Privacy Policy

(a) The short version

YardScout collects the information you give us (name, email, phone, listing content, messages, photos, and information you provide during optional identity-verification or messaging features) and limited technical information about how you use the platform. We use that information to operate YardScout, to connect landlords and tenants, to refer transactions to a licensed brokerage in your province, to train and improve our software and machine-learning models in accordance with this Policy, to deliver advertising and marketing where we introduce those features, and to build market intelligence — including anonymized and aggregated data products, market reports, and commercial offerings we may sell or license to third parties. We do not sell identifiable personal information. You can ask to see, correct, or delete your information at any time.

This summary is provided for convenience; the detailed sections below govern.

(b) Who we are

YardScout is an information and listing platform for industrial outdoor storage ("IOS") across Canada. References in this Policy to "YardScout," "we," "us," or "our" refer to YardScout and any successor entity.

Privacy contact: info@yardscout.ca

(c) Personal information we collect

We collect the following categories of personal information in the course of providing the platform:

(i) Information you provide directly. Where you complete a form, submit a listing, send an inquiry, post to the demand board, sign up for the newsletter, or otherwise interact with the platform, we collect the information you submit, including your name, email address, telephone number, company name, position, mailing or civic address (where applicable), and the substantive contents of any messages, listings, photographs, or other materials you upload.

(ii) Information you submit as a listing party. Where you submit a property listing or related materials, we collect property-level information including civic and legal property addresses, lot dimensions, surface and access characteristics, pricing terms, availability windows, photographic and descriptive content, and the contact details you elect to associate with the listing for public display or routing of inquiries.

(iii) Information collected automatically. We collect limited technical and behavioural information when you visit or interact with the platform, such as page views, navigation paths, referring URLs, device type, browser type, language settings, and aggregate interaction patterns. The platform uses Vercel Web Analytics and Vercel Speed Insights, provided by our hosting provider, to measure aggregate page views, navigation paths, referring sources, approximate region, device and browser type, page-performance timings, and a small number of named product events (for example, that a listing contact was revealed, or that a partner form was submitted). These are cookieless: they do not set cookies, do not use persistent identifiers or fingerprinting, and do not track you across other websites. The product events we record are counts and non-identifying attributes only (such as a public listing slug or the name of the form used); we do not attach your name, email address, telephone number, account identifier, or any free-text you enter to them. Where we introduce further analytics or advertising tools as described in section (d)(ix) below, additional technical information may be collected through those tools and this disclosure will be updated accordingly.

(iv) Verification information (optional features). Where you elect to participate in identity-verification, background-check, business-credential, or screening processes that we may offer from time to time (for example, a "Verified Landlord" badge), we may collect government-issued identification, photo identification, business registration details, professional licence numbers, reference contacts, or similar information necessary to operate those processes. We may use third-party verification providers to perform these checks on our behalf.

(v) In-platform messaging content. Where you use messaging features made available between users of the platform (for example, between a landlord and a tenant after an inquiry is initiated), we collect the contents of messages, file attachments, timestamps, sender and recipient identifiers, and read- and delivery-status metadata.

YardScout does not collect financial account information, payment-card data, Social Insurance Numbers, or biometric identifiers through the platform unless expressly required for a specific feature you elect to use (such as identity verification under section (c)(iv) above) or unless collected through a licensed third-party financial-services provider in connection with a feature described in section (d) below or the Terms of Service. To the extent any such information is required to complete a transaction, it is collected and handled by the licensed brokerage to which you are referred, or the financial-services provider you transact with, under that party's own privacy practices and not by YardScout.

(d) What we do with your information

We use your information to:

(i) Operate the platform. Provide the features you request, route inquiries to listing owners and inquirers, match tenants to landlords, deliver transactional and account-related emails, operate in-platform messaging, secure the platform, and provide customer support.

(ii) Improve the platform and develop new features. Diagnose issues, ship features, analyze performance, develop new functionality, and train, fine-tune, evaluate, and improve machine-learning and artificial-intelligence models used by the platform — including models for matching, ranking, recommendation, moderation, fraud detection, content generation, valuation, and market analysis — using anonymized and aggregated data derived from your platform activity and other information described in section (c) above, in accordance with applicable Canadian privacy law. Where models are trained on identifiable Content, we apply appropriate technical and organizational safeguards and limit such training to purposes consistent with this Policy.

