My Creative Habitat

Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Policy was last updated on July 11, 2022.

Effective Date: July 1, 2022

Our Privacy Commitment

In delivering My Creative Habitat’s mission to help foster and develop creativity skills for learners of all ages, we are committed to protecting the privacy of our users and providing a safe, online learning environment. MCH is committed to collecting only the bare minimum of personal information (or, “information”).

Note also My Creative Habitat does not sell nor otherwise trade your personal information. Your information is only used to provide, improve, and inform you about our services.

This Privacy Policy describes the way in which My Creative Habitat LLC (“MCH”, “we”, “our”, or “us”) collects, uses, and safeguards personal information provided to us by parents, and guardians and others (collectively “Users”) when they use our website services at www.mycreativehabitat.com (the “Website”), and various related features including content, downloads, teaching videos, tutorials available on the Website, collectively referred to as the (“Services”).

From time to time, we may change this privacy policy. If we do, we will post an amended version on this webpage. Please review this privacy policy periodically. Your continued use of the sites and services after any such amendment signifies your acceptance of those terms.

By visiting our Website or using any of our Services, you agree that any information that we collect from or about you through our Services will be handled as described in this Privacy Policy. Your use of our Services, and any dispute over privacy, is subject to this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service, including its applicable limitations on damages and the resolution of disputes. The My Creative Habitat LLC’s Terms of Service are incorporated by reference into this Privacy Policy.

Table of Contents

1. How we collect and use personal information

2. How we use personal information

3. How we share information

4. How we store and protect user information

5. User's rights regarding their personal information

6. How we protect student information and comply with laws

7. Updates to this policy

8. Contact us

1.  How we collect and use information

We collect personal information when users visit our website or create an account to use our Services. 

When you purchase MCH Services, Users are asked to provide personal information, including but not limited to their first and last name, email address and a password for the account. Other information may be collected, such as payment information. Note, MCH does NOT directly store credit card information — all credit card information and transactions are stored by our third-party payment processors such as such as Stripe or PayPal. Payments are encrypted through the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). Your purchase transaction data is stored only as long as is necessary to complete your purchase transaction.

All direct payment gateways adhere to the standards set by PCI-DSS as managed by the PCI Security Standards Council, which is a joint effort of brands like Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.

PCI-DSS requirements help ensure the secure handling of credit card information by our site and related courses and its service providers.

Information we collect

In addition to the information described above, when MCH Tutoring services are engaged by you for your child, MCH typically collects the following information:

• Your first and last name
• Your address for billing and personalization purposes
• Your phone number, for contact but also option of text appointment reminders
• Your email address
• Your payment information

Data that is no longer personal information

From the personal information processed from use of the Services, MCH may create aggregated (lots of combined different parts together), de-identified or anonymized data from what we have processed. What this means is we remove certain identifiers and delineative features of the data collected that make it personally identifiable to a particular User. We may use such aggregated, de-identified or anonymized data to support development or share it with third parties for lawful and legitimate business purposes, including to analyze, build and improve the Services and promote our business. When we share such information, it will not be shared in a way that could serve to identify you.

Information collected by technology — cookies & other things

Like most websites and online services, MCH and our third-party providers automatically collect personal information to provide the most fulfilling experience when you visit our website, access our Services or otherwise engage with us.

Generally, we collect such information through a variety of technologies, including cookies, web beacons, pixel tags and other similar technologies. We may use third-party providers to collect this information on our behalf. Using these tools, we can collect information about your device and its software, such as your IP address, browser type, a unique identifier that allows us to uniquely identify your browser, mobile device or your account, and other similar information. We also collect information about the way you use our website, services, including the pages you visit, the links you click, how frequently you access the product, or whether you open emails or click links contained in the emails we send you. We may collect information about geographic location by analyzing other information, like an IP address, so we can associate a User with the appropriate curriculum. Geolocation data for marketing purposes may also be collected to support the services, provide notice of updates and new Services. We may also collect analytics data, or use third-party analytics tools such as Google Analytics, to measure traffic and usage trends for the website and to understand more about the demographics and behaviors of our users. 

Cookies

Cookies are small text files placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit our website. They allow the website to remember a user’s actions and preferences (such as login, language, avatar and others) over a period of time. Cookies can be classified according to their lifespan and the domain to which they belong. By lifespan, a cookie is either a:

• Session cookie that is erased when the user closes their browser; or
• Persistent cookie that remains on a user’s device for a pre-defined time. 

