Privacy Policy

Sum. A Development Company ("Company", "we", "us", or "our") is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our websites located at www.wearesum.ca and foundations.wearesum.ca (collectively, the "Platform"), or use our brand planning and content development services (collectively, the "Services").

By accessing or using the Platform, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy. This policy complies with Canadian federal privacy legislation (PIPEDA - Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) and applicable provincial regulations.

1. Information We Collect

We collect information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with you ("Personal Information"):

• Account & Profile Information: Full name, primary email address, phone number, physical or mailing address, and user password credentials during account registration.
• User-Generated Content & Brand Data: Brand strategy documents, user-generated uploads, media files, and team member details explicitly added to your organization profile.
• Payment & Transactional Data: All commercial transactions and payments are securely processed by our Merchant of Record, Paddle. We do not store full credit card numbers or banking secrets on our servers. Paddle collects necessary payment card details and billing addresses pursuant to their privacy standards.
• Technical & Usage Data: IP address, browser type, device information, operating system, system log files, and usage statistics collected automatically when navigating the Platform.

2. How We Use Your Information

We process your personal information for the following specific business and operational purposes:

• To create, maintain, and secure your user account and verify account access.
• To deliver brand planning tools, content development services, and customer platform features.
• To facilitate payment processing, invoice generation, and subscription accounting via Paddle.
• To communicate administrative updates, security notices, and platform modifications.
• To monitor platform usage, prevent unauthorized scraping, reverse engineering, or fraudulent activity.
• To provide customer service, technical troubleshooting, and respond to support requests sent to hello@wearesum.ca.

3. Confidentiality & Data Sharing Restrictions

We respect the proprietary nature of your brand data and user-generated content:

• No Third-Party Sharing / No Data Sale: Your uploaded brand content and data are retained strictly to support your reasonable use of the Platform. We do not sell, rent, trade, or share your proprietary data or personal information with outside third parties or advertisers.
• Organizational Sharing: User content and account details are only accessible to team members and individuals whom you explicitly invite or authorize within your organization profile.
• Third-Party Service Providers: We may share necessary transaction metadata with Paddle to verify purchases and manage billing. We may also engage secure cloud infrastructure providers solely bound by strict confidentiality obligations to host our application.
• Legal & Regulatory Compliance: We reserve the right to disclose personal information if required by Canadian law, court order, search warrant, or government regulation, or to protect the rights, property, and safety of the Company, our users, or the public.

4. Data Security & Retention

• Security Safeguards: We enforce administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect your personal data against loss, theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, or alteration. Account passwords require a minimum complexity of 15 characters.
• Data Retention: Personal information and brand data are stored on secure cloud servers. We retain your data for as long as your account remains active or as needed to fulfill the operational purposes set forth in this policy, unless a longer retention period is required by law.

5. Platform Administration & Monitoring

To ensure compliance with our Terms of Service and maintain high system integrity, Platform administrators reserve the right to audit and review uploaded content periodically to confirm adherence to fair use guidelines and prevent prohibited conduct (e.g., scraping, spam, or malicious code).

6. Your Privacy Rights (PIPEDA Compliance)

Under Canadian privacy legislation (PIPEDA), you have specific rights regarding your Personal Information:

• You have the right to request access to the personal information we hold about you and request corrections if any information is inaccurate or incomplete.
• You may withdraw consent for data processing activities at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice (note that withdrawing consent may prevent full platform utility).
• To exercise your privacy rights or request account and data deletion, please contact our Privacy Officer at hello@wearesum.ca.

7. Third-Party Services

Our Platform integrates with third-party tools (such as Paddle for payment processing). This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by Sum. A Development Company. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party services you interact with.

8. Updates to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect operational, legal, or regulatory changes. Material updates will be communicated by updating the "Last Updated" date at the top of this document or via email notification.

9. Contact Information & Privacy Officer

If you have questions, concerns, or complaints regarding this Privacy Policy or our handling of your personal information, please contact us at:

Sum. A Development Company
Attention: Privacy Officer
8 Wycliffe St., Ottawa, ON, K2G5L6
Email: hello@wearesum.ca