Privacy Policy
How Pool Queue handles information about clubs, their members, and visitors to this website.
1. About this policy
This policy explains how Pool Queue Information System Inc., a federal Canadian corporation, handles personal information. Our contact details are at the end.
It covers this website, www.poolq.net, and the Pool Queue service: the club management software that clubs use with their members, including the club websites it runs.
We play two roles. For our own website, our customers' accounts, billing, and support, we decide what we collect and why. For the information a club keeps about its members, the club decides, and we process it on the club's behalf.
In this policy, "we" and "us" mean Pool Queue Information System Inc., and "your club" means the club or organization that uses Pool Queue.
2. When your club decides, and when we do
Part A, our own information. This covers visitors to this website, people who contact us, the accounts of club staff, billing, support, and our own service logs. Pool Queue decides how this information is used, and this policy explains how.
Part B, your club's member information. This covers the information a club keeps about its members, parents, and guardians. The club decides what to collect and how to use it, and is responsible for it. Pool Queue processes it only to provide the service and on the club's instructions. The club's own privacy policy applies to it; ask your club for a copy.
If you are a member, parent, or guardian, ask your club first about your information. We help the club answer, and if you send your request to us, we pass it on to your club.
3. Visitors to this website
When you visit this website, our hosting and content delivery services record standard logs: your IP address, your browser, the pages you ask for, and the time.
The contact and demo forms collect what you enter: your name, email address, subject, the department you choose, and your message. They also record your IP address and browser. We use this to answer you, and we email you a copy of your message.
The forms use Google reCAPTCHA to stop spam; the Cookies section explains it.
This website uses no analytics, and adds no advertising trackers of its own.
4. Clubs and their staff
For each club that uses Pool Queue, we keep accounts for the staff and volunteers who help run it: their name, email address, roles, and two-factor sign-in settings.
To keep accounts secure, we record each sign-in, including the email address and IP address used.
For the club as our customer, we keep its billing contact, subscription and invoice records, and the emails we exchange with its staff for support.
We also send staff service email, such as password reset messages and notices about the service.
5. Members, parents, and guardians
Clubs use Pool Queue to keep information about their members and the parents or guardians who manage their accounts. Depending on the features a club uses, this can include:
- Names and contact details of account holders
- Members' names, birth dates, and gender
- Registrations, attendance, assessments, and results
- Answers to the club's own questions, which may include health, medical, or emergency contact details when the club asks for them
- Invoices, payments, and refunds
- Messages between the club and its members
This is Part B information: your club decides how it is used. Children's information is entered by a parent, guardian, or the club; see Children.
Pool Queue also keeps its own service logs on club websites, such as sign-ins and page requests. They can include the IP address, the browser, and for a signed-in user, the account. These logs are Part A information.
6. How we use information
We use information to:
- Provide the Pool Queue service to clubs and their members
- Keep the service secure and prevent misuse
- Support club staff
- Bill clubs for their subscription
- Answer questions sent through this website or by email
- Meet our legal duties, such as keeping tax records
We never sell your data. Pool Queue never sells your club's data to other companies.
Pool Queue shows no advertising to your members.
We do not use member information to market Pool Queue to members.
7. Service providers
We use the service providers below. Each one receives only the information it needs, and may use it only to provide its service.
- Microsoft Azure. Hosting, storage, and monitoring for the whole service, and the website editor's writing assistant from Microsoft. Azure holds everything Pool Queue stores. The writing assistant receives the author's request, the club's name and, when the author edits a block, that block's content, which may include member names. Where: storage and monitoring in Canada.
- Stripe. Card and bank payments and payouts, for clubs that use Stripe. Receives payer, payment, and club account details. Where: Stripe's own systems, including outside Canada, mainly in the United States.
- PayPal. Payments and payouts, for clubs that use PayPal. Receives payer and payment details. Where: PayPal's own systems, including outside Canada, mainly in the United States.
- Intuit QuickBooks Online. Only for clubs that connect it: accounting sync, and card payments through QuickBooks Payments. Receives invoice, payment, and customer details. For these clubs, card numbers go from the browser straight to Intuit, so Pool Queue's servers never receive them. Where: outside Canada, mainly the United States.
- Twilio SendGrid. Sending email. Receives each recipient's address, the message, and delivery, open, and click events. Where: outside Canada, mainly the United States.
- Google reCAPTCHA. Spam checks on forms, on this website and in the service. Receives details about the device and browser, and the IP address. Where: outside Canada, mainly the United States.
- Google Maps Platform. Address lookup on some administrator screens. Receives the address text typed and the IP address. Where: outside Canada, mainly the United States.
- Google Fonts. Fonts on club websites. Receives the visitor's IP address and browser. Where: outside Canada, mainly the United States.
- Browser push services (Apple, Google, and Mozilla). Delivering the notifications a user turns on. Receives the notification. Where: outside Canada, mainly the United States.
- Zendesk. Our help center at help.poolq.net, and the help widget on administrator pages. Receives an administrator's name and email address, the pages viewed, and what is sent. Where: outside Canada, mainly the United States.
