Privacy Policy

Connect Smart Consulting Inc. ("Connect Smart", "we", "our") is an Ontario-incorporated company. We respect your privacy and comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and applicable Ontario privacy legislation.

1. Scope and applicability

This policy applies to personal information collected through this website (connectsmartconsulting.com), our email correspondence, our discovery and engagement calls, and any open-source projects we publish to the extent they collect personal information.

It does not cover client engagement data governed by a separate Master Services Agreement, nor third-party services we link to. Each linked service has its own privacy policy.

2. What we collect

We collect only the personal information you choose to provide to us. In a typical interaction this means:

• Your name and email address
• Your organisation and role
• The content of your message or enquiry
• Calendar metadata if you book a call (time, time zone, optional video conferencing link)

We do not collect financial information, government identifiers, or sensitive personal information through this website. Our open-source tools (aigrc and qopilot) do not phone home and collect no telemetry.

3. How we use it

We use the information you provide solely to:

• Respond to your enquiry
• Schedule and conduct discovery or engagement calls
• Send you specific information you have requested
• Maintain records required for tax, accounting, and professional obligations

We do not use your information for behavioural advertising, profiling, or automated decision-making.

4. When and how we share

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. We share your personal information only with:

• Service providers we rely on to operate the business (Google Workspace for email and calendar, our accounting provider, our scheduling tool). These providers act under contract and may not use your information for any other purpose.
• Legal authorities when required by Canadian law, court order, or to protect our legal rights.

We will notify you if a regulatory or law-enforcement request affects your information, unless we are legally prohibited from doing so.

5. How long we keep it

We retain your enquiry information for 24 months from your last meaningful interaction with us, after which we delete it. If we enter into a paid engagement, we retain engagement records for seven years in compliance with Canadian tax and professional record-keeping obligations.

You can request earlier deletion at any time, subject to those legal retention obligations.

6. Where it is stored

Your information is stored within Google Workspace (Canadian and US data centres) and our internal CRM. We use industry-standard access controls including multi-factor authentication, encrypted storage at rest, and TLS encryption in transit.

By contacting us you consent to your information being processed in these jurisdictions. If you require Canada-only data residency, please tell us before sharing personal information so we can arrange an alternative.

7. Cookies and analytics

This website uses minimal cookies — only those required for basic functionality. We use lightweight, privacy-respecting analytics to understand which pages are visited. We do not use marketing or advertising cookies, and we do not use cross-site trackers.

You can disable cookies in your browser without losing site functionality.

8. Your rights under PIPEDA

Under Canadian privacy law you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you
• Correct inaccuracies in that information
• Withdraw consent for future use, subject to our legal retention obligations
• Request deletion, subject to those same obligations
• Lodge a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

To exercise any of these rights, email safiuddin@connectsmartconsulting.com with the subject line Privacy Request. We respond within 30 days.

9. Children

This website is not directed to children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by the "Last updated" date above and, where appropriate, by direct notification to active contacts. The previous version will be archived in our Git repository so changes are auditable.