Client Privacy Notice - Wee Care Academy

Last Updated October 1^st, 2022

Wee Care Academy aims to protect your privacy online the way we protect your family in person, with care and caution. We understand the need to protect and safeguard your sensitive information, and we maintain strict standards and procedures designed to prevent misuse of that information. This privacy notice (“Privacy Notice”) constitutes an agreement between you and Wee Care Academy which has control (collectively, “Wee Care Academy,” “us,” “our,” or “we”) and is part of Wee Care Academy’s Terms of Use.

This Privacy Notice explains the categories of information that we collect, how we use that information, and how it applies when you access or use our websites, mobile applications, and services, both online and offline (collectively, the “Site”). Your privacy is important, and we encourage you to read this Privacy Notice carefully to understand how we collect and use your information.

Consent. By accessing this Site, registering with Wee Care Academy, creating a user profile on our Site, or submitting information to Wee Care Academy, you consent to this Privacy Notice and the collection and use of information as described herein. We will take reasonable steps to notify you and confirm that you agree at different stages of collecting your information. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, you may not be able to access or benefit from certain portions of this Site.

Personal Information. As used in this Privacy Notice, “Personal Information” means information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or device, such as:

Identifiers (e.g., name, address, telephone number, email address)
Sensitive Personal Information (e.g., state identification number, insurance information, financial information)
Protected classification information (e.g., race, citizenship, marital status, medical condition, sex, veteran or military status)
Biometric information (e.g., biological characteristics, behavioral, fingerprints)
Internet or other similar activity (e.g., browsing history)
Employment-related information
Nonpublic educational information, including information protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99)
Commercial information (e.g., products or services purchased, commercial tendencies)

Personal Information does not include (a) publicly available information; (b) aggregate information, meaning data we collect about your use of the Website or about a group or category of services or users from which individual identities or other Personal Information has been removed; or (c) deidentified information that cannot be easily linked back to the individual.

Lawful Basis

We will only collect your Personal Information (a) when applicable, with your consent; or (b) if we have a legitimate interest in doing so. We only collect Personal Information about children with consent from a parent or guardian, as discussed in more detail below.

How We Collect Your Personal Information

We collect Personal Information directly from you, from third parties, and automatically from your use of the Site. The types of Personal Information we collect about you and the manner of collection depends on how you interact with Wee Care Academy, including the services, offers, and portions of our Site that you use. More specifically, we collect Personal Information:

When you communicate with us, with consent. We collect Personal Information directly from you with your consent when you contact Wee Care Academy online, in person, or via telephone or mail, participate in one of our surveys, take a tour, or submit an inquiry at one of our locations, including:

Identifiers. We collect contact information, including your name, phone number, email address and marital status in order to communicate with you about our services, share schedules, menus, and other news, and to personalize those communications to you and your child.
User Generated Material. Some features of our Site permit you to post comments, photos, or other content, subject to our Terms of Use . It is your decision whether to use these features, and any Personal Information or other content you post is provided by you voluntarily.

When you register with Wee Care Academy, with consent. When you fill out a Wee Care Academy form, submit an enrollment agreement, or register to use the Family Connection parent portal, we will collect Personal Information about you and your child directly from you with your consent, including:

Identifiers. Employment-Related Information. We collect contact information and other identifiers, including emergency contact and release information for your child, your driver’s license and other state identification numbers, as well as your current employment information.
Subsidy Status. We may collect Personal Information about you or your child via state subsidy forms to determine eligibility for a state subsidy or discount program. We do not collect financial information in this manner.
Payment Information. Wee Care Academy provides the option of paying for certain Wee Care Academy services via the payment feature on Family Connection through a PCI-compliant payment processing Service Provider. However, Wee Care Academy does not collect or maintain any Payment Information. To make online payments, you or someone you authorize to make payments on your account may use Family Connection to provide bank, credit card, or other payment-related information (“Payment Information”) to our payment processing Service Provider. Your Payment Information is only used for billing purposes and to provide services.