(iii) Build market intelligence and commercial offerings. Analyze aggregated and anonymized patterns in listings, searches, inquiries, transactions, messaging, and related platform activity. We expressly reserve the right to use, license, sell, distribute, and otherwise commercialize anonymized and aggregated data derived from the platform in any form, including without limitation market reports, data products, benchmarks, indices, analytics services, API-accessible data feeds, and other commercial offerings, whether developed by YardScout or by third parties under license from YardScout. We do not sell identifiable personal information in connection with this activity. This use does not require additional notice or consent.

(iv) Refer transactions to a licensed brokerage. Where a user expresses interest in a lease, purchase, or sale arising from platform activity, we refer the contact and relevant information to a licensed real-estate brokerage in the user's province. Once referred, that brokerage acts as a separate data controller under its own privacy practices.

(v) Comply with law and protect the platform. Respond to lawful requests, enforce our Terms of Service, prevent fraud and abuse, and protect the rights and safety of users, YardScout, and the public.

(vi) Operate in-platform messaging. Deliver messages between users, maintain message history for participants, moderate messaging content for spam, harassment, and policy violations, and provide related features (read receipts, search, archiving).

(vii) Verify identity and detect fraud. Where you elect to participate in verification features, use the information collected under section (c)(iv) for those purposes, and use other information collected through the platform to detect and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, and impersonation, including by sharing such information with third-party verification providers under appropriate confidentiality and data-protection obligations.

(viii) Operate referral, affiliate, and incentive programs. Where we introduce referral, affiliate, reward, or incentive programs, use your information to track participation, attribute referrals, deliver rewards, and operate the programs.

(ix) Operate advertising, marketing, and audience-targeting programs. Where we introduce advertising, sponsored placements, retargeting, or marketing programs on the platform or through advertising networks and marketing partners, use your information for those purposes, including to (A) deliver, target, optimize, and measure advertising; (B) build and license audience segments derived from aggregated platform activity; (C) match users to advertisers' lookalike or custom audiences through standard hashed-identifier protocols; and (D) measure the effectiveness of campaigns. We will not activate non-essential advertising cookies or tracking technologies without consent where required by applicable law.

(x) Operate or facilitate financial services. Where we make available payment processing, escrow, lending, insurance, or similar financial services through licensed third-party providers (see Terms of Service section 12), use your information as necessary to route requests, complete transactions, and operate those features.

We do not sell identifiable personal information. If our use of your information changes materially beyond the purposes described above, we will update this Policy and, where required by applicable Canadian privacy law, obtain your consent.

(e) Who we share information with

We share your information with:

(i) A licensed real-estate brokerage. When you express interest in a transaction (lease, purchase, sale), your contact and relevant listing or inquiry information may be referred to a licensed real-estate brokerage in your province. Once referred, that brokerage acts as a separate data controller.

(ii) Other platform users. If you submit a listing, your contact details (to the extent you elected to share them) may be visible to other users inquiring about that listing. If you inquire about a listing or post to the demand board, your contact details may be visible to listing owners and other users with a legitimate interest in responding. Where you use in-platform messaging, the contents of your messages are shared with the user or users you are communicating with.

(iii) Service providers. Vendors who help us operate the platform (including hosting, email delivery, analytics, customer support, cloud infrastructure, identity-verification or background-check providers, and licensed third-party financial-services providers). These providers process information only on our instructions and are bound by confidentiality and data-protection obligations.

(iv) In connection with a transaction. If YardScout is involved in a merger, acquisition, asset sale, restructuring, financing, or similar corporate transaction, information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to standard confidentiality protections.

(v) As required by law. We may disclose information in response to valid legal process, regulatory requests, court orders, or where disclosure is otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.

(vi) Partners and integrators. Where you have consented or where we have a legitimate business interest (such as syndication of non-personal listing inventory, integration with lender or operator platforms, or co-marketing programs), we may share information with third-party partners under appropriate confidentiality and data-protection obligations, including via application programming interfaces (APIs) we make available to such partners.

