Privacy Statement

Introduction and Scope of this Privacy Statement

Your privacy is important to The Ontario Educational Communications Authority (“TVO”). This Privacy Statement explains how TVO collects, uses, discloses and retains personal information in connection with TVO.me, including the products and services available through TVO.me.

Scope of this Privacy Statement
Your Consent
Personal Information
How TVO Collects, Uses and Discloses Personal Information
Cookies
Your Right to Withdraw Consent
Location of Personal Information
Retention of Personal Information
Protection of Personal Information
Accuracy of Personal Information
Non-Personal Information
Other Websites and Businesses
Social Media
Children and Personal Information
Other Matters
Contacting TVO

1. Scope of this Privacy Statement

This Privacy Statement applies to TVO.me and the products and services available through TVO.me, which includes the following business units:

TVO Today
TVO Learn
TVO ILC
TVO Kids

2. Your Consent

By providing TVO with your personal information, you consent to the collection, use, disclosure and retention of that information by TVO in accordance with this Privacy Statement and as otherwise permitted by applicable law. You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and on reasonable notice to TVO, but then you might not be able to proceed with your intended interactions or transactions TVO or otherwise receive the full benefit of TVO’s products and services.

Please refer to Section 6 of this Privacy Statement to learn about your options for withdrawing your consent.

3. Personal Information

In this Privacy Statement, “personal information” means information about an identifiable individual, such as an individual’s name and email address, but does not include (to the extent permitted by law) information that is publicly available in a telephone directory or that is business contact information that enables an individual to be contacted at a place of business.

4. How TVO Collects, Uses and Discloses Personal Information

TVO handles personal information differently for each of its business units, so how TVO handles your personal information will depend on the TVO business units with which you interact. For specific information on how TVO will collect, use and disclose your personal information, please review each of the following privacy notices that apply to your interactions with TVO:

TVO Today Privacy Notice
TVO Learn Privacy Notice
TVO ILC Privacy Notice
TVOKids Privacy Notice

5. Cookies

TVO may use information collected by technological means to recognize you as a user of TVO’s websites, to facilitate and improve your use of TVO’s websites and online services, to confirm that messages have been delivered to and opened by you and to provide you with targeted advertisements. TVO may use web beacons, pixels or gif tags and action tags to confirm that email messages have been delivered and opened. You may opt out of receiving emails in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Information provided by cookies may be collected and processed by TVO or by its third party service providers, including Google and Facebook.

You may choose to decline or disable cookies if your web browser or device permits, but doing so may affect your ability to access or use certain features of a website. Information about how Google uses cookies and how you can limit or disable certain kinds of cookies on your personal computer or mobile device is available here: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/ and https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/.

6. Your Right to Withdraw Consent

You may withdraw your consent to TVO’s collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information as set out in this Privacy Statement at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. To withdraw your consent, you may contact us at the contact information set out at the end of this Privacy Statement.

If you withdraw your consent to the collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information for purposes that are integral to the provision of TVO’s products and services, then you might not be able to proceed with your intended interactions or transactions with TVO or otherwise receive the full benefit of TVO’s products and services.

If you withdraw your consent to the collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information for additional purposes that are not integral to the provision of TVO’s products and services (e.g., to send advertising and marketing messages to you, to administer and facilitate your participation in contests and promotions, and to conduct surveys) then withdrawing your consent for those purposes will not affect the provision of TVO’s products and services to you.

7. Location of Personal Information

TVO and its service providers may process, store and use your personal information at facilities in Canada and USA. The personal information protection laws of USA might be different from the laws of the jurisdiction in which you reside, and might permit courts, government, law enforcement agencies, regulatory agencies and security authorities to access your personal information without notice. By providing your personal information to TVO, you consent to the transfer of the personal information to facilities located in USA and the processing and storage of the personal information at those facilities.

8. Retention of Personal Information

TVO will retain your personal information for the period reasonably necessary for the purposes set out or referenced in this Privacy Statement and to comply with TVO’s legal obligations or enforce or protect TVO’s legal rights, or a longer period required or permitted by applicable law. TVO will delete or dispose of your personal information, or depersonalize the information, when TVO is no longer reasonably required to retain the information for the purposes set out or referenced in this Privacy Statement.

