Inspect Canada: Privacy Policy

Version: 1.0 Effective Date: April 1, 2026 Last Updated: September 3, 2026

In Spect Building Consultants Inc. (operating as Inspect Canada, “we,” “us,” “our”) respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we use and share it, how long we keep it, and what rights you have.

This Policy applies to the Inspect Canada mobile application, inspect.ca, strata.inspect.ca, inspectvault.com, and any other website, product, or service we operate that links to this Policy (collectively, the “Services”).

By using the Services you agree to this Policy. Where required by law, we will also ask for your express consent.

1. Who We Are and How to Reach Us

Data controller:

In Spect Building Consultants Inc. (dba Inspect Canada) 100 Park Royal S Unit 200, West Vancouver, BC V7T 1A2, Canada

Privacy contact: support@inspect.ca

We comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada) (“PIPEDA”) and the Personal Information Protection Act (British Columbia) (“PIPA BC”). Where another provincial or territorial law (e.g., Quebec’s Law 25, Alberta’s PIPA) applies to a User in that jurisdiction, we comply with that law to the extent applicable.

2. Information We Collect

We collect only what we need to provide the Services. The categories below describe what we collect, by feature.

2.1 Account & Profile Information

When you create an account or update your profile we collect:

• First and last name
• Email address
• Password (stored in salted-hashed form by our authentication provider)
• Phone number (optional)
• City, province, postal code
• User role (homeowner, agent, inspector, helper, brokerage admin)
• Real-estate brokerage, licence/title, bio, website (for agents and inspectors)
• Profile photo or logo (optional)
• Referrer ID (the person or organization that invited you, if any)

If you sign in through Google or Apple, we receive your name, email, and a unique identifier from that provider in accordance with the permissions you grant at sign-in.

2.2 Photo Analysis & Defect Detection Data

When you submit a photo for analysis (e.g., siding, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, appliance), we collect:

• The photo itself;
• Optional text caption or description you add;
• The trade category and severity our system infers;
• Your feedback on the analysis (thumbs up/down);
• Photo metadata, including time of capture.

Location data is optional. We do not access precise GPS location, and we do not read GPS coordinates from photo EXIF metadata, unless you explicitly grant location permission for a feature that requires it (such as suggesting nearby trades or pre-filling a property address). You can revoke location permission at any time in your device’s system settings.

2.3 Repair Price Estimate Data

When you generate a repair price estimate, we collect:

• The defect description used as input
• The estimate range produced
• The property address (where available)
• The trade category

2.4 Trade Directory Interactions

When you search the directory or contact a trade, we collect:

• City or region searched
• Trade category and filters used
• Listings viewed
• If you contact a trade through the App: the contact details you provide (name, email, phone), your message, and the listing contacted

2.5 Strata Review Data

When you use Strata Review, we collect:

• Property address and strata plan number
• Unit number (if provided)
• The strata documents you upload, including bylaws, financial statements, Form B disclosure statements, minutes, engineering reports, depreciation reports, insurance certificates, and any other documents you choose to submit
• Building metadata (year built, number of units, etc.)
• AI-generated summary, classifications, and findings derived from the documents
• Recipient email addresses if you choose to share a report
• Aggregated usage information about the report (e.g., when it was viewed)

Strata documents often contain personal information of third parties (other unit owners, council members, contractors, lawyers, tradespeople, councillors). By uploading them, you confirm that you are authorized to do so and that your upload complies with PIPEDA, PIPA BC, and any other applicable privacy law.

We strongly recommend that you redact or remove sensitive personal information (names, phone numbers, email addresses, signatures, banking details) from documents before uploading, where practical. The Strata Review service does not require that information to produce a useful summary, and minimizing it reduces privacy risk to third parties and to you.

2.6 Home Inspection Booking Data

When you book or quote a home inspection, we collect:

• Client name, email, phone number
• Buyer’s agent and listing agent name, email, phone, brokerage (if applicable)
• Property address, postal code, latitude/longitude, city, province
• Property type, square footage, year built, second suite/coach home flags
• Selected services and add-ons (e.g., mold, radon, asbestos sample counts)
• Preferred inspection date and time, preferred inspector
• Access provider details and notes
• Booking source (App, website, partner referral)
• Payment information (handled by our payment processor; we receive only confirmation tokens, not full card numbers)

2.7 Virtual Consultation Data

When you book or take part in a Virtual Consultation, we collect:

• Session date, time, and duration
• Property address and the topic you describe
• The video session itself only if you and the consultant agree to record it (we default to not recording)
• Notes the consultant may add

2.8 Inspection Reports

When a home inspection report becomes available to you (because we performed the inspection, or you imported a report via a one-time access code), we store:

• Report content (sections, findings, severity, recommendations)
• Photos taken on-site
• Inspector identity and signature
• Property metadata (address, date, services performed)

You access reports through the App and the InspectVault platform. We are the operator of InspectVault and your reports are stored in our systems.

