Your privacy is important
This website Privacy Policy outlines the type of information Notary Pro Canada collects on our website, how we use that information and the security measures we have in place to safeguard your personal information.
1. Introduction
When using our website, we can collect personal information about you when you send us an e-mail or fill out our online appointment request form.
NotaryPro Technologies Inc. dba NotaryPro and our affiliates and subsidiaries (collectively, “us” or, “we“, or “our“) recognize the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of personal information. We take our responsibility to safeguard the personal information of all parties engaging with our services (collectively, “you”, or “your”, or “them”), very seriously and are dedicated to maintaining your trust through our commitment to privacy and security.
This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) outlines how we collect, use, disclose, and protect your personal information in accordance with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”) when using our platform www.notarypro.ca and www.notarypro.com (collectively, the “Platform”).
Please read this Policy carefully. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our Platform or associated services. By accessing or using our Platform, you indicate that you understand, accept, and consent to our practices described in this Policy.
2. Personal Information We Collect About You
In order to provide our Platform’s services, including but not limited to, connecting individuals with licensed notary publics for in-person and remote online notary and witnessing services, as well as offering AI-powered legal document drafting solutions (the “Services“), we may access and collect various types of personal information, including but not limited to:
-
- Contact Information: Details such as your mailing address, phone number, email address, and billing information.
- Identification Information: Your government-issued identification documents as necessary to verify your identity in compliance with legal and regulatory obligations. For more information, please see our articled titled “What Will NotaryPro Accept as Valid Identification?”
- Appointment Information: Details regarding the scheduling of Services, including the date, time, and particular requirements or notes pertaining to the appointments you arrange via our Platform.
- Document Information: We temporarily retain copies of unsigned legal documents, along with associated transaction details, such as document type, parties involved, and completion status for service verification and audit purposes.
- Service Usage Information: Information related to virtual notarization or witnessing services, including IP addresses, time stamps, and session activity logs.
- AI-Interaction Data: During your use of our AI-powered legal document drafting tool, we collect data reflective of your interactions, including your inputs and preferences. This also encompasses the collection of specific information about your legal requirements and preferences, crucial for the customization of the documents generated by the AI tool.
- Payment Information: Details such as your banking and credit card information. This information is processed through trusted third-party payment processors such as, Square, Stripe, Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, Acuity Scheduling.
- Technical and Interaction Information: We may collect data about your interaction with our Platform, including the type of service chosen, legal document drafted,your browser, pages visited, time spent on our site, device identifier, and operating system.
- Feedback and Communication Information: We may request or receive feedback, questions, comments, or suggestions to enhance our Services and communication with you. Your participation in providing this information is entirely voluntary.
(collectively, “Personal Information”)
3. How We Collect Your Personal Information
We use different channels and methods to collect Personal Information, including through:
- Directly from you when you voluntarily engage with our Platform;
- When you execute payments, capturing banking and credit card information;
- In collaboration with our payment processing partners;
- When you submit an inquiry or request via our contact form;
- When you communicate with us via email, phone, or otherwise;
- When you participate in a survey or feedback request we send;
- When you apply for job positions within our organization;
- When you provide reviews, testimonials, or feedback about our Services; and,
- Through cookies and similar technologies (see Section 10);
We do not engage in data scraping or utilize third-party data sources. Our commitment is to collect only the Personal Information necessary to provide our Services efficiently, enhance your experience with us, and meet our operational and legal requirements.
4. How We Use Your Personal Information
We use the Personal Information we collect about you for various purposes in the provision of our Services, including:
- To present our Platform and its contents to you;
- To facilitate the scheduling, processing, and completion of Services provided through our platform;
- For processing payments, including banking and credit card information, through our secure third-party processors;
- To conduct quality control, market analysis, and understand user interaction with our Platform, which helps us improve our Platform’s performance and ensure a secure and optimized user experience;
- For marketing purposes, such as personalizing our marketing efforts, and notifying you about changes to our Platform or any services we offer or provide through it;
- To fulfill the purposes for which you provided the information or that were described when it was collected, or any other purpose for which you provide it; and,
- In accordance with applicable law.
