Terms of Use

1. Acceptance of Terms of Use

Your access to and use of the Public Health Ontario ("PHO") Website and any of its pages (the "Site") constitutes your acceptance of and compliance with the terms and conditions (“Terms of Use”) set out below. Please take the time to familiarize yourself with the Terms of Use.  If you do not agree with the Terms of Use, immediately exit the Site and do not access any other pages. PHO may make changes at any time to the Site, Terms of Use and the information contained herein without specific advance notice to you. You are responsible for reviewing these Terms of Use each time you enter this Site. PHO may immediately terminate the use of the Site by any User if that User has used the Site in any way contrary to the Terms of Use, or the law, or in any way that disrupts the Site.
References to Public Health Ontario or PHO in these Terms of Use are references to the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion.

2. Copyright 

All materials accessible through the Site, including without limitation, text, logos, graphics, photographs, images, and illustrations (collectively, the "Content") are protected under applicable Canadian and other national and international copyright, trademark and other laws. You acknowledge that the Content is the property of PHO or of its respective third party owners, as indicated. In addition, the Site is protected under copyright law as a collective work and/or compilation. The copying, redistribution, use or publication by you of any such Content or any part of the Site, except as allowed by Section 3 below, or by the prior written agreement of PHO, is strictly prohibited. You do not acquire ownership rights to any content or document obtained through the Site. You shall abide by all additional copyright notices, information and restrictions on or contained in any of the Content accessed through the Site.
PHO will enforce its intellectual property rights to the fullest extent of the law, which may result in civil and/or criminal penalties.

3. Limited Right to Use

Notwithstanding the foregoing, and subject to the Terms of Use, you are hereby granted the right to access, view and use the Site for your personal, non-commercial use, and are granted the right to download, store, and print copies of items comprising the Content for your personal, non-commercial use, provided that you maintain all copyright and other notices contained in such Content. Certain articles or items of Content that may grant different rights will do so on or in the Content.

4. Editing, Deleting and Modification

PHO reserves the right in its sole discretion to edit or delete any documents, information, forms or other content owned by PHO that appear on the Site at any time, without notice to you. 
Any personalized content, including your username and password, may be deleted and cancelled by PHO at any time, without notice to you.

5. Disclaimer, Limitation of Liability and Indemnification

PHO provides the Site, including its Content, on an "as is," "as available," basis. PHO does not make any express or implied warranties, representations or endorsements with respect to the Site including, but not limited to, warranties as to merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, operations, non-infringement, usefulness, completeness, accuracy and reliability. Anyone using the Site and its Contents does so at their own risk and by using the Site and the Contents agrees to indemnify PHO, including its directors, officers, employees, agents and other representatives, from any and all liability, loss, injury, damages, costs and expenses (including legal fees and expenses) arising from such person’s use of the Site and its Content, and any information on websites linked from this Site.

Further, PHO does not represent and warrant that the Site will be available or meet your requirements, that access will be uninterrupted, that there will be no delays, failures or errors or omissions or loss of transmitted information, that no viruses or other contaminating or destructive properties will be transmitted or that no damage will occur to your computing or operating system. You have sole responsibility for adequate protection and backup of your data, hardware and software and to take reasonable and appropriate precautions against viruses and other contaminating or destructive properties. 

PHO will not be liable for any damages or injury caused by, including but not limited to, any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, defect, delay in operation, transmission, computer virus or line failure.

PHO will not be liable to you or anyone else for any loss or damages whatsoever, including any indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages, arising out of or in connection with your use, or inability to use, the Site including its Content, even if PHO or an authorized PHO representative has been advised of the possibility of such loss or damages. 

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold PHO, including its directors, officers, employees, agents and other representatives, harmless from any liability, loss, claim and expense, including legal fees and expenses, arising in respect of (a) your use of this Site; (b) your use of the content, either made available directly through the Site or linked through Other Sites; (c)any breach by you of any of the Terms of Use; (d) your failure to comply with any applicable laws, statutes, regulations, by-laws, rules, codes or treaties; or (e) any of your intentional wrongdoings. 

6. Notice of Collection

PHO only collects personal information that you choose to give us, for example, your email address when you email us. The personal information you provide will be used to respond to your message and/or provide you with the requested service or product. The collection of personal information by government organizations must be in accordance with section 38(2) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). This section of the Act requires PHO to collect only the personal information that is necessary for the administration of PHO services.

7. Use of Personal Information

Please refer to PHO's Privacy Policy.

This Site uses cookies. A cookie is a small text file sent from a Web server and placed on your computer's hard drive. A cookie is generally used to enhance your browsing experience. You can choose to set your browser to detect and reject cookies, to accept cookies from all sites, or to prompt you whenever a site wants to send you a cookie. If you choose, they may be used to 'remember' your password and make it easier and faster to log-in to certain sites. Check your browser's "Help" files to learn how to do this. If you choose to refuse cookies, you may not be able to access some of the interactive features on our websites.

