Privacy policy

1. When students register online with TVO Learn Mathify, we ask students to provide the following pieces of personal information:

   
   
   1. Ontario Education Number (“OEN”) or a functional equivalent;
   2. email address;
   3. grade; and
   4. course level (Applied, Academic etc.).
   5. the school board or other corresponding educational authority that the student is affiliated with.

   
   This information is collected on behalf of the Ministry to support operation of the site and for the purposes set out below. During the registration process, students will be asked to create a username. We strongly advise that you do not use any personally identifiable information in your username. Although usernames are not visible to other students, usernames are visible to TVO Learn Mathify tutors and TVO personnel and contractors in the course of providing and maintaining the TVO Learn Mathify service. Students and educators can also choose to share their TVO Learn Mathify content with other registered TVO Learn Mathify users, which could reveal your username to the recipients of the content. As the content may reach a larger audience than intended we caution all users to use non-identifying usernames, to be mindful of the information in the content they share, and to only share content with trusted parties. Digital content can also have a longer lifespan than expected so users should be aware that sharing sensitive content can lead to humiliation, damage to reputation, and criminal consequences, among other harms.
   
   As TVO does not require student names for registration, personal information and account information is linked to the applicable OEN or functional equivalent and never to a student’s name. Only the responsible educational authority (such as the Ministry of Education, or the applicable school board, or applicable school) has access to student names and the corresponding OEN or functional equivalents.
   
   While we do not have access to student names, an OEN can tell us what school board, and in some cases what school a student user attends. We collect information, on behalf of the Ministry of Education, about users’ schools and school boards to enable the planning and allocation of resources at the school and school board level. For example, the information may be used to direct additional promotion of TVO Learn Mathify services to certain schools and school boards.
   
   TVO Learn Mathify tutors do not have access to your OEN. Only the TVO personnel and contractors that need to know this information to support carrying out the TVO Learn Mathify services (including the creation of reports to facilitate planning, delivery, and resource allocation) have access to this information.

2. TVO Learn Mathify tutoring sessions are recorded primarily for student reference purposes. The recordings are also used by TVO in limited circumstances for quality control, dispute resolution, and training purposes. TVO will continue to retain a copy of the recording even if a student deletes his/her copy. Students seeking to delete all copies should contact TVO’s Privacy Officer. All copies of recordings are permanently deleted periodically unless further retention is required for legal reasons.

3. We collect information about usage of the TVO Learn Mathify service including log information such as details of how you used our service. This information is collected to improve the quality of the TVO Learn Mathify service and to manage content delivery. For example, this information helps us to make decisions about the browsers and platforms TVO Learn Mathify supports and helps us to identify other technical infrastructure requirements. We may also use information to create content such as topic areas for questions that come up often.

4. TVO uses session and persistent cookies on its websites. Session cookies are data files temporarily installed in users' browsers to help them navigate the site. Persistent cookies, computer files stored on hard drives, are used to help measure traffic to the site. Cookies are used to enable TVO to compile statistics, and not to collect information of a personal nature. While users may disable or remove cookies, doing so may make it impossible to fully access TVO's websites.

5. No personal information is ever stored in a cookie, even if your name, or e-mail address was entered on other parts of the website. TVO does not sell information collected by cookies on its websites or use the information for commerce-related purposes.

6. The following details explain how and when TVO might use cookies: As you explore a TVO Website including TVO Learn Mathify, a cookie will be set on your computer which will record your IP address. This will tell us which pages you visit and the amount of time spent on each page. This helps us at TVO identify new and repeat visitors and tells us how long visitors spend on our Websites and which pages receive the most traffic. This tracking is to enhance your experience by allowing customization and an easier access to the items on TVO Learn Mathify you enjoy.

7. Educators will be required to provide the following pieces of information in order to register online with TVO Learn Mathify:

   
   
   1. the educator’s first and last name;
   2. a valid e-mail address issued by an Ontario school board or Ontario’s Ministry of Education; and
   3. the school board or other corresponding educational authority that the educator is affiliated with.

   
   Unlike the student accounts an OEN will not be required for educator accounts. These accounts are separate from and have no access or affiliation to any student accounts. Note that accounts for educators are not able to access the tutoring function.

1. We only collect and use personal information necessary to carrying out the TVO Learn Mathify services. We will not disclose, sell, release or rent your personal information to any other third parties, companies or people, unless we explicitly state otherwise or unless required by law.

2. On behalf of the Ministry of Education, we collect information on data and trends (including usage on an individual level) to better understand student response to the curriculum. Recordings of TVO Learn Mathify tutoring sessions and direct transcripts of the TVO Learn Mathify sessions are not shared with the Ministry of Education as part of the collection and disclosure of information.

3. Aggregated (non-individual) information on data and trends will also be provided to participating school boards. Data will be stripped out of reports to school boards where there are only ten (10) or fewer possible student users within a school board or individual school to prevent the identification of any one individual student user.

4. We will use your email address to contact you to present you with information relevant to your use of the TVO Learn Mathify website (e.g. site updates, account maintenance).

5. If you have opted in you will also receive other communications from TVO Learn Mathify more fully described during the opt in process.

   
   
   1. If at any time you no longer wish to receive these emails, please log into your account and deselect "Subscribe to our newsletters" from your profile.
   2. You can choose to stop receiving emails at any time by using the unsubscribe option on any communication we send you.

6. Where a student abuses the Terms of Use, we reserve the right to discontinue providing the TVO Learn Mathify service to the student and may close, terminate, or disable the student’s account. We will contact the student via the email address provided to notify that student of the closure, termination, or disablement of the account.

7. When students communicate with tutors during TVO Learn Mathify sessions, students remain anonymous through the use of usernames. Nevertheless, we continue to encourage students to be mindful of the information they disclose when communicating in TVO Learn Mathify. Only disclose information you would be comfortable sharing in a public forum.

8. When you register and sign in to your account, your information is protected by industry standard encryption technology.

9. We reserve the right to disclose any collected information to the Ministry of Education, relevant school board, educational equivalent, or the appropriate law enforcement agency, local children’s aid society, or other appropriate entity in urgent situations affecting health or safety or where such disclosure may be legally required.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, call 416-484-2665 if in the Toronto area or toll-free at 1-800-463-6886 and ask to speak with TVO's Privacy Officer. Alternatively, you can send written correspondence by e-mail to [email protected] or by mail to Attn: TVO Privacy Officer, Legal Services & Business Affairs, TVO, 2180 Yonge Street, Box 200, Station Q, Toronto, Ontario, M4T 2T1.

As noted above, TVO delivers this service on behalf of the Ministry of Education, and information about you and your use of TVO Learn Mathify is provided to the Ministry. For more information about this collection of your information, see the Ministry's Notice of Indirect Collection of Personal Information Opens in a new window.