Privacy Statement

Personal Information

We maintain a record of all information that you submit to LegalWills.ca. We will not resell, trade, lease or rent to third parties any personally identifiable information about you or about any of your designated Keyholders®, message recipients, or anybody you identify in the course of using any of the services provided here at LegalWills.ca.

Some users will be referred to us from a third party after having established a customer relationship with that third party. If a client of a third party uses any of our services, having been referred to us by the third party, that third party may from time to time be granted access to personally identifiable information, including data entered by the client into the services used at LegalWills.ca.

Although there are no plans in place, in the event that our company is acquired by another company, then it is likely that the databases managed by us would be included as part of that acquisition. All customers would be notified of this event, and would be given the opportunity to remove their data from our systems.

Our site's registration form requires users to give us contact information (such as their name and email address).  We use customer contact information from the registration form to send the user information about our company and promotional material from some of our partners, but only if the user has requested to receive such information.  If permitted by you, LegalWills.ca may use this personal information to contact you, your Keyholders® or your message recipients for various reasons relating to the services offered through the site.  For example, you may receive a notice from LegalWills.ca to update your Last Will and Testament if a law has changed in your local jurisdiction which may affect your Will, or you may receive a reminder to update your message recipient email addresses.  In addition, we may wish to inform you about new features we have added to the website, or we may wish to find out more about how useful you find particular features or services.  Users may opt-in or opt-out of receiving future mailings; see the "Choice/Opt-in and Opt-out" section below.

Our site uses order forms for customers to request some of our products and services.  These forms collect additional customer contact information (such as their mailing address) and financial information (such as their credit card number).  To process orders, we require collection of the customer's name, billing address, phone number, email address, shipping address and credit card information.  We use this information solely to process customer orders and, if any questions or issues should arise, to contact customers about their order.  We share this information, and only that information which is absolutely necessary, with those third parties that are involved in the processing of customer orders.  For example, in the normal course of doing business we may be required to contact the financial institution that issued a customer's credit card and to provide shipping address information to the shipping carrier that delivers customer orders.  The customer's contact information is also used to get in touch with them when necessary.  Financial information that is collected is used to bill the customer for products and services.  LegalWills.ca does not store any customer credit card information on our website, in our databases, or on our web servers.

Your member registration and contact information (such as your name and email address) is stored in your member profile. This information can be accessed by the owners, administrators and support staff of LegalWills.ca for the purposes of maintaining the website and processing customer service requests.  This information may be used to contact our customers if they have requested us to do so.

Once you have established an account with LegalWills.ca and have chosen to create some messages to be delivered in the future via email, you have the option of notifying your email recipients that they have been selected to receive an email message from you (with or without revealing your name) and that they should notify LegalWills.ca if their email address changes.  All of this activity is under your control, based on the options and preferences you have selected for this particular service.

The nature of our services also require that we collect sensitive personal information from our customers.  For example, we may require you to specify your property and asset information for the purposes of creating your Last Will and Testament.  We use industry standard encryption algorithms for storing all of this sensitive personal information in a highly encrypted format on our server, and the design of LegalWills.ca ensures that this sensitive information is only made available to the specific people designated by yourself, and only at the appropriate time.  More information regarding the security of this sensitive information is described below, in the Security section. 

In accordance with all applicable law, you may request a report of all of the personal information we have collected from you and stored in our database by contacting us. We will require you to verify your identity before providing you with such a report.

Security

This site uses state-of-the-art digital encryption and security technologies to protect the privacy and security of our member information and has specific security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control.

All data passing from your computer to LegalWills.ca is authenticated and encrypted using 256-bit Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption. This is the most advanced level of encryption available today, and it means that any information sent from your computer is scrambled in a way which makes it completely unintelligible if intercepted. When you are on a secure section within the LegalWills.ca site (i.e. after you have logged in as a member), a padlock will appear on your web browser. This is your assurance that the encryption is in place and that you are communicating across a secure link.

Furthermore, all sensitive personal information is stored in a highly encrypted format on our server. We use industry-standard AES-256 encryption to protect all sensitive personal information before it is stored. This encryption ensures that only the account holder, or those they have expressly authorized, can access their information once it has been entered into our system. Even our own operators cannot see sensitive personal information without the member's consent. Our customer support staff will ask for your consent before accessing the information you have entered, and only to assist with support-related issues or inquiries. Some services require temporary decryption of your documents as part of providing that service. For example, if you request a Will review by one of our legal professionals, or document printing and mailing, the software will automatically decrypt these documents as part of your instructions.

We also provide 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) and recommend that all members turn on this feature within their account, to protect against unauthorized access. 2FA works by adding an additional layer of security to your online account. It requires an additional login credential – beyond just the UserID and Password – to gain account access. Getting that second credential requires access to something that belongs to you, such as a cell phone and/or a personal email address.

As an additional security measure, all successful and unsuccessful attempts to login to a member's account are logged in our database along with date/time stamps, IP addresses, and other detectable information from the user.  This information will be used for law enforcement purposes and for the protection of our members should there be any suspicion of unauthorized access to our database.

Furthermore, we offer members the option of receiving an email alert message whenever their sensitive personal information is accessed, or attempted to be accessed, using a valid key.  If unauthorized access is suspected, clicking a link within the email will immediately disable access to the member's sensitive personal information for that key, until the member re-enables the access themselves, or until we are contacted by the member and provided with specific information validating their identity.

