Use of Social Media

The Agency uses Twitter and YouTube. We use social media to encourage communications between you and the Agency. If you "follow," "like" or "subscribe" to our social media accounts, you can expect to see information about our programs and services.

Social media accounts are public and are not provided by the Agency. They are not hosted on Agency or Government of Canada servers. Because social media sites are not operated by the Government, we are not responsible if sites are unresponsive or unavailable.

We do not confirm the accuracy of user comments, endorse any of the views in comments posted by users, or check to see if they follow social media site guidelines.

Links to Other Websites and Ads

Our social media accounts may post or display links or ads for websites that are not under our control. These links are provided solely for the convenience of users. We are not responsible for the information found through these links or ads, nor do we endorse the sites or their content.

Following, “Favouriting” and Subscribing

There is no implied endorsement of an account, channel, page, individual, group or site should we:

• decide to “follow,” “favourite”, “subscribe” or use similar feature with another social media account
• share  content from another user ( e.g., re-tweeting, reposting or linking to)
• use a “Like”, thumbs up, “Favorite” or other similar feature for content posted by another user or account.

Comments and Interaction

Your views and input are important to us, and we use social media to encourage communications between you and the Agency. Comments shared on our social media sites are accessible to all. With this in mind, we invite you to engage, and we encourage you to do so in a way that is consistent with civil discourse and respectful of our community of users as well as Agency staff and members. In view of our commitment to maintaining an open and respectful dialogue, we reserve the right to remove comments that violate this notice. Where circumstances warrant it, the user may be blocked and reported to prevent further inappropriate comments.

Please note that comments are moderated in accordance with our policy. As we are unable to moderate online discussions in languages other than English or French, we ask you that you use one or both of these languages to comment.

We reserve the right to edit or remove comments that:

• contain the personal information of another person;
• are contrary to the principles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms;
• expose individuals or groups to hatred or contempt on any of the prohibited grounds of discrimination set out in the Canadian Human Rights Act, including race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, or disability;
• make statements or accusations about individuals or organizations that are defamatory or potentially defamatory in nature;
• may violate the Criminal Code; for example, that threaten violence, are obscene, or incite criminal conduct;
• are offensive or abusive to an individual or an organization, or otherwise contrary to the principles of respectful, civil discourse described above in the preamble to this section; or
• constitute impersonation or are put forward for advertising or other promotional purposes, including unsolicited electronic messages (spam).

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the moderation of this site, please contact:  info@otc-cta.gc.ca, or to call 1-888-222-2592.

Please note that some conduct and/or content is also prohibited by the terms of service of the social media platform and may be removed or otherwise dealt with by the host platform in accordance with its terms of service. The Agency is not responsible for the removal of any comments carried out by the host platform.

Comments removed on the basis that they expose individuals or groups to hatred or contempt on any prohibited grounds of discrimination or that may violate the Criminal Code may be disclosed to appropriate law enforcement authorities.

Accessibility

Social media sites are operated by companies and are not subject to Government of Canada accessibility standards.

Privacy

You should read the terms of service and privacy policies of the social media site and any applications you use to access them.

Information shared with the Agency on social media is subject to the provisions of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act.

What this means is information you share with the Agency's social media accounts may be captured, stored, accessed and disclosed in response to a request under either of these Acts. This information is collected to capture conversations (e.g., questions and answers, comments, “likes”, shares and retweets) between you and the Agency. It may be used to respond to inquiries, or for statistical, evaluation and reporting purposes.

Any comments that are removed will be retained by the Agency in keeping with its responsibilities under the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act.

The personal information is included in Personal Information Bank PSU 938 (Outreach Activities).

Feedback

The Agency may respond to individual posts at its discretion.

Reporters are asked to send questions to media@otc-cta.gc.ca and to not submit questions on social media.

The best method to contact the Agency with an inquiry is info@otc-cta.gc.ca, or to call 1-888-222-2592.