Marketplace Privacy Notice

BOHAN Machines Limited is responsible for the personal information collected through the marketplace and handles it in line with Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act ("PIPA") and Canada’s federal privacy law where they apply. Our Privacy Officer can be reached at the contact details below.

1. What we collect

• Account details: your name, email address and a password (stored only as a one-way scrambled "hash" - we cannot read it), your role, and the date and version of the terms you accepted.
• Customer details: company name (if any) and city, and the jobs you post with their descriptions, tags, locations, attached files, and any reviews you write.
• Specialist details: company name, business type, years of experience, service area, categories, skills, brands and equipment, your hourly rate, and the documents you upload (such as certifications, licences and insurance) together with our review notes on them, and the results of checks we make with issuers and insurers.
• Payment details: amounts, invoices and payment status for jobs. Card details are handled by our payment processor and are not stored on our own servers.
• Messages: what you send through our contact and field-service forms, and the emails the platform sends to you and receives at its mailbox, which we keep in a log so we can respond and keep records.
• Technical data: a session cookie that keeps you signed in, standard server logs (such as IP address, browser and pages requested), and, on our forms, a hashed (scrambled) version of your IP address used to limit spam. A hashed address can still be linked to you, so we treat it as personal information.

2. Why we collect and use it, and your consent

We collect and use personal information for reasonable purposes connected with running the marketplace. By creating an account, submitting a form or otherwise giving us information, you consent to us collecting, using and disclosing it as this notice describes. You can withdraw consent (subject to legal and contractual limits and reasonable notice), but we may then be unable to provide the marketplace to you.

• To create and secure your account and sign you in.
• To review, verify and publish specialist profiles, match jobs with specialists, and run direct requests, assignments, job tracking and reviews.
• To send service emails (confirmations, job updates, password resets) and answer your messages.
• To price, invoice, collect and pay for jobs, and keep the records the law requires.
• To keep the marketplace safe, detect and prevent fraud and misuse, resolve disputes, enforce our terms (including our fee and non-circumvention rules), investigate complaints and defend legal claims.
• To maintain, analyse and improve the marketplace, using aggregated or de-identified information where we can.

3. Who sees what

Privacy is built into how the marketplace works:

• Specialists never see a customer’s name, company, email or phone number through the platform, and emails we send to specialists do not identify the customer. Job locations are shown at the level of detail the customer chooses to enter. They see the job itself and, after the customer reviews them, the review - not who wrote it.
• Customers see a specialist’s public profile only: name or company, categories, service area, experience, skills and equipment, reviews, and a price that includes our platform fee. They do not see the specialist’s own rate, documents or contact details.
• Reviews show either the reviewer’s first name and last initial, or "Verified customer", whichever the customer chooses.
• Specialist documents are visible only to the specialist and to BOHAN administrators and verification staff.
• BOHAN administrators can see accounts, jobs, payments, messages and inquiries as needed to run the marketplace.
• If you include personal information about other people in a job, document or message, you confirm you have the right to do so.

4. Sharing

We do not sell personal information. We share it only with service providers who help us run the marketplace and who are required to protect it - our cloud hosting provider, our email provider (Apple, for sending and receiving the platform’s email), and a payment processor once online payments are switched on - with credential issuers and insurers when we verify documents, with the other party to a job as the platform describes, and where the law requires or permits: to comply with a legal process, to protect safety, rights or property, to prevent fraud or enforce our terms, or in connection with a sale, financing or reorganisation of the business.

5. Service providers outside Canada

Some of our service providers, including cloud hosting, email and payment processing providers, may store or process personal information outside Alberta and outside Canada. While it is there, it is subject to the laws of that place and may be accessible to its courts, law enforcement and national security authorities. For our policies and practices about service providers outside Canada, or to ask questions about them, contact our Privacy Officer at machines@thebohan.com or +1 403 951 0650.

6. Cookies

The marketplace itself sets one essential cookie, "bohan_session", which keeps you signed in for up to 30 days and is cleared when you sign out. It is not used for advertising. Blocking it will stop sign-in from working.

7. How long we keep it

• Account, job and profile information: while your account is active, and afterwards for as long as reasonably needed for legal, tax, accounting, safety, fraud-prevention and dispute purposes. When it is no longer needed, we destroy, erase or anonymise it.
• Password-reset links: valid for one hour and one use. Used or expired link records are deleted periodically and cannot be reused.
• Emails and inquiries: kept so we can respond and keep a record of our dealings with you.
• Reviews may remain visible after an account is closed, shown under the reviewer’s chosen display (first name and last initial, or "Verified customer"), so that a specialist’s history stays accurate.
• We may keep aggregated or de-identified information indefinitely.

8. Security and breaches

We protect information with reasonable safeguards, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), hashed passwords, sign-in cookies that scripts cannot read, role-based access so people see only what their role allows, and limits on repeated password-reset and form submissions. No system is perfectly secure, but we take our legal duties seriously: if there is a loss of, or unauthorised access to or disclosure of, personal information that creates a real risk of significant harm, we will notify the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta and affected individuals as the law requires. Please keep your password private.

9. Your choices and rights

• You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, ask how we use and disclose it, correct it, or withdraw consent. We will respond within the time the law requires (generally within 45 days). We may charge a reasonable fee where the law allows, and may refuse or limit access where the law permits, for example where it would reveal information about someone else or is privileged or commercially confidential.
• We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.
• You can change your password any time from the sign-in page when signed in, and update your profile in your portal.
• To make a request or raise a concern, contact our Privacy Officer using the details below. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta.

10. Children

The marketplace is for people 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect information from minors and will delete it if we find it.

11. Changes

We may update this notice. For material changes we will email you or show a notice in the portal, and the version number at the top of this page will change. Continuing to use the marketplace after the change takes effect means you accept it.

12. Contact the Privacy Officer

• BOHAN Machines Limited
• Email: machines@thebohan.com