Privacy Policy

Our Commitment to Privacy

We are The Learning Bar Inc., (referred to as “The Learning Bar”, “TLB”, “we”, and “us”), and we care deeply about the privacy and security of all information we collect from you. We aim to be as rigorous and transparent as possible in protecting Personal Information collected, used and shared during the provision of our services or the purchase and use of our products.

The mission of The Learning Bar is to increase the Educational Prosperity™ of all children by providing innovative solutions to educators. We use Personal Information only to serve that purpose, and only in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on March 24, 2022. BY USING THIS SITE or OUR SERVICES, YOU SIGNIFY YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY, YOU SHOULD NOT USE THIS SITE or ANY TLB SERVICES.

Scope

The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to outline our processes and practices regarding the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information and to confirm our compliance with applicable privacy legislation.

The Learning Bar has developed and manages the distribution, implementation and support of the OurSCHOOL Survey Suite™; the Early Years Evaluation™; and Confident Learners™, as well as learning tools such as Activity Card Sets , kit supplies for Assessments, professional learning education programs and tools, and downloads of published works (collectively, the “Services”). As part of our core business, and in order to provide our Services, we collect and store both Personal Information and Perception Information, which are defined below. Contractual terms relating to the ownership and use of information are outlined in the Terms and Conditions that our Customers agree to as a condition of use of our Services.

Definitions

A ‘Customer’ refers to an individual, an individual school or school jurisdiction that has purchased or is registered to use our Services.

An “End-User” refers to individuals to whom the Customer issues passwords and user-names in order that such persons might access the Services;

“Participants” refers to all students assessed using the Services;

‘Personal Information’ means information that, alone or in combination with other information, may be used to identify a specific individual. Examples of Personal Information include name, mailing address, phone number, school ID number, IP address, or email address.

‘Perception Information’ means information gathered from Participants who complete an OurSCHOOL™ survey, that consists of Participants’ thoughts and opinions about aspects of their school’s educational environment. While such information may include Personal Information when it is collected, we take steps to anonymize Perception Information before it is shared in any way. Perception Information, and any other information collected from students under the age of 13, including Personal Information, is only collected with consent of a parent or guardian.

Collection and Use of Personal Information

We collect and use Personal information relating to our Customers, Students, and Participants, as outlined below.

  1. a) Customers

Use of our Services requires Customers to provide some Personal Information in order to register one or more user accounts. Specifically, we collect first and last name (required); work email address (required); work phone number (optional); and work mailing address (optional).

Our Services are supported through a Help Desk website where we receive communications from Customers for use in customer support. We may retain those communications in order to process and respond to requests or to improve our Services.

We use Customer email addresses to send notifications regarding their purchased product(s) and service(s).

  1. b) Participants

We do not gather Personal Information from students under the age of 13 unless we are granted permission to do so by Customers acting on behalf of parents or legal guardians. We require our Customers to obtain any necessary parental consent or provide any required disclosures to parents or guardians.

Our assessment tools require Customers to collect and retain some Personal Information about their students in order to measure and track progress in achieving key developmental skills (e.g., literacy acquisition, language and communication, etc). Specifically, we collect first and last name (required); date of birth (required); and gender (required). Customers may opt to include other Personal Information such as student ID, postal code, or other demographic details.

Student information is compiled into reports that are made available to Customers. This information can be used to help educators and parents/guardians identify students that require additional support, assess the effectiveness of school programs, target and reduce inequalities in various student populations, allocate educational resources, or improve classroom instruction.

The OurSCHOOL™ surveys do not collect Personal Information from Participants. However, it does collect Perception Information, which consists of Participants’ thoughts and opinions about aspects of their school’s educational environment. Once collected, TLB takes steps so that Perception Information is not able to be used to identify a specific individual. The collection of Perception Information takes place through voluntary participation by students, parents/guardians and teachers.

Perception Information is aggregated into population-level reports that are made available to Customers. This information can be used to help educators assess the effectiveness of school programs, to target and reduce inequalities in various student populations, to allocate educational resources, or to improve classroom instruction. Data suppression features are built into the system for protection of the information and to maintain anonymity of individual Participants. For example, we set a minimum number of Participant responses at 5 before a report will be generated for a specific student population.

