PRIVACY

Clearday is operated by Le Syndicat SHIFT_ (“Clearday”, “we”, “us”), based in Montréal, Québec. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it and how you control it. It follows Québec’s Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (as amended by Law 25) and Canada’s PIPEDA.

Clearday is not yet launched. Today we only run a waitlist (section 2). The rest of this policy describes how the service will handle your information once you create an account; we will tell you before anything here changes in a way that matters.

The short version: we collect what we need to verify bills and pay them to billers, never more. We never sell your information. We show askers to backers only as a first name, last initial and area. Nothing that identifies you goes on a blockchain. You can see, download, correct or delete your information at any time.

1. Who is responsible

Le Syndicat SHIFT_ is responsible for the personal information described here. Our person in charge of the protection of personal information is the President of Le Syndicat SHIFT_, reachable at admin@shiftsyndicate.ca. Write to that address for any question, request or complaint about your information.

2. The waitlist

When you join the waitlist we collect your email address, the role you picked (back bills, list a bill or clear at scale), your language and the date you signed up. We use them only to email you about Clearday’s launch, in your language. Every email has an unsubscribe link.

We keep waitlist entries until Clearday launches plus 12 months, or until you ask us to delete yours, whichever comes first.

3. What we collect when you use Clearday

• Account: your name, email address, phone number, language and the sign-in method you use.
• Identity verification (askers and patrons): we use Stripe Identity to check a government ID against a selfie. Stripe keeps the ID images and numbers. We keep only the result, the date, the session reference and a protected (salted and hashed) form of your verified name so we can match it to the name on the bill.
• Bills (askers): the biller, amount, due date, account number, a scan or photo of the bill, your area (city or neighbourhood) and your optional note. Account numbers and bill images are encrypted.
• Pledges (backers and patrons): the bills you fund, the amounts, the date and the payment method type with its last four digits. Card and bank details are handled by our payment partners; we never see or store full card numbers.
• Patron rules: the categories, regions, amount ceilings and monthly caps you set, and the matches you approve.
• Messages: what you send our support team or the Operator, our in-app assistant.
• Technical information: device and browser type, IP address, app version and logs of sign-ins and key actions, used for security and fraud prevention.

We collect this information from you, from the billers we verify bills with, from our identity and payment partners, and from your use of the service.

4. Why we use it

• To run the service: create your account, list and show bills, take pledges and pay billers.
• To verify that bills are real: we confirm the biller, amount and account with the biller, and that the name on the account matches the verified asker.
• To prevent fraud, abuse and money laundering, and to keep the platform safe.
• To send you receipts, confirmations and service messages by email, SMS or push notification.
• To meet our legal obligations, including financial record-keeping and requests from authorities.
• To improve Clearday, using aggregated or de-identified information wherever we can.

We ask for your consent where the law requires it, and you can withdraw it at any time. Withdrawing may mean we can no longer provide part of the service, such as listing a bill.

5. How we use AI

We use artificial intelligence to serve you faster and keep Clearday safe:

• Reading bills: Google Document AI reads the biller, amount, due date and account number from the bill you upload, so you don’t have to type them.
• The Operator: an assistant built on Google’s Gemini models helps backers and patrons find bills that match what they care about, explains how things work and suggests matches for patron rules.
• Screening: AI helps our team check notes for content that breaks our rules and flags patterns that may signal fraud.

AI never moves money. A pledge only happens when you press PLAY, or under a patron rule you set with a cap. Notes written by askers are treated as untrusted text and can’t instruct the Operator.

We don’t make a decision about you based only on automated processing. A person on our team reviews any decision that would refuse a bill, limit an account or close one. You can ask what information was used, the main reasons for the decision and to have it reviewed, by writing to admin@shiftsyndicate.ca.

We use these AI services through Google Cloud under business terms. We don’t sell your information and we don’t use it to train AI models for anyone else.