2.9 Device, Usage, and Diagnostic Data

When you use the Services we automatically collect:

• Device type, model, operating system, OS version
• App version, build number, language, time zone
• IP address (used and discarded for fraud and abuse prevention; not used for advertising)
• Crash logs, exception traces, performance metrics
• Feature usage (which screens you visit, which buttons you tap, in anonymized aggregate)
• Push notification token (if you opt in to notifications)

2.10 Voice Questions

For accounts with Johnni voice enabled, recording begins only after you tap the microphone control and grant microphone permission. When you submit a voice question, we collect:

• The short audio clip you deliberately record;
• A transcript of the question;
• The duration needed to enforce the daily voice limit; and
• The AI-generated text and audio response.

The clip is sent through our backend to OpenAI for transcription. We process the raw audio to complete the request and do not intentionally store it in the Johnni application database. The transcript may be kept with your Johnni conversation so you can continue the discussion. You can revoke microphone permission at any time in your device settings and continue using typed chat.

2.11 Communications

If you contact us by email, in-App message, or through customer support, we collect the contents of those communications and any attachments.

2.12 What We Don’t Collect

• We do not track you across other apps or websites for advertising purposes.
• We do not collect precise GPS location unless you explicitly grant location permission and the feature requires it (e.g., address autocomplete, inspector distance).
• We do not collect biometric data, contacts, calendar entries, continuous or background microphone audio, or HealthKit/Health Connect data. Johnni collects only the short voice clips you deliberately record and submit as described in Section 2.10.
• We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 19.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use personal information to:

(a) Provide the Services: generate AI analysis, produce reports, complete bookings, send confirmations, deliver notifications, display inspection reports, run the trade directory, process payments.

(b) Improve and develop the Platform and Services: diagnose bugs, measure performance, design new features, and improve and refine system performance using de-identified and aggregated information (with personal identifiers removed and addresses generalized to neighbourhood or municipal level). We do not use your raw inspection reports, raw strata documents, or raw home photos to train any AI model unless you give us specific written consent.

(c) Communicate with you. By creating an account, you consent to receive service-related communications from Inspect Canada, including booking confirmations, inspection reports, password resets, account notices, security alerts, and important Service announcements. You also consent to receive occasional promotional communications about product updates, new features, partner offers, and content of interest to homeowners, agents, or inspectors. You may unsubscribe from promotional communications at any time using the unsubscribe link in any promotional message or by contacting support@inspect.ca. Withdrawing promotional consent does not affect your account or the delivery of service-related communications. This wording is designed to comply with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

(d) Protect the Services and our Users: detect fraud, prevent abuse, enforce our Terms, respond to security incidents, defend legal claims.

(e) Comply with law: respond to legal requests, court orders, regulatory inquiries, tax obligations, and audit requirements.

We will not use personal information for materially different purposes than those disclosed here without obtaining further consent or providing notice as required by law.

4. Legal Bases (PIPEDA / BC PIPA)

Under PIPEDA and PIPA BC, we collect, use, and disclose personal information on one or more of the following bases:

• Express consent: for example, when you sign up, opt in to notifications, or upload strata documents.
• Implied consent: for purposes a reasonable person would consider obvious given the context (e.g., using your address to send your inspection report).
• Performance of a contract: fulfilling a booking, delivering a Strata Review report you paid for.
• Legitimate business interests: fraud prevention, security, service improvement, AI model refinement in de-identified form.
• Legal obligation: tax records, regulatory reporting, response to legal process.

You may withdraw consent at any time as described in Section 9, subject to legal and contractual restrictions.

5. AI Processing, Automated Decisions, and Training Data

Several Services use AI to analyze your inputs:

• Photo analysis runs your photos through computer-vision and large-language-model systems hosted in Google Cloud Run and through OpenAI APIs.
• Strata Review runs your documents through OCR, parsing, and large-language-model systems hosted in Google Cloud Run and through OpenAI APIs.
• Trade recommendations are produced by classification models trained on de-identified historical inspection data.
• Johnni voice questions send a short user-recorded audio clip to OpenAI for transcription and may use OpenAI to produce a spoken response.

