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Privacy policy

Updated October 7, 2024

Viz L.P. (“Viz”, “we” “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of personal information in our custody and control. This privacy policy (the “Policy”) explains how we collect, use, disclose and protect personal information in the course of providing our services, including the website located at www.viztutoring.com (the “Website”) and the Platform (as defined in the Viz User Agreement) (collectively, the “Services”).

BY USING THE SERVICES, YOU AGREE, AND YOUR PARENT/LEGAL GUARDIAN AGREES ON YOUR BEHALF IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF MAJORITY IN YOUR JURISDICTION OF RESIDENCE, TO BE BOUND BY THIS PRIVACY POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY, DO NOT USE THE SERVICES IN ANY MANNER.

TO PARENTS AND LEGAL GUARDIANS: Wherever we refer to “children” or a “child” in this Policy, we mean children under 18 years of age. Please help us protect your children’s privacy by instructing them never to provide personal contact information (like their full name, e-mail address, home address, telephone number, etc.) without your permission. We encourage you to closely supervise and monitor your children when they are online or using any mobile device so you understand the sites, activities and apps they are engaged in, and to adopt available device and browser controls that reflect your preferences about your children’s ability to access the Internet or make purchases online.

TO CHILDREN: If you are under 18 years of age, your parent or legal guardian will have to register for a User Account, and add you as a Student User or provide any personal information (such as your contact information, like your e-mail address or phone number) to us. Please seek assistance from your parents or legal guardian. For more details, see “Children’s Privacy” below.

Unless otherwise specified, all capitalized terms used herein but not otherwise defined shall have the meaning ascribed to them in the User Agreement between you and Viz, which governs your use of the Platform.

1. COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

For the purposes of this Policy, “personal information” means any identifiable information about an individual, including but not limited to an individual’s name, home address, telephone number, email address, except any other information otherwise exempted by the applicable laws of Canada. For example, in Canada, personal information does not include any business contact information that is processed solely to communicate with that person about his or her employment or profession.

When you use our Services, we may collect the following personal information from you:

  • Contact information, such as first and last name, email address, mailing address, and phone number;
  • Identifiers, such as date of birth, age, grade, and gender;
  • Payment information, such as billing address and credit card information;
  • Unique identifiers, such as username, account number and password;
  • Identification, such as government issued identification documents and current photograph;
  • Preferences, such as interests, type and frequency of tutoring sought (scheduled or on-demand sessions), preferred tutor level, schools you attended or are attending and the curriculum of that school;
  • Medical and health information, such as you or your child’s learning disabilities or other disabilities;
  • Information required to refer your friends and family under the Referral Program;
  • Video recordings of tutoring sessions (stored for ninety (90) days by a third party provider); and
  • Any other information you voluntarily provide through our Services.

Your personal information may be collected when:

  • You register for an account with our Services;
  • You make purchases through our Services;
  • You fill out free-form fields on our Services;
  • You connect with us through social media;
  • You connect with us through customer support channels;
  • You communicate with us by phone or email; and
  • You otherwise use our Services.

We only collect personal information that we need. We encourage you to not provide us with any personal information beyond what is necessary and as requested by us.

Collection from Third Parties

We do not knowingly collect your personal information from a third party, unless you consent or we are otherwise exempted, authorized or required by applicable laws to do so. For example, we may collect your personal information from the following third parties:

  • Your authorized representative(s);
  • · Organization(s) that you previously provided consent to in respect of their collection of your personal information; or
  • · Public sources in which your personal information is publicly available.

If we collect your personal information from a third party, we will only process that information for the specific purpose for which it was provided to us in accordance with this Policy and the policy under which that information was collected.

Communication between Users

Certain of our Services may facilitate communication between Users but we do not assume responsibility for the use of content or information exchanged during these interactions. We encourage you to exercise caution when disclosing information to other Users. You are solely responsible for the personal information you share through our Services and we do not guarantee the privacy or security of the information you share with other users.

2. PURPOSE FOR WHICH PERSONAL INFORMATION IS PROCESSED

We may process your personal information for the following purposes:

