Your data, in good hands

How long we keep your information

We keep your information only as long as it is needed. While your account is active, we keep it in order to serve you. When you close the account, we delete it or we anonymize it, meaning we change it so that no one can trace it back to you. You can ask us to delete it at any time.

A few pieces of information follow a different schedule. A provider’s identity document is destroyed as soon as their verification is approved: we keep only the outcome. Photos and media from visits are erased automatically once they are no longer useful. Audience measurements are kept for as long as is reasonably necessary for the analysis. Finally, invoices and tax receipts are kept for six years, even after the account is closed, because Revenu Québec requires it.

Security measures

We protect your information on two fronts. On the technical side, it is encrypted while it travels and where it is stored. On the human side, only the people who need it for their work can reach it, each of those accesses is recorded, and our protections are reviewed regularly.

Cookies

A cookie is a small file that a site places in your browser. heysimone.ca sets just one that it cannot do without: the one that keeps your session open while you are signed in. Our diagnostic tool adds a technical key beside it, which is erased the moment you close the tab. Neither one can be turned off. And to be clear, we sell your information to no one.

We measure the site’s audience: how many people visit a page, in which language, which button they click. That shows us what helps you and what makes you give up. These measurements contain nothing that identifies you: not your name, not your email, not your IP address (the number that identifies your Internet connection), and not what you type into a form. If you accept them, the corresponding cookie is erased after 180 days.

If you accept advertising, we set the Google and Meta cookies. They recognise your browser from one site to the next, which lets us show you our ads elsewhere on the web and know whether one of them led you here: this is called retargeting. Until you accept, none of these cookies is set and we send no request to Google or to Meta.

You answer category by category. Until you answer, we count visits without storing anything on your device: the identifier used disappears the moment you close the tab, and no advertising cookie is set. If you refuse, we stop measuring entirely. You can change your mind at any time through the "Cookies" link at the bottom of every page. Finally, if your browser sends the "Do Not Track" signal ("do not follow me"), we honour it without asking you anything.

Transfer outside Quebec

Our servers and our database are located in Quebec, in the Montreal region. That is where your information is kept, and that is where it stays: neither your file, nor your messages, nor the emails we send you leave Canada.

A few services we depend on are established in the United States, and we send them only the bare minimum they need to do their part. Your card number is sent to the service that handles the payment. Your telephone number is sent to the service that sends you our text messages.

Only if you have accepted advertising cookies, two further pieces of information are sent to Google and Meta: your email address or your telephone number, first turned into an unreadable fingerprint, together with the fact that you visited our site. That is what lets them recognise you elsewhere on the web in order to show you our ads there. Nothing else is sent to them: not the details of the help you asked for, not the profile of the person you care for, and no health information whatsoever.

Two services are located in Europe, in Frankfurt. The first receives the pages you visited, if you accepted audience measurement. The second helps us fix errors on the site; it receives internal reference numbers only, which say neither who you are nor what you were doing.

Each of these services is bound by a written agreement that requires it to protect your information and forbids it from using that information for anything else. Before sending anything outside Quebec, we also carry out a privacy impact assessment, the analysis that section 17 of Loi 25 requires; ours concludes that the protection offered is adequate.

Sensitive information about the person you care for

The profile of the person you care for may contain their medication and their allergies, if you choose to write them down. Loi 25 places this among the most sensitive information, the kind that touches on health, among other things, and that calls for the greatest care. We collect it only with your explicit consent, given separately and for that purpose alone, and you are never required to provide it in order to use the platform. Only you and the provider of a visit under way can view it. We do not access it, we do not analyze it, and we pass it to no one.

Criminal records of providers

To obtain the "Verified heysimone.ca" mark, a provider must pass a check carried out by an accredited outside firm. It confirms their identity, searches for criminal records and criminal charges in progress, reviews their references and supporting documents, and validates the qualifications they declare.

Every provider attests that they have no record incompatible with the services they offer. We may require a new check, ask for other documents or suspend a profile at any time, at the slightest doubt or report.

How we govern personal information

Here are the internal rules we hold ourselves to, from the moment a piece of information is collected to the moment it is destroyed. Each category of information has a reason to exist, a retention period, and a list of the people allowed to reach it. That access is granted according to the task at hand, and withdrawn as soon as the task is done. Everyone who works with us is told about these obligations before touching any personal information. We review these rules regularly, and every time our systems or our suppliers change significantly, and we then update this page.

Confidentiality incident

We speak of a confidentiality incident when personal information is lost, stolen, or seen by someone who had no right to it. If such an incident risks causing you serious harm, we notify you as promptly as possible, and we notify the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec as well. Loi 25 requires it of us.

How complaints are handled

If you believe we have not respected your rights, or if one of our answers does not satisfy you, write to the person in charge at info@heysimone.ca. We confirm receipt of your complaint, we examine it, and we answer you in writing within 30 days, explaining our decision and the recourse available to you. You can also apply directly to the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec, at any time, without going through us. Its contact details and complaint form are at cai.gouv.qc.ca.

Changes

This page can change. If a change is significant, we will let you know by email or by a notice on the site.