Privacy Policy
Last updated: November 2026
Safe Methods ("we", "us") runs this website, where you can compare posted rates from Canadian financial institutions, ask our assistant SafeBot money questions, and ask us to collect quotes for you. This page explains, in plain words, what information we collect, why, who helps us handle it, how long we keep it, and how you can see, download or delete it.
The short version: we never sell your information. We never give your name, email or phone number to financial institutions. We never share your chats or requests with your employer. You can delete your chats and your account at any time.
1. What we collect
When you visit the site
Basic technical information such as your browser, device and the pages you visit. Visit statistics (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) are collected only if you click "Accept all" on the cookie banner.
When you chat with SafeBot
The questions you type and SafeBot's answers, including answers to the example questions on the home page. Please do not type your Social Insurance Number, card numbers, account numbers or other ID numbers: SafeBot refuses messages that contain them, and we do not store them.
When you ask for quotes (Get Quotes)
Your name, email, optional phone number, the type of product, the amounts you enter (for example loan amount, income or property value), the institutions you choose, and the exact consent sentence you agreed to. If a SafeBot chat is open in the same browser tab, it is linked to your request.
When you create an account
Your name, email and password (stored only in scrambled form by our sign-in provider), or the basic profile from Google or Facebook if you sign in with them. We also record which version of our sign-up notice you saw and when.
When you contact us, book a call or join the newsletter
Your name, email, optional phone number and message; the details of a booked call; or, for the newsletter, your email and the exact consent wording you ticked.
If you joined through your employer's benefit
We record which company benefit you joined through, your email and the date you joined. Your employer is told nothing about you: it never sees your chats, summaries, quote requests or messages.
2. How we use it
- To answer your questions in SafeBot and show you current posted rates.
- To collect quotes for your request and send you one comparison of the offers.
- To run your account, so you can see your chats and requests in one place.
- To reply to your messages and hold the calls you book.
- To keep the site safe from spam and misuse, and to check the quality and safety of SafeBot's answers.
- To send the newsletter, only if you asked for it.
Our staff may review quote requests to check they are complete and of good quality. In our admin screens, your contact details are hidden by default; when a staff member needs to see them, that action is recorded.
3. SafeBot chats
- Saving. Chats are saved on our servers so a page refresh keeps your conversation. Clicking the Safe Methods logo starts a new chat; the previous one stays saved.
- Visitors. If you are not signed in, your chat is deleted 7 days after your last message, unless it was open when you submitted Get Quotes (then it is kept with your request, see section 9). Your browser keeps only a code for the chat, never the text.
- Adding chats to your account. When you sign up or log in, the chat open in that browser tab is added to your account. Chats from earlier visits on the same device in the last 7 days are added only if you click "Add" (you see only the date, never the text); "Skip" deletes them.
- Your account. Signed-in chats belong to your account and only you can see them, under "SafeBot Chats" on your Account page. You can view, continue, download or delete any chat at any time.
- Summaries. We keep a short automatic summary of each saved chat. It contains only what was said in the chat, with contact details and ID numbers removed.
- Review by our team. If you created your account after seeing our sign-up notice, or you submitted Get Quotes after seeing the notice under its button, the Safe Methods team may review these summaries in our customer records (HubSpot) to help you. HubSpot receives summaries only, never your full chat, and never in a record linked to your employer.
- SafeBot memory. When you are signed in, SafeBot may read the summaries of your recent chats so you don't have to repeat yourself. Rates always come from our live rate data, never from memory. Visitors have no memory, and a deleted chat leaves memory straight away.
- AI provider. SafeBot's answers and the summaries are written by OpenAI's models, which receive the text of your messages for that purpose. SafeBot gives general education, not personal financial advice.
4. What financial institutions receive
When we collect quotes for you, the institutions you chose receive only the financial details of your request (for example the amount, income, term and property value) and an internal reference number. If SafeBot was open when you submitted, they may also see a short summary of the financial requirements you told SafeBot (your goal, amounts, timeline, preferred product or term, and the questions you asked). That summary never includes your name, contact details, employer, health, family or other identifying details; if we cannot make it safely, no summary is shown.
Institutions never receive your name, email or phone number from us. We send you the offers, and you decide whether to contact an institution.
