Legal

Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Ounit Technologies Inc. ("Ounits," "we," "us," or "our") operates Ounits, a technology platform that people use to coordinate buying, renting, and owning property, alone or together (the "Platform"). Ounits does not act as a real estate brokerage, legal advisor, lender, or fiduciary (a person legally required to act in your best interests).

Who this policy covers. This Privacy Policy applies to everyone who uses Ounits: people who use Ounits to buy, rent, or own property, alone, in a group, or for a company ("customers"); the professionals who serve them ("partners", also called professionals in this policy); and visitors to our websites. It also applies when Ounits provides features, such as property listings, on a real estate professional's website. If part of that website is not provided by Ounits, the professional's own privacy policy applies to that part.

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect personal information under Canadian privacy laws, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, and Quebec's Law 25 where it applies.

Key points

We collect information so that you can use Ounits to buy, rent, or own property, alone or together.
We share information within your group, with the professionals you work with, and with our service providers, as this policy describes.
If you view listings on a real estate professional's website, your personal information may be shared with the real estate board or data provider that supplies those listings, for auditing and/or legal purposes.
You can ask to see, correct, or delete your information.
We do not sell your personal information.

2. Information We Collect

Not everything below applies to everyone. What we collect depends on how you use Ounits, for example as a customer, a partner, or a visitor.

A. Information you give us

Account information

Full name
Email address
Phone number
Sign-in details
Profile photo (optional)

Identity and financial information

Identity information, which may include your date of birth, citizenship, and identity documents. We collect your social insurance number only when a law requires it, for example for tax reporting.
Financial information, which may include your employment, income, and debts.

Group and deal information

Group membership and invitations
Contribution amounts and ownership percentages
Property preferences, saved searches, and deal milestones
Offers, counteroffers, and closing details
Documents you upload, such as agreements, identity documents, and financial records

Messages

Messages within your group and with the professionals you work with
Messages with Ounits support
Feedback and surveys

Important: information you add to a group is visible to the other members of that group.

B. Information we collect automatically

IP address, device type, browser, and operating system
Pages viewed, actions taken, and when
How you arrived at and moved through the Platform
Cookies (see Section 14)

C. Information from others

Professionals you work with or choose: information they share with us about you, or add about you (see Section 4B).
Identity and financial checks: identity verification, and credit or financial checks, with your consent or as the law requires.
Google sign-in: if you sign in with Google, we receive basic profile information from Google, such as your name and email address.
Property data: listings, photos, and property details from real estate boards, data providers, and other sources, and property value estimates and market data.

3. How We Use Your Information

Provide the Platform

Create and manage your account
Help your group coordinate and see the same information
Support co-ownership, from forming a group to owning a property
Verify your identity and support your co-ownership application
Show property listings on professionals' websites, and track your transactions
Generate documents, reports, and summaries from the information you provide

Meet legal requirements

Keep the records that the law, regulators, and real estate boards or data providers require, such as anti-money-laundering records
Meet tax reporting duties, where the law requires

Work with professionals you choose

Let you view professionals' profiles, and choose and work with licensed real estate professionals
Coordinate the services you ask for with other professionals you choose, such as legal, mortgage, accounting, corporate, and property management professionals, and share the information they need (Section 4B)

Improve the Platform

Analyze account and usage information, in a form that does not show your name, to understand who uses Ounits and to improve it
Measure how people find Ounits, including which websites and campaigns bring them
Keep the Platform secure
Fix technical problems
Develop new tools and services

Communicate with you

Send transaction updates and notifications
Reply to support requests
Send legal and operational notices, and important Platform changes
Send marketing messages (optional; you can opt out at any time)

Legal and safety

Prevent fraud and unauthorized access
Enforce our terms
Protect the rights and safety of the people who use Ounits

4. How We Share Your Information

A. With your group

All members of your group can see names, contact details, contribution amounts, ownership percentages, property preferences, documents you share, and group messages.

You are responsible for deciding what to upload or share. Do not upload sensitive information you do not want group members to see.

B. With professionals

Real estate professionals. We share your contact details, property preferences, searches, and transaction details with the real estate professional you choose, so that they can contact you and serve you. If you use a professional's website to view listings, we share your contact details, and your searches and activity on that website, with that professional, so that they can contact you, serve you, and meet the rules of their board or data provider. If you choose to release documents to the firm that represents your group, we share them with that firm.

Visits between Ounits and professionals' websites. When you go between Ounits and a professional's website, or sign up from one, we record which website it was and when. We use this record to run the Platform, to understand how people find Ounits, and to let that professional know you came through their website.

Information professionals add. Professionals may add information about people they work with. If that person does not have an Ounits account, we handle the information for the professional, and the professional is responsible for having the right to add it. Once that person has an Ounits account, this policy applies to it. Professionals are responsible for any copies they keep in their own records and tools, including apps they connect to Ounits.

Other professionals you choose. When you ask for a service from another professional, such as a lawyer, lender or mortgage professional, accountant, corporate service provider, or property manager, we share only the information that service needs, and only with your consent for that service. Once shared, that professional handles it under their own privacy policy and professional rules.

C. On a real estate professional's website, and with real estate boards and data providers

When Ounits provides listings on a real estate professional's website, the professional provides the website and Ounits provides the technology. The professional uses this Privacy Policy as their privacy policy for the parts of the website that Ounits provides. Ounits is responsible for how Ounits handles your information. The professional and their brokerage are responsible for how they use the information they receive, under privacy law and their own professional rules. The professional may use your information only to serve you and to meet their professional rules, and may share it with their brokerage for those reasons. To ask how the professional or their brokerage handles your information, contact the professional, using the contact details on their website.

When you register on that website, you create an Ounits account, and this policy applies to it. We keep your acceptance of the professional's terms of use and your answers to the questions in them. We use your answers to decide whether the real estate board's rules let you see the listings on that website. We keep these records, and the record of your activity on that website, for the professional, as the board's rules require.

If you view listings on a real estate professional's website, your personal information may be shared with the real estate board or data provider that supplies those listings, for auditing and/or legal purposes. This may include your activity on that website, and your name and email address if you have an account.

D. With service providers

We use service providers to run the Platform, for example for cloud and website hosting, payment processing, document preparation and electronic signature, listing data, email and notification delivery, data caching (temporary storage that makes the Platform faster), maps, error monitoring, analytics, and feedback and support tools.

A contract requires each provider to protect your information and to use it only as our agreement with them allows. Our providers may change over time.

E. For legal reasons

We may share information when needed for:

Valid legal process, such as a subpoena (a legal order to provide information) or a court order
Government investigations
Emergencies that threaten someone's safety
Enforcing our terms
Establishing, exercising, or defending our legal rights
Other legal obligations and lawful requests

F. Business transfers

We may share personal information with another company and its advisors in connection with a sale, merger, restructuring, or other transfer of all or part of our business. We will require them to protect it, keep it confidential, and use it only to evaluate and complete the transaction. If the transaction is completed, your information may move to the new owner, and we will tell you.

5. We Do Not Sell Your Information

We do not sell your personal information.

We may share anonymized (changed so that it cannot identify you), combined data for research or industry reports (for example, "the average co-ownership group size in Toronto"). This data does not identify you.

6. Data Retention

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it for. After an account closes, we delete or anonymize account and identity data within a reasonable time, except information we need for the purposes in this policy or to meet legal requirements, for example:

Signed agreements, and tax, accounting, and transaction records
Records of the terms and consents you accepted
Records of visits between Ounits and professionals' websites (Section 4B)
Records that the law, a regulator, or the rules of a real estate board or data provider require

How long we keep each depends on its purpose, on what the law requires, and on the time limits for starting a legal claim in Canada.

When we keep information after an account closes, we identify the reason for keeping it, and keep only what that reason requires. To keep an ownership record that can be checked later, information kept after closure, such as signed documents, is stored so that it cannot be changed.

Marketing messages: we keep a record of your marketing choices, including any opt-out, for as long as we need it.

Content you shared with a group, such as messages and documents, may stay in that group's records after your account closes.

You can ask us to delete your information, subject to these exceptions.

7. Your Privacy Rights

You can:

Ask for a copy of your personal information
Correct your information, in your account settings or by asking us
Ask us to delete your information, or close your account at any time (Section 6 says what we keep)
Where the law gives you this right, get your information in a structured, commonly used format, or have it sent to another organization
Withdraw your consent, subject to legal or contractual limits. If we need that consent to provide a service, we may not be able to provide it. Withdrawing does not affect what we did before.
Opt out of marketing emails (select "unsubscribe") and of analytics (in Cookie settings, see Section 14)

These rights have limits set by law. If we refuse to give you access or to correct your information, we will tell you why.

If a professional added information about you and you do not have an Ounits account, we handle that information for that professional. To see, correct, or delete it, please contact them. If you contact us, we will send your request to them.

To use these rights, email privacy@ounits.ca. We respond within the time the law requires.

8. Data Security

We protect your information with physical, organizational, and technical safeguards suited to how sensitive it is, including:

Encryption when it is sent and when it is stored
Secure cloud hosting in Canada
Access controls, so that staff see only what they need

No system is completely secure. We use industry-standard protections, but we cannot guarantee complete security.

Breach notification. If a security incident involves your personal information, we will take appropriate steps. Where breach notification laws require it, we will notify you and the privacy regulator.

What you can do

Use a strong password that you do not use anywhere else
Use extra sign-in protection, such as two-factor authentication, when we offer it
Do not share your sign-in details
Tell us right away about anything suspicious

9. Children's Privacy

The Platform is not for people under the age of majority where they live (the age at which a person is legally an adult: 18 or 19, depending on the province or territory). We do not knowingly collect information from minors. If we learn that we have, we will take steps to delete it.

10. Information Processed Outside Canada

We store your information mainly in Canada. Some of the service providers in Section 4D may process it outside Canada.

A contract requires each of them to give it a comparable level of protection. While your information is outside Canada, it is subject to the laws of the country where it is processed, and the authorities there may be able to access it. We ask for your consent where the law requires it.

If you live in Quebec, your information may be stored or processed outside Quebec.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy, for example for new Platform features, new legal requirements, or better practices.

We will tell you about an important change before it takes effect, for example by email or with a clear notice on the Platform. Changes that the law, a regulator, or a real estate board or data provider requires may take effect sooner. In that case, we will tell you as soon as we can.

If you keep using Ounits after the change takes effect, you accept it. Where a change needs your consent again, we will say so clearly and ask for it.

12. Contact and Complaints

Privacy questions

Email: privacy@ounits.ca
Phone: 647-947-2750

Mailing address

Ounit Technologies Inc.
Attn: Privacy Officer (the person in charge of the protection of personal information)
Office 375, 145½ Church Street, Unit 5, Toronto, ON M5B 1Y4, Canada

Response time: within the time the law requires.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, or to the privacy regulator in your province.

13. Your Rights in Your Province

Canada's federal privacy law, PIPEDA, applies in Ontario and most other provinces. It gives you most of the rights in Section 7. Depending on where you live, your province's privacy law may give you more rights.

For Quebec residents

Under Quebec's Law 25, you also have these rights:

To receive your information in a structured format
To have your information de-indexed (removed from search results) in some situations
To be asked for your express consent before we use sensitive information

Contact our Privacy Officer to use these rights.

14. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Essential cookies (required)

Essential cookies are needed for the Platform to work, for example to keep you signed in, keep it secure, and remember your cookie choice. You cannot turn them off.

Sign-up source (always used)

When you go from Ounits to a professional's website, that website stores a cookie for up to 30 days, so that we can record where a sign-up came from (Section 4B).

Analytics cookies (optional)

We use analytics providers, such as Google Analytics, to help us gather and analyze information about how people use Ounits and how they find it, for example which websites and campaigns bring visitors.

Analytics cookies stay off until you allow them. You can change your choice at any time in Cookie settings.
If you are signed in and have allowed analytics, we link analytics to your account with an internal identifier. We never send your name or email address to our analytics providers.
If you withdraw your consent, collection stops, and we stop linking new analytics information to your account. You can ask us to delete earlier analytics information, subject to Section 6.
To learn how Google uses this information, see How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

Where Ounits provides features on a professional's website, the same choices are offered there. You may need to choose separately on that website.

Manage your choices in Cookie settings or in your browser settings, or contact us for help.

15. If You Are a Partner

This section applies if you use Ounits to offer professional services, for example as a real estate professional, lawyer, lender, or property manager. The rest of this Privacy Policy also applies to you.

What we collect. Your name, contact details, a government ID to confirm who you are, your firm, and your licence or registration number; changes to your licence or registration, including discipline that affects your right to practise; proof of your insurance; what you add to your profile, such as your photo and biography; your billing details; and a record of the partner terms you accepted (your name, the version, and the date). If you give people who work with you access to Ounits, we collect their names and contact details. For each one who may be named as the agent on a representation agreement or an offer, we also collect their registration number.

Where it comes from. From you, including documents you give us to show your licence or registration; where permitted, from your regulator's public records; from your firm, when we confirm that it allows you to use Ounits; and from the data providers whose agreements you hold, about the status of those agreements.

How we use it. To check who you are, your licence or registration, and your firm, when you join and while you use Ounits; to check that each person named as the agent on a representation agreement or an offer is registered; to show that we verified your account, and the date of that check; to show your profile to people who use Ounits, including on your website; to provide your website and the features you use; to bill you; and to meet our legal and compliance duties.

Who we share it with. People who use Ounits, and visitors to your website (your profile and website content); your clients; your firm, including your verification status and counts of your activity; the data providers whose agreements you hold, to manage those agreements; a domain name registrar, if you buy a domain name through us; your regulator, or others, when the law requires it; and our service providers. Your government ID is not part of your profile or your website. We do not share it with the people who use Ounits, unless you choose to share it.

Information you add about others. Section 4B describes information you add about the people you work with. Your partner terms say what you are responsible for.

How long we keep it. As Section 6 describes. After you leave Ounits, content that is part of a client's records stays with those records.

16. Acknowledgment

By using the Platform, you confirm that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy, and you agree to the collection, use, and sharing of information it describes, except where this policy says we will ask for your consent separately.

Questions? Contact privacy@ounits.ca.