Privacy policy. How we collect, use and protect your information.
This Privacy Policy explains how Websites by Tyler ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, shares and protects personal information when you visit websitesbytyler.ca, contact us, request a quote or work with us. We never sell personal information.
1. Who we are
1.1Websites by Tyler is a web design business based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
1.2Our Privacy Officer is accountable for how we handle personal information and answers questions, requests and complaints about it. You can reach the Privacy Officer at contact@websitesbytyler.ca.
2. Scope
2.1This policy applies to personal information we collect through our website, our forms, our chat assistant (Ask Jessica), email, and our work for clients.
2.2This policy does not cover the websites we build for clients. Each client is responsible for the privacy practices of its own website. Where we host or maintain a client's website, we handle that website's visitor information on the client's behalf and according to the client's instructions.
3. Information we collect
3.1Information you give us.
(a)When you use our contact form: your name, email address, the topic you choose and your message.
(b)When you request a quote: your name and email address; your phone number, if you ask us to call or text you; details about your business; your answers about your project; how you heard about us; and any files you attach.
(c)When you send files for a project through an upload link we provide: those files.
(d)When you email or message us: the content of your messages.
(e)When you pay us: you enter your payment details on pages operated by our payment processor, Stripe. We do not see or store full card or bank account numbers.
(f)When you sign a quote: your full legal name and your title or role; the business's legal name, operating name, address and business or registration number; your email address and phone number; the accounts the project will use and who owns each one; and a record of your signature, made up of your typed name, the date and time, your IP address and device, and a fingerprint of the exact quote and Terms you signed. We use these details to set up and prove our agreement. The same record is made when you confirm that your website is complete.
(g)When we talk by phone or video call: a recording and a transcript of the call, if we record it (section 12).
3.2Information collected automatically.
(a)When you use Ask Jessica: the questions you type, the buttons you press, the answers you receive and any rating you give an answer. Before a question is stored or sent to our AI provider, any email address or phone number in it is removed. Each chat has a random identifier that is not linked to your identity.
(b)When you use one of our forms: our spam protection, Cloudflare Turnstile, reads technical signals such as your IP address and browser type to tell people apart from automated bots. We also convert your IP address into a scrambled code (a salted hash), which we use only to limit how often forms can be sent.
(c)When you visit our website: we count visits using Cloudflare Web Analytics, which does not use cookies and does not identify individual visitors. If you accept analytics cookies, Google Analytics also records how you use our website, as described in section 10.
(d)When you send a form: the first page you opened on our website during that visit, the name of the website that linked you to us (not the full address of the page), and any campaign tags in the link you followed. Your browser keeps this only for that visit and sends it only with the form, so we can see how people find us.
4. How we use your information
4.1We use personal information to:
(a)reply to your questions and messages;
(b)prepare quotes and plan the work you ask for;
(c)design, build and deliver websites and related services;
(d)provide care, hosting, search optimization and other ongoing services you sign up for;
(e)send invoices and receive payment;
(f)send you news, only if you asked to receive it;
(g)protect our website and forms from spam and abuse;
(h)improve our website and the answers Ask Jessica gives; and
(i)meet our legal, tax and accounting obligations.
4.2We use personal information only for the purposes described in this policy, or for purposes a reasonable person would expect in the circumstances. If we want to use it for a new purpose, we will ask for your consent first.
5. Consent
5.1By sending us a form or a message, you consent to our collecting and using your information for the purposes in this policy.
5.2We send news emails only if you tick "send me news" on the quote form. We record when you gave that consent. Every news email includes a link to unsubscribe, and unsubscribing does not affect any project or service.
5.3You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer, subject to legal or contractual limits. If you withdraw consent, we may no longer be able to provide some services.
5.4We use Google Analytics only if you click "Accept" in the cookie banner. If you click "Decline", it does not load. You can change your choice at any time with the "Cookie settings" link at the bottom of every page.
6. Who we share it with
6.1We do not sell, rent or trade personal information.
6.2Service providers. We share personal information only with the companies that run our website and help us deliver our work, and only what each one needs for its purpose:
| Provider | What it does for us | Where it stores information |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Hosts our website, stores form submissions and files, sends form notifications, provides spam protection and counts visits without cookies | United States |
| Google (Google Workspace) | Our business email | United States and other countries |
| Google (Google Analytics) | Measures how visitors use our website, only if you accept analytics cookies | United States |
| Stripe | Processes payments and invoices | United States |
| Anthropic | Generates Ask Jessica's answers | United States |
| GitHub | Stores the code of the websites we build | United States |
Each provider handles personal information under its own terms and data protection commitments.
6.3AI tools used on client work. Some projects use third-party AI image and video tools to improve photos or to create videos from material you provide. The terms of some of these tools may allow the tool's provider to store, use or display uploaded material. Where a tool offers settings that limit storage or reuse, we use them. If you prefer that your material not be processed with AI tools, tick the box on the quote form or tell us in writing, and we will not use them on your material.
6.4Legal requirements. We may disclose personal information where required or permitted by law, such as in response to a court order, or to protect the rights, property or safety of our clients, the public or our business.
6.5Business transfer. If our business is sold or transferred, personal information may be transferred to the new owner, who must continue to protect it in line with this policy.
7. Where your information is stored
7.1Our service providers store and process personal information in the United States and, in Google's case, in other countries outside Canada. Our database and file storage with Cloudflare are located in the United States.