  • To verify and authenticate your identity;
  • To ensure that the Services are optimized for your use and benefit;
  • To contact you with respect to your purchases or transactions;
  • To deliver Services and fulfill requests;
  • To maintain accurate records;
  • To analyze user experience and improve the Services;
  • To provide you with requested information, process your questions and/or answer your queries;
  • To communicate with you to provide you with information about us (including news releases, newsletters, and notices regarding upcoming promotions, contests, or events);
  • To solicit feedback from you about your satisfaction and experience with our Services;
  • To communicate with you to provide you services, contacts, materials and/or recommendations for your needs as identified by you through phone, email or our websites;
  • To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts or transactions entered into between you and us;
  • To comply with internal policies and procedures and other legal, accounting or security requirements;
  • To protect us, yourself and others from fraud and error, and to safeguard our business interests;
  • To collect debts owed to us;
  • To allow you to view a recorded video session to perform a revision of the tutoring session;
  • To allow you to refer friends and family under the Referral Program;
  • To manage or transfer our assets or liabilities (for example, in the case of an acquisition or merger, the provision of security for a credit facility or the change of a supplier of products or services); and
  • To share your personal information with our employees, contractors, consultants, Tutors, and other third party service providers such as website hosting providers, advertising agencies, payment processors or customer service agencies (“Service Providers”) who require this information to assist us with establishing, maintaining and managing our relationship with you and optimizing and providing the Services for your use and benefit. Please note that we may change or add Service Providers at any time, in our sole discretion, either in Canada or elsewhere. We encourage you to reference this Policy from time-to-time to obtain updated information.

3. INFORMATION COLLECTED AUTOMATICALLY

As you navigate through and interact with our Website or use the Services, we may use cookies or other automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:

  • Details of your visits to our Services, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Services.
  • Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:

Cookies. The Website uses cookies (small files containing program code that reside on your computer), to provide usage statistics about the Website, and to understand where visitors learn about the Website. We also may use cookies to simplify the re-entering of your data. You can adjust your browser settings to opt out of the use of cookies by having your browser disable cookies. Look for the cookie options in your browser in the Options or Preferences menu. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of the Website may not be accessible or may not function properly.

Log Files. When you use the Services, our servers automatically record certain information in server logs. These server logs may include information such as your web request, Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, referring/exit pages and URLs, number of clicks and how you interact with the Website, domain names, landing pages, and pages viewed, mobile carrier, and similar information. Log files help us to monitor, analyze, improve and maintain the Website and to diagnose and fix technical issues.

Device Identifiers. When you access the Services using a mobile device, we collect information about your device contained in your mobile device’s “device identifier.” This device identifier includes information such as the type of device you are using, its operating system, and mobile network information, which may include your mobile phone number. We use this information to optimize the Website and fix technical issues.

Analytics. We may use third party service providers (including but not limited to Google Analytics) to collect information about your use of the Services, such as the features used and time spent on the Services, to help us better understand our users and improve the Services. For information about how information is processed in connection with Google Analytics, please read the Google Analytics Policy here.

4. DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We will not share your personal information with any third party, except as indicated in this Policy, as updated from time to time, or as authorized or required by law. We may disclose your personal information for the purposes as described in this Policy in the following ways:

Employees, Contractors, Agents. We will share personal information with our employees, contractors, Tutors, and agents on an as-needed basis.

Service Providers. We may transfer personal information to Service Providers that provide certain services on our behalf, such as background checks, education partners, private or public schools, data hosting and processing, software developers, videotelephony software providers, marketing, analytics, information technology services, and payment processing. Some of these Service Providers may be located outside of Canada, including but not limited to the United States, United Kingdom, Greece and South Africa. While outside of your jurisdiction of residence, personal information will be subject to applicable foreign laws, which may permit government and national security agencies to access your information in certain circumstances. Please note that we may change or add Service Providers at any time, in our sole discretion, either in Canada or elsewhere. We encourage you to reference this Policy from time-to-time to obtain updated information. For more information about the way in which our service providers treat personal information, please contact us as set out in the “Contact” section below.

Business Transaction. We may disclose personal information to parties in connection with a corporate transaction, such as a sale, financing or other disposition of all or part of our business or assets, for the purposes of evaluating and/or performing the transaction.

Other. We may disclose personal information to meet our legal and regulatory obligations or otherwise as permitted or required by law, including to comply with a subpoena or warrant, to law enforcement in connection with an investigation, to protect our rights and the safety and security of our employees, and to enforce our agreements and collect debts owed to us.

You may be provided with, or the Website or the Platform may contain links to other websites that Viz does not own or operate. We provide links to third party websites as a convenience to the user. These links are not intended as an endorsement of or referral to the linked websites. The linked websites have separate and independent privacy policies, notices and terms of use, which shall apply to your use of such services. We do not have any control over such websites, and therefore we have no responsibility or liability for the manner in which the organizations that operate such linked websites may collect, use or disclose, secure and otherwise treat personal information. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

6. CASL POLICY

We are committed to compliance with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (“CASL”). Any electronic communication we send to outside parties is protected by a range of business procedures, processes and policies to ensure that such communication is done in compliance with CASL. In our electronic communications with outside parties, we comply with the rules established by CASL and enforced by various Canadian authorities including the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. CASL regulates, and our policies generally apply to, each commercial electronic message (a “CEM”) that we send. A CEM is an electronic message sent to an electronic address that, among its purposes, encourages participation in a commercial activity.

