open Secondary menu

Elections Canada's Social Media Terms of Use

The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada is an independent agent of Parliament who heads the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, commonly known as Elections Canada.

Elections Canada is the independent, non-partisan agency responsible for conducting federal elections and referendums in Canada.

Elections Canada's Social Media Accounts

Elections Canada (herein referred to as EC) has the following social media accounts on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram (collectively referred to as "social media accounts"):

X

Facebook

LinkedIn

YouTube

Instagram

Please note that EC's social media accounts are not Government of Canada websites. X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram are third-party service providers. This means that when you use our social media accounts, you are also subject to the terms of use of the respective third party.

We encourage you to read the terms of use of X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.

Content

EC's social media accounts are alternative methods of sharing information.

EC does not endorse any content that you post to our social media accounts. While EC tries to ensure the accuracy of the content posted to its social media accounts, it is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, efficacy, timeliness or reliability of the content posted by other users.

Election-related Complaints

EC's social media accounts are not channels for filing or responding to formal complaints. If you wish to submit a formal complaint, you must fill out our online complaint form.

Unacceptable Content

The Chief Electoral Officer is responsible for ensuring that elections and referendums at the federal level are conducted in an impartial and non-partisan way. To preserve the impartiality and functional independence of the Chief Electoral Officer, posts must not contain content that is politically partisan. Content that suggests a political affiliation, bias or designation, or that favours one political party over another may be deemed unacceptable content.

In accordance with its mandate, EC will not respond to comments or questions that are partisan or that relate to politically partisan issues and reserves the right to remove content that it deems to be contrary to its mandate. If you post unacceptable content, EC may block your use to prevent you from adding further posts to our social media accounts.

The term "post" includes questions, comments, "likes," retweets, videos, articles, links to websites and any other messages that provide feedback or content related to the social media accounts.

As well, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram are third-party service providers. This means that when you use EC's social media accounts, you are also subject to the terms of use of the respective third party.

EC reserves the right to block a user and/or remove any content posted to EC's social media accounts that either violates the terms of use of Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram and/or is deemed to be unacceptable content by EC. Examples of unacceptable content include, but are not limited to, content that:

  • is politically partisan, such as content that suggests a political affiliation, bias or designation, or that favours one political party over another
  • is racist, hateful, sexist, homophobic, slanderous, insulting or threatening
  • puts forward serious, unproven or inaccurate accusations against individuals or organizations or is otherwise defamatory
  • is offensive, aggressive, vulgar, indecent, rude, abusive, coarse, violent, obscene or pornographic
  • is posted by someone other than its author or is posted anonymously by a robot account
  • is posted as a solicitation, advertisement or endorsement of any financial, commercial or non-governmental organization or any political party
  • is posted for advertising, phishing or spamming purposes
  • gives the impression that it originates from EC
  • impersonates any person or misrepresents its author's identity or affiliations
  • contains personally identifiable information about others
  • infringes a third party's copyright or trademark rights
  • is unintelligible or irrelevant to EC
  • encourages or suggests illegal activity

Availability

Posts are welcome on the social media accounts at any time, although EC will exercise discretion regarding whether or not it will respond.

EC will monitor and update its social media accounts during regular business hours between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday to Friday. Any monitoring or updating outside of these hours is likely due to an emergency or to extended hours during an election period.

EC will monitor its social media accounts on election day. However, due to the high volume of questions or comments anticipated, it may not be possible to reply to all enquiries.

If you are having difficulty voting on election day, please contact EC by telephone at 1-800-463-6868.

Because the servers of social media platforms are managed by a third party, our social media accounts may be subject to downtime that is out of our control. Therefore, EC accepts no responsibility for platforms becoming unresponsive or unavailable. Should this occur, please visit our website at elections.ca for information.

Official Languages

EC respects the Official Languages Act and is committed to ensuring that information products, of equal quality, are available in both English and French. However, you should be aware that some information from external sources is not subject to the Official Languages Act.

Due to the nature of social media, content will vary between the English and French accounts, particularly with respect to posts from users. If EC chooses to respond to a post, it will do so in the official language in which the post was written. However, if a post received in one language requires a general response that concerns both English and French communities, this response will be provided in both official languages. When responding, EC may decide that it is necessary to translate the initial comment or question so that users will understand it. Users grant EC the right to translate into the other official language any comment or question they post to EC's social media accounts.

