Privacy Policy

This policy explains what personal information Settlewell collects, why we collect it, who can see it, and what you can ask us to do with it. Settlewell is run by 9565-0180 QUEBEC INC. ("Settlewell", "we", "us"), a company based in Montréal, Quebec. We wrote this policy in plain language. If something is not clear, write to privacy@settlewell.ca.

Quebec's Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (often called Law 25) applies to us. Canada's federal privacy law, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), may also apply to some of what we do, for example when information moves between provinces or countries.

We have named a person responsible for the protection of personal information (our privacy officer). Their contact details are at the end of this policy.

The short version

• We collect what you type into Settlewell, the documents you upload, and the basic technical information needed to run the service.
• We use it to run Settlewell for you: keep your information organized, show what the official rules say about your saved information, and answer your questions from official government sources.
• We never sell your personal information, and we never use it for advertising.
• Setti, our assistant, uses AI services from OpenAI and Anthropic. Your messages, and the details needed to answer them, are sent to them. A document or file you upload is sent to them only if you say yes first.
• Some of our providers process information outside Quebec and outside Canada.
• You can ask to see, correct, export or delete your information, and you can withdraw your consent. Write to privacy@settlewell.ca.

Consent

When you create an account, you accept our Terms of Service and this policy. That is not, by itself, express consent for sensitive information. Where the law requires express consent, we must ask for it separately and clearly before we collect, use or share that information.

Optional emails are separate. We send news or offers by email only if you choose to receive them, and you can stop them at any time with the unsubscribe link. Email alerts (rule changes, document expiry dates) are also optional: you turn them on, and you can turn them off. Account emails, such as a sign-in link, a receipt or a security notice, are not optional, because the service needs them.

You can withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal or contract limits, by writing to our privacy officer at privacy@settlewell.ca. Before the withdrawal takes effect, we explain what it changes for you. Some features cannot work without the information they need.

Information We Collect

Information you give us

• Your name and email address when you create an account. If you sign in with Google, Google gives us your name, your email address and the identifier of your Google account.
• Your immigration profile: for example your age, nationality, education, work experience, language test results and your plans in Canada.
• Information about family members that you add to your file, such as their names and dates of birth. Add another person's information only if you have the right to share it (for example your spouse or partner, your children, or someone you are the legal guardian of).
• Documents you upload, such as test results, diplomas or passports, and the details Settlewell reads from them.
• Your messages to Setti, and any file you attach to a message.
• Your choices: the version of the Terms of Use you accepted and when, and whether you agreed to let Settlewell read your files with AI.
• Your plan and payment details. Payments are handled by Stripe. We do not see or store your full card number.
• Your choices and settings, such as your language and your email alert preferences.
• Messages you send us through the forms on this website or by email.

Information collected automatically

• Technical information that every website receives, such as your IP address and browser type. It appears in our server logs and error reports and helps us keep the service working and safe.
• Information needed for security: for example sign-in records, the bot check on our forms, and limits on how many requests an account or a network address can make in a short time.
• Optional measurement of how you found Settlewell and which steps you complete. We count this only if you say yes, and you can turn it off later. It never includes your questions, your documents or your chat content.

How We Use Your Information

• To run Settlewell for you — keep your profile and documents organized, calculate a CRS score (the points Express Entry uses to rank candidates), show what the published official rules say about your saved information, and answer your questions from official government sources.
• To communicate with you — send account emails, answer your support requests and, only if you asked for them, send email alerts or news.
• To take payment — manage your plan and billing through Stripe.
• To keep the service safe — prevent fraud, abuse, bots and unauthorized access.
• To fix problems — error reports show us when something breaks. Our team may look at a conversation or a document to solve a problem you report.
• To improve Settlewell — with the optional measurement described above, if you say yes.
• To follow the law — for example to keep billing records or to answer a lawful request from an authority.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not use it for advertising. Settlewell does not train AI models with your information.

How Setti and AI Use Your Information

Setti is Settlewell's assistant. It answers only from official government sources (for example IRCC and provincial government pages) and shows you the source so you can check it. When no verified official source answers a question, Setti says so instead of guessing. Setti gives information, not legal or immigration advice. Settlewell is not affiliated with IRCC or the Government of Canada.

To do this, Settlewell uses AI services from OpenAI and Anthropic. Here is what is sent to them:

• Your questions. When you write to Setti, your message, the earlier messages in the same conversation, and the details from your saved profile that are needed to answer (for example your work experience or language results) are sent to OpenAI or Anthropic, sometimes both, to find the right official sources and write the answer. A file you attach to a message is sent to OpenAI only if you agree when you attach it.
• Your documents, on paid plans, only if you say yes. On the Navigator and Settler plans, Settlewell can read a document you upload to fill in its details for you. It does this only if you tick the box to agree. The file is then sent to Anthropic, or to OpenAI if Anthropic is unavailable. If you do not agree, choose “Enter the details myself” and nothing is sent. You can turn this off at any time in Privacy choices or in Settings. Explorer accounts do not have document reading, so documents they upload are not sent to an AI provider. You always see the details before they are saved, and you can change them.

These providers process information outside Quebec and outside Canada. To ask where they process it, how long they keep it, or whether they may use it to train their models, write to our privacy officer at privacy@settlewell.ca. We will give you the answer that applies to our account with them.

We keep your conversations with Setti in your account so you can come back to them. They are deleted with your account, and you can ask us to delete them sooner.

Data Storage and Security

Settlewell runs on cloud services. Your information may be processed or stored outside Quebec and outside Canada, where our providers or their own providers operate. The main providers are listed below under Third-Party Services.

• Your uploaded files are kept in private storage. Only you, through your account, and Settlewell's systems and team, when needed, can reach them.
• You can turn on two-step sign-in with an authenticator app in your account settings.
• Our sign-up form, sign-in form and website forms use a bot check.
• The law requires us to use safeguards that fit how sensitive the information is. To ask about the safeguards we use, write to our privacy officer.

No system is perfectly secure. We take reasonable steps to protect your information, but we cannot promise absolute security.

If There Is a Privacy Incident

If a privacy incident creates a risk of serious injury, we will notify the people concerned and the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec with diligence, as Quebec law requires. Where PIPEDA applies and there is a real risk of significant harm, we will also report to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and notify the people concerned as soon as feasible.

To report a privacy concern or a possible privacy incident, write to privacy@settlewell.ca.

Third-Party Services

These are the main outside services we use to run Settlewell. Each one receives only what it needs for its job.

• Supabase — database, sign-in and file storage for the Settlewell app.
• Vercel — hosting for the Settlewell app.
• OpenAI and Anthropic — AI answers and document reading, as described above.
• Stripe — subscription payments, receipts, and the page where you manage or cancel your plan. Stripe processes your card details directly; we never store them.
• Google — "Sign in with Google", if you choose it. Google then knows that you use Settlewell.
• Resend — sending account emails.
• Sentry — error reports that help us find and fix problems.
• Upstash — limits how many requests an account or a network address can make in a short time. It receives an account identifier or a network address, not your content.
• Cloudflare — hosting for this public website, and the bot check on our sign-up and sign-in forms.
• Google Fonts, Fontshare, jsDelivr and unpkg — this public website loads fonts and code files from these services, and the Settlewell app loads fonts from Fontshare. They receive your IP address when a page loads.

Forms on this website. The forms on this public website send your name, email address and message to Formspree. Do not include sensitive immigration information in these forms.

To ask about these providers, including where they process information and how long they keep it, write to our privacy officer at privacy@settlewell.ca.

Cookies and Local Storage

Settlewell uses cookies and similar storage for these purposes only:

• Sign-in — to keep you signed in.
• Preferences — to remember choices such as light or dark theme and your language.
• Security — to protect two-step sign-in.
• Guest use — if you try Settlewell before you create an account, to know when to offer to save your progress.
• Optional measurement — only if you say yes. You can turn it off later.

We do not use advertising cookies or tracking by advertising companies. To ask for the full list, including how long each item is kept, write to our privacy officer.

Your Rights

Depending on the law that applies, and within its conditions and exceptions, you can:

• See your information — ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you. You can also export your data from your account settings.
• Correct it — ask us to fix information that is wrong or incomplete. You can edit most of your profile yourself.
• Delete it — close your account from your settings or ask us. Data Retention, below, explains how deletion works.
• Take it with you — ask for your personal information in a structured, commonly used format, where the law gives you this right.
• Withdraw consent — subject to legal or contract limits. Some features may stop working.
• De-indexing — where Quebec law's conditions are met, ask us to stop spreading personal information or to de-index a link associated with your name.
• Complain — to us first if you wish, and to the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (Quebec law) or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (PIPEDA).

To make a request, write to privacy@settlewell.ca. We may need to check your identity first. Quebec law gives us 30 days to answer a request for access or correction. Legal duties and other permitted exceptions can limit a request. If we refuse all or part of a request, we tell you why and how you can challenge our decision.

Data Retention

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it, or as long as the law requires. In practice:

• Your account, profile, documents and conversations stay as long as your account is open. When you ask us to delete your account, we close it right away. We delete your personal information after a 30-day waiting period, except what the law requires us to keep.
• Billing records are kept as long as tax law requires, even after your account is deleted.
• Messages sent through the forms on this website go through Formspree (see Third-Party Services). We delete the copies we receive after one year.

Information that can no longer be linked to you, such as overall counts, may be kept to understand how Settlewell is used. To ask how long a specific type of information is kept, write to our privacy officer at privacy@settlewell.ca.

Children's Privacy

Settlewell is for people aged 16 and over. We do not knowingly create accounts for children under 16. If we learn that we have, we delete the account and its information promptly. You may add your own children's information to your file, as explained above, because it is part of your immigration journey.

International Users

Settlewell is operated from Canada. Some of our providers process information outside Quebec and outside Canada, where privacy laws may be different. Quebec law requires us to assess these transfers and to have written safeguards before they happen. To ask which countries are involved and which safeguards apply, write to our privacy officer.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy. When we make an important change, we tell you by email or with a notice in the app. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page shows when the policy last changed.

If a change requires new consent, we ask for it. Continuing to use Settlewell does not replace consent that the law requires.

Contact Us

If you have a question about this policy or about how we handle your personal information, contact us at:

9565-0180 QUEBEC INC.
Operating as Settlewell
3421 Avenue King Edward
Montréal (Québec) H4B 2H2, Canada
hello@settlewell.ca

Privacy officer. Kevin Arfi is the person in charge of the protection of personal information (privacy officer) at 9565-0180 QUEBEC INC. Contact: privacy@settlewell.ca, 3421 Avenue King Edward, Montréal (Québec) H4B 2H2, Canada. You can write to the privacy officer to access, correct or delete your personal information, to withdraw consent, to make a complaint, or to ask a question about this policy. Please do not send identity documents by email.