About your child directly from you, with consent. Wee Care Academy must collect certain Personal Information about your child in order to provide you with the childcare services you request, including:

Identifiers. We collect your child’s name, age and date of birth, gender.
Biometrics. We collect certain limited biometric information about your child, including their height, weight, eye color, ethnicity, and distinguishing marks.
Health Information. We collect health information related to your child’s care needs including allergies, medications, medical care provider, and immunization history, to the extent this information is volunteered by a parent/guardian. We collect this information to ensure that your child receives safe and appropriate care.

Wee Care Academy only collects Personal Information about children with consent from the child’s parent or guardian. Please note that some of the Personal Information we collect about children is essential to providing a safe and healthy environment for the children in our care. As such, if you refuse to provide us with certain Personal Information about your child, or later withdraw your consent for Wee Care Academy to use certain Personal Information about your child, Wee Care Academy may not be able to provide you with childcare services.

From your use of the HiMama Mobile App, with consent. Wee Care Academy offers its families a mobile application (the “Mobile App”) powered by Hi Mama, Inc. (“HiMama”). If you choose to download and use the Mobile App, we may collect the following Personal Information:

Identifiers. We collect your name, email address and other identifiers to save your profile.
Photos and Videos. Childcare center staff may upload and share photos and videos of enrolled children, with limitations.
User Generated Material. You have the option to upload photos and videos and to post comments via the Mobile App.
Internet or Similar Network Activity. We collect information about your activity on Mobile App via the cookies that enable the Mobile App’s features.

For more information about the mobile application, please see Wee Care Academy’s Privacy Notice for Mobile App Users .

From third parties, with a legitimate interest. Depending on your circumstances, Wee Care Academy may receive Personal Information about you from certain third parties. We collect this information to achieve our legitimate interest of making our services available to a broad array of customers. For example, we may receive Personal Information from:

Your Employer. If you are offered Wee Care Academy services through your employer, we may receive employment-related information on your eligibility to use the services as well as identifiers like your contact information.
Government Agencies. If you are eligible for a childcare subsidy, we may receive Personal Information from government agencies related to your eligibility or reporting information.
Marketing Companies. From time to time we may work with marketing companies that provide us with contact information for individuals who have consented to receive marketing materials. You have the right to opt out of these communications at any time.

Automatically from your use of the Site, with a legitimate interest. We use website analytics and other technologies to collect internet or other similar network activity, including Personal Information and anonymous data, from your use of the Site. We collect this information to achieve our legitimate interest of maintaining and improving the Site and our services. The information we collect in this manner may include:

Log Files. We use log files to automatically collect certain Personal Information including your Internet Protocol address, as well as anonymous technical information including data about your computer or other device, the type of browser or operating system your device uses, the programs, services, and version of software you use, and the address of any linking websites when you request a web page while visiting the Site.
Cookies. Like most commercial websites, we use cookies to track use of our Site. Please read our Cookie Notice for more information about how we use cookies.

We may combine this information with the Personal Information you provide to us or merge it into aggregate information about Site visitors and traffic to analyze preferences, trends, and statistics.

How We Use Your Personal Information

We use your Personal Information for the purposes described at the time of collection and for other purposes with your consent and as permitted by law. Depending on your interactions with Wee Care Academy, we may use your Personal Information:

To provide you with Wee Care Academy services. We use your Personal Information to provide you with the Wee Care Academy services you have requested. As part of providing such services, we may use this Personal Information to:

Confirm your registration or enable you to use Family Connection and other Site features.
Effectively communicate with you.
Ensure that your child is receiving safe and appropriate care.
Administer first aid and other medical care as necessary.
Comply with licensing regulations and other legal requirements.
Fulfill any other purpose for which you provide your information or provide your consent.

Text messages. By providing us with your wireless phone number, you consent to Wee Care Academy sending you informational text messages related to your childcare services. You can unsubscribe from text messages by replying STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE to any of these text messages. Messaging and data charges may apply to any text message you receive or send. Please contact your wireless carrier if you have questions about messaging or data charges. Wee Care Academy does not send marketing communications by text message or engage in telemarketing activities.

