1. Introduction
Welcome to PoomAt's Privacy Policy. We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will inform you about how we look after your personal data when you visit our website and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
This policy applies to all personal information we collect through our website, mobile applications, and related services. Please read this policy carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal data.
2. Data We Collect
We collect and process the following types of personal data:
- Identity: Name, date of birth (for helpers, verification status)
- Contact: Email, phone, mailing address
- Account: Role, preferences, saved settings
- Business Info: Company name, business registration number, and tax ID (for company helpers)
- Usage: Pages visited, interactions, device and browser information, IP address
- Location: Approximate location for service matching; Precise location (with consent) for real-time tracking
- Payments: Tokenized payment method details (brand, last4, expiry); no full card numbers stored
- Verification: Identity, work-eligibility, certification, and background-check documents you upload directly to PoomAt, plus status and metadata returned by third-party screening providers
- Helper Interview Evidence: Separate silent camera video, server-generated microphone transcripts, interview responses, and evaluation results. PoomAt does not retain raw microphone audio in the Realtime interview path.
- Communications and Support: In-app messages, support requests, reports, and related attachments
- Transactions and Device Data: Purchase history, payout or earnings records, push-notification identifiers, and device identifiers
We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data as it does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity.
2.1 Helper Interview Microphone Processing and Silent Video Evidence
The automated Helper interview uses two separate paths. Your microphone carries the live conversation to OpenAI Realtime for question audio and speech transcription. Separately, your camera records silent video evidence during your answers and uploads it to PoomAt’s private AWS storage. The microphone and camera tracks are not merged, and typed interview answers are not accepted in this flow.
- Purpose: The live microphone transcript and separate silent video provide evidence that the interview was completed and support experience and safety evaluation, fraud prevention, quality review, and later manual identity confirmation when reasonably necessary.
- Storage and access: Silent camera evidence is encrypted in transit and at rest in private AWS infrastructure located in Canada. PoomAt does not persist raw microphone audio in this Realtime interview path. Access to stored interview evidence is restricted to authorized administrators with a business need and is auditable.
- Temporary web upload queue: On web, a completed silent-video segment may be queued temporarily in that browser until its secure upload finishes. The local copy is removed after the backend confirms the upload.
- Retention: Silent interview video is deleted by default 365 days after capture. If you delete your account, it is scheduled for deletion within 30 days, unless a legal hold, active dispute, fraud investigation, or applicable law requires a longer period.
- No facial, emotion, or biometric recognition: We do not use silent video for automated facial recognition, face matching, biometric-template creation, emotion detection, or personality inference from appearance. Automated evaluation uses response content to produce an advisory recommendation only. An authorized human reviewer decides Helper and category approval.
- AI processing outside Canada: OpenAI Realtime processes live microphone audio to conduct and transcribe the interview. PoomAt does not send silent camera video to OpenAI or to an evaluation-model provider. Only the minimum transcript and job context needed for advisory evaluation may be sent to the configured evaluation provider. These providers may process data in the United States or other jurisdictions, where foreign laws may apply, and may retain limited provider logs under their applicable contracts and policies. PoomAt’s stored video evidence, transcript, and evaluation remain in the private Canadian infrastructure described above.
For an accessibility, religious, or privacy accommodation, contact PoomAt Support. For access, deletion, retention, or other privacy questions, contact the Privacy Officer at support@poomat.com.
3. How We Use Your Data
We use your personal data for the following purposes:
- To register you as a new user and create your account
- To provide and maintain our service, including matching clients with helpers
- To process and complete transactions, and send related information including confirmations
- To manage our relationship with you, including notifications about changes to our terms or privacy policy
- To provide customer support and respond to your requests
- To personalize your experience and deliver content relevant to your interests
- To improve our website, products, and services
- To protect the security and integrity of our platform
- To verify helper identity and perform safety screening as applicable
- To comply with legal obligations and resolve disputes
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason compatible with the original purpose.
4. Legal Basis for Processing
We process your personal data on the following legal bases:
- Contract: To provide the platform and facilitate bookings
- Legitimate Interests: Platform safety, fraud prevention, product improvement
- Legal Obligation: Compliance with applicable laws and regulations
- Consent: Where required (e.g., certain marketing, location services)
5. Data Security
We have implemented appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, accessed, altered, or disclosed in an unauthorized way. These measures include:
- Encryption in transit and at rest for sensitive data
- Secure authentication and session management
- Least-privilege access controls
- Regular security testing and monitoring
- Third-party assessments where applicable
We have procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
6. Data Retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure, the purposes for which we process your personal data, and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means.
