Privacy Policy | Little Roots Learning Centre

1. Who we are

This policy is issued by LITTLEROOTS LEARNING CENTRE INC. (“Little Roots Learning Centre”, “we”, “us”), an Ontario corporation, Ontario Corporation No. 1001662251, with its registered office at 7030 Woodbine Ave, Suite 5000, Markham, Ontario L3R 6G2, Canada.

We operate an early-years education centre for children aged 0–5. Because of that, we handle personal information about children as well as about their parents and guardians, and we treat it as sensitive by default.

Questions, requests and complaints about privacy go to our Privacy Officer at info@littlerootslearning.ca or +1 (437) 559-2990.

2. The law we follow

We handle personal information in accordance with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and its ten fair information principles: accountability; identifying purposes; consent; limiting collection; limiting use, disclosure and retention; accuracy; safeguards; openness; individual access; and challenging compliance. Where other Ontario law governing licensed early-years settings applies to a record, we comply with that as well.

3. What we collect

3.1 Information about a child

Name, date of birth, age and gender.
Program enrolled in and attendance records.
Health information relevant to safe care — allergies, medical conditions, medications, dietary requirements, immunization information where required.
Emergency contacts and the authorised pick-up list.
Developmental observations, progress notes and progress summaries created by educators as part of our Child Progress Tracking.
Incident and accident reports, where one occurs.
Photographs, video or work samples — only where you have given specific consent (see section 6).

3.2 Information about a parent or guardian

Name, address, phone number and email address.
Relationship to the child and custody or access information where you tell us it is relevant.
Billing and payment records for your plan.
Correspondence with us, including enquiries you send from this website.

3.3 Information from this website

This website is a plain, static site. It does not use advertising trackers, and it does not build a profile of you. The enquiry form on our contact page does not transmit anything to us or store anything on this site: it opens your own email application with a message pre-filled, and nothing is sent unless you choose to send it. Our web host may keep standard server logs (such as IP address and page requested) for security and reliability. We load fonts from Google Fonts, which means your browser makes a request to that service in order to render the page.

4. Why we collect it

We identify our purposes before or at the time we collect information, and we do not use it for anything else without asking you first. Our purposes are:

To care for your child safely — including responding to allergies, medical conditions and emergencies.
To deliver and plan our programs and to place your child in the right one.
To observe, record and report your child’s developmental progress to you.
To communicate with you about your child, your plan, workshops and centre matters.
To administer enrolment, fees and payments.
To meet legal, regulatory, insurance and record-keeping obligations that apply to an early-years setting.

We do not sell personal information. We do not rent, trade or otherwise disclose it for anyone else’s marketing.

5. Children’s personal information and parent/guardian consent

A child aged 0–5 cannot meaningfully consent to the handling of their own personal information. Consent is therefore given by the child’s parent or legal guardian, and we treat all information about a child as sensitive, requiring express consent rather than implied consent.

Express consent at enrolment. We ask you to consent, in writing, to the specific purposes set out in section 4 before your child begins.
Separate consents stay separate. Consent to care and education is not consent to photography, and neither is bundled into the other. Consents you can decline are presented as distinct choices, not buried in a single tick-box.
Withdrawal. You may withdraw a consent at any time by writing to info@littlerootslearning.ca. We will act on it promptly and explain any consequence honestly — for example, we cannot deliver care without the health and emergency information that safety depends on, but withdrawing photo consent has no effect on your child’s place or program whatsoever.
No conditions. We do not require consent to any collection beyond what is necessary to provide our service as a condition of enrolment.

6. Photo and media consent

Photographs and video of a child are personal information, and to a young child’s family they are among the most sensitive information we could ever hold. We therefore treat media consent as a standalone, opt-in decision.