5.1 What we do with your content

We use your photos and documents to provide the Service you asked for, for example, producing your photo-analysis result or your Strata Review report. We retain them for the periods set out in Section 8 so that you can re-access your reports.

5.2 System improvement using de-identified information

We may use only de-identified and aggregated information, with names, addresses (generalized to neighbourhood or municipal level), unit numbers, contact information, and other personal identifiers removed or hashed, to improve and refine system performance, evaluate the quality of our AI output, debug classification errors, and improve our internal models and classifiers. We do not use your raw inspection reports, raw strata documents, raw home photos, or any other identifiable User Content for this purpose unless you give us specific written consent.

We do not sell any of your User Content, identifiable or otherwise, to any third party.

5.3 Third-party AI and cloud providers

When you submit a photo for analysis or a strata document for review, the content is transmitted to and processed by third-party cloud and AI providers acting on our behalf. The providers we use are listed in Section 6 and currently include Google Cloud Run, Google Cloud Storage, Firebase, and OpenAI. We may add or change providers from time to time; the table in Section 6 is kept current.

These providers operate under our processor contracts and their commercial API terms, which contractually prohibit them from using your content to train their general public models. Inference may be processed on servers outside Canada (see Section 11 on international transfers).

5.4 Human review

A small fraction of submissions may be reviewed by a human Inspect Canada team member for quality assurance, abuse detection, customer-support requests, or to investigate a reported issue. Where a human reviews your submission, the reviewer is bound by confidentiality obligations and accesses only what is necessary for the stated purpose.

5.5 Automated decisions

No Service produces a fully automated decision with legal or similarly significant effect on you. AI output is informational. You decide whether and how to use it.

6. Third-Party Processors

We use the following processors to operate the Services. Each is bound by a contract or terms requiring confidentiality and limited-purpose processing:

We may add or change processors. We will update this list when we do.

7. Sharing Your Information

We do not sell your personal information.

We share information only in the following circumstances:

7.1 With Service Providers

Our processors (Section 6) access information solely to provide services on our behalf.

7.2 With People You Choose

• The inspector or agent who referred you to the App: limited profile data (name, email, role, city) so they can serve you. You can opt out in your profile settings.
• An inspector you book: your contact and property details necessary to perform the inspection.
• A trade you contact through the directory: when you tap a “Contact” or “Request a Quote” action, your contact details (name, email, phone) and the message or photos you submit are shared with the listed trade. Trades listed in the directory are independent third parties, not employees or agents of Inspect Canada (see Section 6.3 of our Terms). What that trade does with your information is governed by their own privacy practices, not by this Policy.
• Recipients of a shared report (Strata Review, inspection report): the report contents.

7.3 With Strata-Related Parties

If your Strata Review report is generated for a transaction (e.g., your buyer’s agent ordered it), we may share the report with that agent and their client. We share strata documents only with parties you authorize.

7.4 For Business Transitions

If we are acquired, merged, or reorganized, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to the protections of this Policy.

7.5 For Legal Reasons

We may disclose personal information when we reasonably believe disclosure is required to comply with a law, court order, subpoena, or regulatory request; to protect the safety of any person; to investigate fraud or security incidents; or to enforce our Terms.

7.6 De-Identified and Aggregate Data

We may share de-identified or aggregated information (which cannot reasonably be used to identify any individual) for research, analytics, marketing, and industry reporting. For example, we may publish statistics about common defect types or strata risk patterns by region. We will not attempt to re-identify de-identified data and we will require any recipient to commit not to re-identify it.

8. How Long We Keep Information

We retain personal information only as long as needed for the purposes for which it was collected, plus any period required by law. The following table summarizes our default retention periods. We may retain longer if needed to comply with law, defend legal claims, or detect and prevent fraud.

When data falls out of retention, we delete it from production systems and overwrite it from backups in the ordinary cycle.

9. Your Rights

Under PIPEDA, PIPA BC, and other applicable privacy laws you have the right to:

• Access: request a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• Correct: ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information;
• Delete: request deletion of your account and information, subject to the retention exceptions in Section 8 and Section 10;
• Withdraw consent: opt out of marketing, push notifications, or specific processing activities, subject to legal and contractual restrictions;
• Port: request your information in a structured, commonly used format where technically feasible;
• Complain: escalate to a privacy regulator if you believe we have not complied with our obligations.

9.1 How to Exercise Your Rights

In-App: Open the App and go to Menu → Account to update your profile, manage notifications, and delete your account.

By email: Send a written request to support@inspect.ca with the subject “Privacy Request” and include enough information for us to verify your identity (name, email associated with the account, and the nature of your request).

