Privacy Policy.

1. Who We Are and What This Policy Covers

This Privacy Policy explains how VicinityProptech Inc., operating as Vicinus (“we”, “us”, “our”), collects, uses, discloses, and safeguards personal information when you use the Vicinus website and related services (the “Platform”). It applies to visitors, registered users, sellers who request a valuation, and real estate professionals who join our waitlist.

We handle personal information in accordance with applicable Canadian privacy legislation, including the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and, where it applies, British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). Your use of the Platform is also governed by our Terms of Service.

We have designated a Privacy Officer who is accountable for our compliance with this Policy. Their contact details are in section 15.

2. Information We Collect

(a) Information you give us

• Account information. When you sign up we collect your name, email address, and profile image (if you sign in with Google). Sign-in is handled by our authentication provider, Clerk — see section 6. We do not store your password.
• Onboarding preferences. If you complete the onboarding questions, we collect your goal (buy, sell, rent, or exploring), timeline, home type, budget range, minimum bedrooms, mortgage status, whether you are already working with a REALTOR®, your preferred neighbourhoods, and your lifestyle priorities (for example schools, transit, or walkability).
• Inquiries to a REALTOR®. When you use “Email REALTOR®” on a listing, we collect your name, email address, phone number (optional, or required if you ask to be contacted by phone or text), preferred contact method, and your message, together with the listing the inquiry is about.
• Seller and valuation information. If you use the sell or valuation flow, we collect the property address you enter, your answers about your selling priority, biggest hurdle, and advisory preference, and — if you choose to provide them — your first name, last name, email address, and phone number. We also store the valuation generated for you. That valuation is illustrative only — it is not an appraisal or a professional opinion of value.
• Real estate professional waitlist. If you sign up for the Realtor Hub, we collect your full name, email address, brokerage, and city or market.
• Messages you send us. If you use a contact form, we collect your name, email address, phone number (optional), whether you are looking to buy or sell, and your message.

(b) Information created as you use the Platform

• Properties you save, properties you view, and searches you save (including the filters in them).
• Open houses you plan to attend and whether you marked them attended or skipped.
• Alerts generated for you — new listings, price drops, status changes, and open houses — and whether you have read them.
• Basic account activity such as how many times you have signed in and when you last viewed your personalized brief.

(c) Information collected automatically

• Technical information such as your IP address, device and browser type, the pages you visit, the referring URL, and your language preference.
• A randomly generated visitor identifier stored in a cookie, used to report listing activity to CREA and to distinguish repeat visits. It is not linked to your name and, for signed-out visitors, it is not linked to an account. See sections 4 and 5.

(d) Location information

The Platform does not ask your browser for your location and does not use device geolocation. When you pan or zoom the map, the coordinates of the area you are viewing are sent to the OpenStreetMap Nominatim service to look up the name of that place — this describes the map view, not your device, and is not stored on our servers or attached to your account.

3. How We Use Information

We use the information we collect to:

• provide, operate, secure, and maintain the Platform;
• create and authenticate your account;
• personalize your feed, recommendations, search results, and your Vicinus brief based on your preferences and activity;
• deliver your inquiry to the listing REALTOR® and respond to messages you send us;
• generate the illustrative property valuation you request and follow up about it;
• send alerts and notifications you have asked for, such as saved search matches and price drops;
• report listing views, click-throughs, and REALTOR® inquiries to CREA as required by our data licence (see section 5);
• measure and improve the Platform, diagnose problems, and prevent fraud, spam, and abuse; and
• comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

We rely on your consent for these purposes. Providing information is voluntary, but some features — signing in, saving properties, contacting a REALTOR®, or requesting a valuation — cannot work without the information they ask for. We do not use your personal information for a new purpose without your consent, unless the law permits or requires it.

We do not make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you using automated processing alone.

4. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use a small number of cookies and browser storage:

• Authentication cookies set by Clerk to keep you signed in and protect your session.
• A visitor cookie (vic_vid) containing a random identifier we issue. It is HTTP-only and signed — page scripts cannot read it — and it expires after one year. It exists so that listing activity reported to CREA can be de-duplicated, as our data licence requires.
• Browser storage used to cache things like your personalized brief for the duration of a tab session, so we do not recompute it on every page load.

We do not use advertising cookies, and we do not allow third-party advertising networks to track you across other websites through the Platform. You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings; if you do, sign-in and some personalized features will not work.

Product analytics. We use PostHog to understand how visitors use the Platform and to improve it. Analytics tracking only runs if you accept it in the cookie banner shown on your first visit; if you reject it or have not yet responded, no analytics events are captured. You can change your choice at any time by clearing the vicinus_consent cookie in your browser and revisiting the site.