9. Protection of Personal Information

TVO uses reasonable safeguards – including administrative, physical and technical security and safeguarding measures – appropriate to the sensitivity of the personal information in TVO’s possession or under TVO’s control to help protect the information from unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, deletion or similar risks. Nevertheless, security risks cannot be eliminated and TVO cannot guarantee that your personal information will not be accessed, used, disclosed or deleted in ways not otherwise described in this Privacy Statement.

10. Accuracy of Personal Information

TVO will rely on you to ensure that the personal information you provide to TVO is as accurate, complete and up to date as necessary for the purposes for which TVO uses the personal information. You will promptly notify TVO of any changes to the personal information you provide to TVO using the procedures made available for that purpose by TVO or by contacting TVO’s Privacy Officer using the contact information noted below.

11. Non-Personal Information

TVO may use your personal information to create and collect non-personal information (information that is not about an identifiable individual), including personal information that has been aggregated or otherwise depersonalized so that the information no longer relates to an identifiable individual. TVO may use, disclose, transfer and retain non-personal information for any purpose and in any manner whatsoever. If non-personal information is combined with personal information, then TVO will treat the combined non-personal information as personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Statement for as long as the non-personal information is combined with the personal information.

12. Other Websites and Businesses

The TVO website and correspondence (including emails and messages) may include advertisements for products and services offered by independent businesses or links to websites operated by independent businesses. TVO has no responsibility or liability for, or control over, those other independent businesses, their websites, products or services, or their collection, use, disclosure or retention of your personal information. This Privacy Statement does not apply to the collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information by independent businesses or through independent websites or online services. If you have questions about how those independent businesses or their websites or online services collect, use, disclose or retain personal information, please contact the owner or operator of the independent businesses, websites and services.

13. Social Media

When you use certain aspects of the TVO website or other services to post information to social media sites (e.g. there may be links to TVO’s Facebook, Twitter or YouTube pages), the personal information that you post or share in connection with the social media sites is visible to other persons and can be read, collected, used and disclosed by other persons, including to send unsolicited messages. In those cases, you will be leaving TVO website and going to the third party's website. Any information provide to a social media sites and other sites is governed by their own privacy policies. You are solely responsible for the personal information that you choose to post or share in those situations. TVO has no control over, or responsibility or liability for, the use, disclosure, and retention of the personal information that you disclose in those situations, and the use, disclosure, and retention of the disclosed information is not subject to this Privacy Statement.

14. Children and Personal Information

If you believe TVO might have any information from or about a child where parental or guardian consent was required, please contact TVO’s Privacy Officer using the contact information set out at the end of this Privacy Statement.

15. Other Matters

(a) Disclaimers, Liability Exclusions/Limitations and Disputes: The agreements (including any website terms of use) that you accept when you apply, register for, order or use TVO’s products and services contain important provisions, including provisions disclaiming, limiting or excluding the liability of TVO and other persons (including service providers) and provisions determining the applicable law and jurisdiction for the resolution of disputes. To the extent permitted by applicable law, each of those provisions applies to any dispute that may arise in relation to this Privacy Statement or TVO’s collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information, and are of the same force and effect as if they were reproduced directly in this Privacy Statement. Nothing in this Privacy Statement amends any of those other agreements.

(b) Changes to this Privacy Statement: TVO may change this Privacy Statement from time to time by posting a new version of this Privacy Statement on the TVO website. TVO’s collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information will be governed by the version of this Privacy Statement in effect at that time. Your continued dealings with TVO after any change to this Privacy Statement will signify your consent to the collection, use, disclosure and retention of your personal information by TVO as set out in the changed Privacy Statement. Accordingly, you should check the “Last Updated” date of this Privacy Statement (at the top of this Privacy Statement) and review any changes since the last version.

(c) Notices to You: You consent to TVO sending you emails (to the email addresses you provide to TVO) regarding this Privacy Statement and related matters and as otherwise permitted by applicable law.

16. Contacting TVO

If you have any comments or questions about this Privacy Statement or how TVO handles your personal information, please contact TVO’s Privacy Officer by email at privacy@tvo.org or by mail at: TVO – Privacy Officer, Legal Services & Business Affairs, TVO, 2180 Yonge Street, Box 200, Station Q, Toronto, Ontario M4T 2T1.

Last Updated: October 25, 2022.