In addition to adopting and updating this Policy, we undertake various transparency initiatives to ensure we comply with CASL, which include:

  • Consent— we do not send you CEMs without your consent. This consent typically must be “express” (expressly acknowledged by you), but in certain circumstances can be “implied” or specifically exempt from consent requirements. We modified or adopted our sign-up, registration and consent forms in order to ensure that your consent is meaningful (i.e. informed and freely given) as per CASL. When we collect your electronic contact information, you will know the exact purposes behind the collection.
  • Content— we adopted processes to ensure that our CEMs contain the following requirements prescribed under CASL, which will usually be in the footer of the CEM. We will:
    • Identify ourselves as the party sending the CEM, and whether we are sending the message on our own behalf or on behalf of someone else;
    • Provide you with our contact information; and
    • Set out a clear, working unsubscribe mechanism or preference centre that is easy to use, automatic, and at no cost to you (other than your own cost of connecting to the Internet).
  • Clarity— we ensured that each aspect of a CEM, including its header, content, or any links or URLs in the CEM) conveys the appropriate information, whether viewed individually or taken as a whole, so that you always know what you are clicking on.

    If you receive a CEM from us but believe that you should not have or no longer wish to receive CEMs, we will aim to respect your preferences in a timely manner once you update them through our unsubscribe mechanism. CASL requires us to process unsubscribe requests within 10 business days. If you have any questions or concerns about our unsubscribe options, you may contact us at the address indicated in Section 13 below.

We will process your personal information only with your knowledge and consent, except where exempted, authorized or required by applicable laws. The form of consent may vary depending on the circumstances and the type of information being requested. Your consent may be express, with clear options to say “yes” or “no” (such as by being asked to check a box to indicate your consent), or implied ( such as when you provide us with your address through a form or email seeking information and we use those means to respond to your request). Your consent can also be provided by your authorized representative. Taking into account the sensitivity of your personal information, purposes of collection, and your reasonable expectations, we will obtain the form of consent that is appropriate to the personal information being processed. When we process your personal information for a new purpose, we will document that new purpose and ask for your consent again.

You may refuse to provide consent or may notify us at any time that you wish to withdraw or change your consent to the processing of your personal information without penalty, subject to legal, contractual or other restrictions and reasonable notice, by opting out of the use of your personal information by contacting our Privacy Officer (see Section 13 below). However, if you withdraw or change your consent, we may not be able to provide you with the Services.

Aside from consent, we may also process your personal information under other legal bases, as permitted by applicable laws.

8. SAFEGUARDS

We protect personal information using safeguards that are appropriate to the sensitivity of the information. These safeguards may include measures to protect against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure or destruction of personal information. We limit access to personal information to our employees, contractors and service providers (including tutors) who require access in connection with their role or function. Each of our employees is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of all personal information to which they have access. We keep our employees informed about our policies and procedures for protecting personal information. Despite these measures, since no system or security measure is completely secure, we cannot fully guarantee the security of your personal information and it is possible that personal information may be lost, stolen or accessed without authorization.

9. RETENTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Personal information is maintained on our servers or those of our service providers and is retained as long as necessary for the fulfilment of the purposes for which it was collected, in accordance with prudent business practices on general document retention, or as otherwise required by law.

10. CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

If you are under 18, you may not register for a User Account or provide any personal information (such as your contact information, like your e-mail address or phone number) to us. Please seek assistance from your parents or legal guardian.

Individuals under 18 must obtain a parent’s or guardian’s permission before sending any personal information (such as full name, address, email, address, etc.) to Viz. Viz encourages parents to closely supervise and monitor their children’s online usage and to be aware of the activities in which their children are participating.

If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 18 years of age without parent or guardian permission, the personal information will be deleted as soon as possible. If a child under 18 years of age has provided us with personal information their parent or guardian may contact our Privacy Officer.

11. YOUR RIGHTS

You may request access to or correction of your personal information in our custody or control. You may also have the right, in specified circumstances, to object to our use of your personal information, to request the deletion of your personal information or restrict its use, to request a copy of the information you have provided to us to use for your own purposes, or to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. Your rights are subject to applicable legal restrictions, and we may take appropriate steps to verify your identity before responding to your request. To exercise any of these rights, please contact us in writing using the contact information set out in the “Contact” section below.

12. UPDATES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

If we change our Policy, we will post those changes on this page to keep you aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we may disclose it. Changes to this Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

13. CONTACT

For questions, inquiries or requests, please contact our Privacy Officer at privacy@viztutoring.com or send us at letter to:

Viz L.P.
4576 Yonge St. Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario
M2N 6N4