Cookies used by PHO, do not give us access to anything on your hard drive. Cookies used by PHO are encrypted for security purposes to make any information in the cookie unreadable to anyone except PHO. PHO use two types of cookies: session cookies (temporary) or persistent cookies (longer-term continuing use).

• session cookies may be used to support on-line feedback/discussion, forms and registration - they are used only during your online session and expire when you close your browser. Without session cookies, moving around our Web sites could be much slower
• persistent cookies are different from session cookies because they are stored on your computer's hard drive for some length of time - they are usually used if you want us to remember information about your Web preferences (e.g. large font) and passwords for automatic log-in purposes

Further information on 'cookies' is at the website of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario:  If you wanted to know...What to do about Cookies.

8. Third Party Sites

This Site includes links to third party web sites (the "Other Sites") which are not maintained by PHO. PHO does not review, endorse or approve the Other Sites and is not responsible for their content. You agree that linking to or using Other Sites is at your sole risk and that PHO will not be liable for any loss or damages arising from your use of the Other Sites. The terms of use and policies (including privacy policies) of Other Sites are different from those applicable to this Site and PHO will not be responsible for information provided to you on the Other Sites. 

9. Links to this Website from Third Party Sites

Other Sites are granted a limited, revocable, and nonexclusive right to create a hyperlink to the Site, so long as the link does not portray PHO,  its employees, or its content, products or services in a false, misleading, derogatory, or otherwise offensive matter. You may not use any logo or other proprietary content, graphic or trademark as part of the link without express written permission. At any given time, PHO retains the right to request that the Other Site remove links immediately. PHO may also use technical methods to block such linkage. Whether or not linkage from an Other Site is permitted, you understand that PHO is not responsible for content on the Other Site.

10. Requests for Permission to Adapt PHO Materials

Third party organizations interested in adapting PHO website materials (including website content, pdfs, or images), must complete the Request for Permission to Adapt PHO Materials form and send it to communications@oahpp.ca.

A PHO representative will be in touch with you if additional information regarding the request is required, and to let you know if the request has been approved or denied. Please do not adapt any PHO materials without explicit consent from PHO. If you have any questions regarding the process, please contact us at communications@oahpp.ca.

11. No Harmful Use

You agree not to introduce into or through the Site any program code, information or material which may be harmful to others or to the Site. You warrant that information or material that you provide to the Site electronically through your access to or use of the Site does not infringe the rights of any person or entity.
Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you shall not: 

interfere with or disrupt the Site or computer networks connected thereto;

• impersonate any other person or entity or make any misrepresentation or defamatory or libellous statements;
• upload, post, transmit, publish or distribute any material or information to the Site which contains a computer virus or other code, files or programs intended in any manner to disrupt or interfere with the functioning of the Site, or other users;
• use the Site in such a manner as to gain unauthorized entry or access to the computer systems or networks of others or attempt to gain unauthorized entry or access to any password-protected or restricted areas of the Site or PHO's computer or network systems;
• violate any law or regulation or any generally accepted Internet practice or interfere with any other Site user's ability to use the Site and any of the services or products provided on the Site;
• forge, alter or modify in any way any of the agreements, policies or other information posted or accessible within the Site;
• delete or revise any material posted by any other person or entity; or
• Allow others to use your subscription, user name, or password.

Any violation of the above conditions will result in termination of your access to and use of the Site.

12. Termination of Site Use

PHO may immediately, with or without notice, suspend or terminate your use of this Site and the related services or any portion thereof at any time if, in PHO’s sole discretion you breach any of these Terms of Use. Upon suspension or termination and thereafter you may no longer access and/or use the PHO Site without the prior written consent of PHO. 

PHO may, in its sole discretion, change, suspend or terminate, temporarily or permanently, the Site or any part of it or any of its features at any time, for any reason, without any notice or liability to you or any other person.

If your permission to use the Site is terminated by you or PHO for any reason, these Terms will nevertheless continue to apply and be binding upon you in respect of your prior use of PHO Site and your use of services through the Site and anything connected with, relating to or arising from those matters.

13. Applicable Law

The Site and the agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Province of Ontario and the laws of Canada applicable in the Province, without regard to conflict of law principles or your domicile, residence or physical location. Any claims, disputes or legal proceedings arising out of or in connection with the Site or the agreement shall be brought solely in the courts of the Province of Ontario. You expressly submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of those courts to determine any claim, action or proceeding arising out of or in connection with the Site and the agreement.

14. General

These Terms of Use constitute the entire agreement between PHO and you regarding your use of this Site. PHO's failure to insist upon or enforce any provision of the Terms of Use shall not be considered a waiver of such provision. If any part of provision of the Terms of Use is determined to be void, unlawful, or unenforceable, that provision shall be deemed severable and the remaining provisions will not be affected and will remain in full force and effect. To the extent that anything in or associated with the Site is in conflict or inconsistent with the Terms of Use, the Terms of Use shall take precedence.