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PermitGuide

Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 2026

Overview

PermitGuide (“we”, “our”, or “the service”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains what data we collect when you use PermitGuide, why we collect it, and how it is handled.

The permit check is free and requires no account. You do not give us a name or an email address to use it, and we do not ask for payment details anywhere on this site.

The optional CA$29 founder deposit is the one exception. Paying it means giving an email address, which we store so we can contact you and refund you. The payment itself is handled entirely by Stripe on Stripe's own pages. Your card number never reaches PermitGuide.

What We Collect

  • Civic address — the address you enter in Step 1. Used solely to look up your zoning classification from Halifax Regional Municipality's public GIS data (HRM ArcGIS). The address and resulting zoning code are cached in our database to avoid redundant API calls.
  • Project details and result — the project type, dimensions you enter, and the permit determination we return. Stored as an anonymised audit record (no personal identifiers) for service improvement and analytics.
  • Anonymous session ID — a random UUID generated in your browser for the duration of your check. Stored in sessionStorage only; cleared when you close the tab. Never associated with your identity.
  • Anonymous visitor ID — a random identifier stored in a cookie named pg_aid, set by permitguide.cc and readable by no other site. It lasts one year and lets us tell a returning visitor from a new one. It holds no name, no email address, and no address.
  • Email address, only if you pay the founder deposit — collected by Stripe during checkout and stored by us so we can contact you about the launch and process a refund if you ask for one. Nothing else on the site collects it.

What We Do Not Collect

  • Name, phone number, or any personal identifier beyond the email address attached to a founder deposit
  • Card numbers or any other payment details. Stripe handles the payment and we never see them
  • Device fingerprints or cross-site tracking cookies
  • Location data beyond the civic address you enter

Analytics

We measure how the permit check is used so we can find the steps where it fails people. This is done with Vercel Web Analytics, run by our hosting provider on our behalf.

What is sent to Vercel Web Analytics:

  • The pages you view and the steps of the check you complete
  • The project type you pick, the zoning code of the property, and the result

What is not sent:

  • The civic address you enter. It never leaves our own systems for the analytics service, in any form
  • Your email address, including after a founder deposit
  • The anonymous visitor ID from the pg_aid cookie. That cookie stays in your browser, and is recorded in our own database only if you place a founder deposit
  • Session recordings. We do not use screen or session replay and cannot watch what you do on the page

Vercel processes this data on servers in the United States. That is a transfer of personal information outside Canada, and while it is there it is subject to US law, including lawful access requests by US authorities. PIPEDA requires us to tell you this, so we are telling you here.

Opting Out of Analytics

Visit permitguide.cc/?internal=1 once. That sets a cookie named pg_internal in your browser which marks every later visit as excluded, so nothing you do is counted in our numbers. It takes effect immediately and stays in effect until you clear your cookies. If you clear them, visit the link again.

The permit check works exactly the same either way. Nothing is withheld from you for opting out.

You can also block cookies for permitguide.cc in your browser settings, or use private browsing. Either stops the visitor ID from persisting between visits.

Third-Party Services

  • Supabase — our database provider (PostgreSQL hosted on AWS). Stores the zoning cache and anonymised audit records. Data is held in Canada East or US East regions.
  • HRM ArcGIS — Halifax Regional Municipality's public GIS API. Your civic address is sent to this service to retrieve zoning information. HRM's own privacy policy applies to that request.
  • Vercel — our hosting provider, and our analytics provider through Vercel Web Analytics. Processes server-side requests and may log standard web server data (IP address, user agent) per Vercel's privacy policy, and processes the usage data described above on servers in the United States.
  • Stripe — payment processor for the optional founder deposit. Stripe collects your email address and card details on its own pages and under its own privacy policy. We receive the email address and the amount, never the card.

Data Retention

Zoning cache entries are retained for 30 days, after which they are refreshed on next access. Anonymised permit check records are retained indefinitely for analytics purposes but contain no personal identifiers. Founder deposit records, including the email address, are kept until you ask us to delete them.

Your Rights

Under PIPEDA (Canada's federal privacy law), you have the right to access, correct, or request deletion of personal information we hold about you.

If you paid the founder deposit, email us from the address you used and we can find, correct, or delete your record. For everything else, we have no way to link a request to your specific rows, because the permit check records carry no identifier that points back to a person.

For privacy inquiries, contact us at kghinaiya4@gmail.com.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as the service evolves. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

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