Privacy Policy

UaVan is operated by Oleksandr Dashko as a sole proprietor, based in British Columbia, Canada. You can contact us any time at hello@uavan.ca.

Account information — when you sign in, we receive your email address (via a one-time login link) or, if you choose Google sign-in, your email and display name from Google. We do not receive your Google password.

Profile and listings — anything you choose to publish: business listings, jobs, notices, fundraisers, events, club pages, questions and answers, ads. This may include your name, contact details (phone, email, Telegram, Instagram, WhatsApp, Discord), location, photos, and text you write. All of this is public by design.

Telegram bot — if you subscribe to our Telegram bot, we store your Telegram user ID, username (if any), language, and which categories you've subscribed to. We do not read your private chats.

Payments — when you pay for an ad or make a donation, payment is processed by Stripe. We receive a record of the transaction (amount, status, the email you used at checkout). We do not receive or store your full card number — Stripe handles that.

Analytics — we use Plausible to count visits and see which pages are popular. Plausible is privacy-friendly: no cookies, no cross-site tracking, no personal data. We get aggregated numbers, not individual profiles.

Technical logs — our hosting provider (Vercel) keeps short-term server logs that may include IP addresses and basic request information for security and debugging.

We use the information you give us to: show the listings you publish; let you sign in; send you the email or Telegram notifications you've subscribed to; process payments and send receipts; reply when you contact us; moderate the platform and remove content that breaks our rules; understand which features people use so we can improve them; meet our legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not use it for advertising profiling. We do not share it with third parties for marketing.

Information you publish (listings, comments, fundraisers, ads, etc.) is public — anyone visiting the site can see it.

Behind the scenes we rely on a small number of service providers to run the platform. Each one only receives the data it needs to do its job:

• Supabase — database and file storage (your account, listings, photos).
• Vercel — website hosting.
• Stripe — payments (ads, donations).
• Resend — transactional emails (login links, receipts, notifications).
• Telegram — bot messages and notifications you've opted into.
• Anthropic and OpenAI — to generate weekly digests, draft newcomer-guide articles, and classify Instagram posts for the events feed. We send them content text and admin prompts, not your personal information.
• Apify — to scrape public Instagram posts for the events feed.
• Plausible — aggregate, cookie-free analytics.

Some of these providers are based in the United States, which means information may be processed there. They are all bound by their own privacy commitments and standard data-processing terms.

We will also disclose information if required by law, by a court order, or to protect the safety of our users or the public.

We use only the cookies needed to make the site work. That means a session cookie when you log in, and short-lived cookies set by Stripe during checkout. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. Our analytics tool (Plausible) does not use cookies at all.

We keep your account and the content you've published for as long as your account is active. Notices on the bulletin board and job posts auto-expire after a set period. If you delete a listing it is removed; some server backups may still hold a copy for a short time before they roll off.

If you'd like your account and all your content deleted, email us at hello@uavan.ca and we'll take care of it.

Under Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA) you have the right to: see the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it if it's wrong, and ask us to delete it. You can also withdraw consent for notifications at any time by adjusting your settings or unsubscribing.

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@uavan.ca. We will respond within a reasonable time, usually 30 days.

UaVan is not designed for children under 13. If you are under 13, please do not create an account or send us personal information. If we learn that we've collected information from a child under 13, we will delete it.

We take reasonable steps to protect your information: encrypted connections (HTTPS), database access controls, and limiting who on our side can see what. No system on the internet is perfectly secure, but we work to keep yours safe and to fix problems quickly when they come up.

We may update this policy as the platform evolves. When we make a meaningful change, we'll update the date at the top and, where appropriate, post a notice on the site or send a heads-up via the bot. Continued use of UaVan after a change means you accept the updated policy.

Questions, requests, or concerns about privacy: email hello@uavan.ca. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca.