Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

VIP TUTOR INC. o/a LocalSeek (“LocalSeek”, “Company”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) operates the LocalSeek Biz business management platform accessible at biz.localseek.app and via the LocalSeek Biz mobile application. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our platform.

2. Information We Collect

Business Owners and Staff:

• Personal phone number (used for authentication via OTP)
• Business phone number (verified during onboarding)
• Business information: name, address, hours, business/cuisine type, photos
• Staff phone numbers (collected when you invite staff)
• Transaction, order, and booking data from your business
• Service, booking, inventory, and product configuration you create, including any waiver text you write
• Campaign settings and analytics data
• Billing information processed by Stripe (we do not store card details)
• Payment-processor account identifiers (Stripe Connect, PayPal, or Square) if you connect a processor to accept in-app payments or deposits — we never store card details

3. How We Use Your Information

• Provide and maintain the LocalSeek Biz platform
• Process Stripe billing and subscription management
• Verify your business identity during onboarding
• Enable customer loyalty features and order management
• Provide analytics and business insights
• Send platform updates, security alerts, and billing notifications
• Comply with legal obligations

4. Customer Data on Your Platform

When consumers use the LocalSeek consumer app to interact with your business, their transaction data (orders, credits earned, visit history) is stored in our platform. When you offer services, this also includes booking details and the intake answers, special requests, and waiver signature (name and time of signing) a consumer provides. When you accept in-app payments or deposits, it includes non-card payment metadata (a processor reference, amount, currency, and status) — never card details. You have access to this data for managing your business. You are an independent controller of this customer data and agree not to use it for purposes outside the LocalSeek platform or in ways that violate applicable privacy laws.

5. Data Sharing

We share the minimum necessary data with the following service providers to operate the platform:

• Supabase: Database, authentication, and file storage (hosted in Canada, ca-central-1)
• Stripe: Subscription billing for your LocalSeek Biz plan (we never store card details)
• Stripe Connect, PayPal, and Square: Processing in-app payments, deposits, and refunds when you connect a processor — paid directly into your own account; we never see or store card details
• Google: Business search and verification (Google Places API), AI assistant, product/menu extraction and translation (Vertex AI / Gemini), and image moderation (Cloud Vision)
• Firebase (Google): Push notification delivery
• Twilio: SMS delivery for OTP / phone verification and, where you enable them, service-booking reminders
• Mapbox: Maps and location features
• Resend: Transactional and account email delivery
• Sentry: Crash and error diagnostics (only with your analytics consent)
• ScrapFly, Firecrawl, and similar services: Retrieving publicly available menu or product data from a website you provide, when you use Web Menu / Product Import

We do not sell your data or share it with advertisers.

Where your data is processed (cross-border). Your primary data is stored in Canada (Supabase, ca-central-1). Some of the service providers above — including Google, Firebase, Twilio, Stripe, Stripe Connect, PayPal, Square, Resend, and Sentry — process limited data on servers located in the United States or other countries. This means your information may be processed outside Canada and may be subject to the laws of those jurisdictions. We share only the minimum data necessary, under contractual data-protection terms with each provider, and crash/analytics data is sent only with your consent.

6. Voice Input

Voice recordings captured when you use the microphone feature in chat are transmitted to Google’s Generative Language API (Gemini) for transcription into text. LocalSeek does not retain the audio; it is discarded immediately after transcription completes. The resulting text transcript is treated like any other chat message and is subject to the chat data handling described above. Google’s use of this data is governed by their Generative AI Prohibited Use Policy.

7. Data Retention

Retention periods by category (a legal hold pauses a scheduled deletion until the hold is lifted):

• Owner personal identifiers: 30 days after deletion (reversible grace window), then irreversibly anonymized.
• Order and credit-ledger history: after 90 days, personal identifiers are removed by re-pointing the records to an anonymous placeholder account. The remaining de-identified records (which are no longer personal information) may be retained for business reporting and analytics.
• Security audit logs: up to 365 days, then hard-deleted.
• LocalSeek’s own subscription-billing records (the fees you pay us): retained up to 6 years to meet our corporate tax obligations under the Income Tax Act (CRA). LocalSeek does not process payments between you and your customers, so we do not keep your customers’ payment records — those are held by your payment provider.
• Store business profile: kept for 7 years after the account is deleted, then anonymized.

8. Security

We implement industry-standard security measures including encrypted data transmission (TLS 1.2+), row-level security on all database tables, and JWT-based authentication. Billing data is handled entirely by Stripe — we never store payment card information.

9. Your Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or export your data. Contact us at support@localseek.app to exercise these rights.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically. We will notify you of significant changes via email or in-app notification. Continued use of the platform after changes constitutes acceptance.

11. Service, Booking, and Waiver Data

If you offer services or appointments, the booking details, intake answers, and special requests a consumer provides are stored so you can prepare for and deliver the service. If you use the digital waiver tool, the waiver text you write and each consumer’s signature (the name entered and the time of signing, whether signed in-app or on an on-site QR or kiosk page) are stored and visible to you as the business that requires the waiver. You are responsible for handling this data in compliance with applicable privacy laws, and LocalSeek retains it under the schedule in Section 7.

12. In-App Payments and Deposits

If you connect a payment processor (Stripe Connect, PayPal, or Square) and accept in-app payments or deposits, the consumer’s card details are collected directly by that processor under its own privacy policy and the funds are paid into your own connected account. LocalSeek never collects, sees, holds, or stores card details or your funds. We store only non-card payment metadata needed to track an order or booking — a processor reference, amount, currency, and status — which we retain under Section 7 and, for paid orders, for the additional period needed to handle refunds and chargebacks. These processors operate in the United States.

13. Merchant Payment Options Data Flow

Information you enter into the optional Payment Options feature — including pasted URLs to your third-party payment providers, email addresses you designate for Interac e-Transfer, QR-code images you upload, and free-text deposit and gratuity policies — is stored by LocalSeek solely to display to consumers viewing your business. LocalSeek does not transmit this information to the payment providers themselves; maintaining those provider accounts is your responsibility. LocalSeek does not process, hold, route, or have visibility into any payment that a consumer makes through a link you have posted, and does not retain any payment data exchanged between consumers and your payment providers. The first time a consumer taps one of your posted payment links, LocalSeek records a minimal acknowledgment row containing the consumer's account ID, your business ID, the timestamp, the consumer app version, and a hash identifying the version and locale of the disclaimer text shown — this audit row exists solely to demonstrate that the consumer was shown a “LocalSeek does not process this payment” disclaimer before being handed off to your provider, and contains no payment data.

14. Contact

Questions about this Privacy Policy? Contact us at support@localseek.app. VIP TUTOR INC. o/a LocalSeek, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.