Privacy Policy
TALC Academy (“TALC Academy”) recognizes
the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information.
As teachers we have a professional obligation to keep confidential
information we receive within a teacher-student relationship. We are
committed to protecting any personal information we hold. This Privacy
Policy outlines how we manage your personal information and safeguard your
privacy. References in this Privacy Policy to “you” or
“your” include all students of TALC Academy, together with their
parents or guardians who interact with TALC Academy in connection with the
student’s education.
Your Privacy Rights
Beginning January 1, 2004, all businesses in Canada engaged in commercial
activities must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic
Documents Act (“PIPEDA”) or with provincial legislation which
has been deemed to be ‘substantially similar” to PIPEDA. This
legislation creates obligations that extend to teachers and schools, including
TALC Academy and gives you rights concerning the privacy of your personal
information.
We collect, use and disclose personal information in connection with the
delivery of our educational programs to our students and we are accountable
for the personal information we collect and hold. To ensure this accountability,
we have developed this policy, and trained our teachers and support staff
about our policies and practices.
What is Personal Information?
Personal information is any information that identifies you, or by which
your identity could be deduced. It includes information that relates to
your:
personal
characteristics (e.g., gender, age, income, home address or phone number,
ethnic background, family status);
health
(e.g., history, conditions, services received); or
activities
or views (e.g., religion, politics, opinions expressed by you, or an opinion
or evaluation of you)
Personal information is to be contrasted with business information (e.g.,
an individual’s business address and telephone number), which is not
covered by privacy legislation.
How do we Collect your Personal Information?
We collect information only by lawful and fair means and not in an unreasonably
intrusive way. We collect your personal information directly from
you, at the start of a school year, and in the course of our delivering
the educational programs offered by TALC Academy. In addition, for
full time students, we may obtain information that is stored in the Ontario
Student Record (OSR) by contacting your child’s previous school.
We do not generally obtain information about you from other sources.
If we were to do so, we would seek your express consent.
Photographs
During the course of the school year, classroom activities, therapy sessions,
school functions, field trips, meetings and other school activities may
be photographed, and such photos may or may not be used in the creation
of a school yearbook. Such yearbook would consist of individual and
group photos of all of the students of TALC Academy and as a result, a student’s
picture may or may not be part of the TALC Academy yearbook.
No student photos will be posted to the internet or TALC Academy web site
without the consent of parents or guardians.
No student photos will be used as part of a commercial advertisement without
the consent of the parents or guardian.
How do we Obtain Consent to use your Personal Information?
In most cases, we will ask you to specifically consent if we collect, use,
or disclose your personal information. Normally, we ask for your consent
in writing, but in some circumstances, we may accept your oral consent.
Sometimes, your consent may be implied through your conduct with us.
It would be rare for us to collect any personal information without your
express consent, but this might occur in an emergency or where we believe
you would consent if asked and it is impractical to obtain consent.
How do we Use your Personal Information?
There are five primary purposes for which we collect personal information.
Our first primary purpose for collecting personal information is to provide
proper educational programs for the students of TALC Academy. We may collect
information about the student’s educational history, prior academic
performance, prior report cards, assessments and profiles, interview notes,
including anything you may have done or said that might affect the student’s
educational needs, so that we can advise you as to your children’s
specific educational needs, your options for addressing these needs, and
then to deliver the educational programs we develop for your children.
Staff is given access to confidential student information in the course
of performing their duties at TALC Academy. No information is retained
by staff once they complete their employment at TALC Academy. Information
about your child may be shared with other schools, agencies, and/or professionals,
provided that you have given your express consent.
A second primary purpose is to obtain home contact information so that we
can contact you in an emergency.
A third purpose is that student information such as addresses and/or phone
numbers may be shared with the TALC Academy Parent Council for the purposes
of organizing and promoting school activities.
A fourth purpose is that class lists may be given to students for social
purposes such as preparing birthday invitations, Valentines Cards, Christmas
Cards, etc.
A fifth primary purpose is to provide you with information bulletins, school
newspapers, notice of special events (e.g., a field trip or concert) or
to make you aware of developments affecting TALC Academy and future educational
programs we may be offering (such as summer camps), as well as developments
affecting the education system generally in the Province of Ontario. If
you do not wish to receive information of this kind, you may notify us accordingly
and we will not send any further material.
Like most organizations, we also collect, use and disclose information for
secondary purposes The most common examples are:
To invoice you for services and to process payments or to collect accounts.
To review student files for the purpose of ensuring that we provide high
quality services, including assessing the performance of our teachers and
staff.