For our direct marketing efforts. We may also use your Personal Information to communicate with you about our services that may be of interest to you in order to achieve our legitimate interest of direct marketing. As part of our direct marketing efforts, we may:

Respond to inquiries we receive from you.
Send you promotional messages, advertising, surveys, and other information that may be of interest to you.
Provide you with other information from and about Wee Care Academy or a business or organization with which we are associated.

Our direct marketing activities are based on your stated preferences or our profiling of your characteristics and preferences based on your interactions with the Site and information obtained from third parties. Wee Care Academy will only contact you in ways compatible with your communication choices.

To create and maintain a trusted and safe childcare environment. Wee Care Academy has a legitimate interest in creating and maintaining a trusted and safe childcare environment for its customers, their children, and Wee Care Academy employees. To that end, Wee Care Academy may use your Personal Information to:

Detect and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, security incidents, and other harmful activity.
Conduct security investigations and risk assessments.
Comply with Wee Care Academy’s legal obligations and licensing requirements.
Protect your privacy, enforce this Privacy Notice, and Wee Care Academy’s other policies.
If we believe it is necessary, identify, contact or bring legal action against persons or entities who may be causing injury to you, to Wee Care Academy, or to others.
To maintain and improve the security and functionality of the Site. We may process the Personal Information we collect automatically from your use of the Site to achieve our legitimate interest of maintaining and improving the security and functionality of the Site. We use this Personal Information to:
Personalize your user experience on the Site.
Ensure that our web pages appear and function properly.
Determine which website referred you to our Site.
Improve the Site, programs, products, services, and content.
Improve the performance of our advertising on other websites.
Send you service or support messages, updates, security alerts, and account notifications.

For other purposes as permitted by law. In addition to the specific uses and purposes described above, we might use information that we collect about you, including Personal Information, to:

Notify you about changes to the Site.
Protect our rights and property.
Comply with a law, regulation, legal process or court order.
Fulfill any other purpose with your consent.

This Site Is Not For Children

This Site is designed for use by adults, not children. Wee Care Academy does not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 16 who may visit our Site, and we do not want to include any Personal Information about children in our databases without first obtaining parental consent. If you are under 16, do not use or provide any information on this Site or on or through any of its features, register on the Site, or provide any Personal Information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, email address, or any screen name or username you may use. If we learn we have collected or received Personal Information from a child under 16 without verified parent or guardian consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 16, or if you become aware of any unauthorized submission of information to Wee Care Academy, including children’s information, please contact Wee Care Academy.

Security

Wee Care Academy employs commercially appropriate and reasonable safeguards both online and offline to maintain the security, confidentiality, and integrity of Personal Information that we collect about you. Wee Care Academy maintains internal policies to govern the collection, processing and handling of data, and restricts access to data to those employees who require such access to perform their job functions. We educate our employees about the importance of confidentiality and customer privacy through standard operating procedures.

Data Security. We use encryption to protect information online, and the servers that store your Personal Information are housed in a secure environment. We update and test our technology to improve the protection of our information about you and to assure the integrity of that information. Even so, no security measure is 100% perfect. We cannot guarantee the security of your information and do not assume any responsibility for the unauthorized use or access to your information under our control.

When you to register with us, you will have an account name and password, and we will issue a unique account number to you. You will also register a sign-in/out code in connection with the enrollment of your child at our affiliated childcare centers. We will never ask you for your password. The safety and security of your Personal Information also depends on you, and you are responsible for keeping your password confidential. Also, remember to log off your account and close your browser window when you have finished your visit.

Disclosure. Vendors that provide us with various services (collectively, “Service Providers”) may have access to your Personal Information while they are performing their contractual obligations. We prohibit our Service Providers from selling or disclosing the Personal Information we provide, and we require all Service Providers to maintain confidentiality standards that are commercially reasonable to ensure the security of your Personal Information.

