Legal · British Columbia

Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 3, 2026

In short: we collect what you put in the application form, we use it to decide who is admitted and to make introductions you have agreed to, we do not sell it, and you can ask us to show it to you, correct it, or stop using it at any time by emailing lc@vi.business.

On this page: Who we are The law What we collect Why Matching Consent Sharing & providers Outside Canada Your rights Retention Security Breaches Complaints Contact

This policy explains how VIB Holdings Ltd. (BC incorporation number BC1605871), operating as “Vancouver Island Business” and “VIBE” (“we”, “us”) collects, uses, discloses, and protects personal information when you apply through this website or take part in the VIBE event. We are based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

01Who we are & our Privacy Officer

PIPA requires us to name a person responsible for our compliance. Questions, access requests, and complaints about your personal information can be directed to our Privacy Officer:

Privacy Officer — Lautaro Cepeda, Director

lc@vi.business

VIB Holdings Ltd.
202-1007 Fort Street, Victoria, British Columbia V8V 3K5, Canada

02The law we follow

As a private-sector organization operating in British Columbia, our handling of personal information is governed by the BC Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). Where our activities cross provincial or national borders, Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) may also apply. Commercial email we send is subject to Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). If you are in a jurisdiction with its own privacy law (for example the EU/UK), additional rights may apply to you.

03What we collect

We only collect personal information for purposes a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances. When you apply, we collect the information you choose to provide, which may include:

Your name, email address, and LinkedIn URL;
What you are looking for, and (optionally) your company, role, website, location, sector, stage, cheque size, and how you can help;
Your consent choices (whether you agree to be introduced, and whether your one-line description may be shown to other members);
Basic technical context: the page you applied from and any referral or campaign parameters in the link you used.

We also collect information generated by our dealings with you rather than typed into the form:

Correspondence — the emails and messages you exchange with us about your application, your ticket, or the event.
Notes and call records. If we speak with you, we may keep written notes. Where a call is recorded or automatically transcribed, we will tell you at the start of that call and you can ask us not to. You can ask us to delete a recording or transcript of your own call at any time.
Publicly available professional information — principally what is on the LinkedIn profile you give us, which we may look at to understand your work and make better introductions. We do not scrape private or non-public sources.
Event participation — which sessions and rooms you attend, and introductions made to or by you.

If you buy a ticket, we send you an invoice or a payment link, and payment is handled by our payment processor. A payment link takes you to a page hosted by that processor, not by us, so the card details you enter there are collected by them under their own privacy policy. We do not collect or store your full card details at any point. We keep a record that payment was made, the amount, and the tier purchased.

04Why we collect it

To review your application and decide who is admitted to the event;
To build a personalized agenda for you and to make relevant introductions — on the day and afterward — where you have consented;
To communicate with you about your application, your ticket, and the event;
To operate, secure, and improve this website and the event;
To keep our records of who we have spoken to, and what was discussed, so we do not ask you the same things twice.

Applying does not add you to a marketing list. If we later want to send you commercial email that is not about your application, your ticket, or the event you are attending, we will ask for your consent first, and every such message will identify us and carry an unsubscribe link, as CASL requires.

05How we use software to make matches

Introductions and your suggested agenda are prepared with the help of software, including automated tools that compare what you said you are looking for against what other participants said they can offer. This is decision support, not automated decision-making: a person reviews and approves every admission decision and every introduction before it is made. Nothing about you is shared with another participant except where you have consented, and the tools we use to do this are the service providers listed below, operating on our instructions.

By submitting an application you consent to us collecting and using your personal information for the purposes above. Some uses depend on your specific consent (the introduction and directory options on the form), which you may give or withhold, and later change. You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer, subject to legal or contractual limits and reasonable notice; withdrawing may mean we can no longer include you in the event or introductions. Any commercial electronic messages we send will identify us and offer an unsubscribe option, as required by CASL.

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only as needed to run the event and the introductions you have agreed to, and with service providers who process information on our behalf under contract:

Website hosting — hosts this website and receives your application when you submit the form;
Transactional email delivery — delivers your application to us by email;
Business email and file storage — hosts the mailbox where applications are received and stored;
A customer relationship system — holds your record, our correspondence with you, and our notes;
A hosted database — sits behind our internal tools and holds application and event records;
A payment processor — processes ticket invoices and payments;
A meeting transcription service — where a call is transcribed, produces and stores that transcript.

This list is current as at the date at the top of this page and we keep it accurate. We will tell you the specific companies behind each of these roles, and where they store information, if you ask our Privacy Officer. We name them on request rather than in this list so that we can change a supplier without this page going stale.

Where you consent to an introduction, we share the relevant details with the specific person or organization you are being introduced to, for that purpose.

08Information handled outside Canada

Some of our service providers store or process information in the United States or other countries. When personal information is handled outside Canada, it may be accessible to courts, law enforcement, and authorities in those countries under their laws. We use providers that offer a comparable level of protection and remain accountable for information they handle on our behalf. If you would like more information about our providers or these transfers, contact our Privacy Officer.

09Your rights

Under PIPA you may, subject to the Act’s limited exceptions:

Access the personal information we hold about you, and an account of how it has been used and to whom it has been disclosed;
Correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete;
Withdraw consent for uses that rely on it.

To make a request, email our Privacy Officer. We will respond within the time PIPA allows (generally 30 business days). There is normally no charge for an access request, though a minimal fee may apply in limited cases, and we will tell you in advance.

10How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes above and to meet legal requirements. Where we use your information to make a decision that directly affects you (such as an admission decision), PIPA requires us to keep it for at least one year afterward so you can request access. When information is no longer needed, we securely delete or anonymize it.

11How we protect it

We use reasonable physical, organizational, and technical safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information, including access controls and reputable service providers. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information against loss and unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.

12If something goes wrong

If personal information in our care is lost, or accessed or disclosed without authorization, we will contain the incident and assess it. Where the breach could reasonably be expected to create a real risk of significant harm to you, PIPA requires us to notify you directly and without unreasonable delay, and we will. Reporting such a breach to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia is currently voluntary for private-sector organizations in BC rather than mandatory; our practice is to report where the OIPC’s guidance indicates we should. We keep a record of breaches whether or not they meet the notification threshold.

13Children

This is a business event and the website is directed at adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact our Privacy Officer and we will delete it.

14Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The “last updated” date above shows when it last changed. Material changes will be reflected here before they take effect.

15Complaints

If you have a concern about how we handle your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer first so we can try to resolve it. You also have the right to complain to the regulator:

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (OIPC)

oipc.bc.ca

16Contact

Questions or requests about your personal information: lc@vi.business.