Privacy Policy, Cookies & Advertising (PIPEDA & Quebec Law 25)

Last updated: 2026-11-11

This Privacy Policy explains how OutageCanada (outagecanada.com and alias outagescanada.com) collects, uses, stores, and protects information when you visit our website, run diagnostic tools, submit voluntary outage reports or comments, enable browser alerts, or interact with third-party advertising served through Google AdSense. OutageCanada adheres strictly to Canada’s federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), Quebec’s Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Law 25), and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

1. Information We Collect & Legal Purposes

OutageCanada does not require account registration, passwords, payment cards, or civic ID numbers to view outage maps, provincial dashboards, or calculators. Information is processed strictly under minimal data-minimization principles:

• Voluntary Outage Reports & Community Comments: When you report a disruption via our report form or leave an outage comment, we store the optional display name/pseudonym you enter, your service provider selection, city/province, the first 3 characters of your Canadian postal code (Forward Sortation Area / FSA, never full home street numbers unless typed voluntarily into comment notes), disruption category, and descriptive text.
• Contact Form Inquiries: When submitting a message via our Contact Desk, we process your name, email address, subject line, and message solely to reply to your editorial, provider-correction, or legal request.
• Voluntary Web Push & Alert Subscriptions: If you explicitly grant browser notification permission or subscribe to regional alerts, we store your browser push endpoint tokens and selected Canadian FSA/province so real-time outage bulletins can reach your device. You can revoke notification permissions at any instant via your browser settings.
• Automated Security & Server Access Logs: Like all public internet web servers, our infrastructure temporarily logs technical connection headers including IP address, request URL, HTTP status code, date/time stamp, and User-Agent string strictly for DDoS defense, firewall intrusion detection, rate limiting against automated spam bots, and uptime troubleshooting.

2. Browser Storage, Cookies & Consent Choices

Cookies are tiny text files placed on your computer or mobile browser. In addition to standard HTTP cookies used by analytics or advertising partners, OutageCanada uses privacy-respecting local browser storage (localStorage):

3. Google AdSense, DoubleClick / DART Cookies & Advertising Partners

To keep OutageCanada 100% free without subscription paywalls during emergency storms across Canada, we may display third-party advertisements through Google AdSense and Google-certified advertising partners:

• How Google Uses Cookies on OutageCanada: Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies (including the Google AdSense / DoubleClick cookie) to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to outagecanada.com or other websites across the Internet.
• Personalized vs. Non-Personalized Advertising: Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve advertisements to Canadian and international visitors based on aggregated browsing interests. Where required under privacy regulations or user opt-out signals, non-personalized contextual advertising relies only on coarse geographic region (such as city/province) and page topic without building behavioral profiles.
• How to Opt Out of Personalized Ads Anytime:
  • Visit Google Ads Settings (adssettings.google.com) to disable personalized advertising on Google partner sites.
  • Visit the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada consumer opt-out portal at youradchoices.ca (AdChoices Canada) or the NAI opt-out portal at optout.networkadvertising.org.
  • Read how Google processes partner-site data at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
• Browser Cookie Management: You can instruct Chrome, Safari, Edge, or Firefox to refuse all third-party cookies or delete stored site data at any time inside Browser Settings → Privacy and Security. Blocking advertising cookies will not prevent you from reading outage maps, utility calculators, or guide articles.

4. Diagnostic Tools, Speed Tests & Calculators Privacy

Interactive tools on OutageCanada—including the Broadband Speed & Packet Loss Check, kWh Electricity Cost Calculator, Solar & LFP Battery Estimator, Winter EV Charge Calculator, and CRTC/Hydro Dispute Letter Generator—execute calculations directly inside your local web browser. Inputs entered into the Dispute Letter Generator (such as your name, account number, or outage ticket references) are formatted purely client-side in your browser memory and are never uploaded to or stored on OutageCanada servers.

5. Data Retention, Security Measures & Cross-Border Processing

OutageCanada retains public anonymized outage statistics indefinitely for historical infrastructure reliability analysis (e.g., comparing seasonal storm severity across Canadian FSAs). Technical security logs and temporary IP hashes used for anti-spam rate limiting are purged periodically. All form inputs are sanitized using prepared SQL queries and strict output encoding over encrypted HTTPS/TLS connections. Our hosting infrastructure and Google Cloud/CDN partners may process technical request packets across North American data centres (including Canada and the United States) subject to strong contractual and encryption safeguards as disclosed under PIPEDA and Quebec Law 25.

6. Your Privacy Rights Under PIPEDA & Quebec Law 25

Regardless of which Canadian province or territory you reside in, you hold explicit legal rights over any identifiable personal information held by OutageCanada:

• Right of Access & Portability: Request confirmation of whether we hold personal information linked to an email address or message you submitted, and obtain a readable copy.
• Right of Rectification & Erasure: Request prompt correction of inaccurate details or deletion of contact messages, subscriber emails, or comment posts you authored.
• Right to Withdraw Consent (CASL & Alerts): Opt out of browser push notifications or unsubscribe from alert updates at any time without penalty.
• Privacy Officer & Regulatory Escalation: To exercise any privacy request, write to our Privacy Compliance Desk at [email protected] (response target: within 30 calendar days under Law 25 & PIPEDA). If an issue remains unresolved, Canadian residents may contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) or Quebec’s Commission d’accès à l’information (CAI).

7. Children’s Privacy & Updates to This Policy

OutageCanada is a general civic utility telemetry platform and is not directed toward children under 13 (or under 14 in Quebec under Law 25). We do not knowingly collect personal details from minors. We reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy as Canadian privacy law or advertising disclosures evolve; the effective date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision.