Legal & Privacy
Privacy Policy
How FriendlySpeaking collects, uses, protects and deletes information, with sections for Canada, the United States and California.
- Version
- v1.0 (draft)
- Effective date
- Pending legal review
- Status
- Legal Review
Draft document, pending legal review
This document is a working draft prepared as part of building FriendlySpeaking. It is not legal advice and has not yet been approved by Canadian or United States legal counsel. Final wording will be confirmed by qualified counsel before launch.
1. Introduction
FriendlySpeaking is a parent-controlled friendship and activity discovery service for parents and guardians who create profiles for children and young adults ages 2 to 20. Accounts belong to parents and legal guardians. Children do not operate the platform. We aim to collect the minimum information needed to help a parent discover a potentially compatible friendship opportunity.
2. Information we collect from parents
- Account details: name, email address, password credentials.
- Adult confirmation and parent or guardian representation.
- Country and state or province, used to show the right privacy rights and notices.
- Approximate area, matching preferences and availability.
- Messages you exchange with other parents.
- Reports you submit and support requests you send.
- Technical information such as device type, browser and security logs.
3. Information about children
Child information is entered by a parent or guardian, never by a child. We treat it as sensitive.
- First name or nickname.
- Birth year and a calculated age band covering ages 2 to 20.
- Interests, sports, activities and languages.
- General activity preferences and availability.
- Parent-entered profile notes, including friendship preferences and accessibility needs.
We do not request a child's home address, school address, phone number, email address, social media accounts, daily schedule, government identification, medical information, or financial information.
4. How we use information
- To create and secure accounts.
- To suggest potentially compatible families and nearby activities.
- To deliver introduction requests and parent-to-parent messages.
- To operate safety tools: reporting, blocking, moderation and escalation.
- To respond to privacy requests and support enquiries.
- To meet legal, security and record-keeping obligations.
5. Matching
Matching may consider age range, interests, activities, sports, languages, general social preferences, availability, and geographic and venue preferences. Compatibility scores are estimates based on parent-provided preferences and are not guarantees of friendship, safety, or suitability. We do not use automated systems to make high-impact decisions about children.
6. Location information
We show approximate areas only, such as a town, region, or a distance range like approximately 7 km away. We never publicly display a family's exact home location. Where device or browser location is used, it is optional, we explain why we are asking, and we prefer to convert a precise location into an approximate area and discard the precise value.
7. Child profile media
Child photo uploads are not part of the current service. If media features are considered later, they will require a separate privacy, safety and legal review before activation.
8. Communications
Account and safety notifications are separate from marketing. Marketing consent is collected separately from account creation and can be withdrawn at any time. Notification subjects and push messages never include a child's name or details. Email to United States recipients is designed to support CAN-SPAM requirements, and commercial email to Canadian recipients is designed to support CASL requirements. We do not enroll anyone in marketing SMS automatically.
9. Cookies and analytics
We currently use essential session, security and preference storage needed to operate the service. We have not added advertising or third-party analytics tracking. See the Cookie Policy for details and controls.
10. Advertising
We do not sell children's personal information, we do not target advertising to children using information collected here, and we do not build advertising profiles from children's information. Third-party advertising technologies are not permitted to collect children's profile information.
11. Third parties and international transfers
We maintain an internal record of every service provider that receives data, including the purpose, data categories, whether children's information is involved, processing location, contractual protections and retention. Because we serve families in Canada and the United States, information may be processed in either country. Vendors are listed in this policy only once they are actually in use.
12. Security
Current protections include encrypted connections, secure password handling, row-level access controls, separate administrator roles and audit records for key legal and safety events. Security testing, operational access procedures and incident-response readiness require continued review before launch.
13. Retention
We keep different categories of information for different periods: account records, child profile information, messages, reports and safety investigations, payment records, security logs, consent records and legal records. We keep information only as long as necessary for the purpose it was collected or as required by law.
14. Parental rights and controls
Parents can review and correct profile information, delete an individual child profile, manage discovery visibility and deactivate their account. Access, deletion, correction and consent-withdrawal requests can be submitted through the contact page. Export processing and final retention procedures require operational review before launch.
15. Children's privacy
Our approach is described in plain language in the Children's Privacy Notice for Parents. The current signup process records an adult parent or guardian's separate policy acknowledgments. It is not represented as a completed verifiable-parental-consent method. Any stronger method required in the United States or Canada must be approved before launch.
16. Canadian privacy rights
- Access the personal information we hold about you and your children.
- Request correction of inaccurate information.
- Withdraw consent, subject to legal or contractual limits we will explain.
- Ask how your information is used and who it is disclosed to.
- Make a complaint to us, and to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or your provincial regulator.
17. United States privacy rights
Rights vary by state. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to know what we collect, access a copy, correct inaccuracies, delete information, limit the use of sensitive information, opt out of targeted advertising or the sale or sharing of personal information, and appeal a decision. We will not discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right.
18. California privacy rights
California residents may have rights to know, access, delete, correct, limit the use of sensitive personal information, and opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. FriendlySpeaking does not sell or share children's personal information for advertising, and California has specific protections for consumers ages 13 to 15 regarding sale and sharing.
19. Making a request or complaint
Requests can be submitted through our secure contact page. We verify that the requester is authorized before acting, and exports contain only information the requester is entitled to receive.
20. Changes to this policy
Updates are posted here with a new version number and effective date. We record the policy version accepted by each account holder.
Contact
Operating name: FriendlySpeaking. Legal entity: Friendly Speaking Inc.. Business address: 8 The Green, Suite A, Dover, Delaware 19901, United States.
Privacy, legal, safety, accessibility and support requests are accepted through our contact page. We do not publish a general contact email address.
If a child is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services or the appropriate child-protection authority. FriendlySpeaking is not an emergency service.