Privacy Policy

PiNation Academy is an online tutoring service operated by PiNation Tech Inc., a company based in Ontario, Canada. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean PiNation Tech Inc. operating as PiNation Academy.

This policy applies to our website, pinationacademy.com, our consultation calls, and the learning platform that students, parents, guardians and tutors sign in to. We follow Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and applicable provincial privacy laws, including Quebec’s Law 25 for anyone who lives in Quebec.

Our tutoring is offered to families in Canada. Lessons are online, so a student can be anywhere in the country. If we start teaching families outside Canada, we will update this policy first.

When you book a free consultation

• Your name, email address and phone number, and the best time to call you.
• Your postal code and province, so we can follow the right curriculum.
• Your child’s grade, the subjects and courses they need help with, and any upcoming exams.
• Whether you have more than one child who may need tutoring, and how you heard about us.

During the consultation call

To match your child with the right tutor, we may ask about and record:

• Your child’s name, school board, goals, and the topics they find difficult.
• How they learn best, their interests, and your preferred lesson times.
• Learning needs you choose to share, such as an Individual Education Plan (IEP) or a learning exceptionality. This is always optional. We treat it as sensitive, use it only to plan teaching, and share it only with the tutor who needs it.

Once a student is enrolled

• Account details: names, email addresses, and for students without an email, a username.
• The link between a parent or guardian and each of their children.
• Lesson schedules, attendance, and the tutor assigned to each subject.
• Coursework, files shared in lessons, assessments, submitted work, grades and tutor feedback.
• Your time zone, detected from your browser, so lesson times display correctly.
• Payment records, such as amounts, dates and who paid. We do not store credit card numbers.

If you teach with us

Your name, contact details, credentials, subjects and grades you teach, experience, rate and profile information, and records of the lessons you teach.

What we do not collect

We do not use advertising trackers or third-party analytics on this website, and we do not buy personal information about anyone.

We use personal information only for the purposes we tell you about:

• To respond to your enquiry and call you about tutoring.
• To match each student with a suitable tutor for their grade and subjects.
• To create and manage accounts, schedule lessons and run the online classroom.
• To set, mark and return coursework and assessments, and show progress to students and parents.
• To send service messages such as account invitations, lesson reminders and changes to your schedule.
• To invoice for tutoring and keep the financial records the law requires.
• To keep the platform secure, prevent misuse, and meet our legal obligations.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not use students’ information for advertising.

Most of our students are minors, so our service is built around parents and guardians. A parent or guardian books the consultation, provides information about their child, and holds the account for any student who has not reached the age of majority in their province.

• For children under 13, we collect personal information only from, and with the consent of, their parent or guardian.
• A parent or guardian may give a child their own login to join lessons and see their own work. Children do not need an email address; a parent can create a username instead, and manages that password.
• Parents and guardians can see their child’s schedule, tutor, coursework and results.
• Students who are adults may hold their own account, and their information is then shared with a parent only with their agreement.

Access is limited to the people who need it:

• Academy staff who handle enquiries, matching and scheduling.
• The student’s assigned tutors, who see what they need to teach: the student’s name, grade, subjects, schedule, coursework and results, and any learning needs you asked us to share.
• Parents and guardians, for their own children.
• Students, for their own work.

Tutors cannot see other students’ information, and families cannot see each other’s. We may also disclose information where the law requires it, for example in response to a valid court order.

We use trusted companies to run the service on our behalf. They may only use personal information to provide their service to us, and must protect it. They currently include:

• Supabase, for our database, sign-in, and file storage.
• Resend, to send email such as invitations and reminders.
• 100ms, for live video in the online classroom.
• Our website hosting provider, which serves this website and the platform.

Some of these providers store or process information outside Canada, including in the United States. While it is there, it is subject to the laws of that country and may be accessible to its courts, law enforcement and national security authorities. For residents of Quebec, this means your information may be communicated outside Quebec.

We keep this to what the service needs to work:

• Sign-in cookies keep you logged in to the platform. They are not used for advertising.
• If you tick “Remember me” or “Keep me signed in” on the login page, that choice is saved in your own browser. You can clear it at any time by signing out or clearing your browser data.

We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels or third-party analytics.

We send service messages that are part of tutoring: consultation follow-ups, account invitations, lesson reminders, schedule changes and invoices.

We send promotional emails, such as news about new courses, only when Canada’s anti-spam law allows it: if you have agreed to receive them, or for a limited time after you enquire with us. Every promotional email identifies us and includes a simple way to unsubscribe, and we honour unsubscribe requests promptly.

We do not currently record lessons. If that changes, we will tell you in advance, explain why, and ask for consent before any lesson involving your child is recorded. Work written on the shared whiteboard may be saved with the lesson so students can review it later.

• Enquiries that do not lead to enrolment are deleted within 24 months of our last contact with you.
• Account and learning records are kept while the account is active, and deleted or anonymized within 24 months after it closes, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.
• Financial records are kept for as long as tax law requires, generally six years.

Information is encrypted in transit, access is restricted by role so each person sees only what they should, and administrative access is limited to the people who need it.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach of our safeguards creates a real risk of significant harm, we will notify the people affected and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as the law requires, and tell you what we are doing about it.

You can ask us to:

• Show you the personal information we hold about you or your child.
• Correct anything that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Delete information we no longer need, or close an account.
• Send you a copy of the information you gave us, in a common digital format such as a spreadsheet, so you can take it somewhere else.
• Stop sending promotional emails.
• Withdraw your consent. Some information is needed to provide tutoring, so withdrawing consent for it may mean we can no longer teach your child. We will explain this before acting.

Email hello@pinationacademy.com and we will respond within 30 days. We may need to confirm your identity first.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, or if you live in Quebec, the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec.

We will update this policy when our practices change and show the new date at the top. If a change is significant, we will email account holders before it takes effect. Our Terms of Service explain the rules for using the service itself.

Questions, requests and complaints about privacy go to our Privacy Officer, PiNation Tech Inc., at hello@pinationacademy.com.