5. Listing Data and CREA DDF®

The Platform displays property listing data provided by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) through its Data Distribution Facility (DDF®). That listing content — including agent and office contact details published with a listing — comes from CREA and its members, not from you.

As a condition of using the DDF®, we are required to report listing activity back to CREA. When you view a listing, click through to it, or send an inquiry to a listing REALTOR®, we send CREA the listing identifier, the type of event, your visitor identifier, your IP address, the referring URL, and your language preference. We do not send CREA your name, email address, or account details as part of this activity reporting.

6. When We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only in the following circumstances.

(a) With REALTORS® you choose to contact

When you submit an inquiry on a listing, your name, email address, phone number, preferred contact method, and message are forwarded to the listing REALTOR® — through CREA’s DDF® Lead service and our internal lead system — so they can respond to you. Once your inquiry reaches a REALTOR® or their brokerage, they handle your information as an independent organization under their own privacy policy, and we do not control what they do with it.

(b) With service providers who work on our behalf

These providers process information only to deliver services to us, under contract, and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes:

• Clerk — account creation, sign-in, and session management.
• Netlify and Railway — website hosting, application hosting, database, and caching.
• Airtable — recording buyer inquiries, seller and contact-form submissions, and waitlist signups so our team can follow up.
• Mapbox — map display and geocoding. Mapbox receives your IP address and the map area you are viewing when maps load.
• OpenStreetMap — converting the coordinates of the map area you are viewing into a place name (section 2(d)).

(c) For legal and business reasons

We may disclose personal information where required or permitted by law — for example in response to a valid legal demand, to investigate suspected fraud or abuse, to protect the rights and safety of users or the public, or to enforce our Terms. If Vicinus is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this Policy.

7. Storage Outside Canada

Some of the service providers listed in section 6 store or process information outside Canada, including in the United States. While information is in another country, it is subject to that country’s laws and may be accessible to its courts, law enforcement, and national security authorities under a lawful order. We use providers that commit to appropriate contractual and technical protections. You can ask our Privacy Officer for more information about our practices for handling information across borders.

8. How Long We Keep Information

• Account and preference information is kept for as long as your account is active, and is deleted on request as described in section 9.
• Saved properties, saved searches, viewed listings, open house plans, and alerts are kept while your account is active; you can remove individual items at any time from your dashboard.
• Inquiries, seller and valuation submissions, contact messages, and waitlist signups are kept for as long as needed to respond and to keep a record of the request, and then deleted on request.
• The visitor cookie expires one year after it is set.

We may keep information longer where we are required to by law, or where we need it to resolve a dispute or enforce our agreements. Information we have already delivered to a REALTOR® is retained by them under their own policies.

9. Your Choices and Your Rights

Subject to applicable law, you may:

• Access the personal information we hold about you and ask how it has been used and disclosed;
• Correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete — you can update your name and email in your account settings, and your preferences by redoing onboarding;
• Delete your account and the personal information associated with it;
• Withdraw consent to our use of your information at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice — withdrawing consent may mean we can no longer provide certain features; and
• Opt out of alerts and non-essential messages, as described in section 10.

To make a request, email our Privacy Officer at info@vicinityproptech.com. We will respond within 30 days, or tell you if we need an extension and why. We may need to verify your identity before acting, and in limited cases the law permits us to refuse a request — if so, we will explain why.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, or to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia where BC PIPA applies.

10. Communications

We send service messages related to your account and the alerts you have asked for, such as saved search matches, price drops, and open house reminders. You can turn alerts off in your dashboard. Any commercial electronic message we send will comply with Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL) and will include a way to unsubscribe. We cannot unsubscribe you from a REALTOR® who is responding to an inquiry you sent them — contact them directly.

11. Security

We apply administrative, technical, and physical safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information, including encryption in transit, signed HTTP-only session and visitor cookies, access controls limiting staff access to what their role requires, and rate limiting to deter abuse. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a breach creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and the appropriate regulator as the law requires.

12. Children

The Platform is intended for adults searching for or selling real estate. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of majority in their province or territory. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

13. Links to Other Sites

The Platform links to third-party websites, including REALTOR.ca and REALTOR® and brokerage websites. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for their content or privacy practices. Their own privacy policies apply once you leave the Platform.

14. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes take effect when posted on this page, and the “Last updated” date above will reflect the most recent revision. If a change materially affects how we use information you have already given us, we will provide notice and, where required, obtain your consent.

15. Contact Our Privacy Officer

For privacy questions, access or deletion requests, or complaints, contact our Privacy Officer at info@vicinityproptech.com.