Our commitment to privacy: Beginnings knows that protecting the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information is important to you. This Privacy Policy governs the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information in any form, whether written or electronic, by Beginnings and its affiliates.  The collection, use and disclosure of your personal information is governed by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (the “Act”), and any applicable provincial legislation. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information may be collected from you and how it is used. It also explains how you can ask questions, make suggestions, and express concerns about our privacy practices. This Privacy Policy applies only to personal information collected by Beginnings and its affiliates. Be aware that our websites may contain links to other websites that are maintained by third parties who are not required to comply with this Privacy Policy and for which Beginnings has no responsibility. Please review the privacy policies on any external websites to determine their information handling practices. This Privacy Policy is available to the public through the Beginnings website. If you have any additional concerns or questions, we encourage you to contact us and we will address your concerns to the best of our ability. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully, and check back periodically as it may be updated without notice. By submitting your personal information to Beginnings, you signify your agreement to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy. Personal Information Beginnings is responsible for any information about an identifiable individual (personal information) under its control. Beginnings has implemented policies and practices to give effect to this Privacy Policy, including training and communicating with our employees about the importance of privacy and implementing security procedures that reasonably protect the personal information you provide to us. Excluded information This Privacy Policy does not impose restrictions on: the names of story tellers; information collected, used or disclosed solely for the content and function of the Beginnings website. This information includes audio clips, photos, written material, news clips and other documents associated with the purpose of the Beginnings project. Children: If you are under the age of 18, be sure to obtain your parent or guardian’s permission before you send any personal information to us, or anyone else.  We encourage parents to get involved with their children’s online usage and to be aware of the activities in which they are participating. Information you submit

• We collect personal contact information (such as your name, address, email address and telephone numbers) if you: sign up for updates; comment on a story or contribute to the project. This information is used to fulfill your request for information to respond to your inquiries and to contact you regarding your story submission.

• We will retain your user ID and passwords so that upon request by you we may remind you of them.

• We collect demographic information to gain a better understanding of your interests so that we may develop a better product
• We may also use personal contact to contact you about your comment(s) or your story submission and questions you may have.

• If you choose to opt-out of any use of your personal information in accordance with our opt-out policy, we will keep your contact information on a list so that your request can be honoured.

• We use IP (internet protocol) addresses, to gather demographic and statistical information about our users, for systems administration and to diagnose problems with our servers, and to administer our websites.

• We may, from time to time, track and analyze anonymous usage and browsing patterns of visitors to our websites to provide better plan our outreach campaigns.
• We generally use your personal information for the purposes of: managing, administering, collecting or otherwise enforcing your accounts; maintaining records for reasonable periods of time and generally managing and administering our website; and meeting all relevant Canadian and international regulatory, legal, insurance, audit, security and processing requirements.

• Occasionally, we ask our visitors to complete market research surveys. If you choose to participate in these surveys and provide your personal information for that purpose, your information will be aggregated as part of the survey results.

• Other than as permitted or required by law, if we wish to collect, use or disclose your personal information for purposes that are not contemplated in this Privacy Policy, we will identify those purposes at the time of collection. You will be given a reasonable opportunity to opt-out of any such additional purposes.

Cookies and other information we may collect Additional to the information you submit through the Beginnings website, we also collect and store information from and about you during your stay on the website. We use this information to analyze and track user behavior, personalize your experience, associate it with other information about you, provide the functionality and improve the quality of the Site and help comply with legal obligations. We collect this information through cookies, An internet cookie is a small text file that a website stores on your internet browser and that can collect and store information. We use cookies to better understand how you use our websites, to make sure outreach efforts and dynamic content are served correctly and to improve the performance of our websites. For example, a cookie may recall a set of preferences you have set for our website and record items that you have registered for. Storing cookies on your web browser allows us to present you with web pages and other content that are attuned with your preferences. These activities are invisible to you, and are generally intended to improve your internet surfing convenience. Unless you have set your preferences so that you will be alerted when a cookie is being stored on your computer, you won’t know about it. If you are concerned about cookies, it is possible to turn them off in your web browser preferences. However, please be aware that by disabling cookies, you may not be able to use all portions of our websites, particularly pages requiring registration. Information disclosure Beginnings may disclose your personal information if you have violated our Terms and Conditions or if we need to comply with applicable laws and lawful governmental requests, other legal and regulatory authorities and for other legal reasons. Consent and opt-out policy In general, Beginnings seeks consent to use your personal information in accordance with our opt-out policy. Except as set out in this section, Beginnings obtains your express opt-in consent to use or disclose sensitive personal information. If you do not wish to receive updates from Beginnings, you may opt-out at any time by following the instructions at the bottom of any email update you receive. It may take 2-4 weeks to fully process your opt-out request. Generally, when you provide us with your personal information, we will assume that you consent to our collection, use and disclosure of such information for the purposes identified or described in this Privacy Policy, if applicable, or otherwise identified at the time of collection. We reserve the right to use and disclose your personal information without your consent where required or permitted by law, for example, if we have reasonable grounds to believe the information could be useful when investigating a contravention of a federal, provincial or foreign law, in order to protect or defend our legal interests, or to comply with applicable laws and lawful governmental requests. Protecting your personal information Beginnings has technical, administrative and physical security measures to protect your personal information in a manner that is reasonable and appropriate to the nature of the personal information you provide to Beginnings. Please be aware that email is not a secure medium, and any personal information you send to us by email could be intercepted. If your communication is very sensitive, or includes information such as your address or phone number, you should not send it electronically unless the email is encrypted or your browser indicates that the access to our website is secure. Materials posted to online forums such as bulletin boards or comment sites are public, not secure and may be viewed by anyone. Any personal information you post may be collected and used by anyone and may result in unsolicited messages from other internet users. Beginnings is not responsible for personal information you choose to post or submit. Accessing and correcting persona data Beginnings provides you with the means to access, update, edit or delete certain subscriber or registration information by going to the appropriate page on the website and changing or deleting such information as desired.  Alternatively, or for other information, you may call contact Maria Leung at and we will make the changes upon request. We will give you access to the information we retain about you within a reasonable time, upon written request, satisfactory identification. In some cases, we may not provide access to personal information in our possession or control. If we deny your request, we will advise you in writing of the reason for the refusal and we will review our decision. Concerns regarding your privacy Beginnings encourages you to contact us with any questions or concerns you have about your privacy or this Privacy Policy. If you have a question concerning Beginnings’s Privacy Policy, would like a copy, or if you have any concerns, please contact Maria Leung. This Privacy Policy was last updated on January 21, 2013.