Wee Care Academy does not sell Personal Information to third parties. However, from time to time, we may disclose Personal Information to third parties, in particular childcare center regulators or medical providers, for our bona fide business purposes. In addition, we may disclose Personal Information to third parties:

If we have your consent to share the information.
In an anonymized, deidentified or aggregated state.
To detect, prevent, or address fraud, security, or technical issues.
If we are required by federal, state, or local law to disclose the information or if we have a good faith belief that disclosure is necessary to comply with a civil, criminal, or regulatory inquiry, investigation, subpoena, or summons by federal, state, or local authorities.
To exercise or defend our legal claims.
In the event that we go through a business transition, such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of a portion of our assets—any Personal Information you provide us may be a part of the assets transferred.

Wee Care Academy reserves the right to disclose aggregated information about our Site visitors and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.

Behavioral Advertising. We allow some Service Providers to assist us with behavioral advertising by collecting and analyzing certain information when you visit our Site (e.g., click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject clicked or scrolled over). These Service Providers typically use a cookie or third-party web beacon to collect this information.

Controlling Your Personal Information

Wee Care Academy provides you the ability to exercise certain controls and choices regarding our collection, use and sharing of your information. In accordance with applicable law, your options to control your Personal Information may include:

Correcting, updating, and deleting the Personal Information in your account.
Changing the services in which you have enrolled.
Changing your preferences for how and what about we communicate with you.
Choosing whether to receive marketing communications from us, including promotions, surveys, and information about products and services that may be of interest to you.
How the cookies we use interact with your browser.
Resetting your device’s advertising identifier and/or opting out of interest-based ads.
Requesting access to the Personal Information we hold about you and requesting that we amend or delete it.

At any time, you may exercise any of these controls and choices, express concerns, lodge a complaint, or obtain additional information about the use of your Personal Information by contacting Wee Care Academy.

You may also click the designated link at the bottom of any email you receive from Wee Care Academy to be removed from future email updates. We may take up to five days to fulfill any requests to remove or update your contact information. Please note that, even if you have opted out of receiving marketing communications from us, we may need to contact you to address questions or issues specific to the services you have requested.

Notice to California Residents

Please read our California Privacy Notice to learn more about the privacy rights available to California residents.

Do Not Track Signals

Do Not Track is a privacy preference that users can set in their web browsers. When a user turns on the Do Not Track signal, the browser sends a message to websites requesting them not to track the user. At this time Wee Care Academy’s Site and applications do not respond to a Do Not Track signal in the HTTP header from your browser. For information about Do Not Track, visit www.allaboutdnt.org.

Social Networking

If you access our Site from social networking websites (e.g., Facebook or Twitter), or if you otherwise agree to associate your account with us with a social networking website, we may also receive Personal Information about you from such social networking website. Our receipt of your Personal Information via a social networking website is governed by the terms of use and privacy policy of that website. We may retain this information with the information we collect from you directly. Our Site may include buttons that link to social network websites. Your use of these social networks is entirely optional and subject to the privacy policy and terms of use of the social networking website you choose to use.

Third Party Websites

This Privacy Notice applies only to information collected by Wee Care Academy. We may provide from our Site links to third-party websites as a service to our Site visitors, but we have no ability to control, and we are not responsible for, the privacy and data collection, use, and disclosure practices of third-party websites. When you click on links that take you to external websites, you will be subject to their privacy notices and practices and not ours. We encourage you to review and understand the privacy notices of such websites before providing them with any information.

Terms of Use

Wee Care Academy’s Terms of Use govern all matters not set forth in this Privacy Notice. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with our Terms of Use.

Changes to this Notice

Wee Care Academy reserves the right to modify this Privacy Notice at any time by updating this posting without notice. All changes are effective immediately when posted and apply to all access to and use of the Site. Your continued use of our Site following the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes.

For More Information

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments regarding this Privacy Notice or if you wish to exercise any of your rights over your Personal Information.