Privacy policy

The short version

• You can practise without an account. If you do, your results stay in your browser and are not sent to us.
• There are no advertisements, no advertising trackers and no analytics scripts on the site. The only outside code is Stripe's payment form, and it loads only when you open the payment window.
• We keep an account only for as long as you keep it. You can delete it yourself and everything we hold about your study goes with it.
• We never sell your information.
• We send marketing email only if you tick a box to say yes, and every email has an unsubscribe link.

What we collect

It depends on how you use the site.

If you only practise without an account:

• Your practice results, the recall cards you mark as known, your reading settings and your daily-minutes choice are saved in your browser (local storage) on your own device. We do not receive them. Clearing your browser data removes them.
• Like any website, our server and hosting provider handle your IP address and technical details of each request (browser, page requested, time) to deliver pages, keep the service secure and limit abuse such as repeated sign-in attempts.

If you create an account:

• Your email address, an optional name, your preferred language, and when you confirmed your email.
• Your password. We never store it as you typed it; we store only a salted, one-way hash of it.
• If you choose "Continue with Google": the identifier Google gives us for your account and the email address on it. We do not receive your Google password or contacts.
• Your study activity once you sign in: each practice session you finish (type, score, date and the topics covered), whether each question was answered correctly, and the recall cards you marked as known.
• Your package or question pack records: when it started and ends, where it came from, and a reference to the payment.
• A sign-in cookie (see "Cookies" below).

If you ask for a results report by email without an account, we keep your email address, your results summary and whether you agreed to study tips and offers.

If you pay, the payment is handled by Stripe. Your card number goes to Stripe and never reaches our servers. We receive the checkout reference, the amount, the status and your email address.

If you write to us, we keep the message and your reply for as long as we need them to help you.

Why we use it

• To run your account, save your progress across devices and give you what you paid for (this is what you agreed to when you signed up or bought).
• To take payments, issue refunds and prevent fraud or abuse.
• To send account email: confirming your address, resetting a password, payment and pass notices.
• To send study tips and offers, only if you said yes (your consent). You can withdraw it at any time.
• To keep the service secure, fix errors and improve the questions, by looking at how often questions are missed across all learners.
• To meet legal obligations.

We do not use your information for advertising, we do not build advertising profiles, and we do not make decisions about you by automated means that affect your legal rights.

Who else handles it

We use a small number of service providers to run the site. They may process your information only to provide their service to us.

• Stripe: payments and refunds. When you open the payment window, your browser connects to Stripe, which then sees your IP address and device details.
• Amazon Web Services (Amazon SES): sending email.
• Google: only if you choose "Continue with Google". Nothing from Google loads on our pages otherwise.
• Hetzner: the servers where the site and its database run, in [[country of the hosting server]].

Some of these providers are in other countries, including the United States, so your information may be processed there and can be accessed by courts and authorities under those countries' laws.

We may disclose information if the law requires it, to respond to a valid legal request, or to protect our users and service from fraud or abuse. If the business is sold or reorganised, your information may move to the new owner, who must follow this policy.

Staff who run the service can see account details and study activity in an administration page. Every administrative action is recorded in an audit log.

Cookies and local storage

We use only what the service needs to work, so there is nothing to opt out of and no cookie banner.

• A sign-in cookie, set when you sign in. It holds a random token, cannot be read by scripts on the page, and lasts up to 30 days while you use the service. Signing out deletes it, and we store only a hash of the token.
• A short-lived cookie during "Continue with Google", used to keep that sign-in secure. It is removed when the sign-in finishes.
• Local storage in your browser for your results, recall marks and reading settings, as described above.

We do not use advertising, analytics or social-media cookies. The fonts we use are served from our own site. The one exception is the payment window: when you open it, Stripe loads its payment form from its own servers and may set its own cookies to process the payment and prevent fraud, as described in Stripe's privacy policy. It does not load before you open it.

Email and your consent

Account email (confirming your address, password resets, a change-of-password notice, payment and pass notices) is part of the service and does not need your consent.

Study tips, reminders and offers are sent only if you ticked the box asking for them. If you are a guest, we send nothing promotional until you click the confirmation link in your report email. The box is never pre-ticked.

Every email has an unsubscribe link and supports one-click unsubscribe. Promotional email includes our postal address ([[postal address]]). You can also change your choice on the Account page.

How long we keep it

• Your account and study activity: until you delete your account. Deleting it removes your attempts, recall marks, pass records, sign-in sessions and email contact.
• Sign-in sessions: up to 30 days, or until you sign out. Signing out of every device is available after a password reset.
• One-time email links (confirm your email, reset your password): they expire within 24 hours and 1 hour, and are single use.
• Results reports requested without an account: until you ask us to delete them or you unsubscribe and ask for removal.
• The administrative audit log: kept after an account is deleted, as a record that staff acted on an account.
• Payment records: when you pay, we keep a record of the date, the amount, the Stripe reference and the email address used, even after you delete your account, because tax and accounting law requires us to. Stripe keeps its own records under its policies and the law.
• Backups: backup copies are kept for a limited period and then overwritten.

Your choices and rights

You can ask us at any time to:

• tell you what personal information we hold about you and give you a copy;
• correct information that is wrong;
• delete your account and the information in it (you can also do this yourself on the Account page);
• stop sending you promotional email (use the unsubscribe link, or ask us);
• explain how we handle your information.

Write to info@igotcitizenship.ca. We may need to confirm it is you, we do not charge to answer a reasonable request, and we aim to reply within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca) or, if you live in Quebec, to the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec.

How we protect it

• The site is served over HTTPS.
• Passwords are stored only as salted, slow one-way hashes.
• Sign-in cookies are HTTP-only, and requests that change anything must come from our own site.
• Sign-in attempts are rate-limited, and a wrong email and a wrong password get the same answer.
• The database accepts connections only from the same server, and passwords for the services we use are stored encrypted.
• Only people who run the service can use the administration page, and what they do there is logged.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach puts you at real risk of significant harm, we will tell you and the Privacy Commissioner as the law requires.

Children

The service is meant for adults preparing for the citizenship test. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us information, write to us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page if what we do changes and change the date at the top. If a change affects what we do with information you have already given us, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect, and ask for your consent again where the law requires.

Contact

[[legal name of the business]], [[postal address]]. Email: info@igotcitizenship.ca.