7.2Information stored outside Canada is subject to the laws of the country where it is held, and may be accessed by that country's courts, law enforcement and national security authorities.
7.3Questions about our use of service providers outside Canada can be sent to our Privacy Officer at contact@websitesbytyler.ca.
8. How long we keep it
8.1We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy, or as long as the law requires:
| Information | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Ask Jessica chats | 90 days, unless the chat helped complete a quote request or led to a message that was sent |
| Ask Jessica statistics | Kept after the chats are deleted. They are counts only, such as the number of chats, the topics asked about and how chats ended, with no words from the chats and nothing that identifies you |
| Unfinished file uploads | 8 days |
| Quote requests and messages that do not lead to a project | 12 months after our last contact with you |
| Client files, correspondence and account logins | For as long as we provide any ongoing service (such as a care plan, hosting or search optimization), then deleted within 90 days after the last service ends. Records of our agreement are kept separately, as set out below |
| Records of our agreement: your signed quote and signing details, the Terms you signed, your completion confirmation, approvals, change requests, emails and messages agreeing to something, call transcripts and invoices | 10 years after our last work for you. They are not deleted with client files |
| Call recordings | Deleted once the transcript is checked, within 30 days of the call |
| Account logins, when no ongoing service follows the project | Deleted at handover; we ask clients to change their passwords |
| Google Analytics data (only if you accepted analytics cookies) | 14 months |
| Other business records | Six years after the end of the tax year they relate to, as Canadian tax law requires |
| News email list | Until you unsubscribe |
8.2When a retention period ends, we delete the information or make it anonymous.
9. How we protect it
9.1We protect personal information with safeguards suited to its sensitivity, including:
(a)encrypted connections (HTTPS) for all traffic to and from our website;
(b)encryption of stored data: our database and file storage with Cloudflare are encrypted at rest using AES-256;
(c)access limited to us, with our administration area behind a secure sign-in;
(d)two-step sign-in on the accounts that hold personal information;
(e)private storage for the files you send us, with each file checked against the file types we accept; and
(f)payment processing by Stripe, which is certified to the highest card-industry security level (PCI Service Provider Level 1). Card and bank details never pass through our website.
9.2No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. If a breach of our safeguards creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and report it to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta, as the law requires. We keep a record of every breach.
10. Cookies and similar technologies
10.1Cookies are small files a website stores in your browser. We do not use advertising cookies.
10.2Strictly necessary. Our website remembers your cookie choice in your browser so that we do not ask again on every visit. Our spam protection (Cloudflare Turnstile) reads technical signals that are needed to tell people apart from bots; Cloudflare describes what it collects in its Turnstile Privacy Addendum. These do not require your consent.
10.3Analytics, only with your consent. If you click "Accept" in our cookie banner, we use Google Analytics. It sets cookies to measure how visitors use our website: the pages viewed, time spent, how you arrived, your approximate location, your device and browser, and whether a form was started or sent. We use this only to improve our website, not for advertising. If you click "Decline", Google Analytics does not load.
10.4Visit counting without cookies. We also count visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which does not use cookies and does not identify you, whatever you choose in the banner.
10.5Changing your choice. You can change your choice at any time with the "Cookie settings" link at the bottom of every page. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser's settings.
11. Ask Jessica
11.1Ask Jessica is an automated assistant powered by Anthropic's Claude. Its answers are general information about our services and may contain mistakes. They are not a quote and not professional advice.
11.2When you ask a question, we send it to Anthropic with any email address or phone number removed, together with relevant parts of our website. By default, Anthropic does not use this information to train its models and deletes it within 30 days.
11.3We keep Ask Jessica chats for 90 days, as set out in section 8. Please do not enter sensitive personal information into the chat.
11.4We review chats, including with AI tools, to improve Ask Jessica’s answers and our website. From them we keep counts, such as the number of chats, the topics asked about and how chats ended. These counts contain no words from the chats and nothing that identifies you, and we keep them after the chats are deleted.
11.5If you send us a message through Ask Jessica, you first agree to this policy in the chat. Your name, email address, phone number and message come to us the same way as through our Contact form, and are never sent to our AI provider. The chat that led to your message is kept with it.
12. Phone and video calls
12.1We may record calls with you to transcribe them, so we keep an accurate record of what was discussed and agreed. We tell you before recording starts, and you can ask us not to record.
12.2Calls are recorded and transcribed with our phone's built-in Samsung call transcription, which may process the audio through Samsung.
12.3We delete the audio recording once the transcript is checked, within 30 days of the call. Transcripts are kept with your signed quote and your written approvals for the same period: 10 years after our last work for you.
12.4You can ask for a copy of the transcript of any call with you.
13. Your rights
13.1You have the right to:
(a)ask what personal information we hold about you and how we have used and shared it;
(b)ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete;
(c)withdraw your consent, including unsubscribing from news emails;
(d)ask us to delete your information, except where the law requires us to keep it, or we keep it as a record of our agreement (section 8); and
(e)ask about our use of service providers outside Canada.
13.2To make a request, email our Privacy Officer at contact@websitesbytyler.ca. We may ask you to confirm your identity before we act on it. We respond within 30 days, at no charge, and will tell you if we need more time where the law allows.
13.3If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta, or, if you live in Quebec, the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec.
14. Changes to this policy
14.1We may update this policy as our services or the law change. The date at the top shows when it last changed. If we make an important change, we will tell our clients by email.
15. Contact us
Privacy Officer, Websites by Tyler
Calgary, Alberta, Canada