POLICY
Focus College Ltd. collects students’ personal information for the following reasons:

• To maintain student records as required by PTA
• To maintain student records as required by SABC
• To keep students/graduates informed of activities of the school
• To issue T2202 as in accordance with Canada Revenue Agency

STUDENT RECORDS

• Personal, privileged and/or confidential information about students may only be collected, stored, used, disclosed and retained for the purposes identified by Focus College Ltd. as necessary, and only after such purpose has been disclosed to students prior to collection and their consent obtained.
• Staff must ensure that no personal, privileged and/or confidential student
  information is disclosed without the student’s consent and then only if security procedures are satisfied.
• Student information is only to be accessed by staff with appropriate
  authorization and on an as needed basis.

Student information that is the subject of a request by an individual or a Privacy Commissioner shall be retained as long as necessary to allow individuals to exhaust any recourse they may have under PIPEDA or PIPA.

Concerns or complaints related to privacy issues must be made, in writing, to the Principal/Senior Educational Administrator/designate setting out the details of the concern or complaint. The Principal/Senior Educational Administrator/designate shall investigate the matter forthwith and make a determination related to the resolution of the concern(s) or complaint(s).

For all full time career training programs

Focus College Ltd. retains the full student file of class A programs for a period of eight (8) years and class B and class C programs for three (3) years following the student’s withdrawal, dismissal, completion or graduation. After the rquired period of time, the full student record is destroyed using a secure destruction method, except for the student’s contract, transcript and certificates/diploma.

Focus College Ltd. uploads a copy of the students’ contract, transcripts and credential (if any) to an approved third-party vendor. These records are retained for a period of twenty-five (25) years by the third-party vendor. The third-party archiving process is for long term programs only.

PROCEDURE

Student personal information is collected prior to and throughout the student’s attendance at the institution. All required information regarding the student is placed in the student file.

Student files containing personal information are safely stored in locking file cabinets or in case of electronic file it is stored in a password protected computer or Server and access to the student files is limited to the appropriate staff, the Senior Education Administrator, and the CEO and/or President or other authorized personnel.

When a student leaves the school either by withdrawal, dismissal, completion or graduation, a transcript is prepared showing the marks achieved in the courses completed. If the student has successfully completed all courses within the program of study, a program credential is also prepared. These documents are signed by the Manager of Academics/Senior Educational Administrator/designate and copies of the signed documents are placed
in the student file.

Within 60 days of the student leaving school, copies of the Enrollment Contract, Transcript and Diploma for full career training programs are sent to the third-party vendor for long term storage.

Procedure for student access to the information on file

Students wishing to access the information in their student file must make the request in writing.

The Senior Educational Administrator will contact the student to review the file and will provide copies of any document the student requests. There is a $50.00 fee for this service in addition to the photocopy fees.

The student will pay $0.25 per page for the documents copied and any additional postage as required.

Procedure for authorizing release of information

If a student wishes to authorize a third party to access information in his/her student file, he/she must do so in writing.

Focus College Ltd. will not release information to any person other than people authorized by the student to access information unless required to do so by legislation, a subpoena, court order or if release of information is necessary as part of an ongoing police investigation.

Further guidelines are also set out in the Employee/Staff Policy book. REFERENCES:
Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) (British Columbia)
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) (Canada)