With regard to the domain to which a cookie belongs, there are:

• First-party cookies set by the web server of the visited page and share the same domain (in this case mycreativehabitat.com domain); or
• Third-party cookies stored by a different domain from the visited page’s domain. This can happen if the webpage looks for a file outside of our domain. 

Pixel tags/web beacons

A pixel tag (or a “web beacon”) is a piece of code used for our Services to collect information about how a user interacts with the web page. Pixel tags allow MCH to understand, in one example, if a user has been to a certain web page or clicked on a specific advertisement. 

Advertising & your choices

Our Services limit the use, and limit our partners’ use, of automatically collected information, such as IP addresses, cookie identifiers and other device identifiers. Automatically collected personal data is used for the limited purposes of supporting our Services and our internal business operations, including basic Services operations like providing access to the Website and its features, individualizing content, and improving and optimizing the Service. Note that contextual advertising may be employed by MCH.

In certain instances, MCH may use interest-based advertising from third-party partners and aggregate User data via our website to display interest-based ads on other websites, apps, services, or devices you may use. Typically, though not always, these third parties use cookies, pixels, and similar technologies to recognize your browser or device and collect data about your visit to our Service. Such collection allows for customizing content, ads, and commercial messages relevant to your interests. This data also helps support our Services with ad-related information including reporting, analytics, and market research. When this data is collected by MCH partners, it is done so in the aggregate, meaning the data is collected as a group and summarized to see trends, results and provide factually supported insights for MCH about what you are interested in and how well our Services perform. Any analysis does not identify anyone individually, but as a summary of a group of Users and their activities.  

To learn more about interest-based advertising and how you can opt-out or limit some online advertising and tracking, you may wish to review the following tools and options:

• Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices
• Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) at www.aboutads.info/choices and http://youradchoices.com/appchoices and the mobile AppChoices app
• Apple operating system (iOS) settings on your mobile device, select “limit ad tracking”
• Android operating system settings on your mobile device, select “opt-out of interest-based ads”

Please note that opting out of receiving interest-based advertising through the NAI’s and DAA’s online resources will only opt-out a user from receiving interest-based ads on that specific browser or device, but a user may still receive interest-based ads on their other devices. You must perform the opt-out on each browser or device you use.

Browser controls 

For web browsers, your opt-out choices are often stored by a cookie, which means that blocking cookies may prevent our Services from operating as expected and prevent your choices from being stored. Note that blocking cookies on your computer will not affect your consent choices on a different device, such as a mobile device. 

To enrich MCH’s website content, we may embed videos from social media websites such as YouTube or Facebook. When we do this and you visit a page with that type of content embedded, you may be presented with cookies from these other websites. Please understand MCH has no control or liability with regard to cookies set from these external websites. Please check the relevant third party's cookie policy for more information.

We may also offer a 'share page' widget on some of our web pages, where content can be shared easily on the following sites - Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These sites may set a cookie when you log into their service. Again, MCH has no control or liability when it comes to cookies set by these third-party sites and you should check their cookie policies for more information.

Thinkific 

MCH’s Website and Services is hosted by Thinkific Labs Inc. (“Thinkific”). Your data is stored through Thinkific’s data storage, databases and the general Thinkific application. Thinkific stores your data on a secure server behind a firewall. For more information on Thinkific, please see Thinkific’s website, including Thinkific’s Terms of Service, Thinkific’s Privacy Policy and Thinkific’s Sub-processors.  

Subprocessors 

We use third party service providers, including Thinkific, to help operate, support and improve our Services (“Subprocessors”). In the course of providing their services, Subprocessors may access or process (e.g., collect, store, etc.) data. We only utilize Subprocessors that meet industry standard data privacy and security requirements and best practices. We only share personal information with Subprocessors to the minimum extent necessary. Subprocessors must treat your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and state and federal privacy regulations. However, we are not liable for damages that may result from the misuse of your Data by them.

2. How we use information

We use personal information for the following purposes:

• To allow you to register for and use the Services, such as when you securely log into the Services, to send a communication about your account, or provide feedback to us. 
• To process payment, communicate with you about your purchase and provide you with customer service. NOTE: MCH does NOT directly store credit card information.
• To provide technical notices, tutoring, updates, security alerts and customer support.
• To send marketing communications of potential interest to you. You can choose to stop receiving emails from us by following the instructions contained in the email from us. We do not allow, however, “opt-out” for administrative messages when it comes to supporting your account or the account of a connected student, such as customer support, password reset or retrieval emails.
• To deliver our advertising to users. 
• To assess and improve the products and services, educational content, improve the user experience, research, evaluate and improve the educational efficacy of the Services.
• To adapt, personalize and customize your experience by measuring user progress and adapting the Services to learning needs.
• To monitor, maintain, analyze, and improve the functionality of the Services.
• As we believe may be necessary and appropriate to comply with applicable laws and regulations; to comply with legal process; to respond to requests from governmental authorities; to detect violations of and enforce our Terms of Service; to protect the security of the website, products and services; to protect our rights, privacy, property, safety or that of you or others; and to allow us to pursue any available remedies or to limit damages that we may sustain.

