Privacy policy

1. About this policy

This policy explains how Orliva (“Orliva”, “we”, “us”) collects, uses, discloses and protects personal information. It covers this website and the Orliva service: the office web app, the Orliva Go app for personal support workers (PSWs) and drivers, and the apps for clients and families.

We are based in Ontario and serve home care agencies in Ontario. This policy is written with Ontario’s Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA) and Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) in mind.

2. Our role: agencies are in charge of health records

Home care agencies that use Orliva are health information custodians under PHIPA, or act on behalf of one. The agency decides what personal health information is collected about its clients, why, who in the agency can see it, and how long it is kept.

Orliva acts as the agency’s agent and as a provider of electronic services to it, as described in PHIPA and in section 6 of Ontario Regulation 329/04. This means we:

• collect, use and disclose personal health information only to provide the service to the agency, and only as the agency permits;
• do not use it for our own purposes, sell it, or use it for advertising;
• protect it with the safeguards described below;
• tell the agency at the first reasonable opportunity if it is stolen, lost, or accessed, used or disclosed without authority; and
• are bound by a written agreement with each agency that sets out these duties.

Each agency has its own privacy practices and its own privacy contact. If you are a client, a family member or a substitute decision-maker and you have a question or request about a health record, please contact your agency directly. If you contact us about an agency’s records, we will refer you to the agency and, where appropriate, let the agency know about your request.

For information we handle for our own business (for example, demo requests and the accounts of our customers), Orliva is responsible for the information and PIPEDA applies.

3. What we collect

Website visitors

This website sets no cookies, uses no analytics or advertising services, and loads no content from other companies. Its fonts and images are served from the website itself.

If you request a demo, the form collects your name, work email, agency or organization name, role, phone number (optional), province or territory, the size of your agency, the topics you are interested in, your message (optional), and your agreement to be contacted. The request is received and stored by the company that hosts this website, which sends it on to us by email; we then keep it with our customer records.

Like any website, the servers that deliver this site and receive demo requests process technical information such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested. We use it to deliver the site, limit abuse (for example, too many requests from one address) and keep the site secure.

Agency staff using Orliva

For office staff, PSWs and drivers who have an account, the service holds:

• account details: name, work email, role, the modules the person may use, and preferred language;
• sign-in information: a protected (hashed) form of the password, the two-step verification set-up (kept encrypted), protected recovery codes, and, if the agency uses single sign-on, the work account used to sign in;
• session and device information: active sessions, and, for the phone apps, a device token used to send notifications; and
• an audit record of actions in the service, including the time, the action, and the IP address and browser or app used.

Clients and families (handled for agencies)

Agencies use Orliva to record the information they need to deliver and bill for care. Depending on what the agency uses and records, this can include:

• identity and contact details, address, date of birth and Ontario health card number (stored encrypted and shown masked);
• health information, alerts, consents, care plans, care notes, visit records, assessments, incidents and complaints;
• funding and referral information, meal orders, diets and allergies, invoices and payments;
• documents the agency uploads;
• contacts such as family members and substitute decision-makers;
• messages between clients or families and the agency; and
• for people the agency invites to the client and family apps: name, email, a protected form of the password, and the one-time codes used to sign in.

If an agency turns on text reminders, the client’s reminder phone number is used to send next-day visit times. If an agency offers online bill payment, payment is made on the agency’s own payment processor’s page: card numbers never reach Orliva, and the processor receives only the amount, the currency and the invoice number.

PSWs and drivers (handled for agencies)

Agencies use Orliva to manage their workers. Depending on what the agency records, this can include contact details, date of birth, home address, emergency contacts, employment details, qualifications and related documents (such as certificates and screening checks), availability, time off, schedules, hours and the information used to work out pay.

