Privacy Notice for Electronic Complaint Form

If you have reached this page, you have chosen to submit your service-related complaint to the Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsman (OTO) using our electronic complaint form.

The purpose of this privacy notice is to explain the following:

• what makes the electronic complaint form a secure method of submitting your service-related complaint;
• why you must provide your personal information;
• how your personal information is protected; and
• where your personal information is stored.

What makes this electronic complaint form secure?

The electronic complaint form is housed in an application that uses a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate with 2048-bit encryption capability.

The use of this SSL certificate ensures that the information entered and/or received between your computer and the OTO is encrypted. Encryption is the translation or conversion of data into secret code to restrict and secure access. Footnote 1

An SSL is a protocol that transmits communications securely over the internet through encryption and the use of security certificates. It enhances the privacy of the information passing between your browser and a particular Web service. Security certificates contain information about who the communication belongs to, who it was issued by, a unique serial number or other unique identification, valid dates, and an encrypted ‘fingerprint’ that can be used to verify the contents of the certificate. Footnote 2

You can recognize when an SSL is in use when you view “https://” prefix in the Web site URL or the small lock icon beside the URL field in your Web browser.

Why must you provide your personal information and how can you be sure this information will remain confidential?

The OTO only requests the personal information that is required to review your service-related complaint.

In order to complete a full review of your service-related complaint, the OTO may need to share your personal information with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). In addition, the OTO may need to request personal information from the CRA to complete the review of your complaint. The shared and/or requested information is treated with confidentiality, and will only be shared and/or requested with your consent.

Collection and use of your personal information by the OTO is in accordance with the provisions of the federal Privacy Act.

How is your personal information stored?

All information received and reviewed by the OTO is retained at the following address:

Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsman
50 O’Connor Street, Suite 724
Ottawa ON  K1W 0E8
Canada

Once the OTO has concluded its review, all files pertaining to your service-related complaint are retained for a maximum of five years.

Under the provisions of the federal Privacy Act, you have the right to the protection of, and access to, your personal information and to request that changes be made to that personal information.

Privacy Notice Acknowledgement

If you have read and understood the information found in this privacy notice, please select the “Continue to form” button below to launch the secure electronic complaint form application.

Please note that for security reasons, the application provides a 60 minute time limit to complete the electronic complaint form. It is recommended that you have the details of your complaint prepared prior to launching the application to eliminate the risk of losing the information you have entered should you exceed the time limit.

If you would like to choose another method for submitting your service-related complaint to the OTO, you can return to the Submit a complaint section to review the other options available to you.