- Sport governing bodies, such as USA Swimming's SWIMS member database. Only when a club uses the connection: details of the members the club sends. Where: depends on the body.
Stripe and PayPal also have their own agreements with your club, which is the merchant for its payments; their own privacy statements cover how they handle payments.
When we add or change a provider, we update this list.
8. Where information is stored
Your club's data is stored in Canada, on Microsoft Azure. Our monitoring data is stored in Canada too.
Some of the service providers above process the details they need on their own systems outside Canada, mainly in the United States: the payment, email, spam-check, map, font, notification, and help desk services.
Information processed outside Canada is subject to the laws of the country where it is processed, and may be accessible to that country's courts, law enforcement, and national security authorities.
9. Cookies
This website. On www.poolq.net, the only cookie is set by Google reCAPTCHA, after you start filling in the contact or demo form. reCAPTCHA stops spam: it collects details about your device and browser, and Google processes them for us, for security only. This website uses no analytics, and does not set tracking or advertising cookies of its own.
If you would rather not use the form, email us at info@poolq.net.
The Pool Queue service. Club websites and administrator pages use cookies only where the service needs them: to keep you signed in (including two-factor sign-in, and remembering a trusted browser for 14 days if you choose), to protect forms, to carry short messages between pages, and to keep your visit on the same server. None is used for analytics or advertising, and most are deleted when you close your browser.
Some pages also load services from other companies, under their own privacy policies, and these may set their own cookies: Google reCAPTCHA on forms, Stripe or PayPal when you pay, Google Maps on some address fields, and the Zendesk help widget for club administrators.
The service also keeps some display preferences, such as table layouts, in your browser's local storage.
Your club may add its own Google Analytics to its website. Google then sets analytics cookies on that club's website. That is your club's choice, and your club's privacy policy covers it.
You can block or delete cookies in your browser's settings. If you block the cookies the service needs, signing in will not work.
10. Email
Clubs use Pool Queue to email their members, for example invoices, reminders, and club news. For that email, the club is the sender. The club is responsible for having consent where the law requires it and for honoring unsubscribe requests, under laws such as Canada's anti-spam law and the US CAN-SPAM Act.
Email sent through Pool Queue may record when it is opened or a link in it is clicked, including the IP address of the device that opened it.
When you contact us, we reply to you. Writing to us does not add you to a mailing list.
11. How long we keep information
We keep information only as long as we need it:
- Your club's data: kept while your club subscribes, and deleted within 90 days after the subscription ends. Copies in backups are removed as the backups roll off on their own schedule.
- Billing records: kept as long as tax law requires; in Canada, that is 6 years.
- Messages sent through the contact and demo forms: kept for 2 years.
- Logs: kept for a limited period, then deleted.
Where the law requires us to keep something longer, we keep it for that time.
12. How we protect information
We protect information with access by role, two-factor sign-in that clubs can require, and monitoring around the clock by Microsoft's cloud security service.
Card numbers go straight from the browser to Stripe, PayPal or Intuit. Pool Queue's servers never receive or store them.
The security page explains more.
If a security incident affects personal information, we tell the affected clubs without undue delay, and we report it to regulators and notify individuals as the law requires.
13. Children
Pool Queue accounts are for adults: adult members, parents or guardians, and club staff. No child signs in with their own account.
Children's information, such as a member's name and birth date, is entered by a parent, guardian, or the club, and the child is added to the parent's or guardian's account.
Pool Queue is not directed to children under 13.
14. Your choices and requests
You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it if it is wrong. You can also ask us to delete information we no longer need.
You can withdraw your consent to our use of your information, subject to legal or contract limits. Some information is needed to provide the service, so withdrawing consent may mean you can no longer use it; we tell you if that is the case.
To make a request, email privacy@poolq.net. We may ask you to confirm your identity first. We reply within 30 days, and there is no fee for a reasonable request.
For information your club keeps about you or your child, ask your club: the club decides how it is used, and we help it answer. If you send that request to us, we pass it on to your club.
15. Quebec and the United States
Quebec. Our Privacy Officer is the person in charge of the protection of personal information at Pool Queue. Information may be stored or processed outside Quebec, as described in this policy. This policy is available in English only until a French version is ready.
United States. Your browser may send a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal. Pool Queue does not track visitors across other websites, on this website or in the service, so these signals do not change what we do. A club that adds its own analytics to its website decides how to handle them.
Under state health-data laws, such as Washington's My Health My Data Act, Pool Queue acts as a processor for the clubs that use it, and handles any health information only on the club's instructions.
16. Changes to this policy
The date at the top of this page shows when this policy last changed.
If we make a material change, we email club administrators at least 30 days before it takes effect.
17. Contact and complaints
Questions, requests, and complaints about privacy go to our Privacy Officer:
Privacy Officer, Pool Queue Information System Inc.
Email: privacy@poolq.net
Mail: Pool Queue Information System Inc., 200-535 Yates Street, Victoria, BC V8W 2Z6, Canada
If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can contact a privacy regulator:
- Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (opens in a new tab)
- Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (opens in a new tab)
- Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta (opens in a new tab)
- Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (opens in a new tab)
Questions? Contact us