Accessibility

EC is committed to achieving a high standard of accessibility. However, social media platforms are provided by third parties that are not bound by the Government of Canada's policies for web accessibility. If you have any problems accessing information posted to the social media accounts, please visit our website at elections.ca for alternative versions and more information.

Privacy

EC's social media accounts are hosted by third-party service providers outside the control of the Government of Canada. You are encouraged to read the privacy policies of X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram to understand how these third parties use and protect your personal information.

To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, EC recommends that you avoid posting personal information on its social media accounts. Personal information includes home addresses, telephone numbers, photographs containing images of identifiable individuals, and any other information that may be considered personal as defined in section 3 of the Privacy Act.

If you do post personal information to EC's social media accounts, you agree that EC may collect, use or disclose it in accordance with the Canada Elections Act, Privacy Actor Access to Information Act.

EC may collect and retain some of the personal information and conversations you post to its social media accounts, due to its mandate outlined in the Canada Elections Act, under the authority of the Financial Administration Act, and in accordance with the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada. EC may use the information to respond to enquiries, monitor trending issues, document decisions related to posts that contravene the terms of use, or for statistical, evaluation and reporting purposes. "Conversation" includes questions and answers, comments, "likes," retweets and other interactions in which you provide feedback on content that EC has posted or in which EC gives you information based on content you have posted.

Personal information will be retained in the standard personal information bank PSU 914 Public Communications. You have the right of access to, correction of and protection of your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns or complaints about your privacy rights as explained by these terms of use, please contact the Access to Information and Privacy Coordinator by e-mail at AIPRP-ATIP@elections.ca, by telephone at 819-939-1237 (in the National Capital Region) or 1-800-463-6868, or in writing to:

Manager and Coordinator
Access to Information and Privacy
Elections Canada
30 Victoria Street
Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 0M6

If you are not satisfied with EC's handling of your personal information, you have the right to file a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Copyright/Permission to Reproduce

Information posted by EC is subject to the Copyright Act of Canada. For more information on the reproduction of content and materials, please visit the Terms and Conditions on the EC website.

Copyright infringement may be reported to third-party providers as per their terms of use.

Links to Other Websites and Advertisements

Links to websites that are not under the control of EC may be posted to the EC social media accounts. These links are provided solely for your convenience and may not be subject to policies or legislation applicable to EC.

EC is not responsible for the accuracy, currency or reliability of the content on these websites. EC does not offer any guarantee in that regard and is not responsible for the information found through those links, nor does it endorse those websites or their content.

Some social media platforms sell ad space for promoting a particular message. Advertisements in any form whatsoever, including without limitation, links, banners or "sponsored stories" that appear on the EC social media accounts, are not controlled or managed by EC. EC is not responsible for these advertisements and does not endorse the websites' businesses, products or services, or their content.

X

EC may follow other accounts that it believes are relevant to EC and its activities. The fact that it follows the accounts of these organizations does not mean that it endorses any of their content or activities.

The appearance of anyone as a follower of the EC X accounts does not imply that EC endorses the content posted by that person.

Facebook

EC's Facebook pages will be monitored and moderated between 8:30a.m. and 4:30p.m. EST to ensure that all posts to EC's Facebook pages comply with these Terms of Use.

To avoid potential privacy and IT security violations, user-generated messages containing links, videos and images will not be posted to EC's web pages.

The appearance of anyone as a follower of the EC Facebook account does not imply that EC endorses the content posted by that person.

LinkedIn

EC's LinkedIn page will not be monitored or moderated daily.

The appearance of anyone as a follower of the EC LinkedIn account does not imply that EC endorses the content posted by that person.

YouTube

Feedback and Messages

EC has disabled the commenting and video responses on its account.

Embedding Videos on Other Websites

EC permits most of its videos to be embedded on other websites by enabling the YouTube Embedded Player. This feature may be disabled at any time without prior notice by EC or YouTube.

When accessing content posted by EC on its YouTube channel and using the YouTube Embedded Player functionality, you must do so in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service.

Instagram

EC's Instagram page will not be monitored or moderated daily.

The appearance of anyone as a follower of the EC Instagram account does not imply that EC endorses the content posted by that person.

Contact Information

EC social media accounts are managed by Elections Canada, located at:

30 Victoria Street
Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 0M6

For more information about EC, please visit our website at elections.ca. Various ways to contact EC are listed on our Contact Us page.

If you have questions regarding these social media terms of use, please contact mediassociaux-socialmedia@elections.ca.

Media Requests

Enquires from the media should be directed to Elections Canada Media Relations.