3. How we share information

We only share information collected in limited circumstances. We share information with third parties to:

• Perform certain services for us such as analytics, credit card processing, conduct research or evaluate the products and/or services, provided those service providers agree to contractual protections to safeguard the information, keep it confidential and use it only for the purposes permitted by our agreements;
• Carry out work on our behalf, including legal and financial advisors;
• Respond to a request from a court, law enforcement agency, or other government entity if we believe such is in accordance with or required by law;
• Safeguard our users and our company where we believe certain actions are inconsistent with our Terms of Servce or other agreements or policies, or to protect the rights, property and safety of MCH or a third party;
• Inform or support negotiations of a possible merger, sale, financing or transfer of all or a portion of our business to another entity; and/or
• Support inquiries either at your direction or with your informed consent.

We may, as permitted by applicable law, use or disclose de-identified data and/or aggregated data (and thus not personal information) for research purposes, distribution to outside research partners or the preparation of and distribution of reports containing aggregate information and/or data provided that no individual or information about an individual can be identified with such data.

4. How we store and protect user information

When an account is created, the account holder creates a password. You can protect against unauthorized account access by selecting and protecting passwords appropriately, including using unique, multi-character passwords, ensuring devices are only accessed by those authorized to use them and taking care to sign out of online accounts (not just MCH, but all online accounts) after you are finished using them. Access to personal information associated with User accounts is limited to those MCH staff members and contractors who require such access to support our Services.

There is absolutely no guarantee that digital or online services are always 100% secure and protected. No information security program or safeguards can be guaranteed to be perfect or impenetrable. We strive to follow industry best practices and to continuously improve our information security measures, but we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information. We certainly are not and cannot be responsible for the security of information you transmit to the products or Services over networks that we do not control, including internet and wireless networks. Please take care to safeguard your own networks and systems, both at school and at home.

5. User's rights regarding their data

Access, correction or deletion of information

Users have the right to access, correct or delete their personal data which is collected and used by MCH. Personal data can be accessed and changed by contacting our customer support or via our privacy department at [email protected].

Users may contact us at any time to request access to, deletion or correction of any personal information we have collected associated with their account. Such requests can be addressed through our customer support department at [email protected].

Please be aware a request to delete personal information may lead to closing of your account or the inability to use the Services.

When a requested correction, deletion or other change is made MCH will make good faith efforts to effect the requested change as soon as reasonably practicable, usually within 7-14 business days. Please be aware some information may remain in an archive or backup record and MCH may retain certain data to support security or other actions including but not limited to account recovery, preventing abuse and/or fraud, legitimate business purposes, or if required by law. We may also retain de-identified or aggregate information from which all direct and indirect identifiers have been removed. Any data that is retained will continue to be subject to the Privacy Policy that is in effect at the time.

Opting out of email communications

You can opt out of receiving commercial or promotional emails from MCH by following the unsubscribe instructions indicated in the email, by contacting customer service or by contacting our privacy department. Opt-out via the link in our MCH email to you is the most efficient and direct means of removing your email from our commercial or promotional email lists. Please note we cannot unsubscribe or provide an “opt-out” for non-promotional messages regarding your account, such as account verification, updates to features of the Service, or technical or security notices.

Canceling a Membership

User’s may cancel their memberships by contacting customer support. Please note we retain a User’s account data after receiving a cancellation request.

Data Retention

 We automatically delete or de-identify personal data after an account has been inactive for a set period of time, in accordance with our standard data retention policy, even if we do not receive a deletion request. 

