1.Who we are
BDC Velocity is a partnership operating in Ontario, Canada (“BDC Velocity”, “we”, “us”). We connect homeowners planning renovations with renovation contractors. This policy explains how we handle personal information collected through this website and our services, in line with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
2.What we collect
Yes, we collect user data. We collect personal information from people who use this website and our service, and we want to be clear about exactly what that is. When you fill in our contractor form or sign up for our service, we collect:
- Contact details: your name, company name, phone number and email address.
- Business details: the territory you want, your minimum job size, the trades you want leads for, and whether you’re licensed and insured.
- Account and billing details: your billing name and address, and the history of your subscription. Card payments are handled by our payment processor; we never see or store your full card number.
- Communications: notes from our calls and the emails or texts we exchange with you.
- Files you send us: any photos, logos or documents you share with us (see section 8).
- Basic technical data: like any website, our host and the service that loads our fonts may log your IP address and browser type.
3.How we use it
- To respond to your enquiry and check whether your territory is available.
- To provide the service: sending you leads, running check-in calls and supporting your account.
- To bill you and keep financial records required by law.
- To send service updates and, with your consent, information about our services.
- To improve our service and keep our website secure.
We only use your information for these purposes, or for others we tell you about and you agree to.
4.Consent
By submitting our form and ticking the consent box, you agree that we can contact you by phone, text or email about our lead services. You can withdraw consent at any time by replying “STOP” to a text, using the unsubscribe link in an email, or emailing info@bdcvelocity.ca. Withdrawing consent may mean we can no longer provide the service.
We follow Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) for all commercial emails and texts.
5.Who we share it with
We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with service providers who help us run the business, and only what they need:
- Customer management software, where form submissions are stored.
- A payment processor, to take card payments.
- Automation tools, to move information between our systems.
- A website host, to run this website.
- AI providers, to process information for the tasks described in section 6.
- A font service, to load the fonts on this website.
We may also disclose information if required by law. If you are a contractor client, we share your business name and contact details with homeowners we connect you with.
6.Our use of artificial intelligence (AI)
We use AI tools to help run the business, for example to organize information and draft messages, which a person on our team reviews.
When we use AI, the information involved may be processed by the AI provider on our behalf. We only share what the task needs, and where the provider offers the option, we choose settings so that your information is not used to train their AI models.
AI does not make final decisions about you. A person on our team makes decisions about accepting clients, territories and billing.
If we ever use an AI assistant to reply to messages, it will tell you it is automated.
7.Third-party data collectors
Some third parties collect information directly when you visit our website or interact with our ads. They do this under their own privacy policies, not ours:
- Our website host logs visits, including IP addresses, for security and performance.
- Our font service receives your IP address and browser details when the page loads.
- Our customer management software receives what you type into our form and may set cookies.
- Our payment processor collects your payment details directly when you pay.
- Advertising platforms such as Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Google may collect information when you see or click our ads. If we add their tracking tools to this website, we will update this policy first.
We don’t control how these companies use the information they collect. You can read their privacy policies on their websites and use your browser settings to block cookies.
8.Files you send us
If you send us files such as photos, logos or documents, we:
- store them in private storage that is not publicly accessible and can only be opened by our team;
- use them only for the reason you sent them; and
- delete them when you ask us to, or within 90 days after your service ends, whichever comes first, unless we must keep them by law.
To have your files deleted, email info@bdcvelocity.ca. We will confirm once they have been deleted.
9.Where it’s stored
Some of our service providers store data outside Canada, including in the United States. When that happens, your information is protected by contracts with those providers but may be accessible to authorities in those countries under their laws.
10.Cookies
This website does not use advertising cookies. If you have previously visited a site that uses our customer management software, our form may read its cookie to connect your enquiry with that visit. If we add analytics or advertising tools in the future, we will update this policy first.
11.How long we keep it
We keep enquiry information for up to 24 months if you don’t become a client. For clients, we keep account information for as long as you use the service and then as long as needed for legal, tax and accounting purposes (generally up to 7 years for billing records). After that, we delete or anonymize it.
12.How we protect it
We keep personal information and files in private, access-restricted storage; nothing you send us is publicly viewable. We use reputable service providers with strong security, limit access to authorized members of our team, use secure (HTTPS) connections, and protect our accounts with strong passwords and two-step verification. No method is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information.
13.Your rights
You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, correct it, or have it deleted (except where we must keep it by law). Email info@bdcvelocity.ca and we will respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
14.Testimonials
We will only publish your name, company, photo or testimonial on our website or in our marketing with your written permission. You can ask us to remove it at any time.
15.Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. When we do, we will change the “last updated” date at the top, and for significant changes we will let clients know by email.
16.Contact
Questions about privacy? Email our privacy contact at info@bdcvelocity.ca.