Policy on privacy

Thank you for visiting the site of the Ministère de l'Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration (MIFI) and for your interest in our policy on privacy. This site does not create a cookie on a visitor's hard disk. Furthermore, no personal information is collected without the prior consent of the visitor.

You cannot be identified personally from the information transmitted automatically between computers. This information is gathered solely to meet the technological requirements of using the Internet and is used for statistical purposes.

Information exchanged automatically

You should be aware that, as soon as you access our site, information is automatically exchanged between your computer and the server of the government's site, without your intervention. The information does not identify you personally. It consists of:

1. the Internet domain name (for example, "xcompagny.com" if you have a private Internet access account, or "university.edu" if you access the Internet through a university) and the IP address (a number automatically assigned to your computer by your Internet provider every time you navigate the Web) with which you access our site;
2. the type of browser and operating system used to access our site;
3. the date and time you access our site;
4. the pages you visit;
5. the address of the referral site if you access ours from another site.

This exchange of information is necessary to ensure that the file transmitted by the server is compatible with the computer equipment you are using. Furthermore, the ministry keeps the information required in order to tally the number of visitors, the pages visited most often, the technology used by the site's clientele, the referral sites and the countries of origin of visitors to the site.

If you send personal information

In accordance with the Act respecting Access to documents held by public bodies and the Protection of personal information, a department or agency requesting you to provide personal information must ensure that it needs the information (section 64), must identify itself and must inform you (excerpt of section 65): "of the name and address of the public body on whose behalf the information is being collected; of the purposes for which the information is collected; of the categories of persons who will have access to the information; of the fact that a reply is obligatory, or that it is optional;of the consequences for the person concerned or, as the case may be, for the third person, in the case of a refusal to reply; of the rights of access and correction provided by law."

Avoid sending personal information by e-mail. For security reasons, never transmit personal data in a message, in particular your file number(s), date of birth, etc.

If you decide to send us personal information by e-mail or by filling in a form and submitting it through our site, we will use only the information we require to answer your message and to follow up on it. The Ministry only uses the personal information it has for the purposes for which it was collected. It is archived or destroyed in a secure manner when it is no longer needed.

The personal information transmitted is not disclosed to any other government body unless your request is addressed to that body or disclosure is required by law. Under no circumstances is the information transmitted used to draw up a profile of users or communicated to a private organization.

Links with other websites

Our site provides links to other sites of the gouvernement du Québec as well as to those of some private organizations. When you leave the government's virtual space, information exchanged is no longer subject to the government's policy on confidentiality, but to the policy of the private site you access, if any.

If you have comments or questions, you can, at any time, use the mail box found on all the pages of our site.

Useful link

• Accès à l'information et protection des renseignements personnels