Applicants and registrants must verify their identity with the College. Identification verification is done securely through the College portal and consists of confirming your name and date of birth and providing valid government-issued identification (ID).
ID document requirements:
- Must be a valid government-issued identification with your photograph, date of birth, and expiration date on the document. Examples include: passports, permanent resident cards, Nexus cards, driver’s licences, B.C. Identification (BCID) card, provincial health or services cards, Certificate of Indian Status Identity Cards, and Firearm Possession and Acquisition Licences.
- Must be a clear photograph of your identification, with the text clearly legible.
- Must be in a downloadable file format, such as PDF. We suggest that you test it before submission to ensure it can be opened.
Collection of Personal Information
The College has authority under section 26 (c) of the British Columbia Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA)and section 31(3) the Professional Governance Act to collect personal information of registrants and individuals applying to be a registrant of the College.
The College collects, uses and discloses personal information to carry out its obligations under the Professional Governance Act to govern registrants of the College. This includes validating an applicant or registrant’s identity to ensure that the public register includes accurate information regarding registrants.
With consent of the registrant, the College may disclose information about a registrant that is not published on the public register to another entity (e.g., regulatory bodies, identity verification organizations).
Questions regarding the collection of personal information may be sent to the Executive Operations-Communications Supervisor at ea-comm@cab-bc.org.
Information Published by the College
Having a current, informative register that is publicly accessible helps to protect the public by allowing clients to verify that a biologist is registered and in good standing.
The College is authorized by section 35 (3) of the Professional Governance Act to publish the following information for each registrant of the College on its website:
- Name and whether that person is a current or former registrant
- The category, subcategory, or class of registrant (e.g., Registered Biology Technologist)
- Area(s) of practice
- Region the registrant is located in*
- Business contact information*
- Employer*
- Limits or conditions imposed on the regulated practice
- Any notations for cancellations/removal or suspensions
- Any disciplinary notations
*The Registrar may withhold publication of this information where there are safety concerns.
How the College Safeguards Personal Information
The College understands and respects concerns regarding the collection of personal information from registrants and applicants. The College takes its responsibility regarding the collection and retention of people’s person information very seriously and complies with federal and provincial legal requirements including safeguards for the collection and storage of data.
The public register is hosted on the College’s website however, the personal information that populates the register is hosted on the College’s Registrant Portal.
The College’s Registrant Portal (registrant database) where an applicant’s or registrant’s personal information is collected and stored has the following protections in place:
- Is not hosted on the College’s or any other website.
- Follows industry best practices.
- Is implemented using popular and well tested libraries.
- All hosting, data, and file storage is in Canada with a SOC2 and SOC3 certified (for security and legal purposes) organization.
- Remote access to the server and database is restricted to only the developers that require access and require security measures for access.
- All portal traffic (including uploads) is encrypted when it is being uploaded.
- Identity verification (IDV) information access in the portal is restricted to the specific registrant account and College staff that require access.
- Data related to an IDV (name, date of birth) is encrypted again when it is stored in the portal.
- The attachment for the IDV is encrypted when it is stored in the portal on the server.
- The above also applies to other data (e.g., address, phone number) that is stored in the portal.
