Privacy Policy

Effective Date: May 15th, 2025
Last Updated: May 7th, 2026
Company: Absolute Value Publications Ltd.
Location: Alberta, Canada

1. About This Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Absolute Value Publications Ltd. (“AVP”, “we”, “us”, “our”) collects, uses, stores, and protects personal information through:

avpbooks.com — our online store for iWrite Math books, Equation Books, and digital subscriptions.
AVP Online — our digital learning platform, including AVP Online: Mathlete and AVP Online: Classroom.

This policy applies to customers, teachers, students, and other registered users of these services.

AVP complies with applicable Canadian privacy legislation, including:

The federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA);
Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act (Alberta PIPA), the jurisdiction in which AVP is incorporated;
British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act (BC PIPA), where applicable;
The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (BC FOIPPA), where AVP acts as a service provider to a BC public body such as a public school district; and
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) for commercial electronic messages.

2. Privacy Officer

AVP has designated a Privacy Officer who is accountable for our compliance with this policy and with applicable privacy law:

Greg Ranieri
Chief Executive Officer, Absolute Value Publications Ltd.
[email protected]

You may contact our Privacy Officer with any question, request, or complaint about how we handle personal information. We aim to respond within 30 days.

3. Information We Collect

We collect only the information needed to deliver the services you have requested. We do not collect medical, biometric, financial-identity, or other sensitive personal information beyond what is necessary for the service.

3.1 Customer information (avpbooks.com)

Name
Email address
Billing and shipping address
School or school board affiliation
Order history
Subscription details

3.2 Teacher and student account data (AVP Online)

Username and login credentials. Passwords are stored in hashed form; we do not have access to plaintext passwords.
Assigned seat or classroom roster information.
Annotations, written work, and content created by users within the platform.
Activity and usage logs necessary for the platform to function (e.g. login records, last-access timestamps).

3.3 Technical information

IP address, used for session security and abuse prevention.
Browser and device information.
Cookie identifiers (see Section 8).

We use minimal analytics. We do not engage in cross-site behavioural advertising, profile-building, or targeted-ad delivery.

3.4 Payment information

Payment is processed by Stripe. AVP does not see, collect, or store credit card numbers, CVVs, or full payment account information. Stripe’s own privacy policy governs payment processing.

4. How We Use Your Information

We use personal information for the following purposes:

Order processing — fulfilling and shipping book orders;
Service delivery — providing access to AVP Online, managing user accounts, and supporting classroom use;
Customer and teacher support — responding to inquiries and assisting with account issues;
Security and fraud prevention — protecting accounts and detecting unauthorized access;
Service improvement — limited internal review of usage patterns to maintain and improve the platform. We do not use student work, annotations, or activity to develop unrelated products, to train AI models, or for marketing;
Communications — see Section 8.

The legal basis for our processing is the consent you provide when you create an account, place an order, or use our services, together with our legitimate need to deliver the service you have purchased or been granted access to.

5. How We Share Information

We share personal information only with vendors that support our operations. These vendors are bound by contract to use the data only for the purpose AVP specifies and to apply appropriate security and confidentiality protections.

Our current vendors are:

Stripe — payment processing
FMI Canada — warehousing and physical book fulfillment
SendGrid — transactional email and, with consent, marketing email
Amazon Web Services (Canada Central, Calgary region — ca-central-1) — hosting for avpbooks.com and AVP Online
Google Analytics — basic web analytics, used only where consented

We do not sell personal information. We do not share student or teacher account data with any third party for marketing, advertising, or behavioural-profiling purposes.

If we add or replace a vendor that handles personal information in a material way, we will update this policy.

6. Data Residency

Personal information collected through AVP Online — including user accounts, credentials, annotations, and student work — is stored on servers located in Canada (Amazon Web Services, Canada Central region, Calgary, Alberta).

Payment processing (Stripe) and email delivery (SendGrid) may involve service-provider infrastructure outside Canada in the ordinary course of those services. These vendors are contractually obligated to apply privacy and security protections comparable to Canadian standards.

We do not transfer student or teacher account data outside Canada.

7. Student Data and Schools

Where a school, school district, or teacher provides AVP Online access to students, AVP acts as a service provider to that institution. The school or district remains the legal custodian of the student data under applicable law, including BC FOIPPA for British Columbia public schools.

Our commitments to schools and student data:

Use limitation. We use student data only to deliver the contracted service. We do not use student work, annotations, or activity for marketing, advertising, behavioural profiling, or AI/machine-learning training.
Canadian residency. All student data is stored in Canada, as described in Section 6.
Subprocessor disclosure. Our current subprocessors are listed in Section 5. We will notify the school of any material change to subprocessors handling student data.
Access and deletion. On request from the school or district, we will provide access to, export, or delete student records, subject to the constraints of applicable law and any retention obligations described in Section 10.
No data mining. We do not build behavioural or predictive profiles of individual students.
Breach notification. We will notify the school or district promptly of any confirmed security incident affecting their students’ data (see Section 12).

Schools and teachers are responsible for obtaining any required parental consent for student use of AVP Online and for ensuring use is for educational purposes.

8. Cookies, Notifications, and Marketing

8.1 Cookies

We use two categories of cookies:

Essential cookies — required for login, checkout, and core platform function. These cannot be disabled.
Analytics cookies — used only with consent to understand basic site usage.

A cookie banner is presented on first visit. You may withdraw analytics-cookie consent at any time through the banner or by clearing cookies in your browser.

8.2 In-service notifications

AVP Online sends notifications related to assignments, classroom activity, and account events. These notifications are integral to the service and are not promotional.

8.3 Email marketing

Promotional and marketing emails are sent only with your express consent, as required by Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link, and you may withdraw consent at any time. Withdrawing consent does not affect transactional or service-essential emails.

9. Data Security

AVP protects personal information through measures including:

TLS/SSL encryption for data in transit;
Encrypted storage at rest on our hosting infrastructure;
Hashed (one-way) password storage — plaintext passwords are never seen or stored;
Role-based access controls limiting employee and contractor access to personal data;
No storage of payment-card numbers (handled by Stripe);
Regular review of access logs and security controls.

No system is perfectly secure. We take reasonable steps to safeguard your data and to remediate vulnerabilities promptly when they are identified.

10. Data Retention

Customer and order records — retained for at least seven (7) years to meet tax, accounting, and legal obligations.
Active accounts and subscriptions — retained while the account is active.
Inactive AVP Online accounts — accounts inactive for 24 consecutive months may be deleted or anonymized.
Student annotation and activity data — retained for the duration of the school’s subscription term, plus a reasonable wind-down period to allow for export. On request from the school, we will delete student records sooner.
Backups — retained on a rolling basis and overwritten on a regular cycle.

11. Your Privacy Rights

Subject to applicable law, you have the right to:

Access — request a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
Correct — request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal information;
Withdraw consent — withdraw consent for optional uses, such as marketing communications, at any time;
Delete — request deletion of your personal information, subject to our legal and contractual retention obligations.

Requests should be sent to [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days. If we cannot fully fulfill a request, we will explain why and what alternatives are available.

For student or teacher accounts created by a school or district, certain rights may need to be exercised through that school or district.

12. Breach Notification

If a security incident occurs that creates a real risk of significant harm to an individual, AVP will:

Notify the affected individual(s) without unreasonable delay;
Notify the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), as required under PIPEDA, and any applicable provincial commissioner;
Maintain a record of the breach as required under PIPEDA’s breach-record obligations;
Where the incident affects student data, notify the school or district promptly so they can fulfill their own obligations under FOIPPA or other applicable law.

13. Children

AVP Online may be used by students, including students under the age of 13, only when access is provided by a school, school district, or teacher acting in an educational role. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children outside this educational context.

If you believe a child has provided personal information to us outside this context, please contact our Privacy Officer and we will take steps to delete it.

14. International Users

AVP’s services are designed for users in Canada. By using avpbooks.com or AVP Online from outside Canada, you acknowledge that your personal information is processed and stored in Canada and is subject to Canadian law.

15. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The Effective Date and Last Updated date at the top of this policy will reflect the most recent revision. Material changes will be communicated through avpbooks.com and, where appropriate, by email to active account holders.

16. How to Contact Us and How to Complain

For questions, requests, or complaints about how we handle personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer:

Greg Ranieri, Privacy Officer
Absolute Value Publications Ltd.
[email protected]

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may also contact the relevant privacy regulator:

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) — priv.gc.ca · 1-800-282-1376
Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta — oipc.ab.ca
Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia — oipc.bc.ca