(vii) Advertising and marketing partners. Where we introduce advertising or marketing programs as described in section (d)(ix), we may share certain information (such as hashed email addresses, pseudonymous identifiers, device identifiers, browsing patterns, and conversion events) with advertising networks, retargeting platforms, audience-matching providers, attribution vendors, and marketing partners for the purposes described in section (d)(ix).

We do not sell identifiable personal information. We do not share your identifiable personal information with data brokers.

(f) How long we keep it

We retain your information for as long as your account is active or for as long as needed to provide the platform, and for a reasonable period after that for legal, tax, audit, and dispute-resolution purposes.

If you delete your account or request deletion of your personal information:

(i) We will soft-delete account-linked records within a reasonable period and remove them from active production systems within 30 days of your request.

(ii) We may retain limited information beyond that period where required by law (for example, tax records), to resolve disputes, to enforce our Terms of Service, or to prevent fraud and abuse.

(iii) Aggregated and anonymized data derived from platform activity may be retained indefinitely for market-intelligence, commercial, and model-training purposes described in section (d) above, provided that such data does not identify you.

(iv) Messages exchanged through in-platform messaging are retained for the period necessary to provide the messaging feature to all participants. Either participant may request deletion of their copy; the counterparty's copy and any aggregated or anonymized records may be retained.

(g) Your rights under Canadian law

Under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and equivalent provincial privacy legislation, you have the right to:

(i) Access — request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.

(ii) Correct — request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete information.

(iii) Delete — request deletion of your personal information, subject to the retention limitations in section (f) above.

(iv) Withdraw consent — opt out of specific uses of your information going forward, where consent is the basis for that use (including opting out of non-essential advertising and marketing under section (d)(ix)).

(v) Complain — file a complaint with us first, and, if unresolved, with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca) or your provincial privacy regulator.

To exercise these rights, email info@yardscout.ca. We may need to verify your identity before responding.

(h) Automated decisions, machine learning, and AI

YardScout uses, and reserves the right to expand its use of, automated systems, machine-learning models, and artificial-intelligence techniques in connection with the operation of the platform, including without limitation:

(i) Matching landlords and tenants based on stated preferences, location, and listing characteristics

(ii) Detecting and preventing spam, fraud, abuse, and impersonation

(iii) Moderating and ranking user-generated content, including listings and messages

(iv) Generating market-intelligence outputs, valuations, and commercial offerings described in section (d)(iii) above

(v) Generating descriptive content, summaries, translations, and other outputs displayed on the platform

(vi) Targeting, optimizing, and measuring advertising and marketing programs described in section (d)(ix)

We may train, fine-tune, and improve these models using anonymized and aggregated data and other information described in section (c), consistent with applicable Canadian privacy law and the purposes described in this Policy. Where automated decisions produce a significant effect on you (for example, removal of a listing or restriction of an account), you may request human review by emailing info@yardscout.ca.

(i) Age

YardScout is intended for users 18 years of age or older. By using the platform, you represent that you are at least 18. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from anyone under 18, we will delete that information promptly.

(j) Where your data is stored

YardScout uses Canadian and United States–based service providers. Some of your data may be stored or processed on servers located outside Canada, including in the United States. By using YardScout, you consent to the transfer, storage, and processing of your information in those jurisdictions, subject to applicable Canadian privacy law. We take reasonable steps to ensure that service providers handling your information outside Canada provide a comparable level of protection to that required under PIPEDA.

YardScout is intended for use by persons located in Canada. If you access the platform from outside Canada, you do so at your own initiative and are responsible for compliance with the laws of your jurisdiction.

(k) Changes

We may update this Policy from time to time as YardScout evolves. We will post the updated version on this page with a new "Last updated" date. For material changes (new categories of data, new sharing practices, new commercial uses), we will notify users by email or in-product notice where reasonable.

(l) Contact

Privacy questions: info@yardscout.ca Complaints: info@yardscout.ca first; if unresolved, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca) or your provincial privacy regulator.