5. "Create your free account" link
If you submit Get Quotes with an email that has no account, the confirmation email offers a link to create a free account. It works once and expires after 30 days. If you use it, you only choose a password; your quote request and its chat are added to the new account. If you ignore it, no account is created. If your email already has an account, the email asks you to log in instead.
6. Who helps us (service providers)
We do not sell your information. We use these providers to run the service. They may handle your information only to provide their service to us. Some store it outside Canada, where local law may allow authorities to access it.
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in and server functions. Holds your account, chats, summaries and requests. | Canada |
| OpenAI | Writes SafeBot answers and the chat summaries. Receives the text of your SafeBot messages. | United States |
| HubSpot | Our customer records: your name, email, quote requests with the answers you give on the Get Quotes page (including the optional credit score range, bankruptcy answer and note), and chat summaries, for our team (never full chats). | United States |
| Zoho Mail | Sends our emails (confirmations, account links, warnings). | India |
| Langfuse | Checks the quality and safety of SafeBot answers. Sensitive details are masked first. | United States |
| Cloudflare Turnstile | Stops spam and bots on our forms. | Worldwide network |
| Netlify (through Bolt) | Hosts the website. | United States, served worldwide |
| Calendly | Books a consultation call, if you choose to book one. | United States |
| Google Analytics and Mixpanel | Visit statistics, only if you click "Accept all" on the cookie banner. | United States |
We may also share information if the law requires it, or to protect people or the service from fraud or harm.
7. Cookies and browser storage
Always on (needed for the site to work): keeping you signed in, remembering your cookie choice, the code of the chat open in your tab, codes of your visitor chats for up to 7 days, where you came from during this visit, and the Cloudflare spam check.
Only if you click "Accept all": Google Analytics and Mixpanel visit statistics. If you are signed in, Mixpanel receives your account number (not your name or email). You can change your mind by clearing this site's data in your browser; the banner then shows again.
8. Keeping you safe
Your information is stored in Canada with our database provider, protected by access rules so each person can only see their own data. Only Safe Methods staff with an admin role can open admin screens, and our server functions check who is calling before they do anything. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong password and tell us right away if you think your account has been misused.
9. How long we keep information
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| SafeBot chat as a visitor, with no account and no quote request | Deleted 7 days after the last message. |
| Chat codes saved in your browser | At most 7 days. Cleared when you log out. They contain no chat text. |
| Quote request without an account, with its linked chat, institution offers and requirements summary | 3 years after the last activity from that email (a quote request or a contact message). The HubSpot contact for that email is then permanently deleted too. |
| "Create your free account" link | 30 days, and it works only once. |
| Your account: chats (full history), summaries, quote requests and messages | As long as you use your account. If you do not log in for 3 years, we email you 30 days before deleting it. |
| Contact-form messages without an account | 3 years after your last contact. |
| Newsletter signup | Until you unsubscribe. |
| Chat summaries in HubSpot | Deleted when you delete the chat or your account. |
| Deletion record | Kept, to show the deletion was done. It holds only a scrambled (hashed) form of your email, the dates and the status. |
Visit statistics are kept according to Google's and Mixpanel's settings for our accounts. We may keep a record longer only where the law requires it; we then keep only what is required.
10. Your choices and rights
- See and download: your Account page shows your quote requests, messages and chats. "Export My Data" downloads them, including full chats and summaries.
- Delete a chat: on your Account page, at any time. It is removed from your account, from SafeBot's memory and from HubSpot (within about 15 minutes).
- Delete everything: click "Request Deletion" on your Account page. We handle it within 30 days. It deletes your account, chats, summaries, quote requests and offers, messages, bookings and your HubSpot record permanently. Information the law requires us to keep may be held back; we will tell you in general terms.
- No account? Email us from the address you used and we will delete your quote requests, chats and messages.
- Correct or ask: email us to correct your information, to ask what we hold, or to ask us to stop our team reviewing your chat summaries.
- Newsletter: unsubscribe at any time.
- Complaints: please contact us first. You can also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca.
11. Children
Our services are meant for adults. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you think a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.
12. Other websites
Our site links to other websites, such as institutions' pages and Calendly. Their own privacy policies apply there.
13. Changes to this policy
When we change this policy we update the date at the top. If a change affects how we use information you already gave us, we will tell you before it applies, for example by email or on your Account page.
14. Contact us
Questions, requests or complaints about privacy:
Email: info@safemethods.org
Location: Mississauga, Ontario, Canada