When you delete your account, PoomAt disables it immediately, revokes any stored Sign in with Apple authorization, removes direct profile and sign-in data, and ends active sessions. Limited transaction, tax, dispute, fraud-prevention, and safety records may be retained where required by law or reasonably necessary to protect users. Helper interview content is redacted immediately and linked safety evidence is scheduled for deletion within 30 days, subject to legal holds, active disputes, or fraud investigations.
7. Your Rights
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data, including the right to:
- Access: Request access to your personal data
- Correction: Request correction of your personal data
- Erasure: Request erasure of your personal data
- Restriction: Request restriction of processing your personal data
- Portability: Request transfer of your personal data
- Objection: Object to processing of your personal data
- Withdraw Consent: Withdraw consent where we rely on consent to process your personal data
You can exercise these rights by contacting us using the details provided in the "Contact Us" section below. These rights may be limited in some circumstances by local law requirements.
We aim to respond to requests within 30 days as required by Canadian privacy laws. Where permitted, we may extend this period with notice if a request is complex or numerous.
8. Third-Party Data Sharing
To provide our services effectively, we may share your personal data with trusted third-party service providers and partners. This includes:
- Payments: Payment processors to store tokenized methods and process transactions
- Verification: Identity and safety screening providers receive the information needed to perform the screening. Documents uploaded directly to PoomAt are stored and reviewed by PoomAt; provider-hosted verification may instead return status and metadata to PoomAt.
- Communications: Email/SMS providers for notifications and support
- Analytics: Providers that help improve performance and user experience
- AI Processing: OpenAI Realtime processes live microphone audio for the Helper interview conversation and transcription. The configured evaluation provider may process only the minimum transcript and job context needed for advisory evaluation. Silent camera video is not sent to either provider, and PoomAt does not persist raw microphone audio in this Realtime path. The consent screen identifies these purposes before the interview; a material provider or purpose change requires updated notice and consent.
- Tax Authorities: To comply with tax reporting obligations (e.g., CRA, Revenu Québec)
- Legal: Authorities or advisors when required by law
Important: We only share data that is necessary for service provision and ensure all third parties maintain appropriate security measures and comply with applicable privacy laws. We never sell your personal data to third parties for marketing purposes.
9. International Transfers
We may transfer your personal data to countries outside your country of residence, including to countries that may not provide the same level of data protection as your home country. We ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your personal data in these cases.
Where required, we use standard contractual clauses or other approved transfer mechanisms. Our service providers may process data in the United States and other jurisdictions. Details are available upon request.
10. Third-Party Links
Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements.
11. Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us:
- By email: support@poomat.com
- By visiting our contact page
12. Changes to This Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.
13. Canada-wide (PIPEDA) and Quebec (Law 25)
13.1 PIPEDA (Canada)
- We follow the principles of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), including accountability, identifying purposes, consent, limiting collection, limiting use/disclosure/retention, accuracy, safeguards, openness, individual access, and challenging compliance.
- You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information, subject to legal limitations. We will respond within timelines required by law.
- We maintain safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information and notify you of breaches as required by law.
13.2 Quebec Law 25 (Act to modernize legislative provisions as regards the protection of personal information)
- For Quebec residents and processing subject to Quebec law, we comply with Law 25 requirements, including privacy impact assessments for high-risk projects, maintaining a person in charge of personal information, and enhanced transparency.
- We honor Quebec-specific rights such as the right to be informed, to access, to correction, and to request cessation of dissemination (de-indexing) where applicable under law.
- Cross-border transfers involving Quebec residents are conducted with appropriate safeguards and disclosures, including information on the jurisdictions where data may be communicated.
- If a French version of this policy is provided, it will prevail for Quebec consumers in case of discrepancy.
- For minors under 14 years of age, consent must be given by the holder of parental authority or by a guardian.
14. Marketing Communications (CASL)
We send marketing communications only with your consent, as required by Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). You can withdraw consent at any time by using the unsubscribe link in our emails or by contacting us.
- Transactional or service-related emails (e.g., receipts, booking updates) may still be sent as they are necessary to provide our services.
- You can update your marketing preferences in your account settings or by contacting support.
- Postal correspondence: PoomAt Technologies Inc., Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Request the current registered mailing address at support@poomat.com.
15. Automated Decision-Making
We do not make decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects for you. If this changes, we will provide clear notice and you will have the right to request human review and to present observations, consistent with applicable laws (including Quebec Law 25).
16. Supervisory Authorities and Complaints
If you are not satisfied with our response to a privacy request, you may contact the relevant privacy authority:
- Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC): priv.gc.ca
- Quebec — Commission d'accès à l'information (CAI): cai.gouv.qc.ca
17. Person in Charge of Personal Information (Privacy Officer)
We designate a person in charge of personal information (Privacy Officer). You can reach our Privacy Officer at support@poomat.com.