California Privacy Rights

 Subject to certain limitations, the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) provides California residents with specific rights regarding their personal information. For the purposes of this section, personal information has the meaning set out in the CCPA and does not include information that is publicly available, that is de-identified or aggregated. This section does not apply to information we process on behalf of an educational institution customer pursuant to contractual restrictions to process the information solely on behalf of the institution as an educational service provider.  This section describes the rights applicable to California residents and explains how to exercise those rights. Under the CCPA, California residents have the following rights:

• Right to request or access personal information. You may be entitled to receive the personal information that we hold about you.
• Right to delete. You may be entitled to request that we delete the personal information that we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions. If you request that we delete personal information we will take commercially reasonable steps to comply with that request in accordance with applicable laws.
• Right to opt out. Under the CCPA, you have the right to opt out of any sales of personal information that may be occurring or may occur in the future. Note that MCH does not sell, lease or otherwise trade for value any personal information. As such, there is no need to opt out as the sale or trade of data is not applicable to our products and Services.
• Right to not be discriminated against. You have the right to be free from discrimination for exercising these rights. Please note, that if the exercise of these rights limits our ability to process personal information, we may no longer be able to provide you with our products and services.

To exercise these rights, please submit an email request to [email protected] with the subject line, “California Rights Request.” We will need to verify your identity before processing your request, which may require additional personal information from you, or that you log into your MCH account. In certain circumstances, we may decline or limit the scope of our compliance with your request, particularly where we are unable to verify your identity or locate your information, or as permitted by law.

Users in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, and Switzerland

If you are a resident of the EEA, UK or Switzerland, the following information applies with respect to personal information (or personal data) collected through your use of our Services. As noted above, MCH processes personal information consistent with our disclosures in this Privacy Policy.

We process personal information on the following legal bases:

• With your consent
• As necessary to MCH to perform its obligations under any agreement for Services
• As necessary for our legitimate business interests to provide the Services where those interests do not override your fundamental rights and freedoms related to data privacy

Note, the information we collect may be transferred, stored and processed in Canada and the United States or any other country where we or our processors maintain offices. We will work to ensure transfers of personal information to a third country or an international organization are subject to appropriate safeguards under applicable law.

You are entitled to the rights under Chapter III of the EU General Data Protection Regulation and the UK GDPR, or Section 2 of the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection concerning the processing of your information, which includes rights to access, rectification and to deletion. To make a request or otherwise exercise your rights, please contact us at [email protected]. To honor such a request, we will need to verify your identity and residency, which may require additional supporting information.

6. How we comply with data privacy laws

The U.S. Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act ("COPPA") requires that online service providers obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from children under the age of 13.  Per our Terms of Service, MCH does not market to or sell the Services to children under the age of 18, but only to adults who are 18 years of age or older who can purchase the Services with a credit card or other permitted payment method. MCH gathers personal information only from our paying users who, by definition, are 18 years of age or older, so we never knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. Because we take children’s privacy seriously at MCH, and in compliance with COPPA, we have also adopted the following policies to keep kids safe:

• If you are a parent or guardian 18 years or older, you may choose to allow children under the age of 18 to view MCH educational content, however this must be done under the direct supervision of the parent or guardian.  
• We do NOT request, collect, or store any personal information knowingly from children under 18. 
• We will NOT knowingly collect, use, or distribute personal information from children under the age of 18.
• We will NOT knowingly keep any personal information that is inadvertently included in an email submission, help inquiry, or other one-time request, if we know it includes personal information of a child is under the age of 18. Any such information will be purged promptly after the issue has been resolved.
• We will NOT knowingly post any personal information that is inadvertently included in a submission to our community forum if we know that the child is under the age of 18. Upon notice to us, these submissions will be deleted and handled anonymously thereafter.
• We will NOT knowingly provide any content or direct link to websites that are unsuitable for children or teens.

If MCH discovers that it has collected data from a child under the age of 18, MCH will promptly purge the data permanently. Additionally, if you become aware that your child or someone else has submitted a child’s data to us, you may alert us at [email protected].

7. Updates to this policy

We are committed to keeping your data private and secure, and as technology, privacy laws, and best practices evolve over time, we will do our best to keep this Privacy Policy up to date.

For minor changes which do not reduce your rights under this policy, we will notify our Users via our website and by noting the Last Modified date at the bottom of this policy. For more significant changes, we will notify our users directly by email if possible, using the email on file, if provided.

We encourage all Users to review this Privacy Policy from time to time and send us their questions or concerns. If you do not agree with our updates, you have the option of terminating your account and discontinuing use of our Services. However, note your continued use of our Services after a change to this Privacy Policy signals to MCH that you agree to accept those changes and the terms of the updated Privacy Policy in their entirety.

8. How to contact us

If you wish to request access to personal information about you, request a correction about your information or have questions about this Privacy Policy, you may contact us at [email protected].