Where your information is stored, and transfers outside Quebec

Your account information is stored in an enterprise-grade Microsoft Azure cloud environment, with our primary database hosted in Canada (the Azure Canada Central region). To operate the website and provide our services, some personal information may be stored or processed outside Quebec by reputable service providers.

Before entrusting personal information to a provider outside Quebec, we assess whether it will receive protection adequate to Quebec standards and put a written agreement in place. Our providers are contractually required to protect your information, use it only to provide services to us, and keep it confidential.

The most important security element of any service is the team that runs it. Every member of our support team is a full time employee and has been with the company for over five years. We all love working here and are here to help you.

Choice/Opt-in and Opt-out

Our site provides visitors the opportunity to opt-in and opt-out of receiving email communications from us and our partners at the point where we request information about the visitor. Members can also opt-in and opt-out of receiving future email communications by visiting https://www.legalwills.ca/, logging in with their member UserID and Password, and changing their "Member Email" preferences in their member profile. In order to comply with privacy regulations including GDPR, PIPEDA, and other international privacy laws, by default the member preference is set to "opt-out".

Furthermore, this site allows users to remove all of their information from our database, to not receive future communications, or to no longer receive our service, either by sending an email to [email protected], or by sending postal mail to the company address listed on our Contact Us page.

Sharing of Information and Unsolicited Communications

Aside from the aforementioned third parties involved in the processing of customer orders, we do not share personally identifiable customer information with any other entities.

In addition, we do not send to customers any communications that they do not explicitly request from us.  For example, the only way for a member to receive our email news updates is if they explicitly choose to subscribe, either when joining as a new member, or by checking the appropriate box in their member profile when they are logged in.

Corrections/Updates

This site gives users an option for changing and modifying information previously provided.  Members can simply visit https://www.legalwills.ca/, login, and modify any information using the link available on the Member Home Page.

Cookies and similar technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies for a few different purposes:

• Strictly necessary: these make the website work (keeping you logged in, remembering your shopping cart, and recording your cookie choices). They are always active because the site cannot function without them. They include short-lived session cookies and a small number of persistent first-party cookies (for example, your saved cookie-consent choice, the cookie_consent_level cookie, kept for about 62 days).
• Analytics: these help us understand how the site is used so we can improve it. They are used only if you consent, and include third-party cookies such as Google Analytics (its _ga cookie lasts about two years).
• Advertising: these help us measure and target our marketing. They are used only if you consent, and include cookies from Google, Microsoft (Bing), Meta (its _fbp cookie lasts about 90 days) and Rakuten.

When you first visit, a consent banner lets you accept or refuse each category, and nothing in the analytics or advertising categories runs until you accept it. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time using the "Cookie preferences" link in the website footer. If you refuse, only the strictly necessary cookies are used.

How long we keep your information

We keep your personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes described here, or as long as the law requires. In general:

• Account and document data: kept while your account is active and for as long as needed to provide the service to you.
• After you delete your account: your identifying personal information is destroyed or anonymized promptly. Records we are required to keep (in particular your order and payment records) are separated from your profile, moved to a restricted "deleted members" record used for no other purpose, and retained for seven (7) years to meet tax, accounting and audit obligations, then destroyed.
• Backups: overwritten on our normal backup cycle (up to 90 days).
• Consent and communication-preference records: kept until you withdraw them, plus a short period so we can show the choice you made.
• Security and access logs (login and access-alert records): kept up to 24 months.

When information is no longer required, we destroy or anonymize it so it can no longer identify you.

Confidentiality incidents

If a confidentiality incident (such as unauthorized access, use, disclosure, or loss of personal information) occurs and presents a risk of serious injury to you, we will notify you and the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (CAI) with reasonable promptness, take steps to reduce the risk, and act to prevent similar incidents. We keep a register of confidentiality incidents.

Your privacy rights

Subject to the limits allowed by law, you may:

• Access the personal information we hold about you and receive a copy;
• Correct information that is inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date;
• Withdraw consent to a use or disclosure (for example, marketing, or non-essential cookies);
• Delete your account and information (self-service, under your account, or by contacting us);
• Be informed if a decision about you is based exclusively on automated processing.

If you are a Quebec resident, under Law 25 you also have the right to:

• Data portability: receive the computerized personal information you provided in a structured, commonly used technological format. You can download it yourself from your account using "Download my data."
• De-indexing or cessation of dissemination: ask us to stop disseminating your personal information, or to de-index a link, where the law allows.

To exercise a right, contact our Privacy Officer (above). We may verify your identity first and will respond within the time the law requires (generally 30 days).

Automated processing and profiling

We use website analytics that may profile how visitors use the site, and an AI-assisted chat and support tool to help answer questions and process support email. We do not make any decision about you exclusively by automated means. If that ever changes, we will tell you and provide the rights the law gives you, including review by a person.

How to raise a concern

Please contact our Privacy Officer first so we can try to resolve any concern. You may also complain to a regulator:

• Quebec: Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (CAI), at www.cai.gouv.qc.ca.
• Elsewhere in Canada: Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), at www.priv.gc.ca.

Links

This site contains links to other sites.  LegalWills.ca is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites.

Contacting Us

Our Privacy Officer
PartingWishes Inc. has designated a person in charge of the protection of personal information (our "Privacy Officer"), as required by Quebec's Law 25. You may contact our Privacy Officer with any question, request, or complaint about your personal information, or to exercise any of the rights described in this statement:

Tim Hewson, Chief Executive Officer
PartingWishes Inc.
2420 Bank Street, Suite 45
Ottawa, Ontario K1V 8S1, Canada
Email: [email protected]

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Website, feel free to contact us.