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Policy

Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 10, 2026

SoftCode Design Inc. (“Blik,” “we,” “our”) operates the Blik marketplace at bliknow.com and the Blik iOS application (together, the “Service”). This policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, and the rights you have under Canada’s PIPEDA and applicable provincial privacy laws, as well as the EU/UK GDPR where it applies.

1. Information we collect

Account information. Name, email, phone number, password (hashed), and profile photo when you create an account. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive the email and name they share with us.

Provider profile information. If you apply to be a provider, we additionally collect business address, home-base area, bio, services offered, image, and approval status.

Identity documents and insurance certificates (providers). To verify who you are and that you carry the insurance the Provider Agreement requires, providers upload an image of a government-issued ID and a certificate of liability insurance with its expiry date. These files are stored in Firebase Storage under a path only your own signed-in account can read or write; the Blik team reviews them through a private, access-controlled link. They are used only to decide your verification status and to confirm your insurance is current. We keep them until the decision is made and the certificate’s expiry has passed, plus two years, and then delete them.

Tax information (providers). Canadian law (Income Tax Act, Part XX — reporting rules for digital platform operators) requires Blik to report certain provider information to the Canada Revenue Agency. Before a provider can be approved we collect their legal name, date of birth, residential address, Social Insurance Number (or business number), and HST registration status. The SIN is encrypted at rest with AES-256 and is never displayed to customers or in the Blik team’s day-to-day tools. This information is used only for CRA reporting and to issue your annual statement, and is retained for six years after the year it relates to, as tax records require.

Booking and transaction data. Service category, scheduled times, addresses, booking notes, status events, ratings, chat messages between customers and providers, and any job-proof photos a provider attaches to a booking (for example, before-and-after photos of the completed work). Job-proof photos are visible to the customer on that booking and to the Blik team when reviewing a dispute.

Payment information. Payment method type, last four digits of cards, Stripe customer/payment-intent identifiers, and payout details for providers. We do not store full card numbers — they are tokenised and held by Stripe, our PCI-DSS-compliant payment processor.

Location. Approximate or precise device location (with your permission) to match you with nearby providers and to display a map. You can revoke this at any time in iOS Settings.

Device and usage data. Device model, OS version, app version, IP address, language, push tokens, crash diagnostics, and aggregate usage events.

Legal acceptances. When you accept our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, or Provider Agreement we record which document versions you accepted, when, from which surface (website or app), your IP address, and your browser or device type.

2. How we use your information

  • Create and manage your account, authenticate sign-ins, and support customer service.
  • Match customers with nearby approved providers and dispatch bookings.
  • Verify provider identity and insurance before and while they are listed.
  • Process payments and provider payouts.
  • Meet our tax-reporting obligations to the Canada Revenue Agency.
  • Send transactional email and notifications (booking confirmations, dispatch updates, payment receipts, verification decisions, insurance reminders).
  • Detect and prevent fraud, abuse, and policy violations.
  • Improve service reliability, fix bugs, and develop new features.
  • Comply with legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for advertising targeting.

3. Third-party services we share data with

  • Google Firebase — authentication, Firestore database, Storage (documents and photos), push notifications, App Check, and Crashlytics crash reporting and Analytics in the iOS app.
  • Google Analytics — aggregate, cookie-based usage measurement on the bliknow.com website.
  • Stripe — payment processing, card storage, provider payouts (Stripe Connect).
  • Resend — delivery of transactional email (receipts, application and verification updates, insurance reminders).
  • Airtable — provider directory and operations data.
  • Cloudflare — edge networking, Worker hosting, and Cloudflare Access for API protection.
  • Google Maps / Places — address autocomplete and map rendering.
  • Apple — Sign in with Apple, push notification delivery.
  • Canada Revenue Agency — the provider information described in section 1, as required by law.

These vendors process data on our behalf under contractual data-protection terms.

4. Retention

Account and profile data are retained while your account is active. Once you delete your account (see section 6) we remove your personal information from our systems within 30 days, except where we must retain data to meet legal, tax, or fraud-prevention obligations:

  • Transaction records: up to 7 years (Canadian tax law).
  • Provider tax information (name, address, date of birth, SIN or business number, HST status): 6 years after the year it relates to.
  • Identity documents and insurance certificates: until the verification decision and the certificate’s expiry, plus 2 years.
  • Legal acceptance records: as long as the account exists and for 2 years afterwards.

5. Security

We use TLS in transit, encrypted storage at rest, field-level AES-256 encryption for Social Insurance Numbers, role-based access controls, secret rotation, App Check device attestation, and least-privilege Firestore and Storage security rules. No system is perfectly secure — if we ever detect a breach affecting your data, we will notify you in accordance with applicable law.

6. Your rights and how to delete your account

You have the right to access, correct, or delete the personal information we hold about you. You can:

  • Delete your account in-app. Open the Blik app → Account → scroll to “Delete account” → confirm. Your account and personal data will be permanently removed (subject to the retention exceptions in section 4).
  • Email us at hello@softcodedesign.com to request access to your data, corrections, or to ask any privacy question. We respond within 30 days.

For everyday help with a booking or your account, write to support@theblik.ca.

7. Children

Blik is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us data, please contact us and we will delete it.

8. International transfers

Our service providers (Firebase, Stripe, Resend, Cloudflare, Google Analytics) operate globally, including in the United States. By using Blik, you consent to the transfer of your information to these jurisdictions, where they are processed under our contracts and applicable cross-border transfer safeguards. Provider tax information is stored in Google Cloud’s Canadian region where available and shared only with the Canada Revenue Agency.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated through the app or by email at least 14 days before they take effect, and you may be asked to accept the new version before continuing.