Please note that we will only use your Personal Information as described above unless we have received your explicit consent to use it for other purposes or are required or permitted to do so by law.
5. Disclosure of Personal Information
We may disclose Personal Information that we collect or you provide as described in this Policy:
- To our subsidiaries and affiliates;
- In accordance with applicable law, to a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Information held by us about our customers and users is among the assets transferred;
- To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business. such as SendGrid for email services, AffiliateWP for affiliate marketing purposes, and market research firms like MaRS for market analysis and research, who are contractually obligated to keep Personal Information confidential, use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them, and to process the Personal Information with the same standards set out in this Policy;
- To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it;
- For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information;
- To third-party payment processors for subscription management; and,
- With your consent.
We may also disclose your Personal Information:
- To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request, in accordance with applicable law;
- To enforce or apply our terms of use found at https://www.notarypro.ca/terms-and-conditions/ and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes; and,
If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect our rights, property, and safety as well as the rights, property, and safety of our customers or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
6. Transferring Your Personal Information
We may transfer Personal Information that we collect or that you provide as described in this Policy to our subsidiaries or affiliates, contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business and who are contractually obligated to keep personal information confidential, use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them, and to process the Personal Information with the same standards set out in this policy.
We may process, store, and transfer your Personal Information in and to a foreign country, with different privacy laws that may or may not be as comprehensive as Canadian law. For example, certain functionalities, such as our e-signature features, may be facilitated by resources and technology located in the United States. In these circumstances, the governments, courts, law enforcement, or regulatory agencies of that country may be able to obtain access to your Personal Information through the laws of the foreign country. Whenever we engage a service provider, we require that its privacy and security standards adhere to this policy and applicable Canadian privacy legislation.
You are welcome to contact us to obtain further information about our policies regarding service providers outside of Canada. See Section 16 for contact details.
By submitting your Personal Information or engaging with the Platform, you consent to this transfer, storage, or processing.
7. Security of Personal Information
The security of your Personal Information is very important to us. We use physical, electronic, and administrative measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. We employ industry-standard data protection measures and tools. This includes encrypting data as it is transmitted to our servers and securely storing your personal information within a database protected by a firewall. Access to this database is strictly limited to our API server, providing a strong defense against unauthorized access.Additionally, any payment transactions will be encrypted.
The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our Platform, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone. We urge you to be careful about giving out information in public areas of the Platform like message boards, which any Platform visitor can view.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our Platform. Any transmission of Personal Information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for the circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Platform.
8. Retention of Personal Information
Except as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law or regulation, we will only retain your Personal Information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
Under some circumstances we may anonymize your Personal Information so that it can no longer be associated with or identify you. We reserve the right to use such anonymous and de-identified data for any legitimate business purpose without further notice to you or your consent.
9. Links to Other Platforms
The Platform may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, services, social networks, or applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow the third-party to collect or share data about you. If you follow a link to a third-party website or engage a third-party plugin, please note that these third-parties have their own privacy policies and we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. We do not control these third-party websites, and as such, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.
10. Information We May Collect Through Cookies
At present, our Platform does not employ cookies or other automatic data collection technologies. However, we may consider using cookies or similar technologies in the future as you navigate through and interact with our Platform in order to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns. This potential future use would include collecting:
- Details of your visits to our Platform, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Platform; and,
- Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.
In the event we choose to implement such technologies, we may also gather:
- Information regarding your consent for the use of cookies through cookie consent logs, potentially including your IP address and browser information.
- Details about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services (behavioral tracking).
In the event we implement these technologies, the information we collect automatically would primarily be statistical data but may also include Personal Information. This data collection would help us to improve our Platform and to deliver a better and more personalized service by enabling us to:
- Estimate our audience size and usage patterns;
- Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Platform according to your individual interests;
- Speed up your searches; and,
- Recognize you when you return to our Platform.
