Privacy Policy

1. Privacy Officer

The person responsible for the protection of personal information at Tip My Teacher can be reached at:

Email: support@tipmyteacher.com

You may contact us with any questions, concerns, or requests regarding your personal information.

2. Information We Collect

We collect the following categories of personal information:

Parent Information

• Full name
• Phone number
• Email address
• Account credentials (password, hashed and encrypted)
• Google account data (if using Google Sign-In): name, email, Google account ID

Payment Information

• Credit card details are collected by our payment processor, Cardknox. We do not store full credit card numbers. We retain only a tokenized reference and a masked version of the last four digits for your records.

Teacher Information

• Full name
• Phone number
• Email address
• Payout preferences (method, preferred day of month, Interac email)
• Bank account details (for bank transfer payouts), stored encrypted

Children's Information

• Child's first name
• School and classroom association

Information about minors under 14 years of age is considered sensitive personal information under Quebec law. This information is collected solely with the consent of the parent or legal guardian who uses our platform and is used exclusively to match tips to the correct teacher.

Technical Information

• Session cookies (strictly necessary for authentication)
• SMS session data (temporary, for interactive SMS flows)

3. Purposes of Collection

We collect and use personal information for the following specific purposes:

• Account management: Creating and managing your account, authenticating your identity
• Payment processing: Processing credit card payments for tips via Cardknox
• Tip delivery: Matching tips to the correct teacher based on your child's classroom assignment
• Teacher payouts: Disbursing accumulated tips to teachers via their chosen payout method
• Communication: Sending transactional SMS messages (payment confirmations, account alerts) and email notifications (password resets, welcome messages)
• Platform operations: Maintaining, improving, and securing the platform
• Customer support: Responding to support tickets and inquiries

4. Legal Basis for Collection

We collect personal information based on your express consent obtained at the time of account creation and when setting up tips. Certain data is also necessary for the performance of the contract between you and Tip My Teacher (processing payments, delivering tips to teachers).

You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer or deleting your account. Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal.

5. Third-Party Service Providers

We share personal information with the following third-party service providers, solely for the purposes described:

• Cardknox (United States) — Payment processing. Receives credit card data for transaction processing.
• Twilio (United States) — SMS and voice communication services. Receives phone numbers for message and call delivery.
• Supabase (United States) — Database hosting. Stores all platform data on servers located in the United States.
• Vercel (United States) — Application hosting. Hosts the web application on servers located in the United States.
• Resend (United States) — Email delivery service. Receives email addresses for transactional emails.
• Google (United States) — OAuth authentication (optional). If you sign in with Google, your Google account ID, name, and email are shared.

6. Cross-Border Data Transfers

Your personal information is stored and processed on servers located in the United States. By using Tip My Teacher, you acknowledge that your data is transferred to and stored in the United States.

We have conducted a Privacy Impact Assessment regarding these cross-border transfers as required by Quebec's Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector. We ensure that contractual and technical safeguards are in place with each service provider to maintain a level of protection equivalent to that provided under Quebec law.

7. Data Retention

We retain personal information for the following periods:

• Active accounts: For as long as your account remains active
• Payment records: 7 years from the date of the transaction (for legal and tax compliance)
• Inactive accounts: Accounts with no activity for 24 months may be flagged for deletion. You will be notified before any deletion occurs.
• SMS session data: Automatically deleted after 24 hours
• Support tickets: Retained for 2 years after resolution

When personal information is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected, it is securely destroyed or anonymized.

8. Your Rights

Under Quebec's privacy legislation, you have the following rights:

• Right of access: You may request access to all personal information we hold about you.
• Right of rectification: You may request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal information.
• Right of deletion: You may request deletion of your personal information when the purpose of collection has been fulfilled, when you withdraw consent, or when collection was unlawful.
• Right to data portability: You may request your personal information in a structured, commonly used format (such as JSON or CSV).
• Right to de-indexing: You may request that we cease disseminating your personal information or de-index any hyperlink attached to your name.
• Right to withdraw consent: You may withdraw your consent to the collection or use of your personal information at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@tipmyteacher.com. We will respond to your request within 30 days. This period may be extended by 10 days with prior written notice to you.

9. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Tip My Teacher uses only strictly necessary cookies required for the platform to function:

• Session cookie: Used to maintain your authenticated session. This cookie is essential for platform functionality and does not require separate consent.

We do not use analytics cookies, advertising cookies, or any third-party tracking technologies. If this changes in the future, we will update this policy and implement a consent mechanism before enabling any non-essential cookies.

10. Automated Decision-Making

Tip My Teacher does not use automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal effects or similarly significant effects on individuals.

11. Data Security

We implement technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information, including:

• Encryption of sensitive data (credit card tokens, bank account details) using AES encryption
• Secure password hashing using bcrypt
• JWT-based session authentication
• HTTPS encryption for all data in transit
• Role-based access controls

12. Confidentiality Incidents (Data Breaches)

In the event of a confidentiality incident involving your personal information that presents a risk of serious injury, we will:

• Notify the Commission d'acces a l'information du Quebec (CAI) with diligence
• Notify you directly with a description of the incident, the personal information concerned, and measures you can take to reduce risk

We maintain a register of all confidentiality incidents as required by law.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the updated policy on this page and updating the "Last updated" date. For significant changes, we may also notify you by email or SMS.

14. Contact and Complaints

If you have questions or complaints about our privacy practices, please contact us at support@tipmyteacher.com.

You also have the right to file a complaint with the Commission d'acces a l'information du Quebec (CAI):

Commission d'acces a l'information du Quebec
Website: www.cai.gouv.qc.ca
Phone: 1-888-528-7741