Build Canada Polling — Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Build Canada (“we”, “us”) conducts public-opinion surveys of Canadian adults and runs a survey panel of people who have asked to be invited. This policy covers personal information handled in that research, including on polling.buildcanada.com. It is separate from, and additional to, the general Build Canada privacy notice. Our privacy contact is responsible for compliance with this policy: polling@buildcanada.com.

2. What we collect and why

• Telephone numbers for random samples. Generated by random digit dialing methods or screened through line-type lookup services; used solely to send survey invitations and honour opt-outs. We do not buy contact lists.
• Panel profiles. If you join our panel — on our sign-up page or by opting in at the end of a survey — we keep your mobile number and, where you provide them, your first and last name, email address, date of birth, postal code, preferred language and demographic answers (such as gender, education, household income, housing, parental and employment status). We use them to invite you to future surveys in your language, to confirm you are eligible, to invite a balanced mix of people by age and region, and to check that our results reflect the Canadian population. Panel profiles never include your answers to policy or voting questions.
• Survey responses. Opinions and demographic information you choose to provide in a survey.
• Technical data. Message delivery status, response timestamps, browser/device type, a device identifier used only to prevent duplicate responses, and usage analytics about how people move through our pages (which never include your answers, phone number or email).

We use this information for one purpose: producing statistical research. Results are published only in aggregate. We do not use survey or panel data for marketing, we do not sell or rent personal information, and our invitations contain no commercial content.

3. Consent

Receiving an invitation does not obligate you to anything. Consent is given by choosing to answer, question by question; declining or stopping at any point is honoured immediately and partial answers may be excluded on request. Reply STOP (or ARRET) to any message to be placed on a permanent do-not-contact list. Persons under 18 are screened out and their responses discarded.

Joining the panel. You join only by explicitly agreeing to receive invitations by text message and email, and you must be 18 or older. You can leave at any time: reply STOP to any text, use the unsubscribe link in any email, or write to polling@buildcanada.com. Replying STOP ends all messages immediately; to also have your panel profile deleted, write to us or use the withdrawal option shown after a survey.

Optional follow-up. If you opt in at the end of a survey, we may contact you with the survey’s results or for prize awards. This contact is entirely optional, and can be withdrawn at any time by replying STOP.

4. Disclosure

Published datasets and tables never contain names, telephone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, full postal codes, device identifiers, or any combination of fields that could identify an individual. Identifiable information is disclosed to no one, except service providers processing data on our instructions (telecommunications, email delivery, analytics and hosting providers) under contractual confidentiality, or where the law requires.

5. Retention and de-identification

Telephone numbers are separated from survey responses when fieldwork closes. The linkage needed for quality control is destroyed after 90 days, after which retained research data is de-identified. Phone numbers and email addresses are kept only on an opt-in basis: a panel profile is kept while you remain a panel member and is deleted when you ask us to remove it. Suppression-list numbers are kept indefinitely, solely to honour opt-outs. Backups age out on a fixed schedule.

6. Safeguards

Personal information is encrypted in transit and at rest, and access is limited to research staff who need it. Service providers may process data outside Canada; where they do, it remains subject to contractual protections and to the laws of that jurisdiction, and we will identify processing jurisdictions on request.

7. Your rights

You may ask what personal information we hold about you, request correction, withdraw consent, or ask that your panel profile or your responses be deleted (responses can be deleted until they are de-identified, after which they can no longer be linked to you). Write to polling@buildcanada.com. We respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or, in Quebec, the Commission d’accès à l’information.

8. Verification

Our fieldwork is registered with the CRIC Research Verification Service, where you can confirm that a survey invitation from us is genuine and lodge feedback.

9. Changes

Material changes to this policy will be posted at this address with a revision date. If a change affects how we use panel profiles, we will tell panel members before it takes effect. Effective date: 2026-10-13.