Canadian Association of Railway Suppliers – Platform Infrastructure & Data Residency

The Canadian Association of Railway Suppliers (CARS) is a national industry association representing companies that provide products and services to Canada’s freight rail and transit sectors. Its membership includes businesses of all sizes involved in areas such as rail equipment, components, infrastructure, engineering, technology, and related services, with member companies located across Canada and serving both domestic and international markets. CARS also acts as a link between the rail supply industry, government, and other stakeholders on issues affecting the sector. CARS uses Members Village as its association platform. Canadian data residency, technology security protocols, and access controls supporting CARS's online services are detailed below.

Active Modules & Deployed Workflows

CARS's instance runs on a multi-tenant SaaS architecture with data isolation configured for national industry and trade associations. Active modules include, but are not limited to:

• Membership: Self-serve applications and renewals for organizational memberships.
• Payments: Credit card payments routed through a secure and auditable PCI-compliant payment gateway.
• Member Portal: Self-serve portal with profile controls and financial transaction history.
• Website: Management of a bilingual and responsive website including public and members-only content.
• Directory: Searchable, opt-in directory for railway industry manufacturers and suppliers.
• Events: Management of events, including paid and free registration options, and the annual National Railway Day conference.
• Forms: Secure form builder for workflows such as general intake and member detail collection.
• Email Communications: Regular email campaigns and newsletters sent through a CASL-compliant module, including event integration for InsideTrack.
• Articles: Curated listing of posts specializing in procurement opportunities and railway-specific topics.

Privacy Frameworks & Administrative Boundaries

CARS maintains ownership of all contact, member, organization, and event registrant records. The platform enforces controls aligned with the following privacy mandates:

• CASL: Subscriber opt-outs with automated propagation, and self-service email communication portal.
• Cookie Policy: Granular opt-in controls and consent management categorized by cookie types.

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 Canadian Association of Railway Suppliers 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 Canadian Association of Railway Suppliers Office directly.
• For Infrastructure & Platform Support:
  Operational incident logs and system architecture inquiries are coordinated between Canadian Association of Railway Suppliers administration and the technical team at Members Village.