Effective date: September 9, 2026

The Canadian Aerophilatelic Society (“CAS,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is a volunteer, not-for-profit philatelic society. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect through the CAS website at https://aerophilately.ca (the “Site”), how we use it, and the choices you have.

We handle personal information in accordance with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and applicable provincial privacy law.

Current scope of this policy

The Site is presently a mostly informational website with three online forms — membership application, contact, and newsletter signup — described below. As of the effective date above:

  • The Site does not set cookies or tracking technologies in your browser during a normal visit.
  • The Site does not collect payment card information or process payments online. Once a membership application has been reviewed, a CAS volunteer contacts the applicant with payment instructions (for example, by cheque or e-transfer) and payment is arranged off-site.
  • Member login is not yet active. The “Member login” link on the Site indicates the feature is coming; no member accounts, passwords, or login sessions exist today.
  • Visitor comments are not enabled.

If any of these change — for example, if we add analytics, member login, online payments, or comments — we will update this Privacy Policy before those features go live and adjust the sections below accordingly.

Who we are

Our website address is: https://aerophilately.ca. CAS is the organization responsible for personal information collected in connection with the Site and Society. Questions and privacy requests can be sent to heycastel@gmail.com.

Membership application

The membership application form on the Site collects the information you enter, which includes: first and last name, email address, phone number, a short “about you” description of your collecting interests, membership type and term (digital or print, one or two years), and, for a print membership, mailing address (street, apartment/suite, city, province or state, postal or ZIP code, country).

We use this information to:

  • review and process your application;
  • contact you with payment instructions;
  • deliver the journal, meeting notices, and other member communications;
  • maintain the member roster and society records; and
  • meet our administrative, financial, and legal record-keeping obligations.

We retain membership records for the duration of your membership and for a reasonable period afterwards for renewal follow-up and financial reporting. You may ask us to correct or update your information at any time.

Payments

The Site does not currently process online payments. After you submit a membership application, a CAS volunteer contacts you with instructions for paying by cheque, e-transfer, or another off-site method. CAS keeps standard transaction records (date, amount, item, name) for accounting and audit purposes. This section will be updated if an online payment option is added in future.

Contact form

The Contact button opens a short form that collects your first and last name, email address, phone number (optional), and message. We use this information solely to reply to your enquiry and to keep a reasonable record of correspondence with the Society.

Newsletter signup

The footer of the Site includes a newsletter signup that collects your email address. We use it only to send occasional CAS updates — new articles, journals, announcements, and events. Each newsletter includes an unsubscribe option, and you can also ask us to remove you at any time by writing to heycastel@gmail.com.

Media

If you submit images to CAS for possible use on the Site, please avoid sending images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the Site can download and extract any location data embedded in images published on the Site.

Photos and member content

Photographs from meetings, exhibits, and CAS events, and member-submitted articles, presentations, and exhibit images, may include personal information such as names and likenesses. Where practical, we identify people by consent. If you appear in a photo or contribution on the Site and would like it removed or your name withheld, please contact heycastel@gmail.com.

Kids Zone

The Site includes a Kids Zone aimed at young collectors aged approximately 10 and up. The Kids Zone is read-only: children can view and download articles, activity sheets, and other materials without creating an account or submitting personal information. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children in the Kids Zone.

If we later add any feature that would let a child submit content, register, or send us personal information (name, email, drawings, questions, exhibit entries, or similar), we will require verifiable consent from a parent or guardian before that information is collected, and we will not display ads or third-party tracking to children. Parents and guardians can contact heycastel@gmail.com at any time to review, correct, or ask us to delete information relating to their child.

Cookies

The Site does not set cookies during a normal visit. No tracking, analytics, or preference cookies are stored in your browser today.

If cookies are introduced in future — for example, to support member login, analytics, or a shopping cart — this section will be updated and, where required, a consent notice will be shown before those cookies are set.

Server logs

Our web host may record standard technical information about requests to the Site — such as IP address, browser type, referring page, pages viewed, and timestamps — for security and troubleshooting. This information is retained by the host for a limited period and is not used to build advertising profiles.

Embedded content from other websites

Pages on this Site may include embedded content (for example, videos, images, articles, or social-media links such as Instagram). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the same way as if you had visited the other website directly.

Those websites may collect data about you, set their own cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with the embedded content, including tracking your interaction if you have an account and are logged in to that other website.

Who we share your data with

We do not sell or rent your personal information. We share it only with:

  • CAS officers and volunteers with a legitimate need to run the Society (for example, membership secretary, treasurer, editor, website administrator); and
  • authorities where required by law.

If online payment processing, a member email tool, or any other third-party service that handles personal information is added in future, those providers will be added to this list and described here.

Where your data is sent

CAS is based in Canada, but our website host and other service providers may be located outside Canada, including in the United States. When your personal information is handled outside Canada, it may be subject to the laws of that country. By using the Site you consent to this cross-border processing for the purposes described in this policy.

How long we retain your data

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes described in this policy, or as required by law:

  • Membership records are kept for the duration of your membership and for a reasonable period afterwards for renewal follow-up and financial reporting.
  • Financial and transaction records are kept for the retention period required by Canadian tax and accounting rules.
  • Contact form messages and other correspondence are kept for as long as needed to respond to your request and to maintain a reasonable record of Society communications.
  • Newsletter subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove your address.

What rights you have over your data

You may ask CAS to:

  • confirm what personal information we hold about you;
  • provide you with a copy of that information;
  • correct information that is inaccurate; or
  • delete information we are not required to keep for administrative, legal, or security reasons.

Send requests to heycastel@gmail.com. Under PIPEDA, you also have the right to complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada if you are not satisfied with how we have handled your personal information.

Security

We take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect personal information against loss, misuse, and unauthorized access. No system is perfectly secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security; if you believe information you have shared with CAS has been compromised, please contact us promptly.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The “Effective date” at the top shows when it was last changed. In particular, this policy will be revisited when member login, online payments, the members-only AI research tools, comments, analytics, or any other feature that changes how personal information is collected is turned on. Material changes will be highlighted on the Site or communicated to members through our usual channels.

Contact

Privacy questions and requests to access, correct, or delete your information can be sent to:

Canadian Aerophilatelic Society
Email: heycastel@gmail.com
Website: aerophilately.ca