It is optional. You may say no. Your child’s place, program and treatment at the centre are entirely unaffected by that answer.
It is granular. We ask separately about internal use (for example, a photo in your own child’s progress record or a display inside their room) and any external use (for example, our website or printed materials). Saying yes to one is not saying yes to the other.
Group images. Where a child without media consent might appear in a group image intended for external use, we do not use that image, or we take it in a way that excludes them.
No identifying details. We do not publish a child’s full name, age or any other identifying detail alongside an image used externally.
You can change your mind. Media consent may be withdrawn at any time in writing. We will stop the use going forward and remove the image from material we control, though we cannot recall copies of print material already distributed.
Parents at events. Where families take photographs at a workshop or event, we ask that they be kept private to the family and not posted publicly, out of respect for other people’s children.

7. Who we disclose information to

We limit disclosure to what is necessary, and only in these situations:

Our own educators and staff, on a need-to-know basis, in order to care for and teach your child.
Emergency services and health professionals, where a child’s health or safety requires it.
Service providers who act on our behalf (for example, payment processing or IT support), bound by confidentiality and permitted to use the information only for the service they provide to us.
Regulators, a children’s aid society, a court or law enforcement, where we are required or legally authorised to disclose — including our duty to report a suspicion that a child needs protection, which overrides confidentiality and is not something we would seek your consent for.

Where a service provider stores information outside Canada, that information may be subject to the laws of the country where it is held. We choose providers with appropriate safeguards.

8. Safeguards

We protect personal information with safeguards appropriate to its sensitivity:

Physical — paper records held in locked storage in a controlled part of the centre.
Technical — access-controlled, password-protected systems, with access limited to those who need it.
Organisational — confidentiality expectations for all staff, need-to-know access, and staff who are told plainly that a child’s information is not conversation material.

If a breach creates a real risk of significant harm, we will notify the affected individuals and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as PIPEDA requires, and keep a record of the breach.

9. Retention and destruction

We keep personal information only as long as it is needed for the purposes it was collected for, or as long as the law requires — whichever is longer.

Enrolment, health and program records are retained while your child attends, and afterwards for the period required by applicable Ontario early-years, tax and limitation-period requirements.
Progress observations and summaries are retained on the same basis. You may request a copy of your child’s summaries at any time.
Financial records are retained for the period required by Canadian tax law.
Photographs and media are retained only while the relevant consent stands. When consent is withdrawn or a retention period ends, we delete or destroy them.
Enquiries that do not lead to enrolment are kept only as long as needed to deal with the enquiry, and then deleted.

When information is no longer needed, we destroy, erase or anonymise it securely — shredding for paper, secure deletion for electronic records.

10. Accuracy and your right of access

We keep personal information as accurate, complete and up to date as is necessary for the purposes it is used for — and out-of-date emergency contacts or allergy information are a safety matter, so please tell us promptly when something changes.

You have the right to ask what personal information we hold about you or your child, how it has been used, and to whom it has been disclosed. Write to info@littlerootslearning.ca. We will respond within 30 days, or tell you why we need an extension. Access is normally free; if a request would carry a cost, we will tell you before we do the work. In the rare cases where PIPEDA allows us to refuse access — for example, where disclosing information would reveal personal information about another person — we will tell you why in writing.

If you believe information we hold is wrong, tell us and we will correct it, or record your disagreement on the file.

11. Challenging our compliance

If you are unhappy with how we have handled personal information, raise it with our Privacy Officer at info@littlerootslearning.ca or +1 (437) 559-2990. We will investigate every complaint, respond to you in writing, and correct our practices if the complaint is justified.

If you remain dissatisfied, you may contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, which oversees PIPEDA.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as our practices or the law change. The current version always sits on this page with its last-updated date. If a change materially affects how we handle information about your child, we will tell you directly rather than rely on you noticing it here.

Contact

LITTLEROOTS LEARNING CENTRE INC. — Privacy Officer
7030 Woodbine Ave, Suite 5000, Markham, Ontario L3R 6G2, Canada
Email: info@littlerootslearning.ca
Phone: +1 (437) 559-2990

Ontario Corporation No. 1001662251. This policy is provided for the information of families of Little Roots Learning Centre and is not legal advice.