Farmers’ Markets Ontario – Platform Infrastructure & Data Residency

Farmers’ Markets Ontario (FMO) is a provincially recognized member-based organization representing more than 180 farmers' markets across Ontario. FMO uses Members Village as its association & membership management platform. It supports market managers, farmers, and vendors while helping Ontarians connect directly with the people who grow and produce food in their communities. Through initiatives such as the MyPick® Verified Local Farmer® program, FMO also helps consumers identify and buy from local Ontario farmers with greater confidence. Canadian data residency, technology security, and access controls supporting FMO's online services are detailed below.

Modules & Deployed Workflows

FMO's implementation runs on a dedicated multi-tenant Software-as-a-Service and isolated database architecture configured for provincial professional associations. Modules include, but are not limited to:

• Membership: Self-serve market member applications with approval workflow and renewals.
• Payments: PCI-DSS compliant, secure and auditable credit card payments routed through a payment gateway.
• Member Portal: Authenticated self-serve portal for market managers to manage market listings, insurance coverage, and certification purchases.
• Website: Tools to manage bilingual, responsive, public, and members-only content.
• Market Manager Certification: Secure learning portal providing professional development and certification courses designed specifically for market managers.
• Market Insurance: Members can access group rates through FMO’s specialized commercial general liability insurance program for farmers’ markets.

Privacy Framework & Administrative Boundaries

FMO maintains exclusive ownership of all market member, vendor, and registrant records. The platform enforces controls aligned with the following privacy mandates:

• CASL: Subscriber opt-outs with automated propagation, and self-service personal communication preference tools.

Core Infrastructure

Infrastructure operations adhere to the following protocols:

1. Data Residency:
   Primary databases, container clusters, and automated snapshots reside exclusively in Canadian data centers (Toronto, ON).
2. Network & Storage Encryption:
   Enforced HTTPS (TLS 1.3/1.2) in transit; AES-256 data encryption at rest.
3. Access Controls:
   Zero-trust architecture with MFA and SSH key authentication restricted to authorized system engineers.

Third-Party Integrations: Where Farmers’ Markets Ontario enables specialized external tools (e.g. embedded video streaming), data processed by those specific tools is subject to their agreements.

Governance & Inquiries

• For Data Records & Policy Requests:
  To update credentials, adjust communication preferences, or submit a formal data access inquiry, contact the Farmers’ Markets Ontario Office directly.
• For Infrastructure & Platform Support:
  Operational incident logs and system architecture inquiries are coordinated between Farmers’ Markets Ontario administration and the technical team at Members Village.