Privacy policy

Expert Quebec is a free comparison service for people and small businesses in Québec. This policy is written to meet Québec's Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, as modernized by Law 25, and Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

Who we are

Expert Quebec is operated by Réseau Expert Québec inc., 8815 Avenue du Parc, Suite 402, Montréal, QC H2N 1Y7, Canada. In this policy, "we", "us" and "our" mean Réseau Expert Québec inc. The policy covers our website (expertquebec.ca), our comparison quizzes and quote requests, our contact forms and our newsletter.

Person responsible for the protection of personal information. Québec law requires every business to have a person responsible for protecting personal information. You can write to the person responsible for the protection of personal information, Réseau Expert Québec inc., at conseils@expertquebec.ca or at the postal address above, with any question or request about your information.

When a partner provider contacts you, or when you visit a partner's website, that partner's own privacy policy applies to the information it collects.

What we collect

We collect only what we need to run the service. Depending on how you use it, this may include:

• Quote requests. When you answer a quiz and ask for quotes: your name, email address, phone number, postal code and province, your answers to the quiz questions and the consent you gave.
• Technical details of a quote request. The address of the page the request was sent from, your IP address, and the ad-campaign tags present in the link that brought you to the site (UTM tags and Google and Meta click IDs).
• Contact-form messages. Your name, email address, phone number, company and message, when you write to us through a form on the site.
• Newsletter sign-ups. Your email address and the region you select.

We do not ask for your social insurance number, banking details or payment card information. Please do not include this kind of information in your answers or messages.

How we use your information

We use your information only for the purposes below, for purposes compatible with them, or as the law allows:

• To send your quote request to one partner provider in the category you chose, so it can contact you with its offers and quotes. Partners pay Expert Quebec a referral fee when a request is sent to them.
• To contact you about your request, as you agreed when you sent it.
• To keep a record of the consent you gave.
• To know which advertising campaign a quote request came from, using the campaign tags in the link.
• To send you our newsletter, if you subscribed.
• To answer your messages and handle your privacy requests.
• To protect the site against spam and fraudulent requests.
• To meet our legal obligations.

If we want to use your information for a new purpose, we will ask for your consent first, unless the law allows us to proceed without it.

Your consent

We ask for your consent in clear terms, for specific purposes, at the moment we collect your information. You can read our guides, use our calculators and see our guide prices without giving us any contact details.

• Quote requests. You give your express consent when you submit the form. By doing so, you agree that Expert Quebec and one partner provider may contact you by phone, text or email about your request.
• Newsletter. We only send the newsletter if you sign up, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
• Cookies. Every page uses the PostHog analytics tool, which also records some visits without what you type, and our ad pages use the Google Ads tag, with no consent banner. Our cookie policy explains what they do and how to refuse them.

You can withdraw your consent at any time by writing to conseils@expertquebec.ca. This stops future use, but it cannot undo sharing that already happened. You can ask us which partner received your request, so you can also contact it directly.

Who we share it with

In detail, personal information leaves our hands only in these situations:

• Partner providers. When you request quotes, we send your request to one partner provider in the category you chose: your contact details, postal code, province and quiz answers, with the technical details of the request. The provider uses it to contact you with its offers, and its own privacy policy also applies. Partners pay Expert Quebec a referral fee when a request is sent to them, as explained in our advertiser disclosure.
• Service providers. Companies that help us run the service: the host of our database (Supabase), the host of our website (Vercel), the lead-distribution platform that passes quote requests to partners (LeadByte), the service that texts the verification code (RingCaptcha, which receives your phone number), Google (Google Ads conversion measurement on our ad pages, which receives your email, your phone number and, when the form asks for them, your name in hashed form, plus your postal code and the country), PostHog (the site's analytics and session replay tool, in the United States) and ClickGuard (which checks clicks on our ads for fraud, on our ad pages). They handle information on our behalf, to provide their services to us.
• Legal reasons. When the law requires or allows it, for example to respond to a valid court order, or to protect our rights or someone's safety.
• Business transfers. If our business is sold or merged, personal information may be transferred to the new owner as the law allows, and must stay protected as described here.

Storage, retention and security

Where your information is stored

Quote requests, contact-form messages and newsletter sign-ups are stored in a database hosted in Canada (Supabase, Montréal region). The website itself is hosted by Vercel, whose servers may be located outside Québec, including in the United States. Quote requests are passed to partners through a lead-distribution platform, LeadByte, which is operated from the United Kingdom.

This means that some of your information may be communicated outside Québec. When that happens, the law requires that it receive adequate protection, having regard to its sensitivity, the purposes for which it is used and the safeguards that apply.

How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes described in this policy, or as long as the law requires. It is then destroyed or anonymized.

How we protect it

We take security measures suited to the sensitivity of the information. For example, the site is served over an encrypted connection (HTTPS) and access to the database is restricted. No system is perfectly secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

If a confidentiality incident involving your personal information presents a risk of serious harm, we will notify you and the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec, as the law requires.

Your rights

Within the limits set by law, you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you, and learn how it is used and who it was shared with.
• Correct information that is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.
• Withdraw your consent to our use or sharing of your information, subject to legal or contractual limits.
• Ask us to delete your information. We will do so unless the law requires us to keep it.
• Ask us to stop disseminating your information, or to de-index a link attached to your name, in the situations provided for by Québec law.
• Portability. Receive the personal information you gave us in a structured, commonly used technological format, or have it sent to another organization, where the law provides for this.

To make a request, write to the person responsible for the protection of personal information at conseils@expertquebec.ca or at the postal address below. We may ask you to confirm your identity first. We will reply within the time limits set by law, generally 30 days. Requests are free. If the law allows a reasonable fee for copying or sending information, we will tell you first.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can file a complaint with the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec. You can also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Cookies

On every page, the PostHog analytics tool counts page views and clicks, turns them into heatmaps and records some visits, never what you type. On our ad pages, the Google Ads tag measures the quote requests that come from our ads. These tools set their own cookies; PostHog's lasts one year. The site also keeps the campaign tags of your last click on an ad for 90 days, in the eq_click cookie. To see what each tool does and how to refuse it, read our cookie policy.

Children and changes to this policy

Expert Quebec is meant for adults shopping for services for their home or small business. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 14. If you believe a child has sent us information, contact us and we will delete it.

We may update this policy when our practices or the law change. We will post the new version here, with a new date at the top.

Contact us

Questions, requests or complaints about your personal information? Write to the person responsible for the protection of personal information, Réseau Expert Québec inc.:

• Email: conseils@expertquebec.ca
• Mail: Person responsible for the protection of personal information, Réseau Expert Québec inc., 8815 Avenue du Parc, Suite 402, Montréal, QC H2N 1Y7, Canada

For anything else, visit our contact page or call 450-910-1570.