At TVOKids.com, we pride ourselves in making safe and quality content that kids can enjoy and parents can trust. This Privacy Notice explains how your personal information will be handled when you interact with TVOKids, a business unit owned and operated by The Ontario Education Communications Authority (“TVO”).

Please note that this Privacy Notice does not explain how TVO handles your personal information in connection with TVO’s other business units (including TVO Today, TVO Learn and TVO ILC). For more information about those business units, please review TVO’s full Privacy Notice and the privacy notices specific to TVO’s other business units.

 

1. How TVO Collects Personal Information

You may be asked to voluntarily give your personal information to TVO when you interact with TVOKids, including when you participate in certain activities on the Website. For example, TVO may collect:

  • Kids Content.  Some activities on the Website such as contests may ask kids to send us stories, artwork, photographs or other submissions (collectively “Kids Content”). Parental consent must be indicated before Kids Content can be submitted. We monitor all Kids Content we receive prior to posting on the Website or any further public distribution. However parents and legal guardians are ultimately responsible for making sure that the submission is appropriate and does not inadvertently reveal personal information.  We ask parents and legal guardians to review Kids Content closely prior to submission. Kids Content intended to be posted on our Website will be identified only by first name, age and city/region.
  • Birthday Segments.  TVO offers a “birthday segment” that announces birthday greetings to children on-air. If you wish to have a TVOKids host convey a birthday greeting to your child on their birthday, you may contact TVO and we will collect the first name and age of your child in order to announce that viewer's birthday on-air. See the Birthdays section on the FAQ page for more information on how to send in a birthday request. Currently all requests must be submitted by mail.
  • Contests.  Kids can enter a TVOKids.com contest through our Website. If an entrant is under 13 years of age, we require an indication of parental consent prior to the submission of personal information. On the online entry form, we may ask for the entrant's name, age and contact information where a parent can be reached. This personal information is collected and used solely for the purpose of communicating with parents/guardians and awarding contest prizes, tracking compliance with the official rules and regulations and for internal feedback purposes. If a contest entrant is under 13 years of age and has won a contest on our Website, we will get a parent's permission offline (by postal mail, fax or phone) before we mail any prizes.
  • Correspondence.  TVO may collect contact information, communications preferences and correspondence you send to us. When an e-mail is sent to TVOKids.com, the time the message was sent and the IP address it was sent from may be stamped on the message. This protects TVOKids.com, TVO staff and the public from potentially threatening messages. The information stamped will only be used in extreme cases where we feel safety is at risk.

When you are asked to voluntarily give your personal information to TVO, you can choose not to provide certain requested personal information, but then you may not be able to purchase products or services or access or use certain features of the TVO website, or otherwise receive the full benefit of TVO’s products and services.

TVO may use technologies to automatically collect certain information regarding your use of the Website, such as the dates and times that you access the Website, the browsers, operating systems, software, devices and networks that you use to access the Website and details of your use of the Website. TVO’s website, online services, email messages, and advertisements may also use technologies (e.g. cookies, web beacons, tokens, pixels or tags) to automatically collect information that assists TVO to improve its products, services, customer communications and advertising and to prevent fraud. Some of the information automatically collected by technological means is non-personal information (because the information does not identify you).

 

2. How TVO Uses Personal Information

  • General.  TVO may use your personal information for various purposes in connection with its relationship and transactions with you and as otherwise set out in this Privacy Notice or permitted by applicable law, including: (i) to contact and correspond with you regarding your transactions and your use of TVO’s products and services and to provide you with customer care services; (ii) to facilitate your interactions and transactions with TVO; (iii) to provide products and services to you; (iv) to process and respond to your inquiries, requests and other communications; (v) to provide you with information (including by email and other electronic messages) regarding TVO and its products and services and the products and services offered by other businesses, to the extent permitted by applicable law; (vi) to administer and facilitate your participation in contests, promotions and surveys related to TVO; (vii) to maintain, protect and improve TVO’s products and services and to develop new products and services; (viii) to develop, deliver and improve TVO’s advertising and marketing; and (ix) to protect and enforce TVO’s legal rights, interests and remedies and to protect the business, operations and customers of TVO or other persons.
  • Suppliers and Service Providers.  TVO may share your personal information to its suppliers and service providers to assist TVO in the provision of products and services to you, to provide services to TVO, to assist TVO to use your personal information as set out in this Privacy Notice and as otherwise permitted by applicable law.
  • Information Collected by Technological Means. TVO may use information collected by technological means to recognize you as a user of TVO’s website, to facilitate and improve your use of TVO’s website 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 Notice. 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/.

 

3. How TVO Discloses Personal Information

  • Specific Consents.  TVO may disclose your personal information in accordance with express or implied consents that you give during your interactions and transactions with TVO.
  • Business Partners and Other Third Parties.  In some circumstances, TVO may share your personal information with its business partners, such as strategic business partners who provide products and services that enhance your experience with TVO or that may be of interest to you, and other third parties. TVO will only disclose your personal information to a third party if TVO has your consent to do so, if you have provided your consent to the third party, or if TVO is legally required or permitted to do so.
  • Law Enforcement/Legal Disclosures.  TVO may disclose your personal information as required or authorized by applicable law, including to comply with a subpoena, warrant or court or arbitral order or litigation disclosure obligation. TVO may disclose your personal information to law enforcement agencies or other independent organizations if TVO reasonably believes the disclosure is necessary or appropriate in connection with national security, law enforcement or other issues of public importance, or if TVO reasonably believes the disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect and enforce TVO’s legal rights, interests and remedies or to protect the rights, interests, business, operations or customers of TVO or other persons (including to detect and prevent fraud and other illegal activities, to enforce any of the terms of use, terms of service or other agreements that govern access to or use of any of TVO’s products and services). TVO has no control over, or responsibility or liability for, the use, disclosure or retention of your personal information by the agencies, independent organizations or other persons to whom TVO discloses the information in the foregoing circumstances, and the use, disclosure and retention of the disclosed information by those agencies, independent organizations or other persons is not subject to this Privacy Notice.
  • Business Transactions.  TVO may disclose your personal information in connection with a proposed or actual business transaction in which TVO is involved (e.g. a corporate amalgamation, reorganization, merger or acquisition, or the sale or transfer of some or all of TVO’s business or assets), but TVO will require the information recipient to agree to protect the privacy of your personal information in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Notice and applicable law.

4. Children and Personal Information

TVO does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 years of age without the consent of a legal guardian. If TVO learns that TVO has collected or received personal information from a child without parental or guardian consent, TVO will delete that information unless the parent or guardian provide the required consent. 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.

5. Contacting TVO

If you have any comments or questions about this Privacy Notice 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: November 2, 2022