Some features use location or phone information:

• Check-in location. When a PSW checks in or out of a visit in Orliva Go, the phone’s location is sent only if the PSW allows it. Check-in works without it. Orliva uses it to work out the distance from the client’s home, and the office sees that distance and its accuracy rather than a map of where the PSW was.
• Phone check-in. If the agency uses it, a PSW can check in by calling the agency’s number from the client’s phone and entering a personal PIN. The visit record notes the last four digits of the number called from. Only a protected (hashed) form of the PIN is kept.
• Drivers. While a driver has started a meal delivery route and has the route page open, the phone shares its location. Orliva keeps only the latest position, not a trail, clears it when the route is finished, and keeps the distance driven.

4. How we use information

We use personal information to:

• provide, operate and support the Orliva service for each agency, as the agency instructs;
• sign people in securely, keep the service secure, and investigate and prevent misuse;
• send service messages, such as invitations, sign-in codes, account notices and notifications;
• respond to demo requests and enquiries, and manage our relationship with our customers, including billing for our service;
• keep the records we need for legal, tax and accounting purposes; and
• improve the service using information about how it is used in total, such as counts of active clients, workers and visits, without looking at client or staff records.

Our own staff see agency usage only as totals. We do not look at client or agency staff records as part of our routine work. If an agency asks us for help that requires access to its information, we limit access to what the request needs and keep a record of it.

5. Consent and legal basis

For personal health information we handle for agencies, the agency is responsible for having the authority it needs under PHIPA, whether that is the client’s consent (which PHIPA may allow to be implied for providing care) or another permission in the law. We handle that information only on the agency’s behalf.

For information we handle for our own business, we rely on your consent. You give it, for example, when you submit the demo request form or sign up for an account. You can withdraw consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual limits, by writing to privacy@orliva.ca. If you withdraw consent, we may not be able to provide what you asked for.

6. Email and Canada’s anti-spam law

We send commercial electronic messages, such as news about Orliva, only in line with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL): with your express consent (for example, the agreement on our demo form) or where the law allows implied consent, such as an existing business relationship.

Each marketing message identifies Orliva, gives our contact information and includes a simple way to unsubscribe. We act on unsubscribe requests promptly, and within 10 business days.

Service messages, such as sign-in codes, invitations, security notices and notifications from the app, are part of the service and are not marketing. Text reminders that an agency sends to its clients are sent on the agency’s behalf, carry only the agency’s name and the visit times, and stop when the recipient replies STOP.

7. Where information is stored

We host the Orliva service, including its databases, document storage and backups, in data centres in Canada.

A few delivery services may process limited information outside Canada. These are designed so that no health details are sent:

• this website, and the demo requests sent through it, are hosted by a website hosting company that may store them in the United States; these hold business contact details, never health information;
• emails contain only the kind of message and a link, never names or care details;
• push notifications to phones are sent through the phone maker’s notification service and contain only fixed wording, such as “You have a new message”;
• text messages and calls go through the phone and text provider account the agency chooses to connect, and reminders contain only the agency’s name and visit times; and
• online payments go through the payment processor account the agency chooses to connect, which receives only the amount, currency and invoice number.

Information processed outside Canada may be subject to the laws of that country, including lawful access by its authorities.

8. Sharing and service providers

We do not sell personal information. We do not share client or staff information with anyone other than the agency it belongs to, except:

• with service providers that help us run Orliva, such as hosting, document storage, email delivery and phone notification services, under written agreements that require them to protect the information and use it only to provide their service to us;
• with services the agency chooses to connect, such as its own single sign-on provider, phone and text provider, payment processor or address lookup service, as the agency directs;
• where required or permitted by law, such as in response to a valid court order. Where the law allows, we will tell the agency first and limit what we disclose; and
• as part of a sale or reorganization of our business, with the same protections continuing to apply to the information.

Customers may ask us for a current description of the service providers we use for the Orliva service. Write to privacy@orliva.ca.