TACL Academy is regulated by the Education Act, Ontario and the Regulated
Health Professionals Act, Ontario, which allows the Government appointed
regulators to inspect our records and interview our staff as a part of its
regulatory activities in the public interest. In addition, as professionals,
we will report serious misconduct, incompetence or incapacity of other teachers,
whether they belong to other organizations or our own.
TALC Academy believes that it should report information suggesting serious
illegal behaviour to the authorities. External regulators have their own
strict privacy obligations. These reports could include personal information
about our students, or other individuals, to support the concern, although
we try to keep this disclosure to a minimum.
As professionals working with children, the staff of TALC Academy have obligations
and responsibilities under the various Child Protection legislation.
Under certain circumstances, staff members are obligated to inform the Children’s
Aid Society when information is shared with them that indicates a child
may be at risk. Under this legislation staff are not given the mandate
of determining or investigating whether such information is correct, accurate
or factual and in fact we are specifically prohibited from doing so.
The obligation of the TALC Academy staff, under this legislation is to report.
Factual determination is carried out by the Children’s Aid Society.
Staff obligations under this legislation supersede any privacy expectations
that you may or may not have.
Like all organizations, various government agencies (e.g., Canada Customs
and Revenue Agency, Information and Privacy Commissioner, Human Rights Commission,
etc.) have the authority to review our files and interview our staff as
part of their mandates. In these circumstances, we may consult with professionals
(e.g., lawyers, accountants) who will investigate the matter and report
back to us.
We do not disclose your personal information to any third party to enable
them to market their products and services.
Will we Disclose your Personal Information?
We will disclose your personal information under certain circumstances when:
we are required or authorized by law to do so, for example, if a court issues
a subpoena;
you have consented to the disclosure;
the educational program we are providing to you requires us to give your
information to third parties (e.g., a tutor or therapist operating outside
of TALC Academy);
it is necessary to establish or collect fees;
we engage a third party to provide administrative services to us (e.g.,
book-keeping, computer back-up services or archival file storage) and the
third party is bound by our privacy policy; or
the information is already publicly known.
Can I Update my Personal Information?
Since we use your personal information to provide our services to you, it
is important that the information be accurate and up-to-date.
If during the course of any school year, any of your information changes,
please inform us so that we can make any necessary changes.
Is my Personal Information Secure?
We take all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information
is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.
Among the steps taken to protect your information are:
premises
security;
restricted
file access to personal information;
deploying
technological safeguards like security software, encryption and firewalls
to prevent hacking or unauthorized computer access; and
internal
password and security policies.
Can I Access my Personal Information?
You may ask for access to any personal information we hold about you.
Summary information is available on request. More detailed requests
that require archive or other retrieval costs may be subject to a disbursement
fee, the amount of which will not be prohibitive. We may ask you to put
your request in writing.
Can I be Denied Access to my Personal Information?
Your rights to access your personal information are not absolute. We may
deny access when:
denial
of access is required or authorized by law;
granting
you access would have an unreasonable impact on other people's privacy;
it is
necessary to protect TALC Academy’s rights and property;
the request
is frivolous or vexatious.
If we deny your request for access to your personal information, or refuse
a request to correct your personal information, we shall explain why.
We do not use your Social Insurance Number as a way of identifying or organizing
your personal information.
Can I Request Anonymity?
When it is legal and practicable, we may offer you the opportunity to make
general inquiries without providing your name (e.g., by accessing general
information on our website).
Communicating with Us
When sending us personal or confidential information you should be aware
that e-mail is not a 100% secure medium.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We regularly review all of our policies and procedures and may change this
Policy from time to time.
Requests for Access
If you have any questions, or wish to access your personal information,
please write to our Privacy Officer, David Fisher at:
TACL Academy
2054 Mountainside Dr
Burlington, ON
L7P 1A8
Tel: 905 319 7011
Fax: 905 319 7044
If you wish to make a formal complaint about our privacy practices, you
may make it in writing to our Privacy Officer. They will acknowledge receipt
of your complaint, ensure that it is investigated promptly and provide you
with a formal, reasoned decision in writing.
For more general inquiries, or if you are not satisfied with our response,
you may contact the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Canada (the
“Commissioner”). The Commissioner oversees the administration
of privacy legislation in the private sector and also acts as an ombudsman
for privacy disputes. The Commissioner can be reached at:
112 Kent Street,
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 1H3
Tel: 1.800.282.1376.
Fax: 613.947.6850
Employment Inquiries
If you apply to TACL Academy for employment, we need to consider your personal
information as part of our review process. We normally retain information
from candidates after a decision has been made unless we are asked not to
retain the information. If we offer you employment and you accept,
the information will be retained in accordance with our privacy procedures
for employee records.
