Ontario Severance
Check Severance AI Chat

Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 19, 2026

Ontario Severance (ontarioseverance.ca) is a free educational tool about Ontario employment law. This page explains what information we collect, why, where it is stored, who we share it with, and what you can do about it. Questions: support@ontarioseverance.ca.

What we collect

  • AI chat: the questions you ask and the answers, saved as conversations.
  • Documents you upload to the chat (PDF or images), and the analysis of them.
  • Severance calculator: your age, years of service, salary, position, job title, how your employment ended, your employer's size, and the estimate.
  • Consultation requests: your name, email and/or phone number, the description of your situation, and any optional details you add (employer, years employed, status, urgency, how to reach you).
  • Contact form: your name, email address and message. We email you a short confirmation that doesn't repeat your message.
  • Account: if you sign in, your email address, name and a user ID from Google sign-in or email and password (Firebase Authentication). You can use the calculator and the chat without an account.
  • Usage and technical data: pages visited and features used, through Google Analytics, which uses cookies and similar identifiers; and your IP address, browser and the time of each request, which our servers log and use to apply daily usage limits.
  • On your device: a random session ID that keeps your conversations yours without an account, your light or dark mode choice and the width of the side panel, in your browser's local storage.

How we use it

  • To answer your questions, analyze your documents and calculate your estimate.
  • To show you your conversations and saved checks again later.
  • To send your consultation request to an Ontario employment lawyer who can contact you, and to answer your messages.
  • To keep the service running and secure, prevent abuse, and learn which features help so we can improve them.

We don't sell your information, and we don't use it for advertising.

AI processing

Your chat messages, uploaded documents and calculator details are sent to Google's Gemini models on Google Cloud (Vertex AI) to produce the answers, analyses and estimates. Google processes them for us as a service provider and, under its Google Cloud terms, does not use them to train its models. The answers are generated automatically and can be wrong: they are information, not legal advice.

Who we share it with

  • Google (Google Cloud and Firebase), which hosts the service and stores the data, and Google Analytics.
  • Postmark (ActiveCampaign), which delivers the emails we send: consultation request and contact form confirmations, the notifications our team receives about them, and account emails such as email confirmation and password reset. It receives the recipient's address and the content of each email.
  • For a consultation request only: our team, by email, and an Ontario employment lawyer, so they can contact you about your situation.
  • Anyone the law requires us to disclose information to.

Where it is stored

In Google Cloud and Firebase data centres in the United States, and for emails, with Postmark, also in the United States. Information stored there is subject to US law, and may be accessed by US authorities under that law.

How long we keep it

We keep conversations, uploaded documents, saved checks and consultation requests until you delete them or ask us to. You can delete a conversation from the chat menu, and signed-in users can delete their documents from the Documents page. For anything else, including your account, email us. Server logs are kept for 30 days.

Your choices and rights

  • You can ask to see, correct or delete the personal information we hold about you by emailing support@ontarioseverance.ca. We answer within 30 days.
  • You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings; the site works without analytics cookies. Clearing your browser's storage ends your anonymous session, and the conversations it held can no longer be opened.
  • If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Security

Information is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest in Google Cloud, and only Ontario Severance administrators can access stored data. No system is perfectly secure, so don't upload information you don't need to share, such as your Social Insurance Number or banking details.

Children

Ontario Severance is meant for working adults and is not directed at children under 16.

Changes to this policy

When our practices change, we update this page and the date at the top.