Response timing: We acknowledge requests within 10 business days and provide a substantive response within 30 calendar days, except where the law permits an extension.

9.2 Account Deletion Specifically

You can delete your account in two ways:

1. In-App: open the App and go to Menu → Account → Delete Account. We will ask you to confirm.
2. By email: write to support@inspect.ca with the subject “Delete My Account” from the email address associated with your account.

What deletion removes (within 30 days of your request, from production systems):

• Your profile (name, email, phone, brokerage, role, avatar);
• Photo-analysis history and your uploaded photos used for analysis;
• Strata documents you uploaded, and the resulting Strata Review reports (unless still required to fulfil an active paid order);
• Search history, saved preferences, notification tokens, and in-App messages;
• Marketing-consent records (after CASL retention has expired).

What may be retained, and why:

• Home inspection reports and booking records: for 7 years, to comply with the Home Inspector Licensing Regulation, the Inspection Agreement, tax law, and to defend against potential professional-liability claims;
• Payment and invoice records: for 7 years, to comply with tax law;
• De-identified and aggregated analytical data: indefinitely, with personal identifiers removed;
• System backups: until backups age out of rotation, typically within 90 days.

Inactive accounts. If you do not log in for 24 months, we may treat your account as inactive and, on notice to your last-known email, delete the account in accordance with this Section.

9.3 Marketing Opt-Out

You can opt out of marketing emails using the unsubscribe link in any marketing email, by toggling notification preferences in Menu → Settings, or by emailing support@inspect.ca. We will continue to send transactional messages necessary to provide the Services.

10. Children

The Services are not intended for, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from, anyone under 19 years of age (the age of majority in British Columbia). If you believe a person under 19 has provided us with personal information, please contact support@inspect.ca and we will delete the account.

11. International Transfers

Several of our processors (Section 6) operate outside Canada, including in the United States. When your personal information is processed outside Canada, it is subject to the laws of the country where it is processed, including legal requirements to disclose information to that country’s government, courts, or law-enforcement authorities. We use contractual and technical safeguards to protect information during international transfer.

By using the Services, you consent to this cross-border transfer.

12. Security

We implement administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information against loss, theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction, including:

• TLS encryption in transit;
• At-rest encryption for files in Google Cloud Storage and Firebase;
• Bearer-token and HMAC-signed access for sensitive APIs;
• Role-based access controls and the principle of least privilege for staff;
• Logging, monitoring, and routine security audits;
• Periodic third-party penetration tests for the InspectVault platform.

No system is completely secure. We cannot guarantee that information will never be accessed or disclosed in violation of this Policy.

13. Data Breach Notification

If a breach of security safeguards creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (and, where applicable, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC) as required by PIPEDA and PIPA BC. We will also keep records of all breaches as required by law.

14. Cookies, Analytics, and Tracking Technologies

14.1 Web cookies

On our websites we use a small number of first-party cookies and similar technologies for authentication, security, fraud prevention, and basic site analytics (such as understanding which pages are visited). We do not use third-party advertising cookies, retargeting pixels, or cross-site tracking. You can disable cookies in your browser, though some features may not work without them.

14.2 In-App storage

In the App, equivalent functionality is provided by device-local storage (MMKV, the iOS Keychain, and Android SharedPreferences) rather than cookies. This storage holds your session token, your role, your cached profile, and your preferences. It does not transmit anything to third parties.

14.3 Analytics, crash reporting, and SDKs

At present, the App does not include third-party analytics or crash-reporting SDKs such as Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Crashlytics, or Sentry. Push-delivery diagnostics from Firebase Cloud Messaging are limited to delivery status (delivered / opened / dismissed) and are not used to build a behavioural profile of you.

If we add an analytics or crash-reporting SDK in the future, we will update this Policy and, where required, obtain your consent.

14.4 Cross-app tracking

We do not track you across other apps or websites for advertising. On iOS, we do not request App Tracking Transparency permission.

15. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated through the App, by email, or by notice on our websites at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use of the Services after the effective date of an updated version constitutes acceptance.

16. Contact and Complaints

Privacy questions, requests, or complaints:

In Spect Building Consultants Inc. (dba Inspect Canada) Attn: Privacy Officer 100 Park Royal S Unit 200 West Vancouver, BC V7T 1A2 Canada

Email: support@inspect.ca

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact a privacy regulator:

• Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada: priv.gc.ca, 1-800-282-1376
• Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia: oipc.bc.ca, 1-800-663-7867
• For Users elsewhere in Canada, the privacy regulator of your province or territory.