The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:
- Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Platform. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Platform.
- Flash Cookies. Certain features of our Platform may use local stored objects (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on our Platform. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings that are used for browser cookies.
- Web Beacons. Pages of our Platform (and our emails) may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit us, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity).
We take the privacy and security of your Personal Information seriously and are committed to being transparent about the use of cookies and other automatic data collection technologies on our Platform. Should we decide to implement such technologies in the future, we will ensure you are clearly notified about their use and the choices available to you for managing your preferences.
11. Third-Party Use of Cookies
Some content or applications on the Platform are served by third-parties, including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers, and application providers. These third-parties may use cookies to collect information about you when you use our Platform. The information they collect may be associated with your Personal Information or they may collect information, including Personal Information, about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioural) advertising or other targeted content. We do not control these third-parties’ tracking technologies or how they are used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly.
You can opt-out of several third-party ad servers’ and networks’ cookies simultaneously by using an opt-out tool created by the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada and/or an opt-out tool created by the Network Advertising Initiative. You can also access these websites to learn more about online behavioural advertising and how to stop websites from placing cookies on your device. Opting out of a network does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the network from which you opted out will no longer deliver ads tailored to your web preferences and usage patterns.
12. Minors
Our Platform is not available for users under the age of 18 (or the age of legal consent for the jurisdiction the user is located in) (a “Minor”). Minors may not provide any information to or on the Platform. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from Minors.
If you are a Minor, do not use or provide any information on this Platform or on or through any of its features/register on the Platform, or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, email address, or any screen name or user name you may use.
If we learn we have collected or received Personal Information from a Minor without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information.
If you believe we might have any information from or about a Minor, please contact our privacy officer in accordance with Section 16 of this Policy.
13. Access and Correction
It is important that the Personal Information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your Personal Information changes.
If you want to review, verify, correct, or withdraw consent to the use of your Personal Information please contact our Privacy Officer, whose contact details are outlined in Section 16 of this Policy.
We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.
We may request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and your right to access the Personal Information that we hold about you or to make your requested changes. Applicable law may allow or require us to refuse to provide you with access to some or all of the Personal Information that we hold about you, or we may have destroyed, erased, or made your Personal Information anonymous in accordance with our record retention obligations and practices. If we cannot provide you with access to your Personal Information, we will inform you of the reasons why, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions.
14. Withdrawing Your Consent
Where you have provided your consent to the collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information, you have the legal right to withdraw your consent under certain circumstances. To withdraw your consent, please contact our Privacy Officer, whose contact details are outlined in Section 16 of this Policy. Please note that if you withdraw your consent we may not be able to provide you with a particular product or service. We will explain the impact to you at the time to help you with your decision.
15. Changes to Our Policy
This Policy may change from time to time. It is our policy to post any changes we make to our Policy on this page with a notice that the Policy has been updated on the Platform home page.
We will notify you in advance of any material changes to this Policy and obtain your consent to any new ways that we collect, use, disclose and store your Personal Information. Please check the Policy periodically for updates, as your continued use of this Platform after we make changes indicates that you accept and consent to those changes.
16. Privacy Officer
We welcome your questions, comments, and requests regarding this Policy and our privacy practices. Please contact our Privacy Officer at:
Privacy Officer: David Barder
NotaryPro Technologies Inc.
Email: [email protected]
We are committed to addressing any concerns you may have and will respond to your inquiry within a reasonable time.
17. Complaints
If you are not satisfied with our response to your privacy-related inquiry, you have the right to file a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, as applicable.
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
30 Victoria Street
Gatineau, Quebec K1A 1H3
Toll-free: 1-800-282-1376
Platform: www.priv.gc.ca
Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
2 Bloor Street East, Suite 1400
Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8
Toll-free: 1-800-387-0073
Platform: www.ipc.on.ca
By using our Services, you acknowledge and agree to the terms of this Policy.
We appreciate your trust in us and will continue to work diligently to protect your Personal Information and provide you with the best possible service. Last Updated: February 26, 2024