Privacy Policy.

This policy explains what personal information we collect about you and your child, why we collect it, who sees it, and how long we keep it.

We collect a lot of information about children — considerably more than most businesses collect about anybody. Almost all of it is required by Alberta childcare licensing, and the rest exists so an educator can look after your child properly. None of it is used for marketing, sold, or shared with advertisers.

The law we work under

We handle personal information in accordance with Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), and we are also subject to record-keeping requirements under Alberta childcare licensing legislation. Where those two things conflict — for example, where you ask us to delete a record we are legally required to retain — the licensing requirement takes precedence, and we will tell you that clearly.

What we collect, and why

From a website enquiry

Your name, phone number, email address, preferred contact method, your child's first name and approximate age, the programs and schedule you are interested in, and anything you type into the notes field.

Why: to answer your enquiry, check availability in the right room, and follow up. That is all.

From a registration

Considerably more, because licensing requires it:

• Child: full name, date of birth, address, Alberta health care number, languages spoken, start date, and program
• Parents and guardians: names, relationship, phone numbers, email, address, and optionally occupation, employer, work address, and work hours
• Emergency contacts: names, relationships, and phone numbers
• Authorised and restricted pickup persons: names, relationships, and phone numbers
• Health: allergies and their symptoms, medical conditions, medications, dietary requirements, immunisation status, doctor and preferred hospital
• About your child: sleep and toileting routines, temperament, fears, favourite activities, special or additional needs
• Household: marital status, custody arrangements, and other household members
• Consents and your signature

Why: to care for your child safely and legally. Health and allergy information in particular exists so that an educator can act correctly in seconds rather than looking for a file.

Employment and household details are optional. We ask because knowing your work hours helps us reach you, and knowing about a new baby at home helps us make sense of a hard fortnight. You may leave them blank.

From the chatbot on this site

The answers you click and anything you type, plus your contact details if you choose to provide them. The chatbot does not read anything else on your device.

Automatically, when you browse

Standard server and analytics data — pages visited, approximate region, browser type, and referring site. If you decline analytics in the cookie banner, we do not load analytics at all. See our Cookie & Storage Policy for the detail.

What we never do

• We never sell personal information
• We never share it with advertisers or data brokers
• We never use your child's information for marketing
• We never publish a child's photograph externally without separate written permission
• We do not use enquiry or registration data to train any machine learning model

Who sees your information

Centre staff. Educators see what they need to care for your child — their room's allergy and medical information, emergency contacts, and pickup authorisations. Administrative staff see enquiries, registrations, and billing. Access is limited to what a role actually requires.

Alberta childcare licensing. Licensing officers inspect our records, including registration files, attendance, incident reports, and medication logs. This is a legal requirement and not something either of us can opt out of.

The Alberta childcare subsidy office, where you are applying for or receiving subsidy, and only the information needed to administer it.

Alberta Health Services, where there is a reportable communicable disease exposure, or where public health requires information about an outbreak.

Emergency medical responders, where your child needs urgent care.

Nobody else, unless you ask us to, or unless we are legally compelled to.

Photographs and video

We photograph and film children for internal purposes: daily updates to you, room displays, documentation of learning, and program planning. That is covered by the photo consent in your registration, which you may decline or withdraw at any time.

External use is different. Using a child's image on this website, on social media, or in any printed material requires separate written permission for that specific use. Declining costs your family nothing and we will not ask twice.

Where children appear in photographs on this site, faces have been obscured unless we hold specific permission.

How long we keep things

• Website enquiries that do not proceed: up to 24 months, then deleted
• Registration and child records: retained for the period required by Alberta childcare licensing after a child leaves, then securely destroyed
• Incident, accident, and medication records: retained for the period required by licensing
• Financial records: retained as required by Canadian tax law
• Analytics data: aggregated and retained no longer than 26 months

Your rights

You may:

• See what we hold about you and your child. Ask, and we will show you or provide a copy.
• Have it corrected if it is wrong. Tell us and we will change it the same day.
• Withdraw a consent you previously gave — photographs, walking trips, information sharing. Some withdrawals will affect what your child can take part in, and we will explain how.
• Ask us to delete information, subject to records we are legally required to keep.
• Complain, to us first and to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta if you are not satisfied.

None of these requests will make things awkward, and none of them will affect how your child is treated.

Children's information specifically

A child cannot meaningfully consent, so consent is given by a parent or guardian. We treat children's information as the most sensitive category we hold, and we apply the strictest access controls to it.

Where a child is old enough to have a view — a school-age child not wanting to be photographed, for example — we respect that view even where a parent has consented.

Security

How we protect this information is set out in our Security Policy.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page when our practices change, and the effective date at the top will change with it. If a change materially affects what we do with your family's information, we will tell enrolled families directly.

Contact

To see your file, correct something, withdraw a consent, or raise a concern, contact the centre on (780) 450-1568 or idealdaycareedmonton@gmail.com, or come to the front desk.

Ideal Daycare Centre Ltd., 6013 Millwoods Road South, Millhurst Shopping Centre, Edmonton, AB T6L 5X9.