• what we mean by “personal information”
• what we do with it

It also tells you about:

• your rights and responsibilities with respect to your personal information
• what you can do if you have questions or concerns

Personal information is information about you that is recorded in any form and that can be used to identify you. Personal information includes:

• your name
• contact information
• Internet Protocol (IP) address
• social media profile information
• social media “likes” or retweets

To consult you about topics that might interest you or to enable you to participate in outreach activities, we may need to collect biographical information or your opinions and views about different topics.

We might use your personal information to:

• respond to your enquiries
• compile statistics and reports
• consult you about topics that might interest you
• enable you to participate in outreach activities
• allow for the sharing of opinions, knowledge, expertise and best practices
• evaluate programs

If you make inappropriate comments or contributions, we may remove them. We may also block you or report you to third‑party social media service providers if your comments or contributions violate the terms and conditions for interacting on social media. When doing so and to the extent necessary, we may use and disclose your personal information.

We can make the content of social media interactions publicly available if we have notified participants in advance. We will get your consent to use your personal information to create mailing lists so that we can contact you about upcoming events or to ask you for your views on particular issues.

We will not use any personal information that we collect from you through social media accounts to make decisions in processes that you are directly involved in, for example, an employment insurance application, a grant application or a citizenship application.

The following personal information banks describe how we handle personal information that we collect through our social media accounts: Public Communications (PSU 914) and Outreach Activities (PSU 938).

When you interact with Government of Canada official social media accounts, your social media profile information may be recorded as per the practices of the social media platform.  However, you have the right to refuse to give us any additional personal information when you interact with us on social media. There will be no legal or administrative consequences, but you might not be able to take part in a particular activity.

You can ask to access personal information that you have given us or that may have been created when you have interacted with us through our social media accounts. We don’t collect and retain this information with the intention of it being retrievable, so if you ask to access to it, please give the date and time of the interaction and any other details that could help us retrieve it. To access this information, you can fill out a personal information request form.

If you choose to interact with us on social media, you should read the terms and conditions for doing so. You should also read the terms of service and the privacy policies of the social media platform provider and those of any applications you use to access that platform.

Whenever we collect personal information from you on social media and whenever personal information is created as a result of your interactions with us on social media, we have to comply with the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act.

If you have questions, comments, concerns or complaints about how we collect, use and store your personal information, contact the privacy coordinator of the government institution that holds the information.

If you are not satisfied, contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner by telephone at 1‑800‑282-1376 or visit the Office of the Privacy Commissioner website.

Many social media platforms have multiple language options and provide instructions on how to set your preferences. The Government of Canada respects the Official Languages Act and is committed to ensuring that our information of is available in both French and English and that both versions are equal quality.

We reply to comments in the official language in which they are posted. If we think the response is a question of general public interest, we may respond in both official languages.

We may share links that direct users to sites of organizations or other entities that are not subject to the Official Languages Act and available only in the language(s) in which they are written. When content is available in only one language, we make an effort to provide similar content in the other official language.

Reporters are asked to send questions to the OTO's media relation general inbox.