Privacy Policy
This is the privacy notice for MyGC, the system: the website you are reading and the student portal behind it, operated by Guildford College. It explains what MyGC collects about you, why, who handles it on our behalf, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do. It applies to applicants, students, the people and organizations who pay fees on a student's behalf, and visitors to this website. The college's published policies and procedures are separate and are on the Policies page.
In short: we collect what we need to admit you, teach you, bill you and issue your records. We share it with the companies that process payments and deliver our systems, with the regulator that certifies us, and with the Canada Revenue Agency for your tuition tax certificate. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not give it to anyone to use for their own marketing.
What we collect
Depending on how you use MyGC, we collect:
- Identity and contact details: your name, date of birth, postal address, phone number and email address.
- Your Social Insurance Number: we ask domestic students for a SIN because the Canada Revenue Agency requires it on the T2202 tuition tax certificate we must issue to you and file. We use it for that purpose only.
- Your photograph: the photo you supply for your student identification card.
- Application information: the program you apply to, your citizenship or residency status, prior education, and the documents you upload to support an application (for example identification, transcripts, English proficiency results and, for international applicants, study permit or visa documents).
- Student records: your enrolment, cohort, attendance, grades, practicum placements, contracts and correspondence with the college, and the transcripts, credentials and tax forms we issue to you.
- Payment records: the fees and invoices you owe or have paid, the dates and amounts, and the card details our payment provider reports back to us: the card brand, its last four digits, its expiry date, whether it is a credit or debit card, the card's country, and the province you gave when paying. MyGC does not receive or store your full card number.
- Sponsor details: where an agency, employer or family member pays on your behalf, their name and contact details, and any file or reference number they ask us to show on the invoice.
- Technical information: when you use this website or the portal, the pages you visit, your browser and device type, your IP address, and the cookies described below.
Staff accounts hold the name, role and college email address of the person using them. MyGC keeps a record of which staff member made each billing change, and of everything a staff member changes while acting on a student's behalf.
Why we collect it
- To process your application and, if you are admitted, to enrol you and deliver your program.
- To issue the records a college must issue: enrolment letters, transcripts, credentials, student identification, and the T2202 tuition tax certificate we give to you and file with the Canada Revenue Agency.
- To bill you for tuition, fees and services, to collect payment, and to keep the financial records the college is required to keep.
- To communicate with you about your application, your program, your account and your invoices.
- To meet our obligations as a certified private training institution in British Columbia and under Canadian tax law.
- To keep MyGC secure and to investigate misuse.
How we collect it, and your consent
You give us most of this information yourself: when you submit an application, when you accept a place and sign your enrolment contract, when you pay a fee, and when you use the student portal. By doing those things you agree that we may collect, use and share your information for the purposes set out above. We also collect some information automatically when you use this website, as described under Cookies.
Some collection is not optional. We must collect and report certain student information to keep our certification as a private training institution in British Columbia and to meet Canadian tax law. We cannot process your application or enrol you without it.
You may withdraw your consent for anything we do not have to do by law or under your enrolment contract. Tell us in writing and we will explain what that means for your application, your enrolment or your account before we act on it. If someone else pays your fees, please show them this notice: we use their details only to issue and collect the invoice.
Payments and invoices (Stripe)
We use Stripe, Inc. to take payments and to issue invoices. When you pay an application fee, or when the college issues you an invoice, we create a customer record at Stripe containing your name, email address, phone number and postal address, so that the invoice can be addressed to you and your payments can be matched to it. Each invoice we issue is created at Stripe with its line items, the amount, and any reference you or your sponsor asked us to show.
You enter your card details in Stripe's own payment form. They go directly to Stripe, and MyGC does not receive or store your full card number. MyGC keeps only the card details Stripe reports back, listed under Payment records above, so that staff can confirm which card was used. The pages where you enter card details load no analytics or advertising scripts.
Stripe is a United States company and may store and process this information outside Canada. Stripe's own privacy policy describes how it handles the information it holds.
Your college accounts
When you apply, MyGC creates your account on the college's learning platform (GCLC) and your college email mailbox (GCMail). GCLC receives your name, your student number (which is also your GCLC username), your college email address, your program and your intake cohort. GCMail receives your name, your username and your cohort. When an account is created, MyGC emails you your sign-in details. Changes to your MyGC password are applied to both accounts so you sign in with one set of credentials, and your grades and course completion are read back from GCLC into MyGC. Staff accounts are created the same way.
Both services are operated by the college. Mail you send from your college mailbox is delivered through Google's mail relay.
Email we send you
MyGC sends email about your application, your program, your account and your invoices through a third-party email delivery service, which may store or process those messages outside Canada. They carry your name and email address and the content of the notice. We do not use these messages to advertise to you on behalf of anyone else.
Cookies, analytics and website forms
MyGC sets the cookies it needs to keep you signed in and to keep forms on this site from being submitted by someone else on your behalf. Those are essential and are not used to track you across other sites.
On the public website the college may enable analytics and advertising tools to understand how the site is used and to measure its advertising. At the time of this notice those tools are Google Analytics, Google Ads, Lucky Orange, and the advertising tags of Meta and Microsoft. Most of these load through Google Tag Manager; the Meta tag is loaded by the site itself. They set their own cookies and receive your IP address, device information and the pages you visit. Lucky Orange also records a replay of your visit, including your mouse movement, clicks and scrolling, so that we can see where the website is confusing. The contact page shows a Google map, which sends your IP address to Google. These tools run on the public website only: they are not loaded in the student portal at all, and they are switched off on the application pages where you enter card details.
This list describes the tools in use on the date at the top of this page; we review it when we change the tools we use. You can limit these tools with your browser's cookie and tracking settings, or with Google's opt-out browser add-on for Google Analytics. Turning them off does not affect your application or your account.
Some public application forms are protected by Google reCAPTCHA, which receives your IP address and browser information to check that a real person is filling in the form and not an automated script. Google's privacy policy applies to that information.
Where your information is kept
MyGC is hosted on Amazon Web Services. Amazon is a United States company, and its staff may access the systems that hold your information from outside Canada for support and maintenance. Inside MyGC, student records are shown to college staff whose role requires them; every change to a billing record, and everything a staff member changes while acting on your behalf, is logged with the staff member who did it; and staff acting on your behalf cannot move money.
When something goes wrong in MyGC, an error monitoring service (Sentry, a United States company) receives technical details of the error so that we can fix it. Those details describe what the system was doing and can include the page you were on and information from the form you submitted. We do not send the documents you have uploaded to it.
Some of the services named in this notice are operated by companies based in the United States, and information they handle may be stored or processed there. While it is in another country, that information is subject to that country's laws, including lawful access by its courts and law enforcement.
How long we keep it
We keep student and financial records for as long as the Private Training Act and its regulations, and Canadian tax law, require us to, and for as long as we need them to answer questions about your studies or your account. Transcripts and the record of your credential are kept so that we can confirm your studies to you, or to an employer you name, in future. If you do not enrol, we keep your application for at least one year, because the Act requires us to keep information we used to make a decision about you for that long, and we destroy it once we no longer need it. Copies may remain in our secure backups for a further period before those backups are overwritten.
Applicants under 19
In British Columbia you are an adult at 19. If you are under 19 when you apply, our admissions office asks for your parent's or guardian's written consent before we accept your application, and we keep that consent with your file. Once you turn 19 we deal with you directly, and we do not discuss your record with anyone else unless you tell us in writing that we may.
Your rights
Under British Columbia's Personal Information Protection Act you may ask to see the personal information we hold about you and ask us to correct it. You can update your contact details yourself in your MyGC profile. For anything else, or to ask a question about this notice, contact our Privacy Officer: Guildford College, 205-5460 152 Street, Surrey, BC V3S 5J9 Canada, info@guildfordcollege.com, +16042292626. You can also reach us through the contact page.
Send access and correction requests in writing. We may ask you to confirm your identity before we release anything. We will respond within 30 business days, or tell you if we need more time and why. If we cannot give you part of what you ask for, we will tell you which part and why. If we disagree that information is wrong, we will record your correction request alongside the information.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia, which oversees the Personal Information Protection Act. That office handles privacy complaints only.
Complaints about anything else, such as your program, your instruction, your fees or a decision about your enrolment, go through the college's own complaint and dispute resolution policy on the Policies page. If you are not satisfied after that, students of certified private training institutions may complain to the Private Training Institutions Regulatory Unit. Time limits apply, so read that policy early.
Changes to this notice
We update this notice when MyGC starts collecting new information or sharing it with a new service. The date at the top shows when it last changed.