9. How we protect information

Orliva is designed with PHIPA in mind. We use administrative, technical and physical safeguards suited to the sensitivity of health information, including:

• two-step verification for every agency staff account, and an emailed one-time code for client and family accounts;
• encryption in transit and at rest, with additional encryption for especially sensitive fields such as health card numbers and sign-in secrets, and for uploaded documents before they are stored;
• separation of each agency’s information from every other agency’s, enforced in the database;
• access based on role, so people see only the parts of the service their job needs;
• a tamper-evident audit log of who viewed or changed client records, which agencies can review;
• automatic sign-out after a period of inactivity, and locking of staff accounts that have not been used for a long time;
• keeping health details out of emails, push notifications, text messages, web addresses and system logs; and
• limiting our own staff’s access, and reviewing our safeguards as the service changes.

Agencies are responsible for their own safeguards too, such as who they give access to, removing access when someone leaves, and the devices their staff use.

No system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. If you believe you have found a security problem, please tell us at privacy@orliva.ca.

10. Keeping and disposing of information

Each agency decides how long it keeps its client records after care ends, within the range the service allows, so it can meet its own legal and professional obligations. Orliva shows the agency which records are past that period.

When an agency disposes of a record past its retention period, the service first produces a final copy for the agency, then removes the identifying and health details from the record, and keeps only de-identified information needed for the agency’s financial and service totals. The audit log of who did what is kept, as a record of access; it does not contain health details.

When an agency stops using Orliva, we return or make its information available to it, and then securely delete it, as set out in our agreement with that agency. Copies in backups are removed as those backups expire in the normal course.

We keep demo requests and our customer records only as long as we need them for the purposes described in this policy, or as long as the law requires, and then securely delete or de-identify them.

11. If there is a privacy breach

If personal health information we handle for an agency is stolen, lost, or used or disclosed without authority, we will notify the agency at the first reasonable opportunity and help it investigate and contain the breach.

Under PHIPA, the agency, as health information custodian, is responsible for notifying the affected individuals and, where PHIPA and its regulations require, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

For personal information we are responsible for under PIPEDA, we will report any breach of security safeguards that creates a real risk of significant harm to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, notify the affected individuals, and keep a record of the breach, as the law requires.

12. Your rights: access and correction

Health records held by an agency

Under PHIPA, you have the right to ask for access to your personal health information, to ask for a copy, and to ask for it to be corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete. You can also ask who has viewed or changed your record. Please make these requests to your agency, which is the custodian of your record.

Orliva gives agencies the tools to respond: a complete copy of a client’s record, and a log of who viewed or changed it. If your agency needs our help to respond, we will help it.

Information Orliva is responsible for

Under PIPEDA, you can ask us whether we hold personal information about you, ask for access to it, ask us to correct it, and withdraw your consent. Write to privacy@orliva.ca. We may need to confirm your identity. We will respond within 30 days, or tell you if we need more time and why, as the law allows. If we cannot give you access to some information, we will tell you why, unless the law prevents us.

13. Questions and complaints

If you have a concern about how your information is handled, please contact us first at privacy@orliva.ca and we will try to resolve it. For a health record held by an agency, contact the agency’s privacy contact.

You can also complain to a regulator:

• Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, for personal health information under PHIPA: www.ipc.on.ca, 1-800-387-0073.
• Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, for personal information Orliva handles in its business under PIPEDA: www.priv.gc.ca, 1-800-282-1376.

14. Children

This website and our demo request form are meant for adults working in home care. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children through this website.

Agencies may provide care to children. Their information is handled by the agency as custodian, with the involvement of a parent, guardian or other substitute decision-maker where the law requires.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the service or the law changes. We will post the new version on this page with a new “last updated” date. If we make a significant change, we will also tell our customers directly before it takes effect.

16. Contact our privacy officer

Our privacy officer is accountable for Orliva’s compliance with this policy. You can reach them at:

• Privacy Officer, Orliva
• Email: privacy@orliva.ca
• Mail: Ontario, Canada