If you decide to purchase a product through our e-commerce storefront, we may collect information required in order to complete the purchase transaction. We ask you for your:

  • name
  • shipping address
  • billing address
  • email address
  • phone number
  • credit card information for the order 

This information will be shared with our online shopping cart provider and payment processor, Shopify Payments. We use shopping cart features that safeguard this information by using industry standard SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encrypted servers. SSL encodes the information transferred between you and the server, rendering it unreadable to anyone trying to intercept the information. Your credit card data is not collected or stored by TLB. For more information about Shopify’s privacy practices, please see their privacy policy, available at https://www.shopify.com/legal/privacy.

Browser Cookies

We may gather and store information that is generated automatically during your interactions with our websites or through emails we send to you. This information may include Personal Information, such as your IP address, as well as information stored in ‘cookies’. Cookies are small text files that a website can send to a user’s browser for storage on the hard drive and can be used to help us deliver content specific to your interests, to process your requests, or to help us improve your user experience. Most browsers are initially set to accept cookies, but you can change that setting to block cookies. If you decide to block cookies, note that this may affect the functionality of our website.

Disclosure of Personal Information

We do not sell, rent or share any Personal Information with any 3rd party agencies. We will only disclose Personal Information when required or authorized by applicable law, if ordered to do so by a court or enforcement authority as appropriate, or to ensure compliance with our legal obligations. We may also do so to protect users’, our, or others’ rights, property, or safety.

Any Personal Information that we store is only retained as long as necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected.

Storage and Protection of Information

The Learning Bar is a global company that operates in multiple countries. Our online applications are hosted in an Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud infrastructure based in AWS’s Central Canada region. All hardware, data storage and backups reside within Canada. Our applications make use of multiple “Availability Zones” to improve robustness and ensure service availability. AWS data centers are subject to numerous international and jurisdiction-specific security related standards, audits and certifications. A list of these compliance programs can be found on the AWS web site here: https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/programs/.

We follow industry best practices in order to preserve the security and privacy of all information, including Personal Information. This includes appropriate levels of physical and digital security at all points of storage and transmission, ongoing testing/audit regarding system security, and 24/7 monitoring. Network infrastructure is protected from malicious traffic by AWS firewalls. TLB uses AWS’s CloudFront service as an additional layer of content delivery optimization, web acceleration, and security against DDOS attacks. Survey information is transmitted to our system via the secure and encrypted HTTPS protocol.

Although we endeavor to follow industry best practices regarding the storage, transmission and security of information, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. In the unlikely event of a data breach we will ensure we take steps to comply with all applicable laws.

Please contact us immediately if you become aware or have reason to believe there has been any unauthorized use of your Personal Information held by us.

Retention of Personal Information

We retain Personal Information for as long as necessary to provide the services requested, or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing our agreements. Personal Information that is no longer required to fulfill the identified purpose will be de-identified or destroyed.

Accessing and Correcting your Personal Information

It is important that the Personal Information we hold about you (or about a child you are responsible for) is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your Personal Information changes. By law you have the right to request access to and to correct the Personal Information that we hold about you.

Upon written request, we will advise you of the Personal Information we hold about you (or if you are a parent or guardian, about your child), and the purpose for which we hold this information. Once a request is received, we will endeavor to make this information available within 30 days.

Upon written request, we will amend, correct, delete or cease to process your Personal Information. Once a request is received, we will endeavor to modify this information within 30 days. We may ask you to provide additional information in order to prove your identity before we process your request.
To make a written request concerning your Personal Information, please contact our Privacy Officer at info@thelearningbar.com, or using the contact details, below.

Unsubscribe

You may ask us at any time to stop sending you marketing information or to stop being contacted by us for any other reason. You can do this by contacting us at the address below, or by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in any email communication you receive from us.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post any changes we make to our Privacy Policy on this page. If we make material changes to how we treat Personal Information, we will notify you through a notice located here on our website.

We include the date the Privacy Policy was last revised at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date, active, and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our website and this Privacy Policy to check for any changes.

Questions? Contact us here

If you have any questions about this Policy, your Personal Information, or any other privacy matter, please contact us by visiting the Contact Us section of our website.