6. What others see

• Backers see an asker’s first name and last initial, area, biller, amount, due date and funding progress. Account numbers are masked to the last four digits. They never see your address, full name or bill image.
• Backers are anonymous to askers unless they choose to show their name.
• There are no public leaderboards of who gave what.

7. Proof on a public blockchain

To prove that money went where we say, Clearday records fingerprints of bills, receipts and each day of our ledger on a public blockchain. Only salted hashes, receipt token numbers and pledge amounts go on chain. Names, places, account numbers and notes never do.

Blockchain records can’t be erased. When you delete your account we delete the off-chain record and the salt used to create the fingerprint, so what remains on chain no longer points to anything that can identify you.

8. Who we share it with

We share personal information only as needed to run Clearday, and only under contracts that require our partners to protect it:

• Billers, to verify bills and pay them.
• Payment partners: Stripe (cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Interac Debit, pre-authorized debit and identity verification), our Interac e-Transfer partner, Bounce, and the Canadian bank that holds pledges in a segregated account.
• Google Cloud and Firebase, for hosting, databases, sign-in, push notifications and the AI services above.
• Twilio (SMS) and Resend (email), to send you messages.
• Authorities, when the law requires it, or to protect the rights and safety of users and Clearday.
• A buyer or successor, if Clearday’s business is sold or merged, under the same protections.

We never sell or rent your personal information, and we never share it for advertising.

9. Where your information is stored

Our databases and files are stored in Google Cloud’s Montréal region, in Canada. Some partners, including Stripe, Twilio and Resend, and some Google services, may process information outside Québec and Canada, including in the United States, where it may be subject to local laws. Before information leaves Québec we assess the risks as Québec law requires and put contractual protections in place.

10. How long we keep it

• Your account information: while your account is open. After you delete it, we delete or anonymize it within 30 days, except for what follows.
• Bill images and full account numbers: only as long as needed to verify and pay the bill and to meet legal and partner requirements, then deleted. You can delete a draft or expired bill and its scan at any time.
• Financial records (pledges, payments, refunds and the ledger): as long as Canadian tax, accounting and anti-money-laundering laws require, even after your account is closed.
• Security logs: up to 12 months, unless needed longer to investigate fraud.

11. Your rights and controls

You can, at any time:

• See the personal information we hold about you and how it’s used.
• Download it in a structured, commonly used format, or ask us to send it to another organization.
• Correct anything inaccurate or incomplete.
• Delete your account and your information, subject to the records the law requires us to keep (section 10).
• Withdraw your consent, unsubscribe from emails and turn off notifications.
• Ask us to stop sharing or to de-index information about you where the law allows.

Self-serve tools to view, download and delete your account are being built into your account settings. Until they’re available, and at any time after, write to admin@shiftsyndicate.ca. We may ask you to confirm your identity, and we answer within 30 days.

If you’re not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec (cai.gouv.qc.ca) or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca).

12. How we protect it

We encrypt information in transit and at rest, and encrypt bill images and account numbers with keys held in Google Cloud KMS. Staff access is limited to what each role needs, protected by multi-factor sign-in, and every look at a bill image is logged with a reason. If a confidentiality incident creates a risk of serious injury, we will notify you and the Commission d’accès à l’information promptly, as the law requires.

13. Cookies and tracking

We don’t use advertising or tracking cookies, and we don’t build advertising profiles. We use only what the site and app need to work, such as keeping you signed in and remembering your language. If we ever add analytics, we will ask for your consent first, and they will be off by default.

14. Age

Clearday is for people 18 and older. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you think a minor has given us information, write to us and we will delete it.

15. Changes to this policy

We will post any change here with a new date. If a change matters, such as a new purpose or a new kind of information, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect and ask for your consent where required.

16. Contact

Privacy questions, requests and complaints: admin@shiftsyndicate.ca, attention: Person in charge of the protection of personal information, Le Syndicat SHIFT_, Montréal, Québec.