Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 1, 2026

Bella Balloon Childcare Centre (“we,” “us,” or “our”) operates the public website at https://www.bellaballoon.com/ (the “Site”). This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect through the Site, how we use it, and the choices you have.

We handle personal information in accordance with applicable Canadian privacy law, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), where it applies to our activities.

1. Who this policy applies to

This policy applies to visitors and families who use the public Site. It does not describe privacy practices for children enrolled in our licensed childcare programs outside of what you submit through the Site; those may be covered by separate enrolment agreements and regulatory requirements.

A separate password-protected administrative area (/auth/) is used only by authorized staff to manage centre operations. Access is not offered to the general public as a parent portal on the live Site.

2. Information we collect

2.1 Waiting list registration

When you submit our online waiting list / registration form, we collect information you provide, including:

Parent or guardian name, relationship to the child, street address, postal code, city, phone number, and email address;
Child’s name, gender, date of birth, and desired program;
Preferred start date, whether you would like a tour, preferred attendance days (Monday–Friday), and optional comments;
If enabled on the form, a response to Google reCAPTCHA to help reduce spam.

Submissions are intended for children who meet the age criteria stated on the form (currently children six years old or younger, based on date of birth). If a submission does not meet those criteria, it may not be stored in our waiting list system even though you may still be redirected to a confirmation page.

2.2 Contact and other public pages

Our Contact page displays our address, hours, and phone number. It does not include a message form that collects personal information. To reach us, you may call us or use the waiting list form.

Browsing pages such as Home, Programs, News, or Photos does not require you to create an account.

2.3 Information collected automatically

When you use the Site, certain technical information may be collected automatically, such as:

IP address, browser type, device type, referring URL, and pages viewed;
Session and security cookies when you use staff login (see Section 5);
Analytics data through Google Analytics (property ID UA-37328363-1), which may use cookies or similar technologies to understand how visitors use the Site.

2.4 Information stored only in your browser

The waiting list form may save a draft of your entries in your browser’s sessionStorage (under the key bellaballoon-registration-draft-v1) so you can continue later on the same device and browser session. This draft is not sent to our servers until you submit the form. You can discard the draft using the on-screen controls or by clearing your browser storage. A thank-you page clears this draft after a successful submission.

3. How we use your information

We use personal information from the Site to:

Process and review waiting list and tour requests;
Contact you about availability, tours, and enrolment steps;
Operate, maintain, and improve the Site;
Protect the Site against spam, abuse, and security incidents;
Comply with legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal information.

4. How we share your information

We may share personal information with:

Centre staff who need it to respond to your request or manage the waiting list;
Email and hosting providers used to deliver notifications and operate the Site (for example, when a registration is submitted, an email may be sent to our centre mailbox);
Service providers listed in Section 6, who process data on our behalf to provide specific features;
Authorities when required by law or to protect rights, safety, or property.

We do not publish your waiting list details on the public Site.

5. Cookies and similar technologies

The Site may use:

Essential cookies — for example, Laravel session and CSRF protection when staff sign in to the administrative area;
Analytics cookies — through Google Analytics, as described above;
Third-party cookies — for example, when Google reCAPTCHA is loaded on the registration form.

You can limit cookies through your browser settings. Disabling cookies may affect some features (such as staff login or reCAPTCHA).

6. Third-party services

Depending on how the Site is configured, these third parties may receive technical or personal information:

Google Analytics — usage statistics;
Google Fonts — may receive your IP address when fonts are loaded;
Google reCAPTCHA — spam prevention on the registration form (when enabled);
Google Maps / Google Places — map display on the Contact page (when a Maps API key is configured) and public review excerpts on the News page (fetched from Google Places and cached on our server for up to 24 hours);
WeatherAPI.com — we request current weather for North Vancouver on the server to display conditions and decorative effects; results are cached for about 10 minutes;
CDN resources — such as Font Awesome (legacy icons on some pages) loaded from third-party content delivery networks.

These providers have their own privacy policies. We encourage you to review them. Links on our Site (for example, to Google Maps) are governed by the third party’s terms and privacy practices.

7. Photos, news, and public reviews

The Site displays photos of our centre and may display news articles posted by our staff. The News page may also show excerpts of public Google reviews (author name, rating, text, and relative time) when that integration is enabled. We do not control what reviewers post on Google.

Image galleries may use a lightbox viewer (Fancybox) that runs in your browser.

8. Data retention

We keep waiting list registrations for as long as needed to manage enquiries, tours, and potential enrolment, and as required for business, accounting, or legal purposes. Cached third-party data (weather, reviews) is stored only for short periods on our servers as described above.

When information is no longer required, we take reasonable steps to delete or anonymize it, subject to legal retention requirements.

9. Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, loss, or misuse. No method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is completely secure.

Staff administrative access is protected by authentication. Please use a strong password and keep login credentials confidential.

10. Your rights and choices

Subject to applicable law, you may request access to, correction of, or deletion of personal information we hold about you from the Site. You may withdraw consent for non-essential uses where consent is required, understanding that we may not be able to process your waiting list request without certain information.

To make a privacy request or ask questions about this policy, contact us using the details in Section 12.

11. Children’s information

The Site is intended for parents and guardians, not for children to use on their own. When you submit information about a child, you represent that you are authorized to provide that information. We collect a child’s information only to process your waiting list or tour request.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top will change when we do. Continued use of the Site after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

13. Contact us

For privacy questions or requests:

Bella Balloon Childcare Centre
Attn: Privacy — Blazena Aja Markova, Manager
515 West Windsor Road (at Jones Street)
North Vancouver, BC V7N 2N7, Canada
Phone: (604